Portable...

... Cordery-Morschauser-RossMac. Yes, at last, a game was played. The opponents were both suffering from the sort of medical handicaps that have afflicted battlefield genuises since the beginning of time - blood clots on my part, and burns on my opponent's part. So it was a slow, small portable game, with no hard and fast objectives except destroy the enemy.

The forces in a tin:

Nasty Bolsheviks and doomed Whites, in 20mm. Little Englander playing under the Banner of St Andrew, his opponent under the blood soaked rag.

First move, and the Whites lose their field gun! What !? 

I ordered harder praying on the part of my Orthodox priests, and decided that I had better go for a quick dash down the road and get to grips with the Bolsheviks.

A column of White infantry rapidly closed with the Red front line, the aim being to stop the Bolshies' artillery before it could do any more damage. The mission was accomplished, and a stand of Red infantry fell as well, before the head of the White assault was severed.

Over on the right wing, things bogged down. The Bolsheviks occupied two squares of damaged buildings from which it proved impossible to winkle them out. The Whites lost two stands attempting to take the buildings, then settled back into the wooded squares, which protected them for the rest of the game.

The left wing continued to see heavy casualties on both sides, with the White machine gun doing much execution.

Eventually, we were stalemated, with the Reds holding the built up areas, and the Whites controlling the road with machine gun fire, while being protected on their right flank by the woodland.

A good, relatively quick game that gave us some thought. Troops under cover are difficult to dislodge; there is limited scope for manoeuvre; in this period there is, perhaps, a need to field heavier kit (field guns, mortars, MGs, armour) at the expense of infantry - that might open up the game more. Or not. We'll see.