ARRIBA ESPANA! INCLUDING THE PORTABLE SPANISH CIVIL WAR WARGAME RULES
◗ Bob Cordery ◗ Eglinton Books (2021) ◗ £5.99 from Amazon UK; Kindle edition £2.99 ◗ 100 pages (softback) ◗ ISBN:979-8531945587 ◗ amazon.co.uk
The latest publication by Bob Cordery consists of several sets of wargame rules for the Spanish Civil War. I must declare an interest: I proofread a draft of the text and suggested that the scenarios given for the Portable Spanish Civil War rules would be even more useful if ideas were also included for converting them for use without grid areas for the different versions of Arriba Espana!
The first, Arriba Espana!, is a slightly revised version of rules Bob originally published in 1989 for battles with 1:200 scale figures, in which each base represents a company, with amended movement and fire tables for wargames with 1:300 scale figures. There are also variants for divisional battles with company-sized units, and brigade battles with platoon-sized units, both intended for 20mm figures.
Ten-sided dice are used throughout the rules and all measurements are given in centimetres (radical stuff! Ed.). Markers are required to show a unit’s orders, if it has ‘Will-to-Combat’, whether it is pinned and/or under air attack; numbered Move markers are also needed to show the order in which units will carry out their orders.
The second set of rules is derived from the mid-twentieth century rules first published in Developing the Portable
Wargame with the addition of some elements of the Arriba Espana! rules to give more period flavour by including the particular problems faced by the commanders on both sides.
For example, Republican commanders have the difficulty of persuading the various political factions – Anarchists, Basque nationalists, Communists and Socialists – on the Republican side to cooperate with each other on the battlefield. The competence of the commanders themselves, who may be rated Poor, Average or Good, will vary according to their political allegiance and will tend to increase with experience as the war continues. There are also rules for determining which side has air superiority, the availability of air support and the resolution of air attacks.
The rules follow the same principles as the others in Bob’s Portable Wargame series: they use a hexagon or square gridded battlefield to determine troop movement and weapon ranges, regular d6 dice and require a relatively small number of figures.
Seven scenarios, set at various times from 1936 to 1938, are provided for the Portable Spanish Civil War rules with maps depicting both hexagon and square gridded battlefields. They portray actions typical of different periods of the war, including the early war use of ad hoc columns of troops; the siege of an isolated Nationalist garrison; a Nationalist attack on the New University City during the siege of Madrid; a three-part recreation of the Battle of Jarama; an attack on Guadalajara by the Italian forces of the Corpo Truppe Volontarie, and the activities of Communist guerrillas, based upon Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls.
Advice is also included on converting the maps easily if readers wish to fight the battles using one of the versions of the Arriba Espana! rules from the first part of the book.
Several sets of rules for different levels of combat and seven scenarios for just £5.99 must be extremely good value for anyone interested in wargaming the Spanish Civil War and could be an ideal introduction to the period. It’s a real pleasure to see a book of wargame rules that is just that, with no unnecessary pictures or‘eye candy’!
Arthur Harman