Not Quite Revolutionary

Ted Racier’s “Reds”

Review by Mike Erwin

I’ve long been a fan of Russia’s Revolution and Civil War, so I picked
up a copy of “Reds” the moment I saw it. There’s great potential in the
situation - with partisan uprisings, foreign intervention, political
infighting, tenacious defenses, cavalry raids, and a clash between very
different foes. 

The Reds and whites used many of the same weapons and tactics. But while
Britain, France, and Japan sent a flood of new weapons to the Whites,
the Reds faced the lost of their vital coal and iron mines and the
steady breakdown of their railroads. In the end the Reds could sustain
their armies and did win the war, but wrecked their economy and lost the
support of the peasantry.

A wargame can’t show everything, and the designer has to focus on one or
two key points. Ted Racier focuses both on the new weapons and tactics
and on the sheer confusion on both sides.

The map is average-sized (22” x 34”) and a bit too garish for my tastes.
It’s easy enough to read. European Russia, where most of the action
takes place, fits snugly in the western half. Turkestan and Western
Siberia (as far east as Omsk) share the east with all the charts and
tables. This can be a bit lopsided in play - with five units in
Turkestan doing nothing important, while twenty more fight furious
battles for the resource cities in the west.

The countermix is fairly small, with 176 large (5/8”) counters. These
include Red, White and Polish armies, interventionist corps, and a
handful of smaller units. In addition, we have several special units,
Red leaders, Trotsky’s armored train, plenty of markers, and several
initiative chits.

So how does it play?

Each turn, players determine their available initiative chits (the Reds
face severe restrictions here and may have to take some tough choices)
and draw them in turn. One chit will activate a Red front or one of the
major White factions. They move, and fight; the supply chit sends both
players checking supply and rolling to see if disorganized units
recover.

None of this happens very quickly. Combat requires players to track two
die rolls, several modifiers (some add, some multiply) (for each side)
AND the total strength ratio. It comes out to tracking five totals in
your head, at once; sorry guys, the calculator won’t help. The results
are rather impressionistic.

Eventually, the Whites advance by rail and river - trying to convince
the Allies to maintain their support - while the Reds prepare to defeat
the various White Armies in the summer and Fall of 1919. It then becomes
a race against time as the Reds try to either break through in Poland or
capture resource centers elsewhere.

Reds doesn’t show the various political and economic crises (on either
side) and focuses on the military operations alone. But these go too
slowly to really hold much interest. The game generally begins to drag
after about turn 14. There is a shorter scenario, covering just the
campaigns of late 1918 to late 1919, but I have yet to see the Reds win
it.

OB issues: the orders of battle make a fairly playable game, but include
many inaccuracies. For your reference:

(1) Red Fronts. In reality, Red forces often advanced without - or
despite - a defensive mission. Most notably, the Ukrainian (Southwest)
front did so in the spring of 1919 and the East front in the following
summer. “Reds” presents the Red player with an unrealist restriction on
his ability to manuever.

(2) Red Forces. The game shows these fairly well. I would rather
distinguish the Lithuanian-Byelorussian and the various Ukrainian armies
from their reorganizations of late 1919, but “Reds” offers a simpler
approach. The only major problem is the over-rated Konarmiya. Neither
Konarmiya ever exceeded 20,000 sabres; to give them both the same 4
manpower as the other armies simply mistates their role.

(3) Intervention Forces. Given the scale, this is a reasonable
approximation.

(4) White Forces. This OB seems to double-count every chance it gets. It
would be much better to simply use corps-sized units throughout, rather
than mostly army and a handful of division-sized units.

I realize I’m more sensitive to these errors than most players. However,
I think few players would put up with the other deficiencies except
because of an interest in the period. I think a system like “Paths of
Glory” or “For the People” would have been infinitely better-suited to
the situation, and am disappointed with the design.