Mynock Alley 3 - Over The Abyss

 Campaign Turn 3

Reelo has recovered from his Booster Blue binge, but is unavailable to do any jobs for the outfit. Mister No is unhappy.

Kenthe is out of commission, still recovering from his head-wound; parting gift of the Imperial militia who survived the last dust-up.

Kyra is sent out to barter for some new and better equipment. She manages to hawk a crate of goods for 1 Credit. Additionally, she picks up a dataslate of holo-vids for Mister No (+1xp).

Adric  visits an old friend in a neighboring hab-district who helps him tune his carbine's spin-regulator-- the weapon gains +1" range permanently. He names the JHL-7 carbine "Jester".

Mister No goes on the prowl, with bad intentions. And he finds them. An argument near Blackband territory sees one of their number dead, with Mister No the prime suspect. Conveniently, he loses his blaster; the investigation is unable to pin the murder on him. He nets +1xp which pushes him to gain an Advance-- his Combat goes from 1.5 to 2, officially making him the most dangerous member of the group.

The Character Event sees Kyra gain +0.5 Reaction (bringing her total to 2), which I imagine is very much a growing realization that working with the Syndicate is Really Dangerous after getting caught in the open with the militia, last fight.

A couple of things make me excited for the game-scenario, as the Background Event conspires with the Enemy Tracking roll. No law enforcement this turn! And the Blackband gang makes a move on the Scarlet Syndicate. Taken together, it seems like Mister No's alleged murder of one of their member finally tips things into all-out-war; and with their Imperial sympathies it is probably easy to get law enforcement to back off for the showdown.

I roll up what kind of gang the Blackband is and get "rich gang", which indicates to me that they're more than just some neo-Imperial bootlickers. It's entirely possible they're being directly funded by COMPNOR slush-money. Further, the Battlefield Condition for the showdown is "bitter struggle"-- the Blackband will have to fail three Morale tests before they run, which makes it likely that this is a fight to the death.

Things do not look good for the Scarlet Syndicate...

Over The Abyss

"Ssorry we couldn't make a deal," hissed Tarla Keeg, "But thiss sshould be a very profitable relationssship."

Mister No grunted, shaking the Arcona's hand. The weapon dealer headed for the stairwell leading to the rooftop where his speeder was parked-- Adric chattering his usual pleasantries as he and Kyra escorted the Arcona. The rest of the outfit gathered around the table looking at a map of traffic near the Magistrate's District.

"So no explosives." Terpfen grunted. "Means we'll need another way to get the armored speeder to go to ground."

"Can we get someone in their control tower? Maybe just order them down." Reelo said. Mister No shook his head.

"Law enforcement is playing deaf-and-dumb to the undercity right now, so they've got twice as many eyes to toss around upside." Mister No said, "If we--"

There was a sudden burst of light and the stitching-whine of a heavy blaster revving up; followed shortly by a heavy metalic thump as the weapon dealer's speeder blew apart at the seams.

"Blackband on the roof!" Adric bellowed over the comms. "They've got military hardware, boss. What kind of hornet's nest did you kick?!"

Mister No could not but help hearing the recrimination in his voice.

"Kenthe, pack our shit and get it loaded in the speeder-- we're gonna hold 'em off."

The Aftermath

Mister No led Terpfen and Reelo to the roof, but the Blackband was ready for them. They had barely made it out of the stairwell when blaster bolts started raining down on them-- Adric and Kyra were similarly beset on the neighboring rooftop.

"Let's show these assholes what--" Mister No began, but was cut off by the keening-whine they'd heard before. A heavy blaster cannon. Scarlet bolts stitched across the rooftop, dropping Mister No before he'd even finished his defiant quip.

Terpfen dove for cover, resting his blaster on the roof's lip. He sighted quickly, taking a long breath in-- and pulled the firing stud. The heavy blaster cannon briefly spat its bolts into the sky as the Blackband ganger went down.

Reelo took the covering fire as an opportunity to vault onto one of the catwalks which bridged the buildings, sprinting for any kind of flanking angle on the Blackband.

Terpfen's brief ululation of victory was cut short as the Blackband returned fire. A bolt caught him in the collar, sending him spinning and down next to Mister No.

Huddled by the stairwell's entrance, Kyra and Adric exchanged desperate blasterfire with their opposites.

