"How do you handle "playing as" the Soviets?" Topic

This is a question that frequently comes up on the WW2 board with regards to Nazi Germany, but I am not sure if it has ever been asked here… the Soviet Union and its satellite states represent some of the most oppressive, cruel and destructive regimes of the second half of the 20th century. Whether through glasnost or the dismantling of the Stasi in the GDR, we now know that ruling party officials regularly engaged in intimidation, surveillance, warrantless arrests, extrajudicial executions, torture, rape and other brutal acts of violence against their own people. While the West hardly has a spotless record during this period, with unjustifiable acts in Cambodia, Vietnam and even violent suppression of its own people (such as the Kent State massacre), the scope of Soviet and Soviet-allied brutality is truly difficult to quantify.

So, do you feel any reservations about playing an army that is propping up a Communist regime? If so, how do you resolve those issues (if at all?).

I am playing a game and I am more than capable of keeping real world political concerns away from the table.

I have the same concerns when playing chess. I mean, have to SEEN the color of the opposing pieces? Disgraceful. And don't even get me started on the way the ruling class just forces the poor pawns to keep moving forward whether they want to or not.

People handle playing the Soviets (or any other evil army) the same way they handle playing the Waffen SS I would imagine, by treating wargaming as a purely tactical endeavor while minimizing its political and moral dimensions.

Most people have no problem doing this, but to each his own.

The same way as I do playing everyone else, try to keep smiling despite the rubbish dice rolls.

Spreading the fraternal benefits of socialism bothers me not in the least.

Analysis of 'most evil regime' could also fill many tomes of academic and political debate, and TMP is almost certainly not the best place to have that particular debate.

It is only worth noting that in the scheme of things, liberal democracy is a short lived historical aberration in terms of political organisation, and for the other countless centuries of human history (and of much of the world today) arbitrary abuse of power is the norm.

If you want a vision of the future (and the past), imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever.

Not condoning such things, but merely noting that it appears to be the normal state of human affairs.

Imagine one can only pick to paly either the Nazi Germany or the Soviets in a game…wait…

This is a perennial question in various forms, and if we don't dismiss it because of its faulty premise then all wargaming is immoral.

The Complex Question Fallacy occurs when someone asks a question that contains an assumption phrased such that any answer appears to confirm the assumption. The classic is, "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?"

The question of how you "handle" playing the National Socialists, the Confederates, or the Soviet Socialists barely scratches the surface. I wouldn't want to endorse the Zulus, Spartans, the Athenians during certain periods, the Romans during most periods, the European powers during the colonial period, virtually anybody in the thirty years war, either side of the hundred years war, etc. I think I'm flexible on the War of the Roses.

And this is not even bringing up sci fi and fantasy. Who could play an alien race who's victory condition is destroying humanity? Actually there are some people that could endorse such a goal, but let's not divagate. Most of us would not.

But if my playing a side in a game constitutes endorsement of that society's ruling class's values, then by extension if my opponent lets me play the noble Union Army fighting to free the slaves then he, by agreeing to play the evil Confederates, endorses slavery. Well I certainly don't want to play a game with someone who endorses black slavery, so we're done, no game.

This limits wargaming to conflicts in which both sides had just cause for war and behaved themselves honorably. Until there's a war like that the wargame hobby, hex-and-counter, miniatures, and video, will be on hiatus. (I can't think of a war like that; if someone can think of one I'd love to hear about it.)

But does playing a side in a wargame constitute endorsing the values of the society that produced the army you're playing? Why on Earth would that be true? Do we believe actors share values with the roles they play? Biographers? Painters? Do we think the people who make commercials really adore the products? Do we suppose that if I beat you while playing the Nazis that I have somehow retroactively helped the Nazis?

If we wanted to play games such that ended in an ethically satisfying way they would be designed so that the leaders of the bad guys all ran away and all the soldiers survived and went home to live long happy lives.

I have played many an enjoyable wargame with opponents who didn't know much about the war or battle we were playing. It adds a little when we can share historical details during the game, but it's not at all necessary. At conventions I've seen people have fun without knowing what year the battle was set in. "Just give me my troops and point me at the enemy."

So until someone demonstrates that playing a side in a wargame has any links to the ethics of the historical actors, we should reject this question on the face of it. Some people have written some great responses that engage the question, but I think that's a mistake. We simply reject the question.

