At HISTORICON, I volunteered for the Comunista forces in Pat Condray's game--of the Spanish Civil War, VIVO EL CRISTO REY (VECR). The game started at 0900, and we reached a conclusion at approximately 1130, two and a half hours later. At the commencement of the game, at table-side, there was me, and there was one other... Pat evidenced a reluctance to start the game with so few a number of players, but I convinced him that as soon as we started moving troops, the display would be so overwhelmingly appealing, that thousands of other participants would come forth. Almost. Pat sells the 20mm, figures with which we played... they are excellently sculpted, anatomically (if not politically) correct, and attractively painted. The scenario we played was taken from the 1937 history books, and Pat went into great detail about the advancing fascist Italian armored column, and the defending Comunistas, but I took no note of all this good stuff... none of this historical gloss for me... I just wanted to start blowing up a couple of Eyetalian armored cars. There are 3 figures per stand, which represents a company. Seven companies comprise a battalion. The advancing Italian column contained both tanks and trucks carrying infantry... I think it took two truck models to carry the full 7-stand battalion. Shortly before 1000, my prediction proved correct, and we had a full allotment of participants. One member of the opposing fascist forces seemed, to me, to be extraordinarily loud and boisterous... even louder than me... and he continually made whistling sounds for artillery fire, and big booming bombing sounds, and rat-tat-tat machine gun fire sounds... without him, we'd never have known a battle was taking place. A glimpse at the sketch of the field shows the dispositions of the forces at the start of the game. We Comunistas had a f ew crummy militia troops in the small towns of Villa Hidalgo and Plaza de Oro, and in the larger town of Brihuega. We also had a battalion of what appeared to be better troops in the woods just to the south of the Palacio. Our main body of forces, some 4(?) 5(?) battalions, however, were located off- board, and we had to dice for their appearance. Our objective was to hold off the oncoming Italians as much as possible, preventing them from driving south... we weren't given specific victory conditions, Pat would judge the outcome. The enemy forces on the field consisted of the fairly large armored column moving south on the main road, the Camino Grande, and a smaller force on the north-east side of the table. A third enemy force, one battalion plus an armored car, was located in the Palacio itself. Pat announced that both sides could call for air support, and on Turn 01, I did so. There immediately appeared on the table an exact model, said Pat, of the Potez 540 bomber of the French Malraux Squadron. The Potez 540 somewhat resembled a Liberator, and it was supported and-held aloft by a metal vertical dowel. The aircraft came in from the western table edge, and I told Pat that its target would be the troops holding out in the Palacio. Pat placed the aircraft some 2 feet from its target and pointed it at the Palacio. As he let go, the Potez 540 slowly pivoted and rotated on its supporting dowel until it faced away from the target. Pat corrected it. The aircraft slowly pivoted for a second time, and again faced in the wrong direction. Pat corrected it. A third time... and a fourth time... this interplay between Pat and plane occurred whenever either side called for any air support, not merely the dreaded pivoting Potez 540. When the Potez 540 finally settled down, Pat said to toss two dice. The first was for the "windage", i.e., how far off left or right the pilot dropped his bomb; the second was to determine how "long" or "short". My piloting errors were rather immense... the entire bombload landed right in the middle of my own battalion, the one hidden in the woods to the south of the Palacio. I thought I could hear lots of shrill, little voices shouting "Madre de Dios!" The unit took a morale test, failed and fled. Definitely not an auspicious beginning for we Comunistas. This was not the only bombing run for the Potez 540. In later runs I believe the pilot actually hit his target. Having finished with our bomb dropping episode on the Palacio, we turned our attention to the Italian armored column advancing south on the Camino Grande. This was the only good road on the field: a truck on this main road could go 40 inches; on the other roads, or cross country, vehicle movement distance was held to 8 inches. Just short of the northernmost village, the Villa Hidalgo, the armored column stopped. As it halted, I ordered the militia within the houses to spray whatever infantry-bearing trucks were within range. BANG! WHAPPO! BOOM! One truck was damaged and the troops debouched. VECR's small arms fire tables used a 6-sided die. High tosses were good, i.e. lots of casualties. The make-up of a typical line in the fire table looked something like: Die Roll 1,2 3,4 5,6 Casualties 2 4 6 The die roll was reduced for cover, for long range, etc. The small arms table actually had twolines similar to the above. One was for 'well trained troops', one for 'moderately well trained troops'. The Italians, having been fired upon, took a morale test and passed. They fired back on the next turn. One volley was all it took... as soon as they heard the sound of the enemy rifles, the militia in Villa Hidalgo took a morale test and took off. As the firing continued, Pat was fairly busy. He kept a data sheet on every battalion, and recorded all