¡Viva la muerte! Playtest

 I have a decent collection of 28mm Spanish Civil War figures (and terrain) and have been wanting to get them to the table more. Unfortunately, I haven't found a set of rules that worked for the numbers of figures I have and also gave me the flavour of the Spanish Civil War I was looking for.  So I have decided to write my own.

¡Viva la muerte! are based around six 28mm representing a unit and use both event cards and the Fudge (or Fate as you prefer) dice (size sided dice with 2+, 2- and 2 blank sides). Each faction has differing victory conditions in order to create a semi-cooperative game.

So after having worked away at them for a few months I decided to give them a proper playlets at the club. 

The scenario saw a small town held by three factions of Republicans (with the Communists being the only well supplied) being assaulted by elements from a Nationalist column - again three factions (with the Army of Africa bing the only well supplied).

Here are a few photos from the game:

The general consensus was that the rules worked (phew!) but needed some tweaking in a few areas - combat factors, armour (the least mature element anyway) and some of the initial supply conditions. So I have a few amendments to make and then have another game later in the year.

First Look: A World Aflame

Osprey have launched a series of wargames rules booklets, the first two being Dux Bellorum (Dark Ages) and A World Aflame (1918-39).  Given my interest in all things interwar I decided to pick up a copy of the latter.

The book is produced in the standard Osprey style used for their Men-At-Arms series and the like.  It's in a single column format (but only taking up two thirds of the page width) with black text on a white background with various colour tables, illustrations and photographs to provide interest.  It's 64 pages in length including the three pages of sample cards and the unit sheet at the rear.

Following the contents and introduction, the rules are broken into six main sections after which there are sample unit lists, a scenario, a list of the artwork references and the sample cards.  There's no quick reference sheet included, however.  The rule sections are Pre-Game Considerations, Let the Games Begin, Movement, Firing, Melee and finally Morale.

In the introduction the author clears states that they are "written in what is nowadays often called a retro style, and pay homage to rulesets written by such wargaming legends as Charles Grant and Don Featherstone".  This is quite evident, not only in the writing style but also in the mechanisms - mainly D6 with modifiers - even average dice are utilised.

Units are typically 8-10 figures representing a section; however, the author says there isn't a figure scale, nor for that matter is there a ground scale or time scale for turns - all of which places this firmly at the game end of the spectrum in my view.  Units are graded for initiative (2-5) and morale (2-6); officers are graded from 1 to 3.  The rules then outline the structure for Company, Battalion, Brigade and Army levels, although I assume (as is indicated in the scenario) since it is not explicitly stated as far as I can see that individual figures would be representing more than a single man for the larger scale games.

The rules include ammunition supply, weather, snipers, tank hunters, artillery and the like but the key to game flavour appears to be the chance cards.  These are intended to be produced for the specific theatre and some examples are provided at the back of the booklet.  Essentially these are to represent external factors, random events and to control the dominance of certain troop types or weapons.

Each turn the players select a unit and then dice for initiative to see which acts first.  Initiative is a D6 modified by the unit's initiative rating, the officer's grade and whether the unit is Confused or Demoralised.  Officers have a command radius - 15" for unit officers but only 5" for higher command levels.

Movement is variable with a base distance plus the roll of one or more average dice unless you are crawling when you lose the base movement.  This can be done by figure or by unit as long as you specify beforehand (the latter would be my preference I have to say).

Firing is determined by weapon type, with each having a number of dice to roll, three range bands (which vary by weapon) and a target number for a hit at that range.  There is also a small number of modifiers largely to address firer and target states.  If you score a hit then the target becomes as casualty.  Rules are also included for firing at vehicles, grenades, artillery and mortars (including smoke) and for anti-tank combat.  This latter section has some interesting elements to cover the various improvised approaches common in the period - petrol bombs, crowbars, dynamite and so forth - as well as more regular methods.  There are also rules for flamethrowers, gas, mines, aircraft and trains.

Melee is conducted by the attacking unit taking a morale test, then the defending unit and then rolling a modified D6 for the units who actually get into hand to hand.  Each figure who loses (i.e. rolls lower) becomes a casualty.

