(NO OS ASUSTÉIS por la imagen) Aunque ya hayan pasado los Reyes Magos, habría que pedirles un favor especial: que vuelvan ya sin esperar al año que viene -al fin y al cabo se acaban de ir, así que aún no deben andar muy lejos- para traer unos cuantos ejemplares de este juego de tablero que acaba de salir al mercado. Permite revivir la Guerra Civil española, pero esta vez sin sangre. Qué oportuno:

'Arriba Espana' designed by Brian Train published by Fiery Dragon. Components: 20-page rulebook, 7 sheets of charts and tables, a 10”x15” map sheet, 264 perforated counters, and a pair of dice. Published by Fiery Dragon Games in their CounterStrike Games line, $21.95.

The Spanish Civil War has never been the subject of many wargames. It’s not a subject we know much about in the first place, usually: other than the obligatory mention as Hitler’s laboratory for his tanks and Stukas, which is usually at the start of most histories of World War II, it’s been relegated mostly to footnotes. This small game modestly attempts (and mostly succeeds, far as I’m concerned) to recreate the Spanish Civil War in all of its permutations (at least those that can be gamed) and do so on a format that allows it to be played easily in an evening.

Brian Train has designed an interesting system for the game, which takes into account not just the battles of the war but political support and foreign intervention. The map is broken up into areas, sorted into provinces of between one and seven areas each. The armies move from area to area on the map, fighting one another in a rather abstract and generalized fashion, with wrinkles for various things like combat experience, artillery, tanks, and airplanes. That part of the game takes only a few minutes to absorb.

The heart of the game, however, is the Political Support Level Track. Each player vies with the other to build up his fickle Political Support Points, which (if exceptionally high or low) provide combat modifiers, and indirectly lead to foreign support or intervention. You get points on this track by controlling provinces, killing enemy divisions, receiving foreign support, and a random events table. You lose points by losing provinces, having no foreign nations intervening on your behalf or supporting you, losing friendly divisions, and of course random events. You *spend* those points to buy support or intervention from foreign nations, so that in turn you get more points. It’s all very convoluted, and it takes a while to get used to the table, but it’s essential to do so, because the whole game revolves around it.

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