North of Madrid: Bonus Festive Game

Richard from Shed West got in contact. He was travelling back from family in Cambridgeshire to home in the West Country and suggested he might drop in for a game to break up the journey.

Well, why not? I thought I'd drawn a line under this year's entertainment with Pydna, but here was a chance for me to get out the SCW kit again, as it is one of Richard's favourite games (and he doesn't even have the armies to play it). I usually umpire these as multi-player games, so it was fun to get behind an army and push the lead about.

I have to say that I'm not necessarily the best at playing my own rules, it would appear.

Compared with recent games I downsized the armies to allow for just two players and the 2-3 hour time slot allocated for the game. To be fair, this is the level of game I originally envisaged - the mobile columns of the early war. Ignore the positioning of the toys on the table, this is pregame start. Any how, Richard had the Nationalists, with some Foreign Legion, Moroccans, Carlists and Regular Army. He's coming on from the right. Every one is in trucks. I've got some Asaltos, Popular Army and union militias, all in trucks. The far village has a small garrison of loyal Civil Guards.

This is Richard's army. You can never have too many trucks.

Richard won the initiative, and started by bringing on his SFL in a rush to seize the convent on the hill. He decided not to use his trucks. a wise move, it turned out.

I responded by bringing up the Asaltos. I have already made a major mistake, although I didn't realise it at the time.

Richard followed up by depositing his Carlists on the main road junction. I brought on my lone field gun to pin them in place whilst I rushed up troops to deal with them.

Richard then deployed his SFL on the convent ridge in skirmish order. I would need to respond to this quickly next urn, or suffer the consequences.

Flags waving, my Popular Army battalion drove up to deal with the Carlists, suffering under the artillery bombardment

Meanwhile I sent the militia on a wide flanking manoeuvre to keep them out of trouble.

My artillery acquired the Carlist target quickly. Not a lot of damage, but they were pinned in place, as required. Richard then moved up his Regular army battalion to put the squeeze on my Asaltos.

Winning the initiative again, Richard moved the SFL down the hill, deployed into a Firing Line, and shot my Asaltos up quite badly. This Pinned and Disordered them. I needed to reorganise them before things got worse.

Then things got worse. Richard's superior army effectiveness enabled him to close with the Regulars, delivering a round of firing before rushing to contact. His HMG company even manged to shoot up my Bilbao armoured car.

Contact caused hit allocation, which wiped out most of the unit. The rest, including the armoured car, broke and fled.

And then Richard rounded out the impulse by hitting my artillery with his mortars, pinning it. This, or course, lifted the barrage on the Carlists.

In desperation I called in an airstrike (played a Joker). I succeeded in hitting the SFL. Take that!

As Richard dealt with issues elsewhere, I was able to bring up the might of my armoured detachment, and inflict no damage at all.

The militia continued their flanking move. I suspected by this point that it would all be a bit late by the time they turned up.

Quick overview of the end of the table where all the action is going on. In the centre I've got my boys deployed in a firing line to shoot up the Carlists. Alas, the pinning of my artillery means the Carlists will be in a position to respond sooner than I really want. To the right of the village a truck of Moroccans is heading round to attack my chaps in the rear. On the road junction Richard's anti-tank gun is pulling up to deal with the mighty Renault.

The Carlists, sure enough, are able to deploy into a firing line. They then proceeded to pour in a round of firing, causing a lot of casualties. On the left of the picture the blue counter is for the Moroccans, who have halted prior to charging the rear of my infantry. You can't see it from this angle, but I've had to reorganise the Popular army to deal with the casualties from the Carlists. Pretty much every base is damaged.

Richard then brings in a strafing run on the militia. So much for keeping them out of trouble.

Ha-ha! I pull a bombing raid out of the hat, and with pin-point accuracy hit the Moroccans still in their truck. Is this a chink of light?

Yes! The truck immediately brews. If I get the initiative next turn, I might be able to turn this round.

The anti-tank gun hits my Renault. This isn't going well.

The Renault is then brewed up by the Regular Army's HMGs.

Unfortunately for me, Richard wins the initiative and hits my guys with another round of firing before overrunning them. Game over.

Well, that could have gone better for me, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. I gambled on winning then initiative roll when Richard was +1 on it, and lost three times. I had troops too close to the enemy, which enabled Richard to deploy and attack them without exposing himself to a counter attack. I was badly let down by my shooting, when I got to do some, and with the exception of blowing up the Moroccans, caused very little damage.

Yes, I'm not very goo at playing my own games sometimes.