Morale is a combination of the unit morale, officer grade, an average dice and some modifiers aiming for a target number and the comparing with a table if the unit fails - the table distinguishes between advancing and defending, and first and subsequent failures.

Sample units are provided for the Spanish Civil War, Russian Civil War, Warlord China and the fictional British Civil War.

The included scenario covers three days of fighting in the Battle of Jarama in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War and has 10 figures representing each company.

Overall the rules have some interesting features; however, I am a little concerned they may be rather fiddly (particularly with the variable movement) - of course only a real game will tell.  Production is generally typical of Osprey but the layout could have been better adapted to the short paragraphs of a set of wargames rules and better proof reading could have eliminated the few more obvious errors.  I think more explanations and examples would also have been beneficial but I suspect the page count will have limited the opportunity for including these.

I will report further once I've been able to test them in action.

Suicide Hill

I managed to get down to the club on Thursday and was treated to a 15mm Spanish Civil War game using the TooFatLardies' Triumph of the Will rules.

The game was the Suicide Hill portion of the Battle of Jarama in February 1937.  I had command of the Nationalist left wing including Foreign Legion, Regulares and Carlist troops facing Franco-Belgian volunteers under John with Eric and Daniel taking the centre and right wings respectively.

As we advanced across the open ground we came under rifle, machine gun an artillery fire which took a serious toll.  Eric had the challenge of winkling out some Republican militia from some hard cover on the high ground in the centre which slowed him up somewhat.

My front units took something of a pounding but we continue to advance and eventually closed on the Franco-Belgian units.  They fought valiantly but my better trained and more aggressive troops bested them but not without taking some serious casualties.  Pushing ahead towards our objective, a cross roads well behind the Republican lines, I managed to punch a hole through their units but then came under more artillery fire.

The Republicans moved some of their reserves to plug the gap.  With Eric's troops having fallen behind I was worried that the Republicans would be able to wear me down and stall the advance.  The British Battalion were apparently putting up some fierce resistance to our advance.  Fortunately, our pressure in the centre and on the right was causing them some serious losses.

I deployed my artillery and began counter battery fire which quickly put the Republican guns out of actions.

I threw my Moroccan Regulares forward to assault the Republicans holding the crossroads but after some bloody fighting was thrown back with heavy casualties.  With most of my units spent, Eric changed my orders from attack to engage and I dug in and engaged them with my machine guns whilst I brought the remainder of my Carlists and the Legion up (after they had finished mopping up).

In the end the Republicans conceded victory as they couldn't hold the crossroad.  But we all agreed it could only be considered a minor one as all the Nationalist forces were spent.

All in all a fun game and a result very close to the historical one.

JWS Reunion

As you may have notice from my Twitter feed, last weekend was a get together for the old guard of the Jersey Wargames Society. We haven't got together as a group for quite a while and so we decided to put on a few games.

First up Lenin provided the Battle of Um Bbongo Gorge as an outing for his extensive Darkest Africa figure collection. Playing to type I took the part of Commandant Hercule Poirot (a famous Belgian) the representative of His Majesty Leopold II, King of the Belgians. As the only representative of law and order in the chaos that is Africa, my mission was to stop an invasion by that upstart self-appointed so-called king Ndofa, tackle any slavers and collect taxes and export duties.Things did not start well when I was ambushed by some uppity locals and one section took rather a beating. Having regrouped I spotted some suspicious arabs who could only be up to no good and advanced to investigate. A closer look and the application of my "little grey cells" told me they were slavers and quite hostile. After giving them a pretty good thrashing I turned back toward the local village which was under attack from that rotter Ndofa. After clearing up the misunderstanding with the locals we joined forces to stop Ndofa from stealing the the village cattle and drove him off, albeit the village was a little scorched afterwards. With little persuasion the villagers paid their tax dues in cattle and I was free to discuss the export of ivory and other goods with some big game hunters (must have been after some very big game as they had a small artillery piece!). I made a rapid assessment and secured the appropriate duty and then escorted them to our steamer.

