The game is for two players. There are five factions or force groups in the game.

The White player controls:

the Ukranian Nationalists - these units have a 50% chance of defection, the highest of any faction, and none of their combat units has a combat factor of more than two. However, they do have two armored trains, a useful resource. They set up near Kiev and are not reinforced during the game.

the Whites -most of the White forces set up in the Crimea, with a separate and strong force of Cossack cavalry and infantry to the east. White units have a 33% chance of defecting. They start with some of the stronger units in the game, including three armored trains and a decent amount of artillery, but they also field some of the weakest. They receive some reinforcements during the game.

The Foreign Interventionist (French and Greek) forces - I'm not sure why these are here except for historical verisimilitude: they set up in Odessa and Kherson, far beyond the reach of the Red player, and are withdrawn at the beginning of the second turn, never to reappear.

And the Red player controls:

The Reds - a small force of Reds that includes both of their armoured trains sets up in the north around Kharkov. The Reds receive considerable reinforcements throughout the game, and field some of the strongest units, especially artillery. Reds have a 33% chance of defecting, all else being equal, except it isn't because early on in the game they receive five Cheka (secret police) battalions that act as a considerable stiffener for the Bolsheviks. Reds and Makhnovists may conduct joint attacks: no other factions. may do this.

the Makhriovists -this is the smallest force in the game: five infantry and five cavalry (actually, the unit symbol used is machine-gun cavalry, referring to the Tatchanka carts they used) brigades, set up in the centre of the map. They have only a 16% chance of defecting and a number of other advantages built into the game.

Also, although this faction starts allied with the Reds, at the end of the game any Victory Points the Makhnovists have earned are counted for the White player. This does not mean they are against revolution, just that any breathing space they win for their brand of regional anarchism constitutes one in the eye for Bolshevik centralism. So, at some point the Red player will feel himself forced to break this partnership in order to get a decisive victory.

The Play of the Game

The game has six pages of rules. There is no index, numbering or heading scheme, as had become industry practice for rules by 1977, and concepts are presented in no clear sequence. There are no optional or extra rules. The rules therefore need to be read completely before playing the game, and you need to pay attention because there are some unfamiliar concepts and unclear sections (unfortunately, these tend to coincide). I will write about the sub-systems of the game as they are employed in the Sequence of Play:

Pre-Turn Phases

A. Meeting Determination
B. Propaganda Point (PP) Accumulation and Allocation
C. Recruitment Point (RP) Determination and Allocation

White Player Turn:

1 . Supply Determination
2. Movement
3. Combat
4. Bonus Move
5. Bonus Combat

(Red Player Turn is identical)

A. Meeting Determination Phase. One player rolls 16 and if he gets a "1", there is a meeting between two randomly selected Opposing factions. Meetings, described in the rules as "free- wheeling festivals of eating, drinking, speechmaking, assassinations, and defections", are opportunities for large- scale defections from one faction to another. They are resolved after all movement and combat have been completed for both players that turn. The faction that both allocated more Propaganda Points (PP) to the meeting and gained more PP due to successfully occupying towns and wining battles "wins" the meeting, and all units of the losing factions that are in the zone of control of a unit of the winning faction must test to see whether they defect. Nothing succeeds like success.

B. Propaganda Point (PP) Accumulation and Allocation.

PP represent physical propaganda such as newspapers, leaflets and posters, as well as the relative ability and dominance of the political leadership of each faction. PP are gained and lost each turn for a number of reasons. In the Accumulation Phase there is an initial allotment of 20 for the Red player, eight each for the Ukrainian Nationalists and Makhnovists, and only four for the Whites.

This alone gives the Red player the best chances and options, and though historical, probably goes the longest way to making this an unbalanced game. Players also get I PP for each town controlled, with extra points for the Makhnovists. During the other phases of the turn, players gain PP for capturing towns and eliminating more of the enemy than they lose in battle, and lose PP for losing towns.

PP are used for: affecting combats whoever allocated more PP to a given battle gets a one-column favorable shift on the CRT, and DRM in his favor when it is time to judge defections; affecting the availability of Replacement Points (RP), of which more later; winning "meetings"; and taking control of ungarrisoned enemy towns (an intriguing concept, but one not further explained in the rules) .

During the Pre-turn Allocation Phase, each player writes down how many PP he will allocate in each Region (the map is divided into five regions of five towns each) and to the meeting, if there is one. Players must allocate enough PP to regions they control physically in order to be sure of receiving the RP due them in the following phase.