Terpfen went down just as Kyra and Adric made it to the roof's edge. Adric saw the writing on the wall, and called for a fighting retreat-- whatever Kenthe had managed to save would have to do.

Adric scored a lucky hit on the Blackband leader, though it was not enough to take him out of the fight. Kyra fared better, catching her opponent in the neck and putting him down more permanently.

As the Blackband leader re-organized his thugs, the Syndicate withdrew-- dragging Terpfen and Mister No downstairs and into the waiting speeder.

The Aftermath

It was a bad day for the Scarlet Syndicate, with only a few silver-linings. The first was that Mister No and Terpfen's injuries were relatively minor. The second was that Reelo had some wherewithal and managed to save 1 Credit out of their Stash-- along with what Kenthe had loaded into the speeder, that meant they'd be able to pay everyone next campaign turn. But that was it-- no bonus for an Opportunity Encounter, no bonus from the Benefactor.

Mister No gained only 1xp (becoming a casualty).

Terpfen gained 2xp (becoming a casualty, inflicting the first casualty)

Reelo, Adric, and Kyra all gained 2xp as well (survived but ran away).

This was enough for Reelo and Adric to get an Advance; Reelo bumped his Toughness to 4, while Adric got a Combat Skill of 1. Both were likely to be useful in the coming fights.

Otherwise, things looked grim-- no Reputation was gained, and so the Syndicate still faced tough prospects to make ends meet, much less become Top Dogs of Mynock Alley.

Mynock Alley 2 - March of the Murder Militia

 Campaign Turn 2

Kenthe and Kyra Train, getting +1 XP. This nets Kenthe an Advance; his movement goes from 4.5 to 5 (as a dedicated brawler, a faster movement seems prudent).

Terpfen, Adric, and Mister No all Collect Revenue. Having shown their general chops in the last campaign turn, people pony up a full 3 Credits.

Reelo heads out to Prowl, and proves that last turn's un-wisdom is not an isolated incident. This time he is laid up by a binge of chemical boosters. While this takes him out for a full campaign turn, it also nets him +0.5 Toughness.

Kenthe is the subject of the random Character Event this turn, getting +0.5 Reactions; this makes sense with his Advance, and I think that it indicates him returning home for a training stint with his "parents". The Unifiers are halfway between an order of monks and a cult, raising their children communally and training relentlessly to be "Force Warriors" (regardless of any actual Force Sensitivity).

In the wake of last turn's weapons embargo, the up-and-coming Scarlet Syndicate make a deal with an arm's smuggler this turn thanks to the Campaign Event. Many in Mynock Alley recognize that the Syndicate might be extorting them for money-- but they're also going toe-to-toe with Imperial bootlickers. This far into the sub-levels, the Empire isn't precisely in as much control as they claim. Gangs like the Blackband and other neo-Imperial militias are instrumental in keeping the populations here under the Empire's thumb. In any case, Kyra gets a shiny new Gorevetti I-95 "Scrap" blaster pistol and ditches the underwhelming Zip-13 snub-nose.

Unfortunately for the Syndicate, their all-gas-no-brakes approach to things continues to create its own opposition. The Background Event indicates that gang tensions are on the rise-- the Blackband, the Mynock-Eaters, and even the Glitterguts Swoop Gang are all recruiting muscle. When and if things pop off against them, the Syndicate will face greater numbers.

This turn, however, is contextualized by two things: the opposition rolled are "Militia" and the battlefield condition is "bitter struggle" (giving the opposition a Morale bonus). The Empire is outsourcing its gang-control problems. Still no Enemies yet, so this represents an Opportunity Encounter.

March of the Murder-Militia

"We should chat sometime." Adric said, sliding up next to Mister No at the bar. They were in the Repulsar Failure, a dive-bar south-and-down from Scarlet Heights. It wasn't officially their territory, but no one was willing to contest them-- and besides, it wasn't particularly fertile territory anyway. That made it a decent place to blow off steam.

"We're not chatting?" Mister No asked, with feigned innocence.

"Not yet." Adric said, with some edge. His nickname was All-Smiles and most days he lived up to the gregarious reputation; he didn't enjoy playing tough. Especially not with the boss.

"Then let's chat." Mister No said, dropping into the same kind of tone. His eyes were hard on Adric, who nearly flinched.

