"For Whom The Dice rolls", my Spanish Civil War rules, are probably my favourite set of rules. There are some rough edges for sure, but the rules themselves, the layout, and the background information are all something I'm proud of and I think they work really well. The games I've mostly run with them have been multi-player, but they were written with two players in mind, running a "column" or brigade sized army.
Richard from Shed West confided in me that they are one of his favourites too, so he called by recently for a two player game with me. It was good to get a chance to play my own rules for a change! For the scenario I dragged out a two player game I wrote nearly five years ago, which I played on line with Jon Freitag. You can read how that game went here.
The game features two evenly matched forces of Carlists and Basques, with a bit of support from Civil Guards & Asaltos respectively, trying to take control of a pass and a bridge across a river. The Basques and Carlists are fanatical but not very well trained. The others are better trained and not quite as enthusiastic. The Basques have Trubia Naval tanks, which sound more threatening than they are. We diced for sides, and I got the Carlists. They're on the right of this picture.
I won the initiative and rushed my Civil Guards forwards to take the bridge, supported by a Bilbao armoured car (when I wrote the scenario originally it included all the new kit I had just completed, together with the Basque infantry that Jon F had kindly painted for me). Richard opened up with his one Joker, and brought down a bombing attack on the bridge area. Luckily it fell short. Probably because it was the Condor Legion and there were no civilians around the bridge on which to perpetrate a war crime.
Next I brought on a couple of Requetes at either end of the table to go and seize the heights. (I had misread the briefing. The Carlists have heavy mortar per Requete in the briefing, but I just allocated one to the entire column so I was a little under gunned).
Richard brought up the Trubias to force me off the bridge. Not supporting them with infantry might be a mistake.
Richard moves up some slightly out of focus Asaltos to contest the hill on my right.
It was then time for my bombers to miss their target too.
My Carlists on the right form a skirmish line to cross the river. On the left I have a unit starting to climb the hills on that flank. Richard is mounting his major thrust to the right of the road as he looks at it.
The Crucifix bearer mounts the hill top. Foolishly I have left my HMGs at the back.
Richard has driven his tanks up to the river bank with the intention of machine gunning my Civil Guards. As he has no supporting infantry they are vulnerable to infantry assault. My Civil Guards send forward a detachment to "arrest" them. I roll a double six.
Their colleagues watch in delight as the tank explodes.
Their follow up attack is less successful and the detachment is wiped out. However, the armour has been neutralised. You can see on the road that my armoured car and Richard's field gun have exchanged fire, inflicting damage on each other. I've got my Civil Guards in skirmish line now, hunkered down behind the river bank.
A second go by the Civil Guards damages the HMG on the Trubia, but at the loss of the section. My armoured car then received a direct hit from the field gun and exploded. Apologies for my fat finger in the bottom left corner of the picture.
I stake my claim to the hill top by forming a firing line on the edge. A prolonged firefight with Richard's Basques in skirmish order breaks out.
On the other flank I have two Requetes in open order, moving towards the Asaltos who have got to the hills first.
Having knocked out my armoured car the field gun switches to shelling my Civil Guard by the bridge. The fire isn't very effective, but it pins my troops in place.
On my right the Asaltos open fire on one of my Requetes. It is horrifyingly effective. They may be Reluctant, but they are Experienced. I need to close with them to get on anything like a level playing field. If I can do it right I should be able to see them off and have just enough remnants left to hold the objective.
On the other flank we are chipping away at each other.
I had reorganised the Requetes that were shot at by the Asaltos, but another round or two of shooting has rendered that pointless. More than pointless. A complete waste of activations.
However, with them fully occupied to their front my other Requete on this side charges them in the flank. Because of the shape of the hill I'm unable to deliver any fire with my HMGs, but I win the hand to hand and throw them off the hill top. Alas although I win the fight I take more casualties.
Time to bring on some reinforcements to occupy the village.
The Asaltos counter attack, having shot me up first. It is a bloody fight, but I hold on. But at what cost?
My brave fellows cling to the hill top. There's only three of them up there (the HMG company was been left behind in the assault, and I haven't had the activations to bring it up). Each base is now permanently damaged, which is very annoying.
The Asalto's armoured car drives into my other Requete on this flank and disperses them by forcing me to allocate their hits before I can reorganise them.
Time out to look at the overall situation. I'm holding the hill on my left, the village and the bridge. I'm also holding the hill on the right, if a little tenuously. If we end the game now I'm a big winner.
A wave of Basque reinforcements surge across the table. I have a heavy mortar in the village which has the rear column under bombardment, pinning it in place.
Leaving the infantry to finish the job on the right, Richard brings round his armoured car to support the attacks on my left.
Now under fire from two Basque units my Requete on the left is forced to fall back in skirmish order and reorganise.
The Asaltos have another go at capturing the hill on the right. I'm badly outnumbered.
Everybody died.
On the left the Basques move on to the hill. A close range fire fight ensues.
Time for another wide shot. The village has taken a lot of HMG fire from the Asalto armoured car. The Civil Guard are still pinned. I've lifted my mortar bombardment to switch to another target. Bottom right is my secret weapon. A truck with AA HMGs on it.
My mortar now opens up on the Basque unit moving in the open nearest to me.
Richard has moved his last unit up along side the unit being mortared, so I rush up my AA truck and give them a couple of bursts of fire at close range.
It is getting pretty murderous on the hill top. I'm coming off worst.
Having cleared the hill top the Asaltos head down and cross the river.
Richard now has two Basque battalions on the left hand hill. It isn't looking good for me. We should have stopped the game earlier when I was winning.
The last remnants of the Carlists on the hill are driven off by a close assault.
So I've lost both the hills, but I'm holding on to the village and bridge. However I've lost three Requetes and although he's taken a lot off hits all round Richard still has all his units intact. Win to the Republicans.
I lost this scenario with the Nationalists when I played it before, mainly due to failing two Tank Terror tests, so it is either unbalanced or I'm not very good at my own game. In this case I'd have done better with a full complement of mortars but actually the game was very close. I could easily have knocked out the Republican artillery before losing my armoured car, which would have changed things a lot.
However it was a really enjoyable game. I loved getting my hands on my toys and pushing them around, and the way the rules created the ebb and flow was very pleasing. You can still buy them here.
And I always did like the cover design a lot.
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