The afternoon game was the Battle of Flodden Field in 1513. With most of the players knowing relatively little about the actual battle it unfolded in a relatively historic way with the English discovering the marsh in front of the Scots position the hard way. With some nicely conflicting victory conditions the Scots forces (some of which I was commanding) played a pretty defensive game but eventually the English got their forces through the marsh and our lack of effective ranged weapons led to the natural conclusion.
On the Sunday we were treated to a series of small games all of which had been cleverly designed to fit onto a chess board. The first I played was a tavern fight between the Three Musketeers and Rochefort with some Cardinal's Guards.
The rules provided for all the usual chandalier swinging, bar sliding and table crushing action and use poker dice for combat resolution. As Rochefort I managed to capture two of the Musketeers and D'Artagnan but one slipped through my fingers...
The next compact game was the Fight in Balin's Tomb between the Fellowship of the Ring and a horde of goblins with a Cave Troll! This game is still in the development stage but provided some fun action, especially with the Troll.

Next on the agenda was my game, Chaos in Caracabra de la Cruz, a 28mm skirmish in the Spanish Civil War. With five factions, three Nationalists and two Republican, with some interesting victory conditions the game promised some interesting encounters.

Clearly some of the players actually read their victory conditions because the Carlist contingent followed their's precisely and captured and held a significant part of the village. The Anarchist and Communist militias almost opened fire on each other but the timely intervention of the local priest, in defence of his church, avoided that blue on blue encounter. The Falange reached the church but couldn't get in a withdrew, just in time to block and advance by the Communists who had already had a little encounter with the Guardia Civil.

The Anarchists decided that dynamite was the obvious solution to a locked church door; however the effect led to an appropriate quote from the Italian Job! A similar attempt by the Communists to use dynamite went a little awry when it turned out the dynamitero was quite a familar with it as he'd made out and dropped it amongst his own side.

Meanwhile the Anarchists, playing to type, blew up the church and withdrew (almost in that order!). In the end though it was the Carlists who held on to their conquests, despite a serious challenge from the retreating Anarchists.

Wargames Weekend: Muerte in Merida

Our third game was a great opportunity to get my Grand Manner Spanish terrain out with some of my Anglian Miniatures figures along with a chance to try an adaptation of the Lardies Through the Mud and the Blood rules.

I played to type as the Nationalists but this time in defence. The Legion had captured Merida and the Republicans, reinforced by Asaltos from Madrid, decided to try taking it back.

My main challenge was holding the large town wall with only three sections. Things started well but the Asaltos penetrated the perimeter before one of my sections managed to reach it (one of the challenges of the card driven system with a small number of Big Men). It was at this stage that we found the modifier for moving attackers in melee (defender loses 2 dice per attackers dice of movement) which resulted in my section being routed.


The Asaltos went on to attack the next unit in the flank routing it also. As a result my big men spent most of their time removing shock points in order to turn the around. Eventually I managed to rally the units but they lost the firefight with the Republicans and the latter were victorious.

What was apparent was that Mud & Blood does not easily translate to periods with smaller unit sizes. I also plan to query that pesky melee modifier on the Lardies discussion group.

Grand Manner Spanish Church

I have been looking at adding the church from Grand Manner to my Spanish village for a while now. I eventually decided to take the plunge and ordered one. As usual the service was excellent and the building arrived about a week later and I am really pleased with it.

The church comes in four separate sections, the L shaped ground floor, the flat roof with bell tower and two roofs.You can se sure this will be appearing on the table at the first available opportunity!

Anglian SCW Figures

Here are some pictures of a few of my 28mm Anglian Miniatures Spanish Civil War figures:

The anarchist militia:

Guardia De Assalto:

The Spanish Foreign Legion:
Moroccan Regulares:

Guardia Civil:

Falangista:
and finally the Carlists:

Project Update

I thought I would give an update on the progress (or otherwise) of the various projects for this year:

28mm Winter War
The Soviets are now complete and I finished the second Bolt Action Miniatures building for Lenin's last visit but I still have the Snapdragon revetments to paint up, mainly due to running out of suitable undercoat - something I hope to remedy this week.