the hits it took. Every time 10 hits were recorded, Pat would swoop down and remove a company stand. I like the idea of the umpire recording casualties on his sheet instead of each player tracking his own units. In the games played on my table, most of them require records to be kept on data sheets; each player keeps his own and the result is that the table is covered with paper. The only tokens on the table at the VECR game (besides the figures, of course) were some little green chitties Pat had given us, and which were marked: P Unit is pinned F Unit will fire M Unit will move At the start of each bound, we were permitted to place 2 of these order chitties beside each battalion... indeed, we could place order chitties beside every stand if we so desired, but most of the time, a single order served an entire battalion. Each bound had two phases, and thus one could order his battalion to move and fire, or move and move, or fire and fire, etc. When troops routed, as did my militia people in villa Hidalgo, order chits were not necessary. With Villa Hidalgo lost, I tried to reinforce the militia sitting in the next town, Plaza de Oro, but the enemy scout car based at the Palacio came roaring up and with its machine guns, did my boys no good. Each rifle-firing stand tossed 1 die, a light MG tossed 2 dice and a heavy MG tossed 3. At short range, under 4 inches, fire could be devastating, for a high die toss produced 9 hits, almost wiping out an entire company. The oncoming Italian column on Camino Grande was fairly powerful: 6 trucks, each carrying 4 or 5 stands of troops (4 or 5 infantry companies), 3 batteries of artillery, 2 anti/tank batteries and a couple of small tanks. After two of our defending aircraft strafing runs, however, the column didn't look so good. Of a total of some 20 infantry companies (3 battalions), only 14 companies were left, as were 2 batteries of artillery. It seemed that the aircraft scored "double" hits on their targets, but I'm not quite sure of this. Each aircraft was defined to have a heavy MG, and tossed 3 dice. I think the double hits were imposed because the units were in column on the road. In any case, the effect was devastating. On the eastern side of the table, the Italian force wasn't as large as the western column, and its commander set out his artillery early in the game and commenced shelling Brihuega, causing little, if any casualties. Under cover of the artillery barrage, he advanced his trucks to the outskirts of Brihuega, off-loaded the infantry, and advanced on the town. At one point during the barrage, the incoming rounds hit the town church, setting fire to it, and Pat indicated that the commander had been under orders not to do that, and heads would roll after the battle. The Condray Syndrome At two points during the game, Pat left the table for a few minutes, and here, as in other Condray-presented games, I noted what I term the Condray Syndrome, the "Let's-Wait-For-Pat" Syndrome. As soon as Pat disappeared, the game came to a complete halt. Everyone went into stasis. "Hey, you guys, let's complete the firing phase." I said. "Toss your dice." No one moved. The Condray Syndrome had infected the lot. I couldn't get anyone to budge. 'Twas no go. All the other players insisted that nothing be done until Pat reappeared. Except in one instance during the 2h hour game, none of the other players seemed at all interested in referencing the rule book. And the one time that a player did look at the text, he did it to see how far his infantry-in-line were permitted to move. Back to the Game Throughout the game, the player on my right side, commanding our right flank Comunistas, had no idea that 2 dice were tossed for a light MG and only one die for a rifle stand. Why Pat affects his players thusly remains a mystery to me. Back to the game. Around Turn #3, I brought on a supporting battalion, the dreaded Anarquistas, who immediately tried to make for the woods surrounding the Palacio. "Why are you heading that way?" asked the umpire. "Why not?" sez I. "Because your Anarquistas should have orders to enter Plaza de Oro, and defend it to the death. They live only for the joy of tossing dynamite bombs at Italian armor." "What orders?" sez I. And Pat mumbled a wee bit, reached into his folder and produced the document telling me of the Anarquistas' way of life. I promptly turned the unit around, entered Plaza de Oro, got machine gunned, took a morale test... and the troops routed out of town and ran for the woods to which I had originally dispatched them. I forget how many turns we played, but the deciding factor seemed to be that whenever we Comunistas wanted to bring on a supporting battalion, we failed to do so. Each call for support required a die roll, and we seem to flub all of them. We managed to bring on the Anarquistas plus one other, but by that time, the Italians were well south of Plaza de Oro, and just about to reach the Palacio. The bulk of our supports remained off-table. A good game, some interesting procedures, and well run by Pat, even if he kept the rule book a wee bit close to his vest. I'm not sure I like the use of 6-sided dice... I think you could get a better range of results with a 10-sided one. At one point, Pat had to decide which of two stands had been hit. "Roll a die," he said, 1,1,2,3,it's the left one." I had a 10-sided die in my hand. "How about a 1,2,3,4,5?" I asked. "No!" was Pat's reply. "Roll a real die." Back to PW Review August 1994 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1994 Wally Simon This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com