Red Horde 1920

In 1919, the governments of the victorious Allied powers met in Paris to discuss the post-war order of things. But while they were talking, history continued to move. As the rest of Russia descended into civil war, forces of the Red Army moved westward to exploit the power vacuum left by the retreating German armies. They were met by units of the new Polish Army, who pushed them back steadily into what is now Belarus. After the Polish overextended their forces in an offensive to take Kiev in early 1920, the greatly reinforced Red Army went over to the attack.  

General Mikhail Tukhachevsky’s Order of the Day for July 2, 1920 read in part "To the West! Over the corpse of White Poland lies the road to worldwide conflagration. March on Vilno, Minsk, Warsaw!” As the new nation of Poland fought for its life and the front lines surged back and forth, both sides grew increasingly desperate. The war climaxed in the Battle of Warsaw in mid-August, as the Poles finally broke the Red Army and flung it back into Russia in disorder – to this day they refer to it as “the Miracle on the Vistula”.  

Red Horde 1920 is an operational-level game on the action during this fateful summer.  The Red Army smashes forward in the name of the Revolution, with masses of rifle divisions and the savage 1st Cavalry Army, commanded by Semyon Budyonny and filled with fierce Cossacks. The Poles resist with units of the Polish Legion, veterans of the fighting in France, and their national army.  Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Hungarians and even a unit of Red Polish renegades swirl in and out of the chaos too. 

Designer Brian Train has substantially revised and streamlined his original 2007 design (entitled Konarmiya Year of the Red Tide), incorporating a newly-researched and more accurate order of battle with revised counter values, updated rules and a  drastically revised map with a different scale.   

Saddle up, comrades! Glory waits down the road! 

Includes: 

176 counters, showing Polish, Soviet and foreign volunteer forces at brigade to division scale. 

1 22x17-inch map of eastern Poland and western Byelorussia, ground scale 20 miles per hex. 

1 rulebook, typeset for easy squinting. 

1 Player Aid Card to stare at while the other guy hogs the rulebook. 

An anachronistic Ziploc bag to keep the counters in one cat-proof location. 

You’ll also need to provide two six-sided dice for the Cause.