28mm Spanish Civil War
I have the Assaltos, Carlists, Moroccan Regulares, the Falange and a few Republicans on the workbench at the moment and hope to make some progress on finishing their basing today. I also have the armoured truck to finish painting, although I'm not entirely happy with progress to date. The Grand Manner church is still on the wish list!

28mm WW1
With virtually all the figures now complete and based - I only have to finish off a couple of HMGs and the German field artillery piece (which is proving more difficult to assemble than its British counterpart) - its clear that putting on a game does provide the impetus to getting this stuff done.

The new Lardies supplement, Stout Hearts & Iron Troopers, has prompted me to review the figures I have and, as usual when you get a new supplement, I've found I need a few more figures. This is mainly for my late war ranges, which is a shame as they are all Brigade figures and the exchange rates is somewhat less favourable than it was. But I can sense an order coming on...

28mm Irish War of Independence
I still have the Sloppy Jalopy armoured car to assemble as it is needs a lot more work than the other vehicles I have made up recently. The resin is a pretty coarse moulding and lacks anything in the way of holes or marks for the white metal parts to be fixed to. Plus the white metal wheels simply don't fit onto the axles and so they will require drilling out. I'm hoping it will be worth the effort.

I do now have my Musketeer BEF, which just need basing, which can be used for regulars as well as for the 1938 project. I won't be able to mix them with the Renegade early war figures though as they are markedly different in size. The Lancia armoured truck is going together pretty well and I hope to have that finished soon - although the steering wheel doesn't have any mounting point and a couple of the smaller parts are a bit fiddly.

28mm Tudor Irish
No real progress here again. I have had some ideas about the rules - some prompted by the Lardies new sets, Sharp Practice in particular. But, being honest, I can see this not really progressing until later in the year.

28mm Early WW2
The Foundry and Crusader British and German figures are back now and I have started the basing process, although they are now in the queue behind the SCW stuff. I am hoping to get the French figures back shortly too and I can see a game in the offing. Although I'm not sure whether it will be France or Sealion - the latter being the most probable since I am reading a book on the subject!

28mm 1938 A Very British Civil War
I am hoping to get the Musketeer BUF and Police back shortly and am slowly amassing a militia force as they make new releases. I think I will probably put a game on with these figures for Lenin's next visit using a combination of the Crusader WW2 (as regulars), BEF (as Territorials) and some IRA plus SCW figures as the opposition. With the possibility I may throw a few suitable Pulp figures in too. Rules and the current question as to whether to go with Chain Reaction 3.0 or to go for a larger game and use Through the Mud & the Blood given the content of the Triumphant Standards supplement.

28mm Wild West
Having put on a game for Lenin's last visit I think I've really got this where I wanted for this year. Six Gun Sound worked well as the rule set - even though I did get a pasting in both the games we played! My next task is to review the Dixons figures I have and see which ones will fit with the new Brigade ones and whether any rebasing is necessary.

28mm Polar Bear Expedition
This really hasn't advanced since I got the HLBS figures - although I see Tiger have bought the range now so they won't be going away. I'm thinking this will become a wider RCW project using the Musketeer WW1 Russian figures for whites and probably getting some Copplestone figures to add to Lenin's for the Reds. I'm waiting for Musketeer to release the Russians in greatcoats before pushing this one forward too much. TTM&TB is likely to be the preferred ruleset which will dictate the figure numbers needed

28mm Greek Myth
Still no real progress here as Lenin is snowed under with other stuff and so they'll be a little while yet.

28mm Napoleonics
I am currently packing up the Front Rank figures for dispatch to the painter having cleaned them up a little. After having had another go with Sharp Practice recently I'm keen to get these ones to the table.

Other Ideas
I am having my usual problem of spotting new projects before I have finished the current ones. I have been good and haven't yet bought any new figures but the time will come. The new ideas include:

WW1 Italian Front: Using the new Brigade Games figures (Paul Hicks again!) which look superb. I understand that North Star may be stocking these later in the year so I am using that as an excuse not to progress this at the moment. My only investment here so far has been in a book.