C. Recruitment Point Determination and Allocation Phase.

I suspect that Bumpas actually meant "Replacement" because that's how he refers to it in the rest of the rules. These points are gained by controlling cities two for most towns, four or six for larger cities like Odessa and Kharkov, and a varying bonus amount if you control all five towns in a Region. However, to get these RP, you must have allocated enough PP. You get all of the RP due you if you have allocated more PP to the region than all other players combined, half if you have allocated more than anyone else, and no one gets any RP from that Region if any faction has allocated more than the player who physically controls it.

RP are used to "recuperate" units that have been eliminated, or to buy reinforcements that appear during the game. Once again, the Red player's higher initial allocation of PP means he gets more RP (or, alternatively, being able to deny RP to other factions), which translates into more strength on the ground.

1. White Player Turn Supply Determination Phase

The supply rules are pretty straightforward and forgiving: 25 hexes through clear terrain back to a supply source, or a clear rail line that leads back to a supply source (which varies by faction). Makhnovists are cheap and easy to feed: 25 hexes through any terrain to any town they control. Being out of supply halves movement and combat, and prevents recuperation.

Movement Phase

Again, quite basic. Up to three nondefected, non-recuperating infantry or cavalry units, and any amount of anything else, may stack in a hex. Only infantry and cavalry units have Zones of Control: ZOC inhibits enemy movement, retreat, and supply. Movement allowances are fairly generous, allowing for wide flanking moves: 5-7 for infantry, 12-15 for cavalry, armored cars, and tanks, and 30 for armored trains. These picturesque locomotives also serve to carry units to the front, and are probably the greatest combat asset. In the game, as it did historically, the action tends to shuttle up and down the railways.

3 (a). Combat Phase.

Combat is voluntary. The CRT is basic column-odds with a spread of AE, EX, DR, DE type results. Combat tends to be quite bloody; in all columns there is at least a 50% chance that one force will be half-eliminated or completely wiped out.

However, in this game, being eliminated is not permanent. There is a chance that the eliminated unit will instead defect to the enemy player. This defection rule sets Tatchanka apart from other games, and assumes far greater importance in the system than analogous rules in other games I recall seeing, where they were optional chromy bits to underline the designer's feelings about how unreliable satraps were.

Eliminated units test individually by rolling 1d6. The final odds of defecting depend on the faction, who applied more PP to the battle, whether there are Cheka units present (Red faction only), and whether the unit is a special unit (i.e., anything other than infantry or cavalry: I'm not sure whether this is supposed to mean tankers and gunners are less politically reliable, or what). Units that defect are inverted (to denote 1/2 combat factors) with the victorious units and stay under their control for as long as they remain stacked with at least one unit of that faction.

Units that are eliminated and don't defect are inverted in the nearest friend ly-control led town that is in supply, to be recuperated. Recuperating units have 1/2 combat factors, may not move or attack, and are removed from play if eliminated again while in this state. Players need to spend RP on units to recuperate them (one per combat factor of infantry, two for cavalry, and three for anything else), to a set limit per turn depending on the factions (usually one per turn: the Red faction can use his Cheka battalions to recuperate units stacked with them, and the Makhnovists can recuperate two).

3 (b) Counterattack Phase.

This is another unusual touch: immediately after the phasing player's combat phase, the other player has a chance to attack with his adjacent units.

4. Bonus Movement Phase

Analogous to an exploitation phase, units that participated in battles where the defender was completely eliminated may move up to a their movement allowance, and ...

5. Bonus Combat Phase. ... attack again.

The Red Player then repeats the same sequence, to complete one GameTurn. At the end of his Bonus Combat Phase, the players would judge who won the meeting, if there was one.

There are twelve quarterly turns in the game, from Spring 1919 to Winter 1921. Victory is judged at the end of the last turn. Players score Victory Points based on the RP value for controlled towns, plus the bonuses for controlling whole Regions. Again, the Makhnovist VP count towards the White player's total, and that faction starts the game sitting on top of some very valuable real estate, so the Red player will feel the need to stab them in the, back at some point.

To score the 112 points needed for a decisive victory, the Red player has to pretty well sweep the entire map, and needs 103 points for even a marginal victory. Perhaps Bumpas thought that this offset the large advantages the Red player enjoys. By contrast, the White player scores a decisive victory with 27 points and a marginal victory with 10.

Tatchanka: Ukraine 1919-1921

Tatchanka: Background
Tatchanka: Game Review
Tatchanka: Component Manifest
Tatchanka: Collector's Value