"Terpfen is maybe the only other person in the outfit who can see what you're doing," Adric pressed, "And he's too loyal to say anything about it."

"And you're just disloyal enough to mouth off, huh."

"You named me second. That means it's my job to be a little disloyal." Adric said, slamming back his drink and turning to face Mister No fully, "We're making money, but I'm starting to think you want to get political, boss--"

"Imps!" came a cry from outside the bar, and the denizens of the Repulsar Failure broke into panicked movement. "It's a sweep!"

"The armor's Imperial, but they're wearing it wrong." called Terpfen, peering out the window as patrons flooded out the exits. The rest of the Syndicate--barring Reelo, who was sleeping off some Booster Blue back at the Heights--checked their weapons. "Militia. They're not here to arrest-- they're here to disappear folk."

"You think I wanna get political?" Mister No said aside to Adric, who grimaced, "They're not giving me much of a choice here."

March of the Murder Militia

At Mister No's direction, Terpfen took to the bar's rooftop with his blaster rifle-- being one of the better shots in the outfit.

Adric and Kenthe, exited the front while Mister No and Kyra exited the back.

The militia was spread out. Two squads converged from east and west, while their leader took to an overpass to coordinate.

Adric and Kenthe wasted no time, sprinting for the cover of some industrial bric-a-brac. Kenthe crouched down at the corner, hazarding a peak to the east; Adric took up overwatch to the west, sighting down the battered blaster-carbine he used.

Adric was not kept waiting. The two milita moved up with some practiced ease, one member breaking into a sprint as the other lay down suppressing fire from cover. Adric let off an ineffectual squeeze of the firing-stud before flopping back to the safety of his own cover.

To the east, the militia squad had greater cover and only a single target-- the Mon Cal Terpfen. Their blasterfire briefly kept Terpfen behind his cover as they advanced.

But not for long. Terpfen had been drummed out of military service on his home-planet due to insubordination. He'd come to the Syndicate a vagrant, addicted to spice and self-loathing. But in the Syndicate, he'd found something of a sense of loyalty that ran both ways-- and Mister No had found a use for Terpfen's training.

The Mon Cal popped up from cover long enough to put a blaster-bolt through the eye of one of the advancing militia, then dropped back down.

The militia leader had been watching the back of the Repulsar Failure, and as Mister No and Kyra exited the establishment he opened up with his blaster. The two gangsters scattered-- Kyra to the scant cover of a ladder, and Mister No to the northwest corner of the Repulsar Failure.

It was all Kyra could do to stay out of the militia leader's fire, but Mister No managed several shots on the move that caused the militia leader to briefly relent.

Adric fell back towards Kenthe, unwilling to test the mettle of the two militia advancing on him. His parting shots were wild and useless.

"How's it look?" he said, sliding into cover next to Kenthe.

"Terpfen got one. Can't see the other-- he's keeping his head down."

"Head down is good." Adric grunted, peaking back towards his previous position. The militia hadn't advanced.

Mister No's return fire had given himself and Kyra breathing room, but only a little. The militia leader still held a very good, defensible position. They couldn't move up on him without getting caught in the open.

Thankfully, Terpfen was on a more level playing field. The militia leader tried to pan his blasterfire towards the Mon Cal's sniper-nest, but wasn't quick enough.

A single scarlet bolt took him in the chest, sending him staggering back. He collapsed with maudlin speed.

"Boss, that's not even real stormtrooper armor." Terpfen grunted over the comms.

Adric's puzzlement that the militia had not advanced to his former cover turned to an icy fear.

"Boss, behind you!"

In ducking around the corner of the Repulsar Failure, Mister No had presented his back to the militia-- who reacted with a preparatory clarity.

Blaster bolts rimed Mister No from two angles-- but Adric's barked warning had served its purpose. Mister No's overcoat had several new holes in it, but one of the militia had been dropped.

Adric hurled himself west, leaving Kenthe to keep tabs on the remaining militia. He rounded the industrial crate without heed of cover, pulsing fire at the militia he found there. Blindsided by the aggressive move, the man tried to fall back-- then fell down, helped by a blasterbolt to the throat.

"All clear, here." Terpfen said in his usual, unconcerned drawl.

"Good." Mister No said, slumping against the nearest wall as the adrenaline caught up with him. "Who has the fifth?"