WW2 Eastern Front: This has been an idea since I picked up my winter Germans and so far I have a couple of figures and a T34 but have been holding off until I decided which range of Soviets to go with as each of BAM and Artizan have their advantages; however, only Black Tree seems to do figures with specific winter coveralls - other than scouts. I would like to plan this out so it will provide me an other opportunity to use my Brigade Gebirgsjaegers too.

Freikorps: Having some late WW1 Germans gives me some of the figures for this but I would need more appropriate civilians and also have to make up some suitable urban terrain too. I have spotted some potential figures from Copplestone and Artizan but the urban terrain is likely to hold this one back for a little while anyway.

WW2 Normandy: I have a couple of books on the US troops which have provided plenty of inspiration and I do have some suitable vehicles already but this could be an expensive project as I will need some more appropriate opposition as the Germans I do have a really focussed on early war.

WW2 Poland: I would love to get some Poles as I already have the appropriate SkimishCampaigns book, albeit that no one really does the suitable figures for the Black Brigade. The BAM Poles are nice but without some anti-tank support they're not quite complete enough for me to start this yet (well that's the excuse I using at the moment!)

WW2 Norway: I may try to do this with my existing figures but it would be nice to get some more suitable ones to mix in and I'm not entirely happy about using Finns as Norwegians but since no-one seems to do the figures in 28mm...

Battle of Madrid: First Day, 08 November 1938

I managed to get along to the club on Thursday to play some Spanish Civil War in 15mm using the Triumph of the Will rules. Bronze produced his superbly painted Peter Pig figures, including some nice Falange conversions, and we set up the table for the first day of the Battle of Madrid.

Playing to type I elected to fight on the Nationalist side under the command of Eric the Spy. We were playing across the table with our objective being the capture of one of the three bridges over the River Manzanares, one bridge at each end of the table and the third in the centre. We were attacking across the Casa de Campo, an old royal hunting park, which was lightly wooded. Accordingly to our intelligence Republican resistance was expected to be light, something we took with a heavy pinch of salt!

Our plan was to advance two battalions through the Casa de Campo towards the central bridge with the main thrust with the main force of infantry, artillery and tanks aimed at the northern bridge. Our aim was for the central force to pin down any Republican forces defending the central bridge and delay any reinforcements that they could redeploy from either their or the southern bridge towards our main point of attack.

As it turned out the intelligence had somewhat underestimated the Republican forces and all three bridges were defended with troops heavily dug in at the central bridge.

The Santiago de Compostela Carlist Requete leading the central assault took heavy casualties from the Republicans but managed to keep their attention. The Juventud Cristiana Falange battalion reinforcing them also came under fire, both from the same source and from troops they tried to redeploy from the southern end once our plan became clear.

We began our assault on the northern bridge with the Avila and Sevilla Peninsular Army infantry battalions followed up by the 1st Foreign Legion bandera and an artillery battery. The third wave consisted of the 2nd and 3rd Tabors of Tetuan Moroccan regulares, the Condor Legion tanks and a second artillery battery. The Avila battalion ran into heavy fire from Crazy Dave and his anarchists, who were defending the bridge, and suffered some serious casualties. The Sevilla battalion was slightly behind having to advance through part of the Casa de Campo. But with the help of the Legion in the second wave we managed to inflict some serious damage to Dave and resistance on our side of the river in front of the bridge began to fade. We were still taking fire from the forces dug in defending the central bridge and from the other side of the river though. However, once the tanks got into action their machine gun fire was pretty devastating.

In the end we managed to clear the anarchist resistance and Peter advanced the Moroccans across the bridge for a Nationalist victory.

In the post battle analysis it became clear that the Republicans only had a poorly rated CinC which really hampered their ability to change orders from hold to a more aggressive posture and hence to redeploy them. Had they been able to we would have been in for an even stiffer fight. As it was we had sustained some serious casualties.

There was some debate as to the effectiveness of the PzIs which, with their twin MGs, were a potent fire platform especially as I was using all three together. The big weakness with armour is usually in close assault but with the Republicans being cut down before getting to that point they became a very effective tool.

