From: "Mike NotSpecified" Subject: [Consim-l] Spanish Civil War mini-game AAR Played the Spanish Civil War game/scenario in MedFront the last couple of nights. I played solo and this was my first attempt so don’t really feel qualified to review the game, but perhaps an AAR will give some of the flavor. First thing to note is that the rules have been modified since first published. The current rules are available as a PDF on Columbia’s website and they are frankly required. There have been several subtle, but critical, changes in how the game works. Do yourself a favor and get the updated rules. Spain consists of 15 cities, (Madrid and Barcelona counting twice) so there are 17 possible points. One way to win is to have more cities than the other side. You need to roll a total on two dice that is less than the advantage you have in city points. So if you are leading 10 to 7 you have to roll less than a 3. Capture one more city and you have to roll less than a 5. The game mechanics are common to all of the Front games. An unusual feature of this game is that units are in supply anytime they occupy a loyal city, even if they can’t trace supply to any other friendly city. This very much allows for the fluid guerrilla type of war. There are advantages to maintaining a rail net like in East Front though and I’m so indoctrinated that I couldn’t break the habit. The game opens with Franco in North Africa, along with two of the Nationalist infantry units. Getting them to Spain right away seemed a good idea (and required the use of the new rules!). The Nationalists quickly captured a couple of cities and opened a second rail line to Lisbon, which is their source for external supply. The Republicans couldn’t really figure out what to do. They had a nice position around Madrid and made a couple of attempts to hit isolated Nationalist units, but the very weak units in this game made any serious offensive difficult to even imagine. (In East Front you throw in a couple of armor and a couple of infantry corps and you’re looking at maybe the equivalent of 16 dice with hits on any 6. In SCW you’re lucky to get 3 or 4 dice. One consequence is that lot’s of battles bog down into stalemates if you are not careful). Both sides kinda picked at each other, trading units and cities, but bit by bit the Republicans tended to drift towards the eastern half of the board and the Nationalists clustered around Portugal. This looked like it might turn into a more conventional game, with both sides holding very weak lines and desperately trying to save up enough supply to launch a breakthrough offensive. Instead, the Republicans ignited a series of small attacks that succeeded beyond all hope. Weak Republican units mustered just enough force to kill equally weak Nationalist forces. And with the very thin number of units on the ground the loss of several blocks left the Nationalists in deep trouble. They tried to take advantage of their superior airpower by initiating a few spoiling attacks of their own, but they had less success. Both sides continued to be hampered by supply shortages. The Republicans had trouble following up their victories because their foregign supply kept being interdicted and they couldn’t move fast enough. The Nationalists desperately wanted to save some supply for rebuilding eliminated units, but kept having to put it into strengthening the few remaing defenders. The Republican strategy of continuing to press their shoestring offensive began to pay off big. Eventually the Nationalists were forced back into a smaller conclave and the Republicans were able to win foreign recognition, thereby ending the war. It was obvious to me that I need to learn to play this game better. I think my mindset was too conventional for this war and a more creative opponent would chop me up. But that also made me think the game worked well, it should feel like a shoestring civil war, not the EasternFront in sunnier climes. I look forward to trying it again. And now I plan to continue the EuroFront game and see what happens with the Republicans in Spain instead of Franco! A real bonus of being able to expand my “what if’s” _______________________________________________ Consim-l mailing list Consim-l@mailman.halisp.net http://mailman.halisp.net/mailman/listinfo/consim-l