¡En el filo! - The story so far

Following the previous game where Durutti and his column of Anarchists made a brave but futile stand at La Taberna against Teniente Arrojo with his Sección of Moroccan Regulares I thought I ought to do a round up.

At the start of that game Duruttis force had so far in the campaign lost 5 Milicianos and 6 Asaltos, also 2 Milicianos would miss this game. I had lost 5 Regulares so far in the campaign and had none sitting out this mission.

Durutti started at a -5 for the Commanding Officers opinion while his Mens' opinion was at 0. Arrojo was much better placed with a Commanding Officers opinion  of +4 while the Mens' opinion was +5.

The toll in Delaying action was huge, although the Nationalists had won the mission the Republicans had killed Teniente Arrojo and Sergento Primero Al Makawi along with 19 Regulares and 12 Legionaires out of action.

On the Republican side Durutti had taken three critical wounds and 32 C.N.T. Militia, 8 U.G.T. Militia and 11 Asaltos were down.

We did not think that the campaign would be able to continue but I have rolled up for the results.

As the difference between the Force Morale was five I immediately get back 5 Regulares, 3 more are also returned, while 4 miss the next game and 7 are dead outright, bringing the total Moroccan dead to 12.

The Nationalist Commanding Officers rating goes up to +6 while the mens' rating goes up to +6 despite the loss of popular Sergento Primero Al Makawi.

It is not so good for the Milicianos of the 32 casualties, 16 are out of the campaign for good and 8 miss the next game bringing the total Militia dead to 21. The Asaltos have 5 dead ( 11 in total ) and 3 miss the next game.

The Commanding Officers rating decreases to -6 and the mens' opinion decreases to -3

As for the officers, on the Nationalist side  Arrojo and Al Makawi are dead. The Colonel moves Sergento Primero Majid from the second platoon to take command of the Platoon. Sergento Masfiwi is also promoted to Sergento Primero to assist him and Hassan is made Sergento.

Teniente Arrojo is posthumously awarded the Red Cross Merit Order for his outstanding leadership culminating in the attack on the Republican machine-gun nest.

Majid requests reinforcements to bring the platoon back up to strength and is rewarded with 11 additional men, almost back to full strength.

Durutti dies of his wounds and in true Anarchist style the column disintegrates many are rounded up and summarily executed by the Communists on many trumped up charges of cowardice and likewise.

Next round we will play the Attack on an Objective scenario as Majid attempts to take el Puente de Queso
However as the Anarchist Column has ceased James will be using an International Brigade force to stem the tide.

James was unable to make the game this evening so I consoled myself with an Estrella Damm. We carry on in a fortnight.

How I make those buidings

I have been promising for a while to put together a guide for how I scratch build those Spanish houses, when I put together the most recent one I took a snapshot at each step.

The main materials are foam-core and a 200mm sq of hardboard. I firstly rough out a quick sketch of what is planned. In this instance I was hoping to use up some offcuts of pantiles so this would be quite wide and narrow.

I then first mark out on my foam-core the basic plan. I used a black Sharpie for this.

Using a sharp knife I cut out all the walls and the apertures for doors and windows. I then back the windows and doors with cardboard - this is a waste bit that was part of a duvet cover wrapping.

I then start to assemble the walls using super-glue and super-glue activator (aerosol in the background).

Once the structure is complete, I cut some 5mm strips of mounting board.

These are cut to length and put over the doors and windows to represent lintels.

I fabricate a chimney from some offcuts of foam-core stuck back-to-back.

This is then stuck to the walls - try to make sure that there are no windows where the fire place would be.

I then cut the Wills SSMP206 pantiles to shape. I use a razor-saw for this.

Once cut out the roof tiles are stuck in place

Next I make a start on the doors. I take coffee stirrers and cut them to length and then split down the middle to make approx 3mm planks.

I build the doors and check that they fit, I don't glue them in at this stage.

I then use full width coffee stirrers to add the roof supports and barge-boards

I then use green-stuff to build the ridge line and fill in any gaps.

The walls and garden area are then given a coat of Vallejo Pumice Gel. I leave some areas of exposed brickwork, drawing in the bricks on the foam-core by pressing down hard with a biro.

The paths and roadways are textured with Vallejo Gel-Denso

Once the texturing is dry the walls are painted with Dulux Dutch Gold

 The doors are painted Beige Brown and then stuck in place. The roofs are painted Saddle Brown.