Our plan had been influenced by my experience from having used the rules before for Russian Civil War where concentrating your forces and using wave attacks had been most effective. I was a little concerned as to whether this was entirely appropriate for SCW but Bronze outlined that, in the original battle, it was the tactics which had been used on the second day after the Nationalists had been defeated on the first because they had spread their forces too thinly.

All in all a fun game.

Project Update

As 2009 rushes by I thought it might be an idea to collect my thoughts as to the "current" projects. These have changed a little from the plan I outlined in December but that's par for the course. Here's what's been happening with my 2008 projects:

28mm Winter War
The Soviets are now based with only a mortar to be completed. I am about to start on the second Bolt Action Miniatures building and, of course, there are the Snapdragon revetments to paint up.

28mm Spanish Civil War
Having based up quite a few for one of the gaming weekends the remainder, including the Assaltos, Carlists, Moroccan Regulares and the Falange are in progress. The Grand Manner buildings have worked out nicely and I'm still toying with the idea of getting their church (on the back of a project later down the list!)

28mm WW1
The early war Brits are nearly all based, apart from the HMGs. I still have some additional figures for the early and later war Germans to finish basing and the late war French to get around to. I'm hoping that the upcoming TooFatLardies rules will spur me into action on these. In any event I am planning to stage a game for late April which should force me to make some progress!

28mm Irish War of Independence
I'm afraid that this hasn't moved forward much since the last game; however, that did prompt me to get the Crossley tenders painted. In reality I only have the Sloppy Jalopy armoured car to assemble and I suspect that my 1938 project may benefit from having that available. Again the BEF figures I have bought, mainly for 1938, will also be useable for the British Army and so will widen the possible scenarios. I am hoping that someone will produce the Lancia armoured carriers:

Musketeer did suggest that they might but were having casting issues IIRC.

28mm Tudor Irish
OK, I have to own up on this one - there has been no real progress at all here. I suspect this is partly because I have been caught up in other things and party because I still have to settle on which rules to use (or to write my own). I often find that without that element being sorted it is difficult to see when a project will make it to the table and so they often get parked.

Moving on to 2009:

28mm Early WW2
The Foundry and Crusader British, German and French figures are being painted at the moment and I've picked up a couple of pieces of armour for the Germans but I am waiting for the launch of the new BEF Miniatures (allegedly at Salute) to see what I can get for the Brits and the French.

28mm 1938 A Very British Civil War
Originally a minor spin off from the previous project this one has really taken on a life of its own and I have been spending quite a bit of time looking around for figures, vehicles and terrain to bring this period to life. The big advantage is the obvious overlap with my Operation Sealion plans and so most of the generic stuff I pick up will work for either.

Musketeer have been the main source for the specific 1938 figures and their BUF and BEF (to be used as Regulars or Territorials as appropriate) are off for painting. I will also be using figures from the early WW2 and IWI projects along with a few appropriate SCW ones. I am also hoping to get some of the upcoming Musketeer militia at Salute (which may also find their way into WW2 as LDV).

Given that terrain has been more difficult to find I have been trying to look for pieces to make the table more obviously English. Picked up some telephone boxes (you can't get more quinticentially English than that - can you?) from Black Cat Bases:


As you can see they've got the basic look but I can't understand why they didn't make them square. The casting is a little on the basic side too. These will need a bit of work but it will be interesting to see if they look better once they're tidied up and painted.

I'm pleased with the Grand Manner manor house which will work nicely and I have my eye on a couple of other pieces which might work but I'd like to have a look at them in the flesh (or is that the resin) at Salute before buying as they are a major "investment".

28mm Wild West
This is pretty much ready to go. Ideally I could do with a couple more buildings to bulk out the town but the figures are painted and based and I plan to use the Two Hour Wargames Six Gun Sound rules. I just need to come up with some scenarios.

28mm Polar Bear Expedition
I managed to pick up the HLBS figures but I now need to work out what to use for opposition. Lenin does have some Copplestone figures in greatcoats so they may well do in the interim but it would be nice to get some which are based with snow (his are for Back of Beyond)!

