Carnage in Kucha

Forty eight hours after watching the destruction of SS armour in the Saarland, our travel-stained correspondent reported for duty in North-West China. It is early 1933, and Ma Chung Yin, better known to history as “General Ma” is busy carving out a Muslim state on the Silk Road of Sinkiang Province. Just North of the inhospitable Taklamakan Desert, this inhospitable territory is strategically important for the players of the “Great Game”, as through it runs the main route from North-West British India all the way to Mongolia.

General Ma has a mixed force of so-called Chinese regulars, supported by White Russian mercenaries or émigrés, and has seized the oasis town of Kucha. Rumour has it that the deposed Chinese Governor Sheng Schicai has some new “friends” coming to his aid. These friends are a small force from the Red Army, despatched on a “special military operation”. Comrade Stalin is not at all in favour of a Muslim state bordering his restive Khazakh territories. The Basmachi rebellion is still fresh in his mind and cannot be allowed to flare up again.

The game started with the White Russians in possession of the oasis,

and Ma (aka Tony) trying to push more infantry and the armoured car to support,

leaving his cavalry to sweep around and outflank the Russians. The Commissar (aka Phil) deployed his artillery piece to engage the White Russian traitors

whilst his elite infantry advanced through the broken ground leaving his cavalry and other infantry to counter the outflanking movement.

The card-based initiative system added some “fog of war” and combined with the D10 roll for unit activation certainly injected a good dose of “friction”. Phil’s artillery piece was a casual observer for most of the game, and Tony’s cavalry charge only resulted in his own unit eventually breaking.

Another Chinese cavalry unit retreated off the board leaving General Ma to seek the sanctuary of the armoured car. Infantry rifle fire proved fairly ineffective in destroying anything, but did manage to push units back. The Putilov half track armoured car was more effective as it’s MGs did almost break a Red cavalry regiment. The game was finally decided when a Red cavalry regiment swung round and took General Ma and the Putilov in the flank.

The game was a play-test for Chris Swann’s “Beyond the Empire” which several people had purchased at the recent Hammerhead show. The concensus was that they are a nice set of rules for this “fun” genre, and we didn’t use all the special rules and attributes covered in the book. We only used five unikts plus a leader per side, and you probably wouldn’t want to play with many more units than we had on the table.

Although very nicely produced with beautiful colour photos, the rules could definitely have done with some more editing and playtesting. They feel as if they have been written by a group of afficionados who know intuitively what should have been written. In some cases shame it wasn’t. Also, the QRS are not terribly logical. Or is this the biggest understatement since Brigadier Brodie declared the situation of the Glorious Gloucesters in Korea as “a bit sticky”...

As someone said...”Has Chris Peers changed his name by deed-poll to Chris Swann”.

Simon