"He's still behind cover." Kenthe answered on the comlink. He bounced his stun-baton with anxious energy. "I-- actually I think he might've run off. Hold on."

"Wait for one of us." Adric started, jogging towards Kenthe's position, "No use risking--"

There was a muted explosive thump, and Kenthe screamed.

The Aftermath

The final militia fled the battle, but in rolling post-game loot Kenthe ended up getting injured. I wrapped it into the fiction by supposing the militia rigged up a small trap on his way out, which the young ascetic fell for. He survived, but unfortunately will miss the next three fights and reduces his Reaction down to 1. Not great.

Still, it is mostly good news for the rest of the crew.

The Syndicate earns 5 Credits (3 from "notable objects" on the battlefield, +1 for a Benefactor, and +1 for it being an Opportunity Encounter). The gang's Stash was at the point where I could start thinking about trying to get them better gear.

Adric, Kyra, and Mister No all received 3xp ("survived and held the field"). This nets Kyra an Advance, bumping her Reaction from 1.5 to 2.

Kenthe earned 4xp ("survived and held the field", and "became a casualty").

Terpfen, meanwhile, had scored a solid 5xp from his performance ("survived and held the field", "first to inflict a casualty", and "inflict a casualty on the enemy leader"). He earns an Advance, bumping his Speed to 5.

All in all, this was a very quick scenario thanks to my garbage rolls; the militia solidly had the drop on Mister No twice, and both times failed to capitalize. We'll see if his luck is better in the future.

Mynock Alley 1 - Showdown on Sub-Level 823

 Campaign Turn 1

Terpfen and Kyra both Train, getting +1 XP. This causes Terpfen to gain an advance, bringing their Combat Skill from 0.5 to 1.

Reelo is sent out to Prowl, and ends up losing the gang's spare blaster pistol in an unwise game of sabaac.

Faced with diminishing funds in the stash, Mister No and Adric All-Smiles went around to collect protection money; unfortunately, they came back empty-handed.

This folded in nicely with the Background Event and Campaign Event that I rolled as we-- the former was a weapons embargo and the latter was gaining a new enemy. I decided that the Imperial presence in the lower-levels was getting worse. Stormtroopers at checkpoints were making it harder to get weapons smuggled in.

Worse, the Scarlet Syndicate had come to the attention of a gang of anti-alien Imperial bootlickers calling themselves The Blackband. I added them as a third Enemy for the gang. Undoubtedly they resented the Syndicate kicking out some spice-dealers from the Heights; most especially because the Syndicate is egalitarian when it comes to species.

For the game-scenario, I rolled up a simple Opportunity Encounter-- no Enemies involved (yet).

Showdown on Sub-Level 823

"Turns out the same guys that ripped off Reelo have been telling folk not to pony up protection money," Adric said, kicking his feet up on the ramshackle desk. Mister No didn't scowl--or rather, his usual undifferentiated scowl didn't change--but he did knock Adric's boots off.

"They give a reason why?"

"Wannabe Blackband, I think." Adric rolled a shrug, "Reelo here says they were drunk on ImpNews talking points."

Mister No looked to Reelo, who simply nodded.

"If they wanna be Blackband, treat 'em like Blackband." Mister No said. There was a light in his eyes that Adric had noted in the past weeks-- usually at the thought of violence directed at Imperials. There was something changing in the boss. Adric couldn't say whether it was a good or a bad thing, but at the very least it was pushing Mister No to make moves with the Syndicate. On that, Adric wasn't about to complain.

Adric popped to his feet, whistling and pointing to Reelo and Kenthe who fell in behind them.

The trio, on Reelo's lead, made it to Sub-Level 823; a common series of passages leading from Mynock Alley's more popular cluster of dive-bars and gambling dens.

Adric and Kenthe posted up on one corner of a building, while Reelo split off to the other. The trio of self-proclaimed "vigilantes" were heading right through the sub-level; barely visible through an industrial fog that had settled in. The vigilantes--carrying some battered hunting blasters and carbines--would have trouble shooting far in the fog. The Syndicalists were all armed with pistols.

Reelo moved from cover to cover, managing to get to a chokepoint where the passage narrowed near the corner of a building and an industrial crate.

Meanwhile, Kenthe approached the opposite flank to the chokepoint. Adric sprinted off down a back-passage, muttering something about getting the high ground.

