Playing Freikorps, one must be ready to be flexible and reverse directions on a dime when necessary. It is not possible to be successful, unless a series of potential back up plans are available. There is that much “friction” to deal with.

In the game reported on, the Entente intention was to use East Prussia as the staging area for an ongoing offensive operation to tie down Red Army troops and keep the Entente out of Warsaw.

For this to have any hope of success, however, the initial set up must have a number of favorable conditions available to the Entente.

In this game, the only favorable occurrence was a 13-8 initiative advantage for the Entente, which, except for the first turn allowed the Entente to move first. The other set up die roles were substantially unfavorable for an early Entente offensive. The Konarmiya was at full strength, and beyond the mandatory ten Freikorps divisions (which were assigned to offensive operations out of East Prussia), the Entente side was left with little beyond US and French divisions to defend Germany.

In the event, the Entente offensive went fairly well through Turn 3, advancing south from two axes from western and eastern East Prussia. A decisive battle with cavalry charges and counterattacks by both sides around Thorn, however, ultimately broke the back of the Entente’s offensive. The Red Army used its regular units to accomplish this, which allowed the nearly invincible full strength Konarmiya to plunge due west into Germany proper. The combination of these two occurrences had also gained the initiative for the Red Army which it never relinquished, making further offensive operations by the Entente impossible.

With the East Prussian Entente offensive crushed, the Konarmiya made slow but steady advances into Germany mainly against US and French units, who cannot combine attacks with Freikorps, thus making the Entente’s operations fractured and uncoordinated. Regular Red Army troops mopped up in East Prussia up through Turn 7. The most damaging effects to the Entente, however, were the Random Events. In this particular game, Spartacist militias were rolled for on four(!) turns, along with a US withdrawal.

With the bulk of the army having been destroyed in East Prussia, there were simply no reserves to effectively retake Spartacist controlled cities and towns, rapidly reinforced by Red Army units. The rapid advances by mainly the Konarmiya allowed the Red Army to take “The Pause That Refreshes” on Turns 5 and 6, allowing for all units to be in supply Turns 7 and 8, and thus undercutting the Entente’s attempts to use the Polish National Army to cut off the ever lengthening Red Army supply lines.

With the Spartacist militia in control of all three Berlin hexes, followed by the Konarmiya entering the city (Rosa Luxembourg met General Budenny at the Brandenburg Gate, and before tens of thousands of cheering Berlin workers, waving red banners, she declared Germany a Soviet Republic), the Entente position was dire by Turn 6. Although a brutal hard fought battle with the Entente’s newly constructed Royal Tank Division, recaptured one Berlin hex temporarily.

Throughout Turns 7, 8 and 9 the Red Army’s units swarming in from newly conquered East Prussia allowed the Entente to do no more than conduct defensive actions in their remaining controlled cities, which were again undercut by successful Spartacist revolts, thus resulting in a complete Red Army victory at Turn 9.

Clearly, the Entente putting all their eggs in one basket resulted in unmitigated disaster. Just as certainly, it is not possible to anticipate all the potential Random Event effects. At the very least, then, it is incumbent on both players to maintain as many reserves as possible, so as to either take advantage of a sudden positive event as well as react to a current political disaster.

While generally an operational/strategic game, a word must be said about tactical concerns. The shock effects as well as the “assets” (airplanes, armored trains, artillery, and armor) must be allocated carefully so as to gain a local advantage in a given combat.

As they were historically in this period, these battles were primarily infantry or galloping cavalry affairs, but there are just enough opportunities to use some assets to gain a tactical advantage in a particular battle. Thus their use and presence must be carefully husbanded and planned. This is one area where the player may have the upper hand in the “friction” component of the war.

This game will certainly never be the same from one playing to the next, and successful strategies will not necessarily carry over from one game to the next either. As such, the entertainment value of this game is quite high, not to mention the level of challenge offered to the players.