We picked up our game where we left off this Saturday in the basement. Unfortunately, John was sick, so I had to field the CNT-FAI forces on my own. Lee, who missed the last game day, was able to attend, and offered to help with taking some of the photos. So Lee and Chris commanded the mutinous soldiers defending the government buildings around the Ronda Colom.
I set out to do my damndest to not kill off John's forces while he was absent, anticipating we had at least one more game day in store for us before this siege was settled. They were already in pretty good and safe advanced positions on the north flank of the table anyway. Meanwhile, I had business to settle on the opposite edge of the table.
The game began today with Lee winning the roll for Round Initiative, opening up Round 6.
They aimed their one operational cannon at the door of the Atarazanas where I had some workers covered the escape route out the back door.
A measurement landed the shot past the door and onto the roof, and the roll of five sent the shell three inches further. After a second roll for damage, the building lost only one health point.
Next, Lee tried to fire the HMG behind the blue car in front of the Capatancia at the workers HMG behind a barricade near the tavern, but Lee rolled a 2, missing.
When it was our turn for the Ranged phase, I tried to use our airplane to bomb the sappers carrying ammo into the Dependencia, but the round landed well short.
The movement phase began. Lee tried to run two sappers out of the Dependencia. One ran to the ally between the Dependencia and Capitancia, and I didn't bother to waste ammo on firing at him. The second, however, attempted to cross the street west and race up the steps of the church. Two anarchists fired from the green house and gunned him down. With most of their forces defending buildings or engaged in skirmishes, the nationalist side had few forces to move.
During my movement phase, I advanced up the south/right flank. I ran one group up the street and into the Atarazanas to support the push from the southernmost section of the building, which I occupied during the previous game day.
A group of ten workers charged out of the U-shaped building and up to the west-facing windows of the Atarazanas. Chris called Overwatch and fired on them from the gray building he had occupied on the previous game day. Three sappers fired out of the doorways, across the Ramblas and down the side street, killing two of my workers.
Knowing those sappers could not fire again this round, I ran a group of 8 workers out of the Metal and Transit Workers Union Headquarters building and surrounding barricades. They charged the nationalists most-advanced position. Chris's spotter in the pill box in the Atarazanas fired his pistol down and killed one of the workers. The charge continued, but the roll was too low to reach the doorway and take advantage of the sappers having already fired.
During Overwatch Phase, I fired John's three workers on the top floor of the green house down at the machine-gun crew behind the blue car, killing one of the gunners.
Skirmish Phase began. Lee called for a skirmish in the sector between the Green House and Capitancia. I won the roll, and fired the other workers in the Green House, three on the first floor, killing a soldiers with an SMG in the window and the second HMG crewman behind the blue car. When Lee tried to return fire, we realized that with the units -2 morale and the -2 points for hard cover for our workers inside the green house, the soldiers in the Capitancia could not actually hit any workers in the Green House!
Next, Chris called for a skirmish at the east corner of the two sections of the Atarazanas. In the photo below, the northern and taller section of the Atarazanas which the Nationalists still held has been moved to show the soldiers' position in the hallway by the back door. Chris won the skirmish roll, and fired two soldiers at my workers in the windows right next to them, and two more down the hall at my workers approaching from the west. All four shots were miraculous misses.
I returned fire with the four workers in the corresponding windows, killing three soldiers.
With no other skirmishes to fight this round, we moved on to regroupment phase. Chris's five surviving soldiers on the first floor of the Atarazanas moved down the hall and out of the line of sight of my workers in the windows. He spread them out to cover both corners of the eastern wing of the taller Atarazanas building.
Round 7 opened with me rolling a 1 to lose to Chris's 2 for Round Initiative. Chris and Lee fired their cannon at the cart on the Ramblas near where my group advanced on the Gray Building. The round sailed 6 inches too far, landing harmlessly in the street. They did have a HMG come unpinned, which fired from the barricades in front of the Dependencia and killed two of those charging workers. Five remained.
