Guadalajara

About this board game

Guadalajara is a Standard Combat Series wargame for 1–2 players, with games lasting approximately 2–8 hours. It portrays the 1937 Italian CTV offensive toward Guadalajara, whose ultimate objective was to take Madrid and bring the Spanish Civil War to a rapid end.

Lavishly equipped and confident after success at Malaga, the motorized Italian Corpo Truppe Volontarie faced a reorganized People’s Republican Army. Madrid was not Malaga, however, and the Republican forces mounted an unexpected, determined defense under exceptionally difficult conditions. The failed offensive helped force the Nationalists to abandon attempts to storm the capital and instead pursue the longer task of capturing the country.

Players can explore the campaign through four scenarios: the full campaign, the Italian offensive, the Nationalist side-offensive, and the Republican counteroffensive that broke the spine of the Italian assault. Special rules bring the character of the battle to the tabletop, including traffic jams, truck transports, morale, panic, tanks, anti-tank defenses, and flamethrowers.

• Game scale: turns of 1–2 days, with each hex representing 0.6 mile / 1 kilometer.
• Units range from companies to battalions.
• Includes a 22 × 32-inch full-color map, 280 counters, two rule booklets, a player aid card, and two six-sided dice.
• High solitaire playability and a medium-low complexity level.

With its focused campaign scope and distinctive rules for movement, morale, and armored warfare, Guadalajara presents a detailed look at one of the Spanish Civil War’s decisive battles. Will the Italian volunteers break the Republican lines, or will they panic as their historical counterparts did?