It is left overnight to dry and then given a liberal wash with Sepia Wash and again left to dry.

I then highlight the rendering with Dulux Dutch Gold.

 I then add a bit of Reeves Sand to the mix and highlight again.

The rendering is finished off with a dry-brush of Reeves Sand

 The base is then painted in Dulux Pebble Moasic (this is a close match to Vallejo Field Drab)

Once the base is dried I drybrush the roofs with Saddle Brown, then add Flat Red and Flat Yellow to highlight.

Adding a touch more Flat Yellow to the final highlight.

 The paths and roadways are painted US Tan Earth.

 I paint the windows a mix of Dark Prussian Blue and Black

The doors and timbers are painted Beige Brown

 And given a couple of highlights adding Pale Sand

The windows are highlighted with a wash of Prussian Blue and highlighted up by adding White

 Finished off with a a few 'slashed' of white on each pane.

Exposed brickwork is picked out in Saddle Brown

 The base is highlighted with Dark Sand

Then a final dry-brush of Pale Sand

I finish off with my usual mix of tufts, scatter and suchlike.

Spanish town houses

In preparation for our campaign game tonight I have knocked together another building for my ongoing Spanish village.

This time it is a pair of semi-detached houses.

Not sure I am happy with this one. I think I made it too tall and the windows are too deep.

I took a set of step-by-step images so will do an how-to later.

El Cid with War & Conquest

On Tuesday night Nick and I played our El Cid game again using the War and Conquest rules this time.

We had previously played the game using Warhammer Ancients and Hail Caesar, now it was the time for War and Conquest to get a look in. I don't have a copy of the rules and Nick had not played them before, this would be interesting.

Based upon the lists available for free on the War and Conquest forum I picked a couple of armies. Unfortunately, the list appears to have been put together by somebody who knows nothing of the period and has probably not even seen a film of it! The Feudal Spanish list has no Caballeros, no Jinetes, some Berber horse with bows!, no Javelins for the light horse or spearmen. The Early Muslim North Africa list is no better, again, no javelin armed light horse, no javelins for the spearmen, etc. However, the lists are free, I would have been rather annoyed if I had paid for them.

Anyhow I picked a couple of lists, the Spanish had 5 SIPs, General, Brigade Commander and Army Standard, three units of Hildagos, one unit of Jinetes (I ignored the list and put these in) two units of Peones with spears and bow, a unit of Guard spear and two units of skirmishers with slings. The Berbers had 2 SIPs, General, Brigade Commander and Army Standard, two units of Berber Light Horse with javelins and five units of Berber infantry with spears and bow.

We set to and started the game, I took the Spanish as usual and drew a map while Nick deployed the Berbers.

The Spanish went with two units of Hildagos and a unit of Jinetes on the left the two units of Peones in the centre and the Guard spears backed up by the other Hildagos on the right. The Berbers had a solid wall of foot flanked on each side by light horse.

We had quite a good game for a first try. The Spanish right overwhelmed their counterparts and were soon in the Berber rear. The Berber foot fell upon the Spanish foot and we had some strange combats - the Spanish Guard Spearmen were routed, however, the Peones in turn formed a Shieldwall and managed to fight off their opponents.

The Hildagos soon fell upon the rear of the Berbers and it was game over.

There are some good mechanisms in the rules, I particularly like that formed foot take leadership tests on 3d6 and chose the best two results while they are over half strength. I think they deserve another go maybe we will understand them a bit better next time. Those lists do need looking at though.

All the figures are from my collection and were painted by myself.

Another batch of Falangist Militia

I started the weekend with half a dozen Falange Espanol militia partially base-coated and without realising it I managed to finish those off and paint another half dozen. Not bad considering I also had two gym visits, a long walk into town, a trip to the garden centre and got a good few hours gardening in.

They were painted using the same scheme as last time, but this time I did a few blankets in German Cam. Beige and some haversacks in black.

In this session I have also included a Jefe de Falange to lead one of the sections and a Subjefe for the Platoon Headquarters.

All the figures are from the Empress Miniatures range.

I've now got 24 of these painted another dozen should see them in action.

Here are a few close ups:

Subjefe

Subjefe

Jefe de Falange

Jefe de Falange

Falangistas