When it was my turn, I fired my cannons at the nationalist MG positions in the Ronda. The first landed close enough to the HMG behind the destroyed truck to kill 1 of the crewmen and pin the rest.
The other cannon's projectile, intended for the MG in front of the Dependencia, fell just short, damaging the barricade down to 2 health points and pinning the crew. The Republican plane came through and aimed for the same crew, but the bomb fell six inches too far, landing in the Ronda and causing no trouble.
During the movement phase, Chris and Lee took the sappers they had been using to transport ammo, and with some extra hands set to building a couple barricades across the street to block the path of our reinforcements, due to arrive in three rounds. Other sappers headed toward the cannon on the north side of the Ronda Colom to take over crewing it.
My workers charging the west wall of the Atarazanas survived the overwatch shots from the three sappers in the three front doors of the Gray Building. Poor Chris was having no luck with the dice again.
The anarchists climbed into the first floor windows of the Atarazanas.
My forces in the southern section of the Atarazanas streamed into the northern part of the building, joining those that had just climbed through the window (shown below, with the taller Atarazanas section removed). If the taller Atarazanas building was a triangle, I now occupied two of the three sides. No one entered the courtyard in between.
Across the street, my workers on the Ramblas rushed into the Gray Building. The one sapper inside who hadn't fired yet, as he guarded the back door, turned around and shot one of my workers. The remaining four workers surrounded the four soldiers, who were reloading.
Not far behind them, five workers, which John had placed into a truck and driven toward an ally, piled out of the truck and occupied the short gray house behind the Casa Juan. They took up advantageous positions behind the church and with a line of site on the Dependencia, as well as the back door of that same Gray Building.
On the northern flank, I moved up a defense group off a barricade and into the long gray building.
With no Overwatch Phase action called, we moved into Skirmish Phase. Chris called a skirmish between the spotter in the pill box and my HMG crew on top of Casa Juan's, who had still never fired but where eagerly watching the back door of the Atarazanas for Chris's fleeing soldiers.
I won the skirmish roll but could not hit that pesky spotter in the pill box. Chris returned fire and also missed, realizing only afterward that with the low morale it would be impossible for the spotter to hit the MG crew anyway.
I called for a skirmish in that gray building on the corner. As all four of Chris's soldiers had already fired, my workers fired, killing two of the four soldiers at point-blank range. With half of the sappers at that position killed in one round, Chris had to roll for morale and failed, forcing the two survivors to route.
They fled across the line of site of my workers who were now in the short gray building behind the Casa Juan. Three fired from the gray house, killing both soldiers in the open.
After capturing the building, the workers raised the red and black flag. It was the first position they had liberated that day.
To start Round 8, I won the Round Initiative roll for the first and only time that day. During the Ranged Phase, my plane hit the nationalists operational cannon, killing the sappers who had just arrived to handle the piece, and reduced its health points to one.
During the movement phase, I moved a grenader out of the gray house to take a good forward attack position behind the church. The defense group I had pulled into the long gray building on the northern edge jumped out the eastern windows and took cover behind the white stucco building.
I broke down the HMG on top of Casa Juan's to move it up into a better firing position. I was beginning to tighten the noose around the government installations in the north-east corner.
Across the street in the Atarazanas, I moved seven militants up the stairs and onto the second floor. They ran around the corner and covered the north-east-facing windows, directly above the five surviving soldiers in the building. (Militants pictured on the roof below are supposed to be on the second floor).
I moved most of the other workers in the building into the two first-floor wings which I occupied, making those five soldiers hopelessly surrounded. If the soldiers tried to escape out the back door, the workers on the floor above were poised to gun them down.
For the Nationalist's movement turn, Lee moved the sappers who had constructed the barricades south toward the cannon I recently depopulated (again) with my air attack.
Skirmish Phase began, and I called on the five surrounded soldiers on the first floor of the Atarazanas to surrender. Chris rolled a 1, and they threw down their weapons. Next, I called a skirmish for the open Ronda behind them, and won that roll too. I fired my four rifles in the second floor windows at the machine gun crew below the Columbus statue. They killed all three crewmen.
