My friend wrote some rules.

 

My friend Bob Cordery wrote some Spanish Civil War rules and sent me a copy. Most of you will know of Bob, as I think most of my followers are a subset of his, or at least the Venn Diagram would show a good amount of overlap. Bob has published as lot of sets of rules in the last 5 years since the self publishing boom began, mainly grouped around his successful "Portable Wargame". He has also, compared to me, sold a lot of copies. This is his first set using Amazon publishing instead of LuLu.

I have known Bob a long time. Over 40 years. Throughout that time he has flown the flag for the Spanish Civil War as a period. He has given me a lot of encouragement over the years, as well as buildings and books. Consequently it seemed odd to me that he hadn't released an SCW set of rules under his own imprint. He has now rectified that.

The trigger was finding a copy of his "!ARRIBA ESPAÑA!" rules in as second hand shop at silly money prices. These were originally published by Partisan Press back in the late 1980s/early 90s. He has done a makeover and repackaged them with an SCW Portable wargame variant, and very kindly sent me a copy.

Now, I didn't think I'd played "AE", nor did I think I had a copy of them either.

Turns out I sort of did. And not just one copy.

In the 1980s in the early days sometimes WD would publish one off sets of rules and guides written by the cognoscenti and send them out as part of the annual subscription. In 1987 it included an 8 page set of Spanish Civil War rules. These were for 1/300 scale figures (in Bob's case, all conversions) based as platoons and used for Brigade level games

I recall seeing these being played, I think, but I don't recall if I ever played a game with them. At the time they were for a figure scale I did not care for and I was also struggling to come to terms with how to wargame anything in the post Napoleonic period, especially the 20th century. I read them, of course, as I was then, as now, always on the look out for ideas. 

So when AE arrived - a set of rules I was sure I didn't own - I was surprised by a massive dose of déjà vu. So I turned to my box of rules, and these were there. Sure enough, the bones of AE are clearly visible. 

And the cover - I was sure I'd seen that before. Sure enough, again, I had. Sort of. In my rules box was the upgrade Bob printed in 1988 and handed out for free at COW. I remember, very distinctly, saying at the time that the 28 page booklet was worth a fiver, and he should have a word with Dave Ryan at Partizan Press (my chum Pete Berry had just published File Leader, which was about the same size). 

I'm not claiming credit for Bob getting them published, but may be I nudged him that way if he wasn't already thinking about it.

This version is expanded from the 1987 pamphlet, and introduces Divisional level rules. And also has the period propaganda art on the cover*.

Which brings us to "!ARRIBA ESPAÑA!".

As far as I can see AE is virtually the same as the grey cover rules - values have been tweaked for base sizes, movement and combat (you can now use the rules for 1/200 and 1/72 scale figures as well as 1/300), but the core system is unchanged. 

AE is clearly a game system written for the SCW, of which I heartily approve. At its heart is a command and control system that places stress on the Republic's inherent problem with its various factions, and then an air superiority system that varies based on the year of the war. The variations are all dice driven and random, giving the basics for a scenario construction system depending upon the year of the war. The Republicans don't know the political allegiance of the brigade commanders and the political leanings of the individual units until they are diced for at the start of the game. The commander ability level is also rolled for. This is all very well done, and will/was popular with wargamers. (It isn't something I've ever done in my own rules, as I'm usually umpiring games and have written or devised a scenario and don't want a lot of randomness mucking about with what I've set up and don't see the point in sitting in Shedquarters on my own rolling dice to set up a game. I may be alone in this point of view).

"!ARRIBA  ESPAÑA!" was and is a ground breaking set of SCW rules, and if I hadn't just published "For Whom The Dice Rolls" I'd be recommending them to everyone and adopting their use. My only criticism of the production is that the small page size - just over A5 - and limited page count means that the tables follow on one another in an almost frenetic fashion and the rules in bullet form aren't always given the room that they need. I, personally, also like to start each new topic on a new page if I can so I can see everything as far as I can at once with minimal page turning and few distractions. I'd also like a QRS, as the first thing I'd need to do if I was going to play with them would be to re-type or scan all the tables to put them on one or two sides of A4. The rules are simple enough to allow for this to be done.

The second half of the book is a Spanish Civil War variant of The Portable Wargame. The main change, I think, to the original early/mid 20th century rules Bob has previously published  is to bolt the political control and air superiority rules from AE onto the system. He may have altered some of the combat values, but I don't know for sure. TPW is at heart a very simple system with minimal mechanisms in each period. What this means is that Bob doesn't have to fiddle around with a lot of fine detail to change the period setting (this is Neil Thomas' trick with his OHW and other rules). It also means that the level of resolution is abstract. In AE there's no ground scale, but units are defined as a company and the game Brigade/Divisional. In the TPW rules there's no ground scale or figure scale so I don't know what each base represents, other than a "unit". My guess is that it's a battalion for infantry, and the rest are in proportion, but that it doesn't matter. After all, it's played on a chessboard, chess is a wargame and no one queries the unit sizes for that. 

I will need to give the rules a go and see how they play, so they will pop up as a Monday Night Game in the next few weeks. Normally I do not like rules for other periods being tweaked for specific periods. I've said elsewhere that the SCW isn't "WW2 Lite", nor is it "WW1 Plus", but this is Bob and he knows more about the period than pretty much any other wargamer, I'd guess, so he knows what he is doing.

I should also add that Bob has gone to the trouble of sticking seven scenarios in the back of the book, some of which are multi-game scenarios where you have to win one game to move on to the next. Excellent. It is something I should do more of.

Finally, there's a good resources section for books and films. It includes FWTDR, so I can't complain.

But I would like a QRS for these as well. Please.

* I originally had a lot of this sort of poster art in FWTDR and on the cover. I then discovered that many of the artists lived into the 1950s, and so we are still within the copyright period for the ones I wanted to use.