The toy soldiers representing the People's Army are neater with fewer poses: a reflection of the desire of the politicians of Komuch to create an egalitarian democratic army. The Komuch People's Army is represented with many small contradictions, a microcosm of the political entity itself. They must be "military-specialists", ex-Tsarist officers recruited by Trotsky and kept in check by a parallel system of political commissars. Their officers look smarter, and out-of-step with the men. In 1918 revolutionary fashion demanded a casual disdain for uniformity and a repudiation of the strictures of the Tsarist army. The Red Army is represented by toy soldiers in many different poses in many variations of uniform. The differences inform a careful observer.
In reality they often did, but in this game-construct they are all subtly different. Still nothing left to chance.Īll the soldiers represented in this game took their uniforms from the same Tsarist stocks: they should look the same. Now to move closer, to read smaller and more obscure symbols. But why the one house with blue shutters? Enough to mark its owner out as a kulak perhaps. Somehow these are not the log cabins of the American Old West. Then a straight track, unmetalled, suggests vastness - an archetypal English track would wind around ancient field boundaries. How to transform a plain green sheet into something that instantly suggests "Russia" (at least to an English mind)? A single birch tree may be enough. This is a conscious design, representing in symbols (which in this case are paradoxically almost-realistic models) elements of historical reality, perceptions of Russia and, as the game progresses, the passing of time.
This is not an attempt at realism: there is no attempt to deceive the eye, as in a model railway or museum diorama. All toy soldiers, trees and buildings sculpted, modelled and painted by Mark Copplestone. 1918 Battle of Kazan Scenario for Chris Peers' Reds versus Reds Cyberfest '08, State Hermitage Museum, St.
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