The vigilantes caught sight of Kenthe first, laying down a brief spat of blaster fire-- but the young ascetic hurled himself forward into cover.

The apparent leader broke for Kenthe, but Adric's sudden appearance on a walkway above him coincided with a trio of blaster bolts that slammed him to the floor in a boneless heap.

At the same time, a vigilante rounded the corner where Reelo had taken cover-- receving an unkind pistol-whip for his trouble. Reelo followed up with pulls of his weapon's firing stud, ensuring the vigilante wouldn't be getting back up.

Kenthe broke cover, vaulting the recumbent leader to intercept the final vigilante. He whirled a stun-baton which he'd painted up to look like a lightsaber, ducking under the vigilante's sloppy attempt to bash him with his rifle's butt.

There was a brief flash and sizzle of ozone as Kenthe's weapon made impact. The last vigilante collapsed.

"Roll 'em for credits" Adric said, climbing down from his perch. Reelo wasted no time. "And if any of them are breathing, make it clear they're not welcome in Mynock Alley anymore."

The Aftermath

The Syndicate gains 1 Reputation for the encounter; if they get another 3, they'll be eligible to try and become "Top Dog" of Mynock Alley.

The group additionally gathered 3 Credits from the battlefield-- plus 1 for the gang's Benefactor Resource and 1 for it being an Opportunity Encounter. This makes sense as some of the protection money the Syndicate is owed. The Syndicate is making it clear that they don't truck with Imperial sympathizers down here.

Adric gains 5xp (3 for "survived and held the field", 1 for "first character to inflict a casualty", 1 for "inflict casualty on enemy leader") which translates to an Advance. His Combat Skill goes from 0 to 0.5

Reelo and Kenthe get 3xp each (for "survived and held the field"). No Advances, yet, but Kenthe is getting pretty close.

And that's the first turn down of the campaign! Stay tuned for more blood & blasters in Mynock Alley.

Edit: Campaign Turn 2

Welcome to Mynock Alley - The Crew & Campaign

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain."

- Roy Batty

It would be tremendously irresponsible of me to write about solo gaming without then demonstrating it to you! Probably. I once drank a purple Monster energy drink out of a champagne glass, so my calibration for what is and is not irresponsible is useless. I got not one but two degrees in English literature. Seriously, the responsibility meter is totally broken. Irredeemably lost.

The truth is I've already showcased some solo gaming on my Twitter feed in the occasional adventure of Captain Finlay Stuart. But those aren't rigorous battle reports, fit for the handsome eyes of you my dear and handsome reader. Further, they're sloppy. They're a narrative overlay hiding the fact that I was really just trying out Warlord's Black Seas gameplay to see if I liked them.

What I want to give you is a bottom-to-top look-see at some solo gaming. How I start, where I go with it, how it changes, and so on.

To that end--

Welcome to Mynock Alley

I've decided to play through a solo wargaming campaign of Nordic Weasel Games' Five Parsecs From Home: Gang Warfare. Nordic Weasel Games produces a bunch of games in this milieu-- small scale, solo and campaign-oriented wargames. Five Parsecs From Home is the "main" game, but each of the spin-offs (Bug Hunt, Gang Warfare, Salvage Crew) is self-contained in terms of playability. There's, additionally, a fantasy version (Five Leagues From The Borderland) that's functionally the same mechanical chassis.

I'll do an in-depth look at the system of Five Parsecs in another post. For now, I'm going to outline the basic premise of my campaign.

First off, I love Star Wars. So it's going to be set in the Star Wars universe. This is further influenced by the fact that I have a shit ton of Imperial Assault miniatures that have not been used in some time. So this little wargame campaign will be my excuse to finally use them.

The game will take place on Coruscant, in the lower levels during the reign of the Empire. So, technically Imperial Center instead of Coruscant if you want to get pedantic. I rolled a gang origin as a prompt and got 'Our hideout is an abandoned apartment block. We created the gang to take down a rival. Our reputation is professional.' which gives me plenty to work with.

I'm calling them the Scarlet Syndicate, and the territory they're fighting over is Mynock Alley. The group is based out of a run-down hab-unit called Scarlet Heights (hence their name); I imagine the Syndicate was a reaction to some previous criminal element that they wanted to force out.

