Stripped Down for Parts: España 1936

 

 

The Spanish Civil War was a crucial conflict in the lead-up to the Second World War, fought between the democratic-leaning Republicans and the fascist-orientated Nationalists. With the First World war still a raw wound in many countries, most governments stood back to see where things would land (some did take sides; the Soviets assisted the farther Left elements of the Republicana, while the German and Italian fascist governments provided both materiel and personnel for the right-wing Nacional. Eventually the Nationalists would emerge victorious, but not before providing a test bed for the Luftwaffe’s best thinking in ariel bombing and ground support, which held them in good stead during the invasions of Poland and France.

That about covers my understanding of the Spanish Civil War. I’ve read Orwell and Hemingway, and I’ve seen Picasso’s monumental Guernica up close, but in truth, I know only the barest facts about the conflict. I suspect this will change, though, as I start to dive into España 1936, Second Edition (Devir, 2024)

España 1936 is a card-driven, high-level simulation of the entire Spanish Civil War, designed by Antonio Catalán. So far as I can ascertain, this is publisher Devir’s only straight-up wargame. Devir began as a small company out of Brazil, publishing overseas comic books in Portuguese and Spanish. Now based on Barcelona, the company also publishes games (mostly what I think of as family games). España 1936 is obviously close to the hearts of people at Devir, because this is the game’s seconds edition, with reworked art and an expansion, La Armada, built into the game (which I gather was only previously released of the Spanish version of the game). The original version was released in 2007, with this edition appearing in 2024.

The more flamboyant First Edition cover art.

The box cover features original art, but in the style of the propaganda posters of the era. This is something it shares with the original release, though I’d argue the new presentation is more suggestive of the seriousness of the game. The artist for the whole project was Joan Guardiet, a talented illustrator who has done a lot of work for Devir, among others, and the visual nods to the media of the era carry through the whole production.

Box-back.

The box back features teaser art of the board mid-play, a bilingual description of the game, and the usual icon guidance to let us know it’s strictly a two-player game, that it’s recommended for ages 14 and up, and that a full game is likely to take in the region of three hours.

Rulebooks in two languages.

The game comes with two rulebooks, one in Spanish and one in English. My understanding of the Spanish language is limited to a few dozen nouns, and most of those are food- or cooking-related, so I’m grateful for the inclusion of English rules. The rulebook is suggestive of a newspaper, and the whole booklet runs to 36 pages. The actual rules run to about twenty heavily (but usefully) illustrated pages. The rest of the book includes a short historical essay by Ramon Sarobe, six pages of advanced rules for incorporating the La Amrada expansion, a shorter duration España 1938 scenario, a timeline of the war and a page of designer’s notes.

Sample page from the rulebook. I don't know what the first edition was like, but this
seems to be quite through and well-written.

The rules are rather illustration-heavy, but in this case this is a good thing. A lot of information on the counters and via the cards is transmitted visually, and the rules provide instruction on how to decipher this information. For example, while there are only a couple of unit types in the base game, each side has no less than eight factions represented; the Republicans are supported by Basque, local Communist, Anarchist and Soviet forces, while the are backed by Italian and Carlist volunteers, the Condor Legion (German Luftwaffe “volunteers”), and the Army of Africa.

The new board design is a vast improvement on the first edition board.

The board is a relatively simple map of the Iberian Peninsula, measuring 21 ½" by 25 ½", with areas represented as paired-box positions, similar to the country representations on the Twilight Struggle (GMT Games, 2005) map, or the region control boxes in Struggle for Europe: 1939-1945 (Worthington Games, 2019). The colour scheme of the board is muted, with an earthy palette which will make the bold red and blue of the units really pop. 

The board also incorporates a turn track and Contested Territories tally (three tracks registering Nationalist and Republican holdings, plus the yellow “Contested” track. Three brightly coloured (and slightly oversized) painted wooden blocks are included in the inventory for use on this track.

Punchboards, bundled in a paper ribbon. One of those novel European things -
the cutaway corner at the to-right of the boards to facilitate lifting the boards out
with a fingertip so you don't have to upend the whole box. Well played, Devir.

Units in the game are abstracted to strength points, but there are also armoured and aircraft units available to both sides. These units are presented on roughly 1 ¼” square counters, cut from good, thick brown-core cardstock. These have a simple numerical value, and come in different weights. You can “make change” by swapping out in-play units, raising or lowering their overall value. Double-width markers denote overall control of a region by one or the other side, red for the Republicans, blue for the Nationalists. Half-sized Leader counters can offer an advantage when present with troops.

Mostly units here. The Republican pieces face left, while the Nationalists face right.
 The little circular markers are used to track information on the players' Tracking Boards.

Unit tokens with double width Area Control markers, half-height General tokens (down
the right-hand side of the boards), and the aforementioned Tracking Boards (bottom).

Each side has a little tracking board for keeping track of Replacement Points, Generals and aircraft resources. The other half of the board sports a detailed game sequence. These are printed in Spanish on the front and English on the back.

The Battle-board (left). Spanish side shown.

And a final, reduced-sized board offering more units.

Also included is a battle board, for playing out battles between the two sides over contested locations. Again, this is presented in both Spanish and English, and also provides visual guidance on the steps involved in preparation and participation in combat, like two concentric flowcharts.

Sealed card-decks as they come. Each sealed deck contains both sides cards
 for either 1936-37 or 1938-39 (showing the English language cards left,
and Spanish on the right).

Like the rules, the game comes with two complete sets of cards, two decks each, one in Spanish and the other in English. I can only guess that it was cheaper to do this than to produce two different versions. All in all, is adds maybe an extra half-pound to the weight of the box, but certainly makes the whole thing feel mor substantive.

The game is card driven, with the players beginning with a had f cards each turn and working through them. Each side has their own decks, a 1936-37 deck and a 1938-39 deck. I haven’t explored the options presented through the cards yet, so you’ll have to wait for an AAR for some worthwhile thoughts on that, but they are really beautifully presented and seem quite straightforward and easy to understand.

Division of components. The game coms with eight dice (four each - no need to share),
tracking blocks for the Contested Territories track on the map, logo stickers for the
markers, and enough resealable baggies to accommodate all the pieces that come
in the box. The dividers also keep the English and Spanish cards from fraternising.

The inside of the box is cleverly put together with a simple divider system (which, in my copy at least, did get a little banged up in transit), and is just one more example of the attention to detail and functionality that has gone into the product design of this game. This is the difference between a more broadly public facing company compared to the ones that focus solely or primarily on wargames. There are higher expectations among euro-gamers regarding component quality and the aesthetic design of games generally. We grognards have long got use to putting up with short shrift. España 1936 feels like very component in the game has been developed to execute its task brilliantly and left at that stage. Nothing unfinished, but nothing over-engineered either. An elegant sufficiency of design. 

As well as the four decks of cards, España 1936 comes with eight dice – four red and four blue, large wooden cubes for tracking the Contested Territories, and a tiny strip of stickers to bling-up the Contested Territories tracking blocks with appropriate symbols.

The whole presentation of España 1936 is understated and quite lovely. The going opinion of the game seems to be generally positive (a solid 7.3 average on BGG). Some might question its credentials as a wargame (there is always some voice of contention), but from the little I’ve seen of it so far, it does appear to be a serious consideration of a brutal, oddly romanticised conflict that stands out on a century of conflicts.