A *different* question is whether there are any conflicts you are uncomfortable gaming. Some people have strong feelings about certain conflicts, mostly recent, and don't want to immerse themselves in that bit of history. That's a valid position if you want to avoid the whole conflict because of what it makes you think about. But if you're perfectly happy to play one side and not the other, then I think you should do some thinking about what it means to play a side.

How do I handle playing the Soviets? Rush forward quickly, accept the losses that come with aggressive attacks and hope that numbers tell.

One guy who games at my house hasa some strong ideas on who the bad guys are. If he has to play with them, he is likely to just make suicide attacks to try to get them killed off.

In my case, I have only played Soviet Union Commies vs. German Nazis one time. I would just rather not play them. I prefer to have one side in the game be such that I can have some positive identification with them.

I don't mind playing the bad guys against good guys. I will do the best job I can. Somebody has to do it to have a game. And somebody has to run them so the good guys can get rid of them. But I will really hope the good guys win in the end.

Impossible with Nazis vs. Commies. No good guys there. So I just avoid playing if at all possible.

Old geezer I knew was a Vietnam vet and played the VC/NVA exclusively.
If it didn't bother him, I don't think my suburban lifestyle is particularly threatened.

That goes for all terrible people in games (which honestly is most of them). Nazi's, Reds, Mongols, Romans, Confederates, colonial powers, frequently the people the colonial powers fought, terrorists and if we're fair, pretty much anybody pre-enlightenment.
For good measure, Danes in 1864, just so you lot don't wet your diapers about bias.

Move 6" per turn and roll to hit.

(Besides, whenever this comes up in relation to Nazi's, we get page-long diatribes about how the average soldier is an honourable and loyal warrior detached from their political leanings, so why wouldnt that apply here?)

(and before the easily offended show up, I am not saying that Romans were as bad as the Nazis or whatever, I am saying they're all terrible even if they vary in the degrees of their terribleness. Relax)

The way I used to play them on exercise in the 80s!

Tally Ho!

Interesting answers so far!

Try think the guys you are playing are just doing their duty, having no choice, and not necessarily worse than the other side.
If it fails, the best one able to quickly demolish an army is the one playing it?

Or if everything fails: little pieces of metal dressed as ". " doing no arm , back in drawers later.

Topics like this could be perceived as being aimed at shaming and guilt-tripping players who play with certain armies, even if that's not the intent.

+1 Andrew Walters.

Strydberg for the win.

Martin- I'm glad that you can look at the bright side of things….

@Fanatik, I hadn't thought of that… and it certainly is not my intent, for what it matters! I tend to collect both sides of every conflict, so I play either side during a game (I let my opponent make the first choice, and I play whatever side is left). I have to admit though, this is a question I have occasionally pondered by myself!

I primarily play Lardies games, and their official policy is exactly what you said earlier: politics, war crimes etc. have no place on the tabletop and you should not bring them into the scenario at all. I find this is the most level-headed approach, but I admit that it is not always so easy to neatly do away with the real world history, just personally speaking.

Same as I play the French. Ok if I win, ok if I lose.

The only Soviets I play is an Engineer-Sapper battalion.

I could make arguments that the Soviets did have a pretty legit reason to fight: Their nominal allies the Germans (hey, they had a non-aggression treaty) attacked them!

But I play the Engineer-Sappers because that's an interesting force with lots of challenges. They were only deployed to break fortifications. So I game more for the tactical challenges than for the political shenanigans.

> the European powers during the colonial period

Don't forget the colonials in that! Cultural misunderstanding is always a two way street – it is just that one side has a better military.

I'll gladly play any side in any stand up fight.

I play as the grunts in the field, who rarely had any agenda other than staying alive and looking after their buddies.
Politics really only involves a sub strata of society, and tends not to represent the morals or beliefs of the majority of the people.

With Reckless Abandon

Cowboys and Indians anybody?

Anyone wargame My Lai?

EVERY country that has some sort of military history has things in the past to be ashamed of.

All the things the nasty British Empire did during the slave trade – you know, that thing where Africans sold Africans to Arab slave traders who sold the slaves to the British who sold the slaves to the Americans… Wait a minute, didn't the Imperialistic warmongering British abolish slavery throughout the British Empire over 30 years before the freedom loving USA?

The point of this?