While generating the characters I ended up with two "Enemies"; these are game-elements which serve two purposes. The first is to occasionally contextualize game-scenarios (usually by being the opposition in them), and the second is to act as benchmarks for becoming "Top Dog". Essentially, as you gain money and reputation, you can eventually try to take over territory-- but to do so you need to have final and definitive showdowns with some Enemies you've accrued.

In any case, I want one to act as a kind've background rivalry and one to be a more general threat for the neighborhood. For the former, we've got the Glitterguts Swoop Gang-- proper glitbiters and roughnecks who had been previously dealing spice out of Scarlet Heights. They're probably really salty that the Scarlet Syndicate kicked them out. For the latter, we've got the Mynock-Eaters. Hutt-affiliated in the worst way, who see the population of Mynock Alley as their cattle and prey.

But what about the Scarlet Syndicate? Let me introduce them to you, in brief (from left to right).

Reelo Reezan - A Rodian from modest working class origins, with a knack for prowling. Motivated their desire for a reputation as a proper Rodian hunter.

Terpfen Vebbar - A Mon Cal orphan, soft-spoken and light-footed. Motivated by a sense of found-family.

Kyla Bite - A Coruscanti Human from the destitute underclass. Talented at getting things that aren't legal, and motivated by a desire to escape Mynock Alley.

Kenthe Tene - A Coruscanti Human raised by under-level aescetics (who idolize what they think the Jedi were). A martial artist who wants to see the galaxy someday. Force-Sensitive? We'll see.

Adric "All-Smiles" - A charming guttersnipe, Coruscanti Human, who wants to buy and run his own ship. Second-in-command of the Scarlet Syndicate.

"Mister No" - A Coruscanti Human, the opposite of gregarious. Talented problem-solver (especially if the problem can be solved with violence). Jaded, and doesn't believe in anything in particular except for a supreme distaste for the Empire. Leader of the Scarlet Syndicate.

Keep an eye out, I should have my first game-scenario posted soon!

Edit: Campaign Turn 1

Afterthoughts: Maria

Maria, or How I Stopped Worrying And Learned To Love Hussars

As those of you who follow me on Twitter have come to know, on Fridays I get saucy and play boardgames with some friends. This being the age of Covid-19, we do so virtually! This has been an unexpected boon for me-- there are a lot of games I just wouldn't have played without something like Tabletop Simulator and its dedicated community of weirdos. So too Vassal.

Today, I'm going to gild the gorgeous trainwreck of my inebriated livetweets with a sober reflection on the game played. If you're a glutton for punishment, by all means explore the tweet threads yourself:

Part 1: In Which I Learn The Game (Poorly)

Part 2: In Which I Taste What I Think Is Victory

Part 3: Hamartia

The Game

Maria is a wargame about war, which as an observation might seem to rate up there with 'the sky is blue' and 'Colin you've absolutely ruined this dinner party'. It seems self-evident. But it's not! Not all wargames are about war-- many merely don warfare as an aesthetic. Some are actually about politics, or the industry which girds warfare, or the intellectual puzzle a strategic situation might represent. For a wargame to be about war, it needs to be saying something about armed conflict-- an observation-in-practice. That's the strength of games, after all; they can place their author's thesis in the active hands of players. 'Don't merely listen, do'.

For Maria, the thesis runs parallel to that of the famous military theorist Carl von Clausewitz (from whose writing this blog also takes its name) who noted war's fickle nature:

"We see therefore how from the commencement, the absolute, the mathematical as it is called, no where finds any sure basis in the calculations in the art of war; and that from the outset there is a play of possibilities, probabilities, good and bad luck, which spreads about with all the coarse and fine threads of its web, and makes war of all branches of human activity the most like a game of cards."

"What an astute observation, von Clausewitz," the game's designer said, "I'm actually just gonna do that".

And so they did. In Maria you have armies with an innate strength. More importantly, you have a hand of playing cards; when armies meet, you supplement the army's strength from this hand back-and-forth with your opponent until someone is unable (or unwilling) to keep playing cards.

Immediately, there's an interesting game going on-- you might know the inherent strength of an enemy's army, but it's harder to anticipate how well-stocked their hand is. The game further complicates your analysis.

