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...International Bde Vs Max and Clivey's Army of
Africa
...Battle of Santa Maria Convent
with my favourite wargaming period, I decided to put one on for our regular thursday night game at
Wally HQ.
Regular Lardy fans will know that I am obsessed with the SCW. Summer 2004 saw my IABSM
variant for the gaming the Spanish Civil War, titled 'Up Your Cara al Sol' feature in the Too Fat
Lardies summer special. These are the rules we used.
Rich Clarke re-worked the fire effect table to take into account the lesser effect of small arms in the
SCW due to lack of automatic weapons and poor troop quality.
Max and Clivey's force consisted of a force despached from the Army of Africa to capture the
village of Casa Maria and the nearby convent of Santa Maria from the grasp of the Republicans.
The village and Convent were both situated on hills overlooking the Santa Maria valley. The
Convent hill in particular had steep slopes and with walled vineyards and orchards, provided an
excellent defensive position.
A small stream, counting as an obstacle ran EW across the centre of the table. A road connected
the convent and village and crossed the stream at a small stone bridge.
The village was a typical Spanish rural affair. Small stone houses with walled enclosures and
fields of crops close by.
Clive took control of la Legio; eight 12 man squads with 5 attached LMGs, three HMGs and a tank
Platoon of a Panzer I Befehlswagen and three Panzer IB. He also had three Big Men with his
troops.
Max donned his turban as commander of an attached force of five 12 man squads of Moroccan
Regulares plus a HMG. He also controlled the force's artillery, two 75mm field guns and had two
Big Men at his disposal.
The Army of Africa was to deploy on the northern table edge...
squads with two attached LMGs, four HMGs, a 45mm AT gun and a 75mm Field gun. I had in my
command three Big Men, a Commissar and a Military Advisor.
I deployed one Platoon of three squads, an LMG and an HMG, with the Commissar and Military
advisor, plus a Big Man, in trenches infront of the convent. I reckoned that their western/left flank
would be protected by the convent's walled vineyard and steep slope.
Two HMGs were deployed in the walled orchard, firing through loopholes. I placed the 75mm field
gun in a sandbagged emplacement adjacent to the orchard. The position was guarded on its
eastern/right flank by a steep slope.
My HQ Squad and Commander were placed in the Convent building itself as a last ditch reserve.
I placed my final Platoon of three squads plus LMG on the gentle slope south of the village. An
HMG was placed in a sandbagged emplacement overlooking the corn stooks and fields SW of the
village. My 45mm AT gun was deployed hiding on the slope SE of the village, hoping to ambush
Nationalist armour.
After Max and Clive had diced for their fake blinds (D6) I took the pack from them and removed a
blind. This would serve to confuse me a little as I was unsure if it were a unit blind or indeed a
fake. I then informed Max that he had D6 stonks. Max rolled a five. Ouch!
I raised the old 'Blood, Pus and Pomegranate' (Republican flag) over the Convent and awaited the
fascist scum.
where exactly to place the stonks. Max originally
mentioned targeting the reverse slope of the village but
then changed his mind. The Nationalist stonks fell largely
ON the village, with one falling on the sandbagged
emplacement to the west of the village. Two stonks fell
on the Convent hill. As per our usual house rules the
results of these were not diced for until spotted or
voluntarily revealed. Luckily my second Platoon of
Internationals hiding by the bridge escaped the onslaught.
Early on Nationalist blinds edged towards the village,
cautiously spotting but finding nothing. A blind
appearred and headed east from the village. Once
spotted the Nationalist guys found that it was a group of
villagers led by their Priest, exiting the war zone. If Max
and Clive had questioned him he would have told them of
my positions. However, they blundered onwards.
I revealed my dug in HMG, to the west of the village and
successfully spotted Clivey's Legionaries sneaking
through the corn stooks. However, results of the stonk
revealed the HMG to be damaged requiring a six to mend!
Max's moors had entered the village and spotted my
International brigaders lining the reverse slope. With
hardly time to pause for breath, or to prepare with rifle fire
they screamed their battle cry "Allah el Akhbar" and
assaulted. It was not their day. My Internationals fought
with extreme ferocity killing many moors and capturing
the rest with very little loss!
However, Max's other Regulares Platoon now entered the
buildings and took up firing positions. I uncovered my
45mm AT gun and manhandled it along the bank of the
stream to provide an enfilade upon the hated moors.
75mm shells flew low over my gun crew but missed as
Max's field guns came swiftly into action.
I raced my Internationals into buildings in the south of the
village and started shooting at the moors.
