The Madrid Road (part 1)

As previously promised, an account of the Christmas game held in The Shed at Trebian Towers.

Earlier in the year I develped a set of square based Spanish Civil War rules, called "If You Tolerate This". They had a reasonably favourable reception at CoW in the summer, and have since been published in "The Nugget". I therefore decided to set up a rather longer than normal scenario and run it on the Friday after Christmas for the Monday Night Group.

At Phil's earlier prompting I set the game to run lengthways down the table, and desigend the scenario to be the attack by a large Nationalist column upon two villages in a valley on the road to Madrid. The length of the table allowed both positions to be developed in depth if needed.

The forces, particularly on the Nationalist side, were not based too closely on their historical prototype, being selected on the basis of what I had most recently finished painting. Carlists and cavalry were therefore featured heavily, as were Civil Guards.

The board was set up like this, - the Nationalists were to start at the end closest to the camera. The two villages can be seen clearly. Where the roads have walls either side this indicates a sunken road, common in the Spain of the time.


The first village was situated at a river crossing. The bridge dominates the centre of the village, and the Republicans had chosen to defend it with three militia units (including one of Anarchists), some Asaltos and a battery of field guns.


The second village was at the road junction, and boasted a fine church (now converted to a people's reading room). It was defended by three militia units (two communist, one socialist) and a Renault FT-17, hastily transferred to the front.


The Nationalist forces consisted of:

1 cavalry brigade:


1 motorised Carlist regiment:


1 motorised Legion unit of 2 Banderas, 2 Tabors and a battery of howitzers






and a battalion of Civil Guards






So, with the forces all sorted out and deployed on their start lines, all I needed was some players

I had decided by this point to play the Republicans and get my three guests to run the Nationalists. This would enable me to run the Republicans in an authentic style and see what the players made of them.

That's enough scene-setting. The opening moves will be covered in the next post.

(Note the trucks are drawn from my WW1 British and RCW  collections as I am woefully short of Spanish transport. This did mean that the Civil Guards picked up truck mounted MG support however as the figures are glued in).






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