Work has unexpectedly taken me to Morocco. It's not necessarily a trip I had planned to take. Whenever I travel I look for military history related sites: battlefields, museums, wargaming stores, etc.
While I have found some spare time to investigate landmarks (some with some interesting historical stories behind them), I haven't really encountered much in the way of wargaming fodder.
I brought with me Conrad Cairn's wargaming guide to the Carlist War and that got me thinking about a Spanish theme to a Moroccan wargaming venture... specifically the Spanish Civil War. The Moroccan Regulares of Franco's Army of Africa were heavily involved in the conflict and were considered some of the elite troops for the Nationalist cause.
I had already dipped my toe in the SCW waters when I began (but didn't finish) a 10mm Italian CTV infantry company to fight against the International Brigade in scenarios based on the Battle of Guadalajara (1937).
In fact, I even had primed and began to paint some International Brigade infantry as well. Those are still languishing on a popsicle stick someplace in my hobby storage. A bit of research revealed that the Moroccan Regulares fought the International Brigade at the Battle of Jarama about a month or so before the Battle of Guadalajara.
With this idea in mind, I placed an order for some 10mm Moroccans in winter kit from Pendraken. Of course this means that I really need to paint up those idealistic fighters from the International Brigade and since the CTV are nearly complete, I might as well paint them up too...
