An Impossible War: The First Carlist War in the North, 1834 - 1838
by
Bellica 3rd Generation
Much like the last review, but to any even greater extent, I needed to learn some history to get myself sufficiently grounded in the basics of the game. I assume you can play wargames without knowing anything about the history behind the game. However, that is something that is completely foreign to my way of thinking. So, here we have a game about the 1st Carlist War. This is a bit of history that is pretty far off the normal beaten path. They took place in the mid 19th century in Spain. The Bourbons, in 1700, brought the Salic Law with them to Spain. This was a French law that said that no woman could reign over France. You might remember it mostly from Shakespeare's play Henry V. It became the crux of the matter in this dynastic war. I will not get into the details, more on this later. You just need to know that it is a pretty much hidden part of European history. In actuality, more Spanish people died during these wars than in the years of the French attempted occupation of Spain known as Napoleon's Spanish Ulcer. I tried to read what I could find on this era of Spanish history, but English books about it are few and far between. However, the designer has given us an incredibly deep and expansive historical background as I have ever had the pleasure to read. So much for our beloved hobby being looked at as a complete waste of time and money. Take that, George Carlin and ponder on it (If you were not aware he did a whole skit on the insanity of our hobby, at least to him. It is a shame, for other than that I really liked him). Thank you, Bellica 3rd Generation and designer David Gómez Relloso for creating a game where I had to learn more history. I also have to apologize to both of them for the length of time it took me to create this look at their game. Below is what Bellica 3rd Generation has to say about the game:
"The First Carlist War was a civil war that ravaged Spain between 1833 and 1840. Upon the death of Ferdinand VII, using the succession conflict between his daughter Isabella and his brother Carlos as a pretext, supporters of liberalism clashed with defenders of tradition. Carlism gained its strongest foothold in Navarre, the Basque Provinces, and neighboring territories—the North—where the main campaigns, battles, and sieges took place.
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| Back of the Box |
Tomás de Zumalacárregui organized the Carlist forces into an army capable of fighting the liberal government troops. Despite being outnumbered, he took advantage of his strengths and the enemy’s weaknesses to defeat them and consolidate his control over a region where the geography and popular support were in his favor.
The Carlist objective was to capture a city. They laid siege to several, but failed to take any, and Zumalacárregui died while besieging Bilbao in June 1835. Expeditions were sent to encourage uprisings in the rest of Spain, but the liberals relentlessly pursued them. Don Carlos himself led an expedition that reached the gates of Madrid in September 1837 but was unable to take the capital.
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| Some of each sides Stickers |
At the end of 1836, Baldomero Espartero became commander-in-chief of the liberal army. Under his leadership, the troops improved their performance and carried out a relentless campaign to crush the enemy. Carlism was far from defeated, but its chances of winning the war had vanished, while internal divisions grew.
In August 1839, peace supporters laid down their arms with the Embrace of Vergara, while Don Carlos and those refusing to surrender crossed the border into France. In the Maestrazgo and Catalonia, the Carlists would not be defeated until July 1840.
An Impossible War is a game about the decisive years of the First Carlist War in the North. Infantry and cavalry are represented by blocks, which introduce fog of war into operations. There are also artillery counters (field and mountain artillery) and logistics units (supply trains and backpacks).
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| One of the Cards |
The main map is a point-to-point board covering the northern theater of operations: Navarre, the Basque Country, and surrounding areas of La Rioja, Burgos, and Cantabria. In addition to provincial capitals, major towns and other localities are shown, along with primary and secondary routes of communication. There is also a smaller map of the rest of peninsular Spain, showing the regions affected by the Carlist uprising and allowing expeditions being launched from the North.
Each turn, players compete for initiative and carry out a variable number of actions. There is also a card deck for each side, including historical, operational, and tactical events. The cards add background and unpredictability to the game, helping make each session different. This is NOT a card-driven game, but one assisted by cards.
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| Northern piece of the Map |
An Impossible War simulates the historical conflict, which featured numerous skirmishes, few major battles, and significant siege warfare. It is an asymmetric game in which each side has strengths and weaknesses. Players must exploit their advantages and mitigate their disadvantages to achieve victory.
The Carlist player must make use of superior mobility and unit quality to consolidate territory, wear down the enemy, and threaten cities. The Liberal player must contain and suppress the insurrection; they have more troops, but of lower quality and plagued by logistical nightmares. Additionally, they must quell uprisings and chase down Carlist expeditions across the rest of Spain.