Max's guns now targetted the Republican held buildings,
pinning my valiant defenders. The Moroccan HMG
opened up too on the buildings. Once more the moorish
battlecry issued from the throats of the sons of the
mountains and they pushed into the assault. Even
without their aggressive rating for fighting in buildings
(moroccan troops hated streetfighting and performed
very badly) they pushed out the Internationals at heavy
cost.
A 75mm shell flew into my 45mm AT gun beating the
score to hit by three and destroying the gun and its crew.
Luckily my dug in HMG crew fixed their weapon and
started pouring fire into the masses Nationalist ranks,
sadly though very few of the fascists fell to the earth their
blood soaking into the soil of the motherland.
A second charge from the moroccans managed to finally
finish off the valiant Republicans to the last man.
Clivey's Legionaries finally finished off my dug in gun
with some very lucky shooting - or rather my poor saving
throws. Three times only one hit resulted in a kill!
The Nationalists now held the entire northern half of the
table.
Clivey moved his Legionaries into the village
accompanied by his Panzer I's, and did some useful
spotting, locating my main Infantry force entrenched on
the lower sloped of the convent hill. Once again the HMG
revealed itself to have been damaged by the stonk.
Max took the opportunity to move his moors into the
stream bed where some cover was afforded them.
I decided to make life uncomfortable for them and
revealed two HMGs in the walled orchard, and a 75mm
field gun dug in, in a sandbag emplacement on the
convent hill.
Unfortunately one of my HMGs had been knocked out by
the stonk and the other had lost a crewmember and
received a wound.
Max slowly manhandled his guns into a position to
enable them to bombard the convent hill. I frantically fired
my artillery piece into the stream bed causing some
significant casualties on the heathen scum.
More effective was Clivey's HQ Platoon of three HMGs.
These took up residence in a walled encolsure in the
town a poured a hail into the Republican positions. By
the time the HMG had been mended it only had one dice
available to it for firing as two crew members laid dead in
the emplacement. The commissar and military advisor
were also amongst the casualties in the Republican
trenches.
My field gun hit two Panzers in one turn, one being forced
to retreat, where it then broke down, the other having its
engine burst into flames and being abandoned. The
other two Panzers retreated into the village and then
hooked round to the west and advanced through the
cornstooks.
Max's artillery and Clivey's HMG's now finally killed off the
remaining two Republican HMGs and reduced the crew of
my field gun to only one man rendering it unable to fire!
As the entire Nationalist force rose as one from the
stream bed and began their long advance to the convent,
I revealed the Internationals Commander and his HQ
squad and tried to advance them to the walled orchard,
hoping to occupy the positon of my destroyed HMG and
single man crewed artillery piece. Unfortunately Clivey's
dominating HMGs also spotted the movement and pinned
them outside the convent building. Nevertheless my rifle
fire managed to pin and suppress the Nationalist advance
for three moves.
Things were looking very bad for the Internationals as
first the moors and then the Legionaries defeated their
opposing Republican's and manned their trenches, as
their respective battlecry chips were drawn.
Firing into the retreating Internationals next turn they
assaulted the main convent building where the
Republican remnants had sheltered upon their next
battlecry chip.
In the meantime my HQ squad had managed to make it to
the orchard with the idea of breaking though the
Nationalist lines to the village.
The moroccans took the glory though as they assaulted
and took the convent without loss, and captured the
building and its surviving defenders.
It was at this point that an event occurred which Max likes
to call a 'Film Moment' - that point where in a cheesy war
film the hero wins or dies. I drew an assault card and
decided to throw my HQ squad into a final assault on the
moors holding the convent. The dice thrown were almost
equal but I threw no sixes. Max killed seven of my men
AND my big man and the last three men surrendered.
Game over!
A truly excellent game which left me with one figure
uncaptured and alive! I found out too that the blind I had
removed was actually another Platoon of Legionaries.
Max proved very impulsive initially by throwing away his
first moroccan Platoon against my unpinned
Internationals. However, Max learns lessons quickly and
he handled the moors admirably for the rest of the game,
including the field guns which proved to be vital in
neutralising my artillery and an HMG.
Clivey's handling of his HMGs was admirable as he
concentrated on my heavy weapons first, only chnaging
to fire at my infantry when they had been effectively
destroyed.
Even then, it took three turns of intense rifle fire before
the Nationalists managed to press home the assault and
then only because their pinned troops could attack on
their simulatnaous battlecry's.
Although I was virtually wiped out to man the Nationalists
had lost over a third of their troops, and the game was a
close run, hard fought affair, typical of the SCW.
An excellent game played in the very best of spirit, as
usual at Wally HQ.
Next time Max, next time!
NO PASARAN!