Choose any period of history and country and it doesn't take long to dig up things that we now consider shameful. Germans, Russians, Japanese, Americans, Belgians… colonial wars were just as bad to the native populations as anything the Germans did. The numbers in individual cases may be smaller, but 'Estimates of the pre-Columbian population vary widely, though uncontroversial studies place the figure for North, Central and South America at a combined 50 million to 100 million,[2] with scholarly estimates of 2 million[3] to 18 million[4] for North America alone. An estimated 80% to 90% of this population perished after the arrival of Europeans,[5] overwhelmingly from factors which deniers of genocide argue were beyond most human control — e.g., smallpox epidemics[6] — Europeans, especially the Spanish conquistadors, also killed thousands deliberately.[' gives one idea…

link

Please don't knock what I'm saying based on this source, plenty of others – link , link – the point I'm making is that we have a view of one set of horrors amongst many. And that if we start getting high and mighty about not gaming Germans or Japanese then we are, at best, ignorant of ALL the facts, at worst just plain hypocritical.

With Reckless Abandon

The correct answer.

I play as the grunts in the field, who rarely had any agenda other than staying alive and looking after their buddies.

Also my usual take; Colonel Viktor is just trying to get his company to the objective with as many comrades still alive as possible.

-Will

It's a game, so I've never worried about playing one side or the other, or crushing the opposition, comrade.

Good fun to really get into the spirit too, of the side you're playing.

In modern wargame Russians play *you*.

Strydberg for the win.

I got a "for the win"!! I can now die fulfilled, thanks.

It's only a game. Nothing more, nothing less.

I've never given it a second thought, nor did I know that anyone did.

I just had a thought (danger, danger). Are there people in Russia saying this question in reverse?

Mostly with the resigned patience of someone that knows that regardless the time passed since 1941, Soviets are and ever will be represented in Western rulesets as mindless hordes of drones whose only tactic is based upon the principle that "quantity has a quality of its own". It won't matter if they are WWII Soviets, Ruso-Polish War Soviets or 1985 Soviets. They are always the same.

Well, they do seem to like to stick to a winning strategy, and numbers have a quality all their own, or so I've read, and been told.

Doctrinal manuals seem to indicate that as well.

I'll say this for the Soviets. At least they didn't eat their prisoners, unlike the Aztecs.

If you think that way I'd stay away from the Nuclear War card game.

I don't recall a cannibalism option in Nuclear War?

But also, what Basileus said.

To Dynaman8789:
Yes. I even more to say – if someone translate this thread on the Russian language and replace "Communists" to "NATO", "Soviet Union and its satellite states" on the "USA and its satellite states" and "East Germany" with "West Germany", then this thread could well seem taken with the Russian-speaking forum. People are the same everywhere

Hahaha!…you're thinking too much Commander !

Answer ; fast and hard.

Enjoy !

I'll say this for the Soviets. At least they didn't eat their prisoners, unlike the Aztecs.

Yes, if you're looking to avoid playing an army that didn't commit atrocities at the drop of a hat you're pretty much ruling out every army prior to the 18th century and quite a few after.

-Will

Why can't we just play any army we want without being judged? I mean, when you come down to it, every army of every nation and ideology are the same in that each man fights for the guy next to him, right? This is all that matters in the final analysis.

Technically all toy soldiers are unwilling conscripts, serving until the end of conflict or the last failed morale check :-)

Well I tend to send in 3 Shock in first and move my 2nd and 3rd echelon divisions right over them without pause, waiting for 20 Guards Tank army to find a weakness then send them in as an Operational Manoeuvre Group for deep strike. Keeping my Desant units for rear area mayhem of course…

I use the Soviet tactics as listed in the OPFOR training manual that we had at the 101st MI battalion. Since I was armored cavalry before being assigned to the unit. I could relate more than other officers. So I never lose.
My opponents often get frustrated by the tactics and quit early. LOL!.

Soviet tactics tend to translate very well to the gaming tabletop :-)

It helps that our guys don't have to worry about logistics of course.

Technically all toy soldiers are unwilling conscripts, serving until the end of conflict or the last failed morale check :-)

Oh god, WE'RE THE MONSTERS!!!! :)

-Will

"the last failed morale check".

Is that the one the owner makes against death?

If need be, I will play just about anything -- except for Yankees in a Civil War game.

Wargameing is basically moving tokens about a board. They might be elaborately painted pieces and a fancy board, but its just fancy chess.

Worrying about being the 'bad guys', is just a panic too far.
Its nice to add a little 'colour' to the game, but unless you play the Waffen SS in a black uniform, I would not worry too much.

As Rubber Suit Theatre said, "In modern wargame Russians play YOU."

Uurrah!