Friday Night Game - 20mm SCW

 Yes, a bit of a change as I got the opportunity to get a portion of my 20mm SCW collection out of their boxes for an AI generated scenario at Julians on Friday evening

The scenario saw two Republican commands (Chris and me) defending a strategically important crossroad against three Nationalist commands - Julian, John and Andrew

The Republicans could deploy up to the road line, the Nationalists came on from the table edge, apart from the Moorish Regulares, who could be 12" onto the table due to their superior scouting skills.

Defending the Republican left flank

The local Militia

The locals evacuate the small town

Nationalist Moors lead the advance

The Foreign Legion are there, too.

The militia came under mortar fire from Nationalists on the high ground to their front

The Nationalists have some "heavy" support 

To counter it, one solitary 45mm AT gun 

And the mighty T26 - in 1936, it WAS mighty!

The T26 advanced rapidly to support the under-fire militia

John took quite a few pictures - do you think he was worried?!

He had every reason! The combination of firepower from the T26 and militia broke the Nationalist morale, and they departed the battlefield!  ¡Viva!

Meanwhile, on the other flan\k, the 75mm gun battered one of the Republican units into falling back, too.

And the armour moved up to try to turn the Republican right 

In the centre, things were relatively quiet so far, but that was about to change!

The battered right flank Republicans can be seen in the top right, falling back from the hedge line position they had been occupying. It subsequently proved impossible to rally them, and they departed the field.

Moors (top left) and Legionnaires (bottom) move towards the crossroads

The Republicans on the move - two units move forwards to occupy the buildings nearest the advancing Moors as the AT gun engages Nationalsit armour

Meanwhile the militia who saw off the Nationalist mortar also move towards the crucial crossroads

And the T26, which had been halted by the Nationalist mortar before it ran away, and had failed to rally for most of the game, blazed away at long range at the Foreign Legion 

Both buildings were peppered with gunfire before the Moors attacked 

But both held, and the ferocious Regulares were driven off - ¡Olé!

Shortly thereafter, one of the Republican units was forced to vacate the cattle shed. Meanwhile, the Republican militia occupied the village church

A real ding dong, to and fro struggle for the houses ensued, and the Nationalists received reinforcements in the form of two more infantry units and two PzKfw I's.

As the struggle for the village reached its climax, the T26 finally got underway again - ¡Hurra!

To control the crossroads and win the game, there had to be no enemy units within 12" of the village centre. The Regulares assaulted the unit in the house next to the cattle shed while the Legion charged at the church, but fell short of their target

The Republicans were finally forced from the building and the Legion charged into the church.  Surely, God would smite the anti-Christ militia within?

Well - NOPE! The Legion were defeated and pushed back on the final turn of the game (we had already extended it AND gave the Nationalists their extra units, to keep it going a bit longer)

It was a near run thing, but the Republicans had held on long enough to secure the safe withdrawal of their army and could now fall back and abandon the unimportant village to the Nationalists - ¡Viva la República!

Here are some more close ups from John that I was too lazy to weave into the narrative!

He seemed to like my scratch-built windmill, he took more than one photo of it!

Anarchist infantry

Militia MG

La Legión Extranjera

Republican Regular Army 

CNT Militia

Delores, la refugiada

Republican AT gun

Its ra Polis! Nationalist reinforcements from La Guardia Civile

The TRUE flag of Spain!

Bitter struggle for control of the crossroads as the game comes to a close 

Well, that was fun - for both sides hopefully? The Nationalists very nearly did it by taking the bull by the horns (Spanish pun intended) and getting stuck in with close-quarters assaults on the buildings. The armour was of little benefit to them, and I am sure they would have swapped it for another three infantry units from the start of the attack - although the 75mm field gun did a lot of damage to the Republican right flank under Chris. He was able to destroy it on the final turn of the game, however, which gave him great joy (his mortar had knocked out most of Julian's armour twice by that stage!) 

Now, I wonder how delayed THIS post will be?! If you are reading this and have not seen my post about the painted 28mm Red Army truck, use the "older posts" link to go back and have a gander.