If you take a look at that board, you'll note that there is a grid of card suits overlaid on the map-- when your army is embattled, you can only play cards of the suit listed in their territory. This conceivably adds to the bluffing element. Does your opponent's massive hand represent an actual ability to defend their territory? Or are all those cards in the wrong suit?

Hopefully, the texture of the game is becoming clear. Everyone is blitzing to capture cities, laying victory tokens over them when they do so. The game ends immediately when someone has gotten rid of all their tokens. But the game is not an unthinking blitz-- your aggression is necessarily guided by the logistical demands of your hand, your cards, your suits.

On the whole, the game seems to take the view that war is decided by decisive battles, but decisive battles are decided by solid logistics/supply.

There is more to the game than what I've described--a regular 'politics phase' in which players have wager on random events which punish or embolden their boardstate, for example--but the management of one's hand and one's army is very central. It's the meat and potatoes.

The Aesthetics

If the game is about war in broad terms, it is about the War of Austrian Succession in specific terms. Again, that seems like a farcically self-evident statement. But it isn't. Some games cohere very rightly to their aesthetic-- attempting to abstractly represent or simulate-in-part their period/subject. Is Risk about the Napoleonic Wars? No, not really.

I'm a real sucker for the wedding of aesthetic to theme/thesis, and so a game like Maria is the kind of treat I normally only get if I sit on command or don't bark at the mail person.

The War of Austrian Succession is one of those conflicts which make you sigh, happily, because you are not a historian who has to make sense of it. It is a conflict which--like many in its time period--seemingly straddles the line between feudal conflict and national conflict. It is, at its heart, an attempt to keep a specific woman from sitting in a certain chair.

And it is messy. Terribly so. Setting aside the gorgeous art, the well-researched random events, the game captures the messiness of the conflict by inflicting on the player an almost schizophrenic demand.

Here's what I mean. The play-entities are France + Bavaria, Prussia + Saxony, and Austria + The Pragmatic Army. But the Austrian player doesn't control the Pragmatic Army-- the Prussian ones does. And political events can mean that the Austrian controls Saxony. What a beautiful vichyssoise of nonsense.

The grander strategy, especially for Austria, similarly demands a bizarre notion of who is enemy and who is ally. Prussia, Bavaria, and part of France's forces are poised on the Austria borders. Austrian cities are, by any analysis of the board, easier to snatch up. Austria lacks the armies and resources to defend against all comers.

But.

Austria wins if no one else wins first. Which means one of the greatest points of leverage that player has is to threaten to throw the game to someone else. France/Bavaria and Prussia have to tiptoe carefully through Austria's cities, or risk helping another player win because of their own success.

This is exactly the kind of abstraction which keys very well to what you can read about in the history of the war. These politics are not easy, are not intuitive. They're messy in a way the real War of Austrian Succession was messy; which, to me, speaks very well of the decision of aesthetic. Or, rather, the decision to make the aesthetic more than just a nominal one.

Closing Thoughts

I think my opinion of the game should be pretty apparent if you've been reading this far; but I want to focus on something that happened in the final part of my Friday playthrough. I'd gotten down to only two victory tokens; if I could capture two cities anywhere on the board, I'd win.

But I didn't win. I got hammered pretty brutally.

And while my loss can in specific terms be attributed to two misplays (mistaking my Bavarian hand of cards for my French hand of cards, and over-committing an army in battle so that a small loss became a much larger one), those misplays were consequent to having a terrible run of cards. A very terrible run. The boardstate had bottlenecked around three territories, two of which shared a suit. I simply never drew the right suit for either.

And that sucked. It felt really bad. I felt stupid not because I was being stupid (barring those two exceptions) but because the cards I'd been dealt were largely useless.

In the mid-game, a run of bad cards prompts conservative play. Late-game? Conservative play is a sure loss, so stupid play has at least the forlorn hope of a win.

"Maybe if I run really fast across no man's land, I'll survive" says a French soldier in Verdun.

Now, I was tempted to call this a case where the rules are weak or bad-- because I'm not stupid, I am in fact very handsome, and my ego has the durability of a soap bubble. But the truth is that the rules are fine; to reduce the randomness of the card draw is to reduce the texture of the puzzle you're handed. It is to undercut the thesis in a way I'd probably not be okay with. Possibly, the reality of a late-game bad run of cards is just... part of that thesis, even if it isn't necessarily fun.

Still. The game is pretty dope, check it out.