28mm Greek Myth
No real progress here as yet. Lenin will be painting these figures for me and he's been snowed under with other stuff so I suspect they'll be a little while yet. I have picked up some buts and pieces of minor set dressing but that's pretty much all.

28mm Napoleonics
This wasn't on the agenda in December but I have been thinking of expanding my existing small collection of Peninsular figures for a while and the TooFatLardies' Sharp Practice rules have provided the springboard. I plan to get quite a few more Front Rank figures at Salute to enable a much larger game to be put on. The other reason this has resurfaced is that it gives me an opportunity to use those Grand Manner buildings I mentioned earlier.

15mm early WW2
I have some figures ready for this but it has been on a back burner for a little while. I am thinking of starting a small Operation Sealion campaign with the larger games at 15mm (possibly using a tweaked version of Spearhead) tied in with the 28mm skirmish games. Only time will tell whether this comes off!

15mm Seven Years War
I've had a decent collection of figures to do French & Indian Wars for a number of years now. When I put them together I conciously got the British figures in the traditional tricornes rather than the F&IW campaign dress so that I could use them for the European theatre at some future time. I am thinking of kicking this off again but we'll need to see if it has the "legs" to actually get to the table. I will be putting on a F&IW game in early April which may spur me on though.

Gaming Weekend - The Photos

As promised here are the photos from the weekend:

Gaming Weekend - Jan 09

Gaming Weekend - Day One

Last weekend Lenin visited for one of our regular weekends of gaming. We managed to get seven different games in over the three days along with a couple of board and card games.

I decided this time to provide a run down of the games in instalments. Here are the two we played on Saturday:

Arrow through Andalusia, 3 August 1936

Keen to get my Anglian 28mm Spanish Civil War figures onto the table, the first game was a scenario from the Iron Ivan book Atacar es Vencer!. Whilst the scenario was originally written for Disposable Heroes & Coffin for Seven Brothers I suitably adapted it to fit our favoured Two Hour Wargames' rules Nuts! and the figures I had available.

The Nationalist Column Asensio is on its way towards Madrid racing along the main highways until they encounter resistance, as they did here. They then dismounted elements of the 4th Bandera of the Spanish Foreign Legion, the 2nd Tabor of the Regulares of Tetuan and some local Guardia Civil and began an assault.

The Militia had built some barricades and were attempting to mount a stiff resistance despite their lack of almost any automatic weapons.

Initially the Nationalist advance was slow, with an attempted flanking manoeuvre by the Legion being blocked but eventually the lower Rep of the Militia began to show with more Hunker Down results and, with the volume of fire reduced the Nationalists were able to advance across the open ground to the barricades.

The attacks on the flanks were the first to go in followed by the centre and despite some valiant resistance by the Militia the Nationalists took the village.

The Patrol

Our next game was an opportunity to both trial the new Colonial Adventures rules, once again from Two Hour Wargames, and also to get some of Lenin's extensive Foundry/Copplestone Darkest Africa figures to the table.

The scenario was a simple two unit patrol by the Belgians across the table which triggered various random encounters with tribesmen as the patrol's advance proceeded.

The troops and terrain were rolled for randomly as outlined in the rules and we then proceeded with the trial game. We initially started with three possible enemy forces (PEFs) on separate areas of the board but as the game progressed one of these split a few times and we ended up with six PEFs. This combined with the other forces which can be triggered as you move across the table gave an interesting game. In the end the PEF at the far end of the table turned out to be the main enemy force which turned out to be a little more than we could handle resulting in a desperate last stand by Lenin's officer after both my entire force and his own troops had been killed to a man.

It later transpired that we hadn't been playing the final enemy mob quite correctly but in any event the rules gave us a fun game and will be making another appearance.

Grand Manner Latin/Hispanic Buildings

I decided to pick up a couple of Grand Manner resin buildings for use with my Peninsular and SCW figures. Given my limited painting skills I opted to get the painted to a "wargames standard". Here are the results (with a couple of Front Rank figures included for scale):

Grand Manner Latin/Hispanic Buildings

I reckon they're pretty nice!