Some Wild Card Elements...

[J P Falcon]

I was wondering how certain "groups" would be handled in the game. For example the Czech Legion could help or hinder either side as they marched east. Nestor Makhno's Anarchist's drove the "White" General Deniken crazy by disrupting his supply lines and he also had no love for the "Reds", and various Cossack groups shifted loyalties throughout the war...I'm curious if these and other elements will be introduced which could change the fortunes of the war from game to game...

[Carrington]

I was wondering how certain "groups" would be handled in the game. For example the Czech Legion could help or hinder either side as they marched east. Nestor Makhno's Anarchist's drove the "White" General Deniken crazy by disrupting his supply lines and he also had no love for the "Reds", and various Cossack groups shifted loyalties throughout the war...I'm curious if these and other elements will be introduced which could change the fortunes of the war from game to game...

Great question: I remember thinking the Russian Civil War was almost as difficult to parse into sides as the Thirty Years War.

George Kennan devoted two big historical works to the "Wild card elements" in the American intervention: little or no coordination between the expeditionary force(s), the humanitarian/advisory missions, the diplomatic consulates and embassy, and the enterprising American railroad engineers.

[PhilThib]

All these guys are in already

[Nikel]

I have always been impressed by the sequence in Doctor Zhivago movie when red partisans kill the young white cadets in the siberian steppe.

The general that commands them looks so old that could have been present in Borodino 100 years before


As a white commander in the game, can I send my young cadets to fight the red hordes? Units like this are present in the game?

[PhilThib]

Yes they are....

[J P Falcon]

In your desription you state; "Can you capture Lenin or eliminate the different White leaders?"

Now I always felt that one of the reasons the Whites were unable to win was because their top Generals died rather early in the war. For example, Kornilov and Markov were blown to bits and Kaledin took his own life. Do commanders therefore suffer a potentially higher rate of death in this game to reflect this?

And since you mention capturing Lenin...Any chance for the Whites to rescue Tsar Nicholas so they can prop him up as a puppet?

[Anguille]

Long live the Tzar...i shall rewrite history

[wosung]

What about intra-faction struggle as game element?
A little element of Cremlin (board game)?
Did such struggles happen during Russian Civil War? I remember some White Generals were real drama queens.

Think about all those possible political fights in the Politbureau (or White leading board) between Leftists and Rightists just to sabotage your "just cause". So the player would have to fight two wars, one against the contending civil war factions, one against party rivals. The dominating ideological mix in the Politbureau would decide about the ideological correct set of military leaders and political options.

Regards

[darzininkas]

Poland and Finnland is in the game.

How is the other new states which appeared and survived (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia) or perished (some republics in Caucasus's) going to be represented/handled in the game?

Is there are possibility to have military actions between forces which are more or less anti bolshevik (Polish-Lithuanian war for example)?


Best regards

[J P Falcon]

What about intra-faction struggle as game element?
A little element of Cremlin (board game)?
Did such struggles happen during Russian Civil War? I remember some White Generals were real drama queens.

Think about all those possible political fights in the Politbureau (or White leading board) between Leftists and Rightists just to sabotage your "just cause". So the player would have to fight two wars, one against the contending civil war factions, one against party rivals. The dominating ideological mix in the Politbureau would decide about the ideological correct set of military leaders and political options.

Regards

Well as far as the Whites are concerned their was a clash of egos between Generals and they did not coordinate their efforts as well as they should...a big advantage for the Reds were their centralized location while you had the Whites scattered about, with Kolchak in the East, Deniken in the South, Yudenich in the Northwest, and the Allied Intervention Force scattered about from Murmansk, Batum, to Siberia.
I will be interested to see how this is reflected in the game, because if a White player is able to coordinate his attacks from the South (Deniken), North (Yudenich, Mannerheim, von der Goltz) East (Kolchak) and West (Pilsudski) better than the real life counterparts, they might get even closer than 200 miles from Moscow... perhaps there is enough delays in the time line for some of these forces to become active which will make such combined efforts difficult....

[Cat Lord]

Well as far as the Whites are concerned their was a clash of egos between Generals and they did not coordinate their efforts as well as they should...a big advantage for the Reds were their centralized location while you had the Whites scattered about, with Kolchak in the East, Deniken in the South, Yudenich in the Northwest, and the Allied Intervention Force scattered about from Murmansk, Batum, to Siberia.
I will be interested to see how this is reflected in the game, because if a White player is able to coordinate his attacks from the South (Deniken), North (Yudenich, Mannerheim, von der Goltz) East (Kolchak) and West (Pilsudski) better than the real life counterparts, they might get even closer than 200 miles from Moscow... perhaps there is enough delays in the time line for some of these forces to become active which will make such combined efforts difficult....

It was not just an ego problem: Communication were extremely poor, and they never really managed to link up for coordinating their efforts.

If I remember well, by the time Denikin issued the Moscow Directive (July 1919), asking for Kolchack support in his own offensive, the Admiral's troops had already been push back beyond the Urals, so it was a bit late to try to coordinate with him.

Cat

[ERISS]

I was wondering how certain "groups" would be handled in the game. For example the Czech Legion could help or hinder either side as they marched east. Nestor Makhno's Anarchist's drove the "White" General Deniken crazy by disrupting his supply lines and he also had no love for the "Reds", and various Cossack groups shifted loyalties throughout the war...I'm curious if these and other elements will be introduced which could change the fortunes of the war from game to game...

I would love to play them too, but I fear the scale of the game does not fit.
The following is a (playtest) map about the more interesting area of the war:

http://www.legionwargames.com/legion_tatchanka.html

[PhilThib]

Our map of Southern Ukraine, Don region and Kuban is quite detailed too and wide enough to allow lots of maneuvers

[darzininkas]

Well as far as the Whites are concerned their was a clash of egos between Generals and they did not coordinate their efforts as well as they should...a big advantage for the Reds were their centralized location while you had the Whites scattered about, with Kolchak in the East, Deniken in the South, Yudenich in the Northwest, and the Allied Intervention Force scattered about from Murmansk, Batum, to Siberia.
I will be interested to see how this is reflected in the game, because if a White player is able to coordinate his attacks from the South (Deniken), North (Yudenich, Mannerheim, von der Goltz) East (Kolchak) and West (Pilsudski) better than the real life counterparts, they might get even closer than 200 miles from Moscow... perhaps there is enough delays in the time line for some of these forces to become active which will make such combined efforts difficult....

Besides egos and communication problems, there was difference in goals. At least for Pilsudski:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mi%C4%99dzymorze
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheism

[J P Falcon]

Besides egos and communication problems, there was difference in goals. At least for Pilsudski:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mi%C4%99dzymorze
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheism

You are right about different goals, Pilsudski with his Confederation, Mannerheim with Finland, limited Western Intervention goals ect, and the earlier poster is also correct with communication issues. My point however concerns gameplay and how these different elements might be used to impede the White players coordination efforts, while at the same time, not making it impossible to do...Admiral Kolchak for example, did try to coordinate with the Western Intervention force as his army from Perm attempted to link up with the Western Forces moving east from Archangel. I believe they actually did manage to link up, but not in sufficient numbers to be of any threat and the WIF ended up pulling back...

[ERISS]

Our map of Southern Ukraine, Don region and Kuban is quite detailed too and wide enough to allow lots of maneuvers

Please show us a zoom of your map of this area!