X-POP3-Rcpt: grognard@ns Newsgroups: bit.listserv.consim-l Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 11:44:41 -0500 Reply-To: Conflict simulation Games Sender: Conflict simulation Games From: Dan Raspler Subject: Game: RUSSIAN CIVIL WAR play-thru To: Multiple recipients of list CONSIM-L Well, this Sunday we were planning to play Yaquinto's MYTHOLOGY, but we ended up with four players. As we all know, MYTHOLOGY plays better with three, so we changed plans and settled on RUSSIAN CIVIL WAR. As always with this game, the initial distribution was waaaaay one sided (one player getting Trostsky, Deniken, and lots of other powerful units of both sides PLUS 6 Politburo makers), and I found myself cut evenly between Red and White (though I did have Wrangel, and without a single Politburo marker. So I negotiated and negotiated. Nothing could be less appealing to me than being looked at as the pre-eminant White without actually being pre-eminant; particularly when I had no political power at all and had no response to the Purges I knew were headed my way. I ended up convincing the Trotsky player to a grand trade, and I wound up with no Red troops, and almost every White on the map; certainly all the powerful whites. Now I was safe from the purges. With the White power so concentrated, of course, I was able to stomp around pretty aggresively. Trotsky went down on turn two, and barrels more of the red leaders when down to an ill-advised 1-1 attack against me which got an AE result. The Reds started to panic a bit (which is always a moral victory for White), and there was some desparate "Lenin-protecting" going on. It really looked like I was headed for a White win. Until it swung around to my turn again, and I had to re-organize my forces. After a 30 minutes of number-crunching, I was getting as bored as my opponents. I had enough troops to produce five 12 point stacks (which is a hell of a lot). And at one point, I knew I had worked it out. But somehow, with time-pressure building, in my frustration, I couldn't balance the stacks perfectly again. I ended up with one stack worth only ten. Then, unfortunately, I suffered one of those gaming twists of fate. Having gone first on one turn, I went last on the next. The Reds blew the hell out of my short stack, and with some good assassination rolls, crippled another. Then, gobbling up their late-arriving replacements, they concentrated, and pounded on me again and were further encouraged by a successful high-risk 2-1 (which got a DE). My revenge in turn was bloody indeed, but a key assassination of mine failed, and a key assasination of their succeeded. When the smoke cleared, I had nothing left at all. The White cause was reduced to a couple minor leaders still held by Red-leaning players. The game ended with a lot more dead Red leaders in my Victory Point box than the leading Red Player had Whites in his. Still, I ended up in last place. What a screwy game. Damn Bolshies. Dan Raspler DCORaspler@aol.com