Game Contents:
1 Main map (Northern map)
1 Regional map of the rest of Spain
1 Battlefield board
1 Rulebook
1 Playbook
2 Player aid sheets
73 wooden blocks (48 blue, 25 red)
1 sheet of 18 mm stickers
2 punchboards with 18 mm tokens
72 cards (36 Liberal, 36 Carlist)
10 artillery tokens (wooden)
4 six-sided dice
2 cloth bags
ALL GAME COMPONENTS ARE IN ENGLISH"
As usual, I want to take a look at the game's components first. We will start with the map. It is a mounted map that uses point to point movement. The map is of Northern Spain, including a good amount of the Basque country. Wargamers who have read and/or played games about the 20th Century Spanish Civil War will be very familiar with the territory shown on the map. The map has a good number of the tables etc. that you will need for play. In a novel approach both sides of the map have the Sequence of Play listed.
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| Battle Board |
The Rulebook is 31 pages long. It is in full color and is in a two-column format. The type is nice and large. It also has a liberal amount of play examples. The Playbook has 46 pages of excellent information and gaming goodness. It comes with 12 pages of different play examples! It starts with the scenario setups. Then it continues with Rules Clarifications (this is a nice touch that usually waits for the errata to be issued). Next up, we have the Card Clarifications, and then there is a section on Optional Rules. These are listed as either helping one side or the other. The section on all of the different Play Examples is next. These are of Combats, Skirmish, Battle, and Assault. There is a Historical Background and Historical Notes on the Cards. Next comes, the excellent history of the First Carlist War in the North. Then we have the Design Notes and even a section on Advice for New Players.
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| Southern piece of the Map |
We have two nice thick cardstock player aids. The first is a map of all of Spain to show how the Carlist Uprising is playing out in the rest of the country. The second is the actual battlefield map or board. There are also two large three-page foldout player aids made of flexible cardstock. One is for the Liberal player and one for the Carlist. The type on these is the same large size that are in the Playbook and Rulebook. The cards come next. There is a deck for both players. These are the normal size and thickness of most other game cards. The backs of the deck both have a nice painting of cavalry on them. The front of the cards has a scene or picture of the personality mentioned. These are well done black and white drawings. The rest of the card has the information used in playing them. The type size is large enough to not need to read them with a squint. Even though it is a block game, it comes with a good number of counters. These come with pre-rounded corners. However, for those who care about such things, there are nibs on the side of the counters. The blocks are all the same with no 'flashing' on any of them like you used to find on some game blocks. The game I received had already been used, so I do not know how easy the blocks are to sticker or to release the counters from their sprue. I will say that whoever stickered the blocks was an artist and I have some games that I need their help with.
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| Strategic map |
The game components definitely pass muster. It states proudly that the game was produced in Spain. This game is an excellent example of Spanish craftmanship.
This is one of those games where playing each side is completely different than playing the other. For most games the forces involved are pretty much complimentary on each side. This is one of the games where playing each side is a learning experience. If you have played a few games where one side looks to have all of the cards of the deck stacked on one side, then this game will be easier to learn and understand. This is for the most part a guerilla war and the Spanish have been practicing it since before Roman times. Napoleon should have read up on the Iberian history.
The Liberals are behind Isabella and the Carlists support, guess who, Carlos. Take the name Liberal with a grain of salt here. They are only named that compared to the Carlists and not other European Liberals. The Carlists are ensconced in a small part of northern Spain. Your job as the Carlist faction, if you choose to accept it, is to keep the Carlist movement alive. To do this you have a small territory and limited resources. Your greatest asset is the actual physical territory that you occupy. It is the perfect area for a guerilla war. The population is also firmly behind you and supplies you with much better recruits. The Liberals have more of everything compared to the Carlist meager resources. However, their forces are the ones that will have to both attack and defend themselves in a hostile environment. This is from the Playbook: "The Carlist player has the initiative for the first three years, and the ability to do double turns." Logistics play a major role when playing the Liberals. You will find out, just like the French, that a large army starves and a small army is defeated. You do start with a few fortresses in the Carlist stronghold, but the main issue is, can you keep control of them? Other European powers were also involved with the Carlist Wars. France and England sent troops to the conflict. The French Foreign Legion saw service in Spain.
The game is not that hard to learn. This is in part to a very well-done English translation. The objectives and the rules themselves make sense. However, there are a lot of moving parts to the machine. Both sides have their advantages and disadvantages, and the cards only add to the tense play. I absolutely love wargames that try to be as historical as possible, even if that means that playability must take somewhat of a hit to achieve it. I was never able to find enough different sources to compare gameplay to the historical reality, at least in the amount that I like to look at before playing a game. To that extent I was able to, though the game seems to be a very good historical examination of the realities of the war. I believe that this is a great game for historical wargamers and especially for grognards who do not want to play the 150th take on Waterloo.
Thank you, Bellica 3d Generation for allowing me to review this game. Thank you also for allowing me to use some pictures from your site. I must apologize once again for the amount of time it took to post this review.
Robert Peterson
An Impossible War: The First Carlist War in the North, 1834 - 1838
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