Up Against the Wall, Mother****er! - Micro Edition

This item contains the scaled down version of the game Up Against the Wall, Mother****er! This game, with it's title alone, sparked quite a bit of controversy. To add to that, the subject matter of the game was the Columbia University Student Riots of 1968.

Please note that this edition is not the original (insanely rare and valuable) version of the game that was sold by SPI, they are scaled down copies that were sent to subscribers of Strategy & Tactics as a "feeler" to see if Poultron Press' customer base would like the game included in S&T #21. While not the original game and in a much smaller format, everything necessary to play this game is included and they could be used to recreate a larger reproduction of the game.

Here is the letter that was sent to the subscribers of S&T:

THE GREAT UP AGAINST THE WALL, MOTHER****ER HASSLE

We had originally planned on putting a copy of UP AGAINST THE WALL, MOTHER****ER! in every copy of S&T. But, for reasons to be explained below, we have only sent copies out to about 8% of the subscribers. You are one of the group that has received a copy of UAW,M!

Back in March the subject of UAW,M! came up at a staff meeting. Although a majority of the readers had voted for the inclusion of CHICAGO, CHICAGO in S&T, those who had rejected it had also, in many cases, voiced reservations about including UAW,M! in the magazine. Someone asked if it wouldn't be a good idea to just drop UAW,M! Soon there were two groups, one arguing for UAW,M!'s inclusion, with the other against it. A vote was taken and UAW,M! won, but just a bare majority voted for the game's inclusion in the magazine. Thus the debate continued. The main points of the arguments were:

PRO: UAW,M! is a good game, better than CHICAGO, CHICAGO and proved very popular with Avalon Hill gamers when it was first published in the Columbia Spectator in 1969. It won't cost us anything to include it in the magazine and the use of the (to some) offensive name is rather academic as the name has been exposed many times in the magazine already, besides the name is an integral part of the game and it would look rather silly to cut it out of the game (something like censorship).

CON: The name will be offensive to many readers. Also, it is not a military conflict game, which is what many people buy S&T for. It is not worth offending some of the readership just to put in the magazine a game that MIGHT turn on another group of readers. Why not cut-out all the "Mother****ers" in the game (it is already pasted up and need only be reproduced)?

As a compromise we decided to send out small copies of the game to a random sampling of the readers, therefore not too many would be offended and enough would see the game and be able to decide for themselves if they felt the game was worth including in the magazine. So we take our case to the people. Question 73 on the FEEDBACK questions is the one you will use to record your verdict. Put one of the following numbers in to indicate your answer:

1 = Yes, include UAW,M! in a future issue as an "extra" game with a board big enough to play on.

2 = Same as 1 above but with all of the "Mother****er" words cut-out (we'll just cut them out of the present text).

3 = No, do not put UAW,M! in S&T.