La Ultima Cruzada and Arriba Espana

Rules

by Bill Rutherford

La Ultima Cruzada by Bob Cordery, (Partizan Press, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, UK, 72 pgs digest and 44 pgs digest, resp., $7.00 each), is a basic introduction to the Spanish Civil War. The book is given a basic focus by a detailed 20 page chronology of the war. All of the major combatants are described, from the Carlists and Falangites to the Basques and Catalans. More importantly, their politics are described, which goes a long way towards explaining why there existed such unlikely mixes of allies and cobelligerants, Cordery writes clearly and to the point. The Republican and Nationalist armed forces (including air forces and navies)arewell described (organization, equipment, uniform details, etc.), as are the various foreign forces that took part. All in all, a nicely done sourcebook, especially for those who want to play Arriba Espana, Cordery's companion rules set. Using a basic scale of one stand of troops equals one company, these rules focus on the difficulties of actually getting a Spanish Civil War army do to anything. Game mechanics are simple - orders chits control activity; modified dice rolls determine combat results. The meat of this game lies in the pregame preparation. Players dice for troop quality, political allegiance, commander quality, and air superiority pregame. Commander quality (brigade level) determines how many order chits a brigade receives each turn. Political allegiance is very important to the Republican if the troops and the brigade commander are of different persuasions - troop movement/orders obeyance must be diced for each turn, with a reasonable likelihood that the troops will refuse to obey orders! Duplicate combat charts are provided in the book for play with 1/300 scale troops (these rules were written with 1/200 scale in mind ... ) and 20mm troops. Also, a different troop scale (one stand equals one platoon) is provided for 20mm figures to allow a more tactical game. Arriba Espana plays simply and quickly - they, with La Ultima Cruzada, provide a good introduction to this relatively neglected, but interesting, war.

Reviewing Stand

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