Republic Returns Reflections

 

Following the battle of the Finkelmos Farm I’m going to call an end to the second chapter of “A Mauxican Rebellion.” “The Republic Returns” has been a fairly intense campaign for the last four months (it started in September). With up to twenty players active at a time it was certainly lots of fun, but it also had some problems. Whole elements of the politics did not work, the factions didn’t gel as I hoped they would, and the tactical military actions being daily certainly did not help. All that said, I hope people have had fun.

This campaign lasted longer than the first Mauxican Campaign, mostly because I used a different set of tactical wargaming rules which meant the battles were not too tedious to play. I am a huge fan of “Little Wars TV” but it will be a hot day in hades before I play another game of “Live Free or Die”. Johnny Reb III is (to my mind) the finest set of battalion scale wargame, with all the complexity and simplicity you could ever want. I highly recommend this wargame to any enthusiasts (and I used some of the variants from the “Johnny Tremaine” system to make it slightly more AWI).

In our campaign, after the battle, the Free Mauxican forces are far too diminished to put up resistance, and the Crimsonians will take Asadero. This does lead the way to a future campaign in Mauxica between the two sides, for which I will redo the political rules.

For those interested, here are the faction sheets:

As the Crimsonians have been victorious in the last battle, they have won the war, so technically none of the Free Mauxican players win.

However, had 1^st Brigade (or even just 1^st Paw) and 2^nd Brigade been present, it could have turned against the redcoats pretty easily – in which case Biggs (Apodemus Tuttle) would have been the overall winner with 11 influence, and his faction, National Freedom and Oversight, would have had the highest average influence, which means that Common Defence League would have been in last place.

As said earlier, I am disappointed that the politics aspect and factional work did not go better – perhaps I should just leave that stuff to work itself out naturally. Factions can be tough when you get lumped with people you don't know / don't like / don't want to play the game. We had one faction full of "new boys", and they never seemed to get themselves interested / involved. I will try harder to do political stuff in the future, perhaps by trying not quite as hard.

 

Where to from here?

Well, I’ve probably had enough of AWI for a bit – time to put the 15mm figures back in their boxes and play with the 6mm Napoleonics again. Or maybe something else?

I have two competing ideas –

The first is to go back to Maustria, and resolve that nagging succheesion crisis – Maustria has soundly whooped the second coalition, who are all cowed and in recovery – so now it is a question as to who will sit on the throne of Maustria – will Goudarian make a play for the big seat? Or one of the other Generals?

A third Maustrian game would probably be a Civil War, with all the players involved in a side of that semi-dynastic struggle. I am thinking I would use an updated map of Maustria, with players commanding Divisions of troops that march around and do battle. No matter who wins, a united Maustria would find itself exhausted and diminished just in time for a fourth coalition to do something stupid all over again…

 

The second is to step into a new era – perhaps late mediaeval – in a “War of the Roses” (War of the Mouses) kind of game – the players would each lead a noble house in a Mausropan Nation (I’m thinking Zurin) and have some good old dynastic struggles to become Prince and reign supreme. This game would be based on the classic board game “Junta”, and politics and deals and back-stabbing, etc, would be more of an aspect.

When sizeable armies meet there would be clashes.

As always, I will ask for the opinions of my players and supporters, and will then do whatever I like, because, hey, it's my party and I'll take my bat and ball and dance like this analogy is getting out of control.