Maurice Campaign - Part 1

Over the months we have been learning Maurice we have sort of created our own little nations, and developed back-stories for them as well. So it seemed inevitable that we'd start to pull them together into some form of campaign.

John took on the task, and came up with something using the Mighty Empires hexes. This is a view of the campaign area from the north - locals will recognise the area covered.

Each of us had about a quarter of the map under our control, with a vague objective of having to acquire more 'dirt' or, at least. defend the dirt we had. I think there were 'Epic Points' to be had as well.

Clockwise, from the top right, we had Albion (John), The Confederation of Tea States (Caesar), Riskovia (me) and The Duchy of Sans Couleur (Ralph).

Campaign moves were simple; giving Caesar another chance to put my head on the end of his (in this case metaphorical) 'twident'  , I marched boldy into his territory and challenged him. Ralph invaded my territory whilst my back was turned. Another problem, for another day.

So Caesar and I fought the first battle.

In order to try and speed games up we were told that we could only use 50 point field forces, plus whatever National advantages we had (each of us had about 25 points of those).

Caesar fielded a force of infantry, with a couple of guard units, a few conscripts, and four guns from his Artillery Academy. I had a couple of guns with trained teams (for mobility), and a 50/50 mix of infantry and cavalry, all trained except for two guard cavalry units.

There was a lot of terrain, which pretty much stuffed my cavalry from the start.

I worked my cavalry through the terrain, and attacked Caesar's infantry. Cavalry in Maurice isn't really up to frontally charging steady infantry, though, so I paid the price.

Plan B - Advance my infantry. This went better, and we had a lively firefight. However both of us had Rally To The Colours, which meant that we could easily removed disorder from or troops, so it was hard to make a lasting impression on the opposition. Caesar used his skilled artillery to batter other of my units, and pushed my morale over the edge.

So I lost the first battle. But I had really been trying to use it as a learning experience to work out what does and doesn't work in Maurice, and particularly how to manage your hand  We have tended to try and hold onto any card that might be useful later, leading to a miserly use of cards for activating groups and moving commanders. I am starting to think that you need to be quite ruthless in how you throw your hand away, in order to move your whole army into a good position. Then you start to build up viable cards for your main effort. We shall see.

Anyway, at the end of the first night of campaigning my army is in a bit of a mess. But I have a bit more idea what I am supposed to be doing with it.

There was a bonus to the night - jelly. The role-players next door provided it, although we never really found out why. Ten different flavours were available. And very nice it was too.