Due to popular demand this Tuesday we carried on with the NQM game of Guadalajara from last Saturday. We were down on numbers. Chris A was unable to make it, and his sub, Steve, had car issues and couldn’t attend either. That meant I had to run the Republicans with Phil as he’s not up to stretching across the full table and running the whole lot.

I tidied up a bit before we restarted. I rationalised the casualties, consolidating them on single bases and removing them where I could. I swapped out the casualty markers for hit rings, as they were confusing me. Chris K and Phil arrived on time, but Tim was delayed, so we had a slow start.

The rationalisation revealed that the CTV 2 Div was exhausted. Its repeated attacks meant that it could now only defend, and the Italians really needed to get it off the plateau and replace it with 1 Div. The Republicans were in poor shape as well, but as they were fighting a defensive battle the inability to attack was less of a problem. The first major attack of the evening was from the CTV’s chemical section (flamethrowers!). Due to 2 Div retiring it went in on its own. It was lethal, but alas it also ran out of ammo immediately. Unaccompanied by infantry it was unable to follow up its victory. It was also well ahead of its Log and Repair units if it needed them.

At the top of the picture you can just see the Republic’s tanks supporting an attack on Lenares, an attack which will throw the Italians out of the village.

Pavlov’s tanks also counterattacked round the village, but humiliatingly were frustrated by the 2 Div log units, that fought them off in a welter of bizarre dice rolling.

On the far bank there was some stalemate as Phil tried to extricate some of his damaged units ahead of the arrival of 14 Div to replace them.

The Republican airforce now arrived in numbers and did a good job of interdicting the main road being used for the advance.

At last the lead units of CTV 3 Div were getting into some actual action. They’d finally worked out that the Italians they were facing weren’t friendly, and shots were exchanged. Chris is using his massed artillery to pin as much of the enemy in place as he can whilst he lines up his forces for an attack. He was very meticulous.

Phil started to infiltrate a counter attack up the ravine, to offset the rebuff his lead tanks had suffered. Much of the Republican artillery fire was wasted on a Recce and HQ unit stuck on the road.

Phil’s reinforcements were rushing up the road. 

Chris was pushing hard on Brihuega, the village nearest the camera, and his artillery was smashing up the armoured counter attack in the centre. A lot of 2 Div has now got out of the way, so with fresh CTV troops into the attack, the International Brigades are clinging rather precariously to the edge of the plateau. In the centre I remembered I had an engineering team, so I dug in next to the village. I was also thinking seriously that it was time to stop hanging around in the open, and drop back to the cover behind the plateau.

The Italian reinforcements are making their way on to the battlefield. This is a night move, so mercifully they are spared the bombing runs.

After an evening’s play the Italians were still trapped on the plateau. I think that they were actually close to a second breakthrough. If they can sort themselves out and get the newly arriving 1 Div into the action then the likelihood of getting down into the plain and off the table to Guadalajara is quite high.

Any how, I think that’s it for this scenario, and revisiting it for further turns will be of declining interest.

Everyone seems to have enjoyed the game, especially Chris who was challenged playing his own set of rules and having to play to what he’d written, rather than being the god-like umpire who can ignore things on a whim (Grin). It was probably a bit too ambitious for my second go at running a game of NQM. There’s a lot of kit involved, and the scenario has a lot else going on, what with the weather and the CTV/Garibaldi issues. I was also, on Saturday, juggling 5 players. As some players needed more support than others I took my eye off what was going on across the table from where I was and there was a genie or two I couldn’t put back in the bottle.

On reflection I should not have allowed the CTV Corps artillery up onto the plateau, BUT I should have probably doubled the number of guns they had for the initial assault (goodness knows I left enough in the boxes). I hadn’t sorted out the LOG & MED arrangements for CTV Corps assets properly either, which was unfair on the players. The game would also have moved on more quickly if I’d been stricter on the “C3” rules, which control how often you can attack with units.

The game also showed me that what information we have in the public domain for the initial dispositions is both vague and unhelpful for the Republicans. Neil Patterson has given me a link to some more analysis from back numbers of Courier magazine in the comments to the previous blog. I need to combine this with info sent to me by Bob Maycock who runs the awesome SCW Wargaming FB page to get a proper picture. 

And I need better maps.

But apart from that the scenario has provided a large amount of enthralling entertainment that engaged the players throughout. Good result.