Here’s a little AAR about España:1936, to get into the game and know some things before its release. Those who are veteran AGEOD players won’t find any difficulty with game mechanics, which uses the advanced supply rules, but I will try to give some explanations for new players, too, who are interested in playing SCW.
This AAR is a joint effort by myself, playing the game as Republican in the Grand Campaign (the whole war from 1936 to 1939) and Durk, who will edit my texts (I’m not a very able English speaker), and will make his contributions, too, as experienced player. Of course if Leibstandarte wants, he may do any contributions of his own.
As a little historical introduction, Spain entered in its second Republican experience (the first being of less than two years of duration between 1873-1874), after the municipal elections of April 12, 1931. The parties supporting Republicanism won those elections in many province's capitals forcing King Alfonso XIII to abdicate. On April 14, 1931 the Spanish Second Republic was proclaimed.
During the five years of peace, the Republic lived with growing tensions between left and right wing supporters. Every time they clashed the sides became more radicalized. By February 1936 a national election was held with the left, which united in a great coalition, winning it. By then the high officers of the army began to prepare a coup d’etat that finally took place in Spanish Morocco on July 17, 1936, spreading to the Spanish mainland the next day. The coup failed leaving Spain divided into two zones controlled by the Nationalist insurgents (Galicia, Old Castile, Navarra, most of Aragon, and half of Estremadura in a North zone, and parts of Andalusia including the cities of Sevilla, Cádiz and Granada; plus the Canary islands and the Spanish African colonies in a South zone) while most of the main cities (Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, and Bilbao) remained loyal to the Republic. With this situation war was unavoidable.
Here is the scenario selection,as you can see there are three tutorials, one scenario and the grand campaign
Our side will be the Republican
At the beginning of the game almost all our units are still locked. The military coup has failed and in many areas and cities the parties loyal to the Republican government started to field their own militia. In some cases, like Barcelona, these militia fought the insurgent military and forced them to surrender.
Madrid and Barcelona are the places where many militia are concentrated.
In the case of Barcelona most of the units present are anarchist, shown in light blue, led by Buenaventura Durruti. At this time anarchism had strong support in Catalonia.
The first menaces to the Republic come from the North. Nothern areas that have remainded loyal to the Republic are isolated from the rest of the Republican territories. From Gijón, in Asturias, to San Sebastián in the Basque Country there are several units mobilized.
In the South there are several militias mobilized too, but the Nationalists will count on the Army of Africa that can be airlifted to the mainland in the next turns. It will be difficult to maintain our actual territory in Andalusia and still more difficult prevent a link between both rebel areas.
Note: the first turn of this beta AAR (two posts) was done in Spanish, but as we're going to do the AAR in English you'll find the screenshots in English language from turn 2 onwards. Remember the game will be fully available in English
