One other change was that whilst I kept six political tokens in play, each side had three; there were no uncontrolled tokens at the start of the game.
I kept detailed notes, but won't write them all up here.
The llaneros allied themselves with the Republicans at the start, who ended up with an army that was nearly 50% cavalry. Their general was rated as Good. The Royalists ended up with a Poor general in charge of a strong force of infantry with skirmisher support and a small force of cavalry.
In the first battle the Royalists defended, and opted to fight the battle in a wooded area, hoping to deny the Republicans best use of their cavalry. The Republicans massed their horse on one flank, aiming to overwhelm the Royalist right, whilst their infantry pinned the centre.
The Royalist cavalry tried to hold the Republicans before they cleared the woods, but failed.
As the Republican's cavalry hit the Royalist right flank, their infantry hit the centre.
Royalist skirmishers, including bow-armd indians, held the left.
The Royalist commander was cut down at the head of his troops and his army routed.
The Republicans had won a victory but were unable to exploit any political capital from it. In addition their general must have upset someone, as the llaneros switched their allegiance to the Royalists (which meant that the Royalists could recruit them as new units, whilst the Republicans couldn't replace lost ones). Bolivar replaced the Republican commander - their new general was Average, but was a Strategist, which gave him extra flexibility in deployment and choice of battlefield edge.
The Royalists had lost their commander, but received a new one with a Good rating. In addition they acquired artillery and some veteran troops from Spain (one of their regular units upgraded to elite).
The second battle saw the Royalists defending again. The Republicans still had a massive cavalry superiority - despite having the llaneros on their side, none of them actually joined the Royalist field army. To offset this superiority the Royalists forced the Republican attack through a narrow pass. They were also lucky to catch the Republican advance by surprise.
The bulk of the good quality Republican infantry advanced over the rocky hills.
Their general led the cavalry himself, aiming to force the pass with a direct assault.
The Republican cavalry smashed into the Royalist centre ...
... and broke through.
The Republican infantry advance was stalled, taking heavy casualties from skirmishers in the woods on the flanks.
The Royalists formed infantry up on the heights, and poured murderous volleys into the attacking Republican horsemen.
Undeterred, the Republicans pushed their attack, and the Royalist commander fell to a cavalry sabre.
But it wasn't enough - the Royalist infantry had held long enough to take the impetus out of the Republican attack, and with mounting casualties the republicans quit the field. It was a close battle, but the Royalists just clinched a victory.
The Royalists used the victory to destabilise the Republican's political influence, and could have issued a proclamation at this stage to attempt to win the campaign. But with the political balance still very close this was unlikely to succeed; the Royalists needed another victory to cement their position.
The Republican commander rallied his army, and brought the Royalists to battle again. Their new commander was both Poor and a Coward, but the Royalist army was now strong in veteran infantry (another element upgraded to elite).
The Royalists defended for a third time. This time they negated the Patriot cavalry superiority by anchoring one flank on a lake, opting to defend the other with their better infantry. The Republicans concentrated their infantry in an attack along the lake shore, whilst their cavalry was tasked with preventing a flanking move by the superior Royalist foot.
The Republicans attacked the Royalist left with some success ...
... but the Royalist left swept forward and brought the Republican cavalry under fire.
The Republican attack slowed as their forces broke up. But as the Royalist infantry pushed forward their commander was shot - the third one killed in as many battles.
Leaderless the Royalists fought on. Unable to manuever, they advanced, firing as they went, and unable to resist the onslaught the Republican army broke.
This was an even closer battle than the previous one, but the Royalists were able to make good political capital from it. They issued a proclamation, declaring the province loyal to the crown, and it succeeded. The Royalists won the campaign.
This campaign did not have the same balance of troops and allowed upgrades as the Alto Peru campaigns I'd played before*, so this campaign had a different feel to the previous ones, and was great fun to play out. I was pleased with how the small changes I made to the campaign system made such a difference. It was indeed a very close-run thing. The second and third battles were won by narrow margins, and by an army which had lost its commander in both cases. The armies in all three games were fairly evenly matched. The whole things took about 3 1/2 hours to set up and play through.
*Cavalry and Artillery could not be upgraded beyond Regular. Infantry and/or Skirmishers could be upgraded to Elite, but no more than two elements in the army could be Elite. An army could not have more than two Skirmishers, one Artillery or six Cavalry. Replacements were determined as follows - 1-3 = Infantry, 4 = Llanero Cavalry (if they were on your side) otherwise Skirmisher, 5 = Cavalry, 6 = Artillery.
I've been enjoying this series of articles, the whole project and the campaign accounts. I would never have believed that paper armies could look so effective.
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