Odessa Files Part II - The Liman Race

Some photos from tonight's game - we played the "Mud & Blood" rules using the "Race to the Sea" scenario to teach ourselves the rules, except it was a "Liman Race" between Greeks and Bolsheviks around Odessa, 1919 during the Russian Civil War. (Liman are huge lagoons around Odessa - see map here, we played our action just East of Cerbka where the Greek and White Russian sectors intersected). The terrain map is shown below:

The objective is to seize the river bridge in the village on the right - the Greeks to stop the Bolsheviks crossing, the Reds to prevent the Greeks blowing it up.. The battle was fought between a Bolshevik force of about 1 platoon, complete with Putilov armoured car, and a Greek force of a similar size supported by a squad of White Russian Cossack cavalry. Here are some pictures- the Bolsheviks marching along from point B above:

And here are the Greeks marching along (below). These are the crack 5/42nd Evzones Regiment (don't know if they flew the flag in action in 1919, but all photos and pictures of Evzones have them heroically flying the flag, so by St Spiros mine do!).

The game was an honourable draw, the Whites/Greeks getting to the village first with the White Russian Cossack cavalry (below) and Greek cavalry but being pinned in the houses by the Putilov armoured car's twin machine guns (it broke down on the Russian side of the village just around that corner, thank heavens - the Greeks had nothing to hurt it with and it would have wreaked havoc) but the Bolshevik infantry could not approach the village as the Greeks were in the houses on their side and along the river bank covering the approach.

Rules were fine, but a bit slow as (i) we were learning them and (ii) they could be a bit better laid out, and the quick reference sheet has a lot of tables missing. We liked the unpredictability and things like the machine guns jamming, armoured car breaking down etc. Excuse the photos blurring, pictures were taken with mobile 'phone.