Odessa Files - Part VI - Defence of Malodrevnya

A small action using Price of Glory rules, with converted lists and some amendments to the "To Hit" and To Save" rules which we felt was too bloody when we first tried them out.

The Bolsheviks are advancing on Odessa, and a platoon size group of (2 squads of) Greek Evzones and 1 squad of French troops, plus 2 machine Guns are thrown together to defend the hamlet of Malodrevnya,. Scale 1:1 (below):

Defending Malodrevnya - troops occupy all the houses, Foreign Legion right bottom behind wall

It wasn't clear where the Bolsheviks would attack from so the troops occupied all the houses, except the Foreign Legion detachment who occupied some ruined walls on the most likely direction of attack (bottom right of picture).

The Bolshevik attack, when it came, came across the whole of the right and top of the table - as seen from the other side of the table, below - two big platoons plus some other troops and outnumbering the Allies c 3:1, but the Greek and French troops were higher grade

Here come the Bolshies!

The heaviest action were on the two left  hand buildings, the Foreign Legion (top) were shot down very fast (too close to enemy coming on table) but two Chauchat teams in the house held the Russians off for quite a while, until finally being overwhelmed and the remnants retiring, but the shaken Russians stayed behind the cover of the wall even then. Where is a Comissar when you need one?.

The main action was on the bottom left house, where 2 machine guns and a sniper took a big toll of Russian troops, an fought off two attempts to take the building by charge before finally succumbing to huge Russian firepower concentration and another mass charge. Lieutenant Metaxa was the last to die in the house, bravely defending it to his last gasp.

What's left of the Russian assault on the house (still a lot of them) finally breaks in

At this point, with c 1/3rd of the troops remaining, the Greeks chose to retire. They had taken nearly double their number of Bolsheviks with them but there were still hordes of bolshie Bolshies on table.

Rules wise the game was a bit less "bang - all fall down" with our mods, but I still prefer Mud & Blood for small actions, the "Initiate" workflow here I found more cumbersome than M&B's card system.  My honourable opponent, on the other hand, really likes the initiation system so it's clear its an individual taste thing (but then, he is a Bolshie beggar after all....)

Relevant Imagi-nation Content:

This is a dry run of my Byzantia Imagi-Nation army - decent line infantry and a few elites vs the continually border-bashing Bolshie hordes of neighbouring Bolshovia.