In the Grey I-shaped building in the south-east corner, one lone soldier stood guard. After the Atarazanas surrendered, he was much farther than the 15" distance from an officer required for him to act. I charged my workers from the eastern room of the Atarazanas at him and called on him to surrender. Chris, with his luck remaining terrible, rolled a 2, so he surrendered as well. Now, only the spotter trapped on the roof of the Atarazanas stood on behalf of the military rebellion south of the statue of Columbus.
During regroupment, I moved three delegates John had positioned in back of his forces up and into the short gray house behind the Casa Juan. They could oversee and direct the storming of the strongholds.
In the Atarazanas itself, the workers surged forward into the last wing of the building, surrounding the soldiers who earlier surrendered (as seen in the photo below, with the building lifted).
East of the Atarazanas, CNT-FAI workers occupied the I-shaped building. Two more red and black flags went up over Barcelona.
I regrouped rapidly up the south flank, even advancing into the Ronda with five units toward the unattended cannon and HMG beneath the statue.
We had liberated the southern edge of the board, and the nationalist mutineers were pinned in the north-east corner of the table. Chris and Lee moved their forces toward the southern corners of the Dependencia to face my breakthrough.
Round 9 began with Lee winning the Initiative Roll. For the Ranged Phase, they fired their HMG in front of the Dependencia at my group headed for the cannon. The spray of bullets through the smoke killed two workers.
The Republican plane turned over the Capitancia and dropped a bomb on its roof, causing 3 damage.
During the movement phase, the four nationalist sappers who had been heading for the cannon veered off into the palace by the water to take positions facing south on the Ronda.
Across the street in the Dependencia, Chris split up the command bases into individual officer units, and spread them out to cover windows and doors with their pistols. Things were getting desperate in the besieged strongholds.
For my movement turn, I brought up all available forces on the north side of the table, assembling them into assault groups out of view of the soldiers. Workers defending barricades left their positions and headed toward the frontline.
Wherever I could, I crept grenaders up toward the objectives, ready to let loose a barrage of explosions ahead of the impending full-out assault.
In the Atarazanas, two workers began to escort the five captured soldiers toward the back of the building, so that they could be marched to the far side of the table and into captivity.
Out in the Ronda, three surviving anarchists clung to the base of the Columbus statue, aiming the captured cannon at the far eastern corner of the palace by the water. It would be able to fire next round.
On the far side of the table, the workers prepared for the coming nationalist reinforcements. Of the ten militants who built those barricades, four moved to cover first and second floor windows of the two buildings on either side of the road. I left only the two grenaders behind the barricades outside, safely spaced from each other so as not to lose both of them in an all-to-common case of accidental detonation. The welcoming party was almost complete. I brought up another CNT defense group, who vaulted the barricade behind the Teatro, ready to join the defense.
In the Plaça del Teatro, the CNT truck arrived to transport one of the cannons to a more advantageous position.
With the nationalists driven from the south-east corner of the table, the remaining targets were blocked by the Hotel Falcon. I planned to drive the cannon to the north-west corner, where it could get a clear shot at the rebel positions down the long and open northern road.
In the last action of the game, skirmish mode to end Round 9, my workers on the second floor of the Atarazanas fired at the MG crew in front of the Dependencia, killing 1 of the soldiers there.
With everyone in position for the coming conflagration, there was no regroupment.
This was a really fun day of play. The rules were working well, we got through four rounds, and we generally had a good time.
The next time we get together to play will begin with the much-anticipated Round 10, when both sides receive reinforcements in their enemies' rear. The Nationalists have 20 soldiers arriving in two trucks, and the anarchists are bringing 50 workers pushing large rolls of newspaper down the street behind the Capitancia. Check back soon to see if the workers can storm the government installations and stamp out the nationalist coup in Barcelona.
