Ted Raicer - 09:40am Jan 30, 1998 PST (#14 of 15)

Made some major changes in my REDS design this weekend. While the game 
worked fine before, there was more record keeping (the game used a heavily
modified version of the CRP system from the folio WWI game) than I cared for,
so this has been thrown out. The new system seems to work, but I'll need to
playtest more to be certain.

REDS works best with 2 players-since it is basically an army level game 
(though there are units as small as infantry brigades and tank companies).
But the system uses a random activation system (factions for the whites,
fronts for the Reds), and it is very difficult to coordinate the Whites against
the Red central position.

REDS starts in August 1917 and runs till December 1920 (by which time the 
Bolsheviks have to clear the map inside Russia to win). The Whites win instantly
if they take Moscow or Petrograd, but this is very difficult. But the Whites
must stay on the offensive as long as possible, for unless they hold a growing
number of cities in Russia (starting in 1918) the Allies will withdraw. The first
withdrawal will remove the French-Greek force from Odessa and the Czechs, 
but the second withdrawal removes all Allied Intervention Forces, and more
importantly hurts White replacements and ability to rally disordered units, and
generally marks the start of a swift plunge to oblivion. So the Whites must
attack as long as possible-if they can keep the Allies in Russia into early 1920
they havea decent chance to win the game.

Just started a new playtest. The Whites have the Initiative automatically on 
Turn 1 (after that is high roll, but Reds win ties). This means that the Whites
get to roll on their random events table (in this case gaining an armored train,
which I give to the Czechs) and get to select one faction to move first. I pick
the Siberian forces, and capture Kazan, taking back the Imperial Gold.

The Reds at this point are allowed two front activation chits in the cup (I 
pick the East Front facing the Siberians, and the South Front facing the Armed
Forces of South Russia). They also get the Field Staff, which can activate any
front that has not already been activated.

The next chit out of the cup is the Allied Intervention Forces-but they can 
only attack if they go first in a White Initiative turn, so they simply advance
3 hexes (movement allowances are 3 for infantry, 4 for cavalry-to give an idea
of map scale it is 13 hexes from Murmansk to Petrograd). The Islamic Whites are
next, but their forces are too small to attack the Reds at Tashkent.

The Red East Front goes next and drives the Siberian forces out of Kazan-but 
the Whites take the Gold with them as they retreat.

The next chit is the Logistics chit-units check for supply. Units OOS are 
disordered-units disordered are eliminated. Units in supply and disordered
attempt to rally on a die roll. The game starts with two Red armies cut off
from supply in the Caucasus, so they flip. The next chit is the AFSR-who now
move south to finish off the disordered Red armies. One is destroyed, the 
other retreats northwest toward Tsaritsyn.

The Field Staff is next, and is used to move the Latvian Rifle Division to 
the East Front. The last chit is the South Front, where the Soviets pull their
disordered unit back to the Volga south of Tsaritsyn, where it joins two other
Soviet armies to defend against a northern or eastern offensive by the AFSR.

End of Turn 1, and that should give you some flavor of the game.

Ted

Ted Raicer - 09:16pm Jan 30, 1998 PST (#15 of 15)

>REDS starts in August 1917 and runs till December 1920 <<

That should of course read August 1918.

Ted