Going to Guadalajara for my birthday

It's my Beatles Birthday next week. To mark that notable milestone I was going to put on a Spanish Civil War NQM game on next weekend. I'd promised Chris K I would do it at some point over the summer, and that was going to be it. Not that I told anyone, of course. Then, just as I was sorting out the invite, one popped into my inbox from someone up north (you know who you are) and before I could tell the local group about my plans, Chris had replied with a big YES! stymieing my plans as he was central to the whole game. He can be quick off the mark sometimes. Nothing daunted, I just brought the date forward by a week, and gave myself an organisational nightmare.

Firstly I needed a hexcloth. I've been meaning to order one for a while, and I thought a self birthday present this year would do the trick. I bought a Deep Cut custom job from Lithuania. They promised a five day turnround, I asked for it to be moved to seven and it ended up about 10. So it (well they - I'd ordered two) arrived the Thursday before the Saturday game. That gave me two days before the game to set the table up and sort the figures. They took two attempts to deliver, the first being a knock on the door and a card through the letter box before anyone could get to the door. Luckily I got a message through to the driver before he went back to the depot. Then nightmare. The hexes on the cloth were barely visible (very thin lines on dark green), so I spent Thursday afternoon going over the lines with ruler and biro.

That meant I was setting up the table on Friday, having done all the unit labels in the week. The scenario of choice was the Italian drive on Guadalajara in March 1937, because I have loads of CTV figures and it's a legitimate reason to use most of them, plus the CV33s and the Republicans are using a lot of T-26s too. Who doesn't love them?

A lot of the early stages of the battle take place on a plateau between two rivers, so I needed to raise the centre of the table. I went old school for this. I used slim file boxes and a load to books for the central area, covered with my thick Deepcut mat to smooth out the rough edges, then my new hex cloth over the top. I foreshortened the area fought over a bit to get everything I wanted on in a 6 x 4 area. There's about 10km taken out of the middle of the plateau (3-5 hexes, depending on where you are). The villages represented were chosen to make defence points for the attack.

For the game I had 5 1/2 players. Phil & Chris A would be the Republicans, Chris K and Tim would be the Italians, and Vincent and his young lad, Noah, would be the Spanish flank guard. Vincent could only make the morning, so I widened the game to give him a command that I could take over when he had to leave. The plan was to play from 10am - 4pm.

Chris K and Phil arrived first. Chris was chuffed as his personal supply of NQM had arrived, and he did a brisk trade selling discounted copies to the assembled masses. Including me.

Turn one: Dawn, 8th March 1937. After withering fire from the Corps artillery (the stuff lined up off table on the white polystyrene block) the reinforced CTV 2nd Div (the Black Flames) stormed off. On the right Marzo's Brigade on the Regular Army advanced steadily. You'll note that I have raided my Sudan baggage collection to provide horse drawn vehicles for units that aren't motorised. Unlike regular NQM, where LOG and MED units are assumed to be motorized and move as such, my reading of this battle is that this was not the case here.

The Republic's forward armour unit was the subject of a heavy bombardment and then driven out of the village by a determined infantry attack, backed up by regimental support assets. CTV units had integral 65mm artillery, and they are represented in the game by giving the Grupo HQs 3 strength points and letting them fire in support of an attack as medium weapons.

The Nationalists achieved significant breakthroughs in the early couple of moves, storming on to the plateau. 2nd Div needs to seize the major road junction at Almadrones, opening up lines of advance along the two roads for the fully motorized 3rd Div, the "Black Feathers".

2nd Div fights its way across the plateau, capturing Almadrones in double quick time. Yellow counters are out of ammo markers, green show units that have been recce'd. Unrecce'd units are harder to hit. The tabs on the backs of the bases give their unit designations and they are colour coded by higher formation, with each subunit a slightly different shade. 2 Div is green, for example.

It's all looking quite good for the Italians at this moment. The Republican players have sent messages back to Madrid alerting high command to the growing threat.

Mustering every truck in Madrid and the surroundings, the International Brigades are rushed to the front.

Not a moment too soon. Phil's command on the left flank of the Republicans has taken a real hammering, and he's trying to pull back to form a defensive line in the two villages by the road and bridge.

With the road junction secured, CTV's 3 Div enters the table. In all the excitement their armour contingent has ended up at the back of the column. Unfortunately the weather has deteriorated, and rain is starting to turn to snow.

On the Republican right wing, the Nationalist mounted unit launches a very rare cavalry attack.

Rather than rest up Tim is pushing 2 Div forwards as hard as he can. The weather is confining the motorised units to the roads, so the unmotorised 2 Div is moving across the plateau where the trucks can't go.

Chris A's anarchists are being driven back step by step. Chris K, as author if the rules, is telling him exactly what he is doing wrong.

It's been hard fighting, and supplies for the players are being passed round the table. Chris A has dismounted his IB units (top right) and returned the trucks to Madrid.

A gap in the weather enables the Republican air force to intervene. The road junction at Almadrones is a tempting target.

Damage is done, and the advance disrupted. The AA truck, nice though it looks, was ineffective. Tim doesn't know it yet, but he needs to get those engineers - the ones with the plank - forwards.

Mixed news for the Italians. The 2 Div attack on the villages on the edge of the plateau is going well - partly because Chris K had misunderstood the resupply scenario rule for the Corps artillery and I'd missed it, as I was now plumpiring the Nationalist right flank, as Vincent and Noah had gone to take Noah's grandmother to see the scarecrow festival up the road. Consequently they were firing more frequently and more effectively than was my intention. On the other hand torrential rain had washed out one of the roads, so all of 3 Div was being diverted up the far road, creating a massive traffic jam..

Tim may be a novice wargamer, but he's got pointing sorted out. He's pointing out where his engineers need to place their plank to repair the road.

That main road is getting a bit crowded. Top right you can see the International Brigades now with out trucks marching towards the sound of the guns.

Chris K's "What's going on?" moment as his advanced units encounter the Garibaldi brigade and are either ambushed or captured in a nice recreation of what happened in the Italian on Italian meetings during the battle. I simulated this by having the units make a recce roll off, with the Garibladi's on +3, then +2 then +1, and allowing them to ambush until they are recognised.

On my flank Phil had been allocated the non-IB units of Lister's Division, and we were disputing ownership of the two villages.

A real brains trust moment on the left flank. Just in front of Tim is the problem that Chris K has been ignoring, the bridge across the river guarding his left flank behind the buildings. I told him early on that he needed to secure it, so he sent a group of engineers to prep it for demolition, which isn't really the same thing. I told him that wasn't what his allies wanted, but he ignored me anyway.

So after two days, I gave Chris A a small brigade to recapture the bridge.

The villages on the plateau are proving to be tough to crack, and fighting is intense. Instead of being ahead of the timetable. the Italians are now well behind.

I lost the fight for the villages on my side, so I've dropped back slightly and dug in to secure the flank. On the central road you can see Colonel Pavlov's armoured regiment arriving.

They were soon in action as the Republicans fought hard to hold onto the village.

The village falls, but the T-26s start to cause havoc.

That brought us to the close of 10th March, having played 9 turns over just under 6 hours, including lunch and a break for tea & cake in the afternoon. With the amount of kit being used and the number of players that was probably about right. The battle sits on a knife edge, and we'll probably carry on this Tuesday, although with a slightly different cast of players.

Very pleased with how that went.