We had an excellent Russian Civil War game using the TFL Mud & Blood rules Sunday afternoon. More people than I’ve seen in a while up at our gaming club’s Sunday meet but for a lot of folks it was a day to socialize, do a bit of painting or figure prep or similar – the RCW game would up being the only full game running.

I acted as referee/gamemaster, and three of the four players had never played Mud & Blood before. We still finished the game in under three hours of play and everyone apparently had a good time, so that was all good.

The scenario was fairly straightforward, with a disorganized Red force defending the outskirts of a small village from a slightly larger but much better led force of White Russians. The Whites took the village, putting the last few Red defenders to the bayonet, but at a cost of nearly 30% of their strength.

We hadn’t used Mud & Blood for games with more than two players before, and I was a bit concerned that the card-driven activation would leave some players with nothing to do for periods of time, but in practice the speed of the card system kept everyone involved. Well, that and the truly strange jokes we always tell during gaming. One player decided that his Red officer had an especial hatred for squirrels – hording nuts is counter-revolutionary, apparently – and having run out of kulaks and priests to shoot, he was now hunting squirrels. That leader ( a Big Man in M&B terms) was promptly dubbed “Commissar Squirrel-Fondler”, and the name stuck for the rest of the game. I’m now seeking a Russian translation of “squirrel fondler” or “squirrel molester” so we can hide the joke in future RCW games!

You can view more pictures in Corey’s flickr set: The Attack on Belok.