CUIDAD DE PATRIOTAS

(CITY OF PATRIOTS) 

FROM

TRAFALGAR EDITIONS

I expect that many, like me, first learnt about this bloody episode in Spanish history from the celebrated painting by Francisco Goya reproduced below.  

Tres de Mayo or The Execution

However, Goya's painting that relates most specifically to Trafalgar Editions' game depicting the Spanish uprising in Madrid during the Peninsular war is this second painting.

Goya's Dos de Mayo or The Fight Against the Mamelukes

Indeed the game's very short introductory scenario, designed to familiarise you with the basic game system, is entitled "The Charge of the Mamelukes."

To set the scene in its historical context, Madrid had been occupied by the French since late March 1808 and the Spanish king, Charles IV had been forced to abdicate in favour of his son, Ferdinand VII, but both were being held by the French in Bayonne. General Murat was in command in Madrid and appeared to be intending to move Charles's daughter and her children along with Charles's youngest son to Bayonne as well.  These actions were what sparked off this brief and bloody uprising on May 2nd [Dos de Mayo] 1808.  Quelled by the end of the same day, the spontaneous rebellion was followed on the next day by harshly repressive reprisals in which several hundred Spanish citizens (madrilanos) were rounded up and summarily shot, as immortalised by Goya's painting.

Cuidad de Patriotas presents the action of that day of rebellion in simple area-movement form with a brief set of rules and Trafalgar Editions' customary excellent quality.  So, it's with many thanks to the company for providing me with this review copy and giving me the opportunity to explore this unusual and highly individual event depicted with some equally individual features.  

The mounted map board vividly lays out the districts of Madrid in bold colours.  Each district is further divided into a number of neighbourhoods.  For a French victory, you need to control six out of the eight districts by end of the game's six turns, other wise it's victory to the Spanish player.  The quality of a French victory can range from Decisive to Pyrrhic!

Inevitably the Spanish player's task is, somehow, in the face of many more powerful French units, to delay and delay... and delay.  For the French player, it is constantly to move and attack.  Each district must have all its neighbourhoods cleared of Spanish units and occupied by at least one French unit, at which point it comes under permanent French control and cannot be re-entered by Spanish units or have their reinforcements appear there, nor do the French units have to remain there to maintain control. It's not so much a race of the hare and the tortoise as the steamroller and time!

As mentioned the components are of very good quality, especially the mounted board and the counters.  The latter have perfectly rounded corners and press out smoothly with none of the occasionally irritating side tags found in some games.

There are rule books both in Spanish and in English and the latter suffers slightly in being printed on plain white, A4 sized paper that doesn't quite match the smoother, glossy Spanish booklet.  The Play Aids are double-sided again to accommodate Spanish and English text.  The package is rounded out with an attractive, neat draw-string bag (a little small for its purpose), a pack of Command cards and a 10-sided die.

Though the basic rules are a bare six and a half pages long, there is quite a bit of originality to be embraced that takes them beyond the ease that might be expected for the suggested novice wargamer.  Also like many games that have fairly brief rules, you need to concentrate carefully in your reading.  The rules on Reinforcements are a good example of what I mean.  Their detailed explanation comes on page 11, five pages after the basic rules and is located after optional rules, designer notes and a full page table of Troop Composition.  Among them is the information that "the French player receives reinforcements from out of the city and from the accesses marked on the map."  This instruction can only be fully understood when you link it up with the overall information on page 2 about neighbourhoods "In some neighbourhoods there are flags with numbers and letters.  They are the barracks where the French and Spanish troops were stationed and are used to introduce reinforcements.  There are also French flags at the entrances to Madrid, they are entry areas for other French and some Spanish reinforcements."  Put these details together with the following play aid,

and the Order of Battle display cards (seen below) and you're nearly there for knowing exactly where to place most of your reinforcements.  Sometimes you will still need to locate the hard to find name of a road on the map board that some French troops arrive on to solve it.  I have to say it wasn't plain sailing!

Order of Battle Play Aids

When you've set up your units on these displays, the disparity in the forces is all the more striking.  First of all, more than half of the Spanish units are civilians and more than half of all the Spanish units have only a strength of one.  In total, they have 46 strength points.  In contrast, the French are all military units.  They have 32 units, but 11 of those are four strength and each can be broken down into 4 single strength counters.   These are essential both for the massive punch they have in combat and that they can be broken down in order to spread out to occupy the many neighbourhoods needed to gain control of six out of the eight districts that lead to victory.  In total, the French muster 90 strength points!

The shot above gives you a clear idea of the quality of the large counters - as mentioned earlier, not a marring side-tag in sight.

So there's the overview of the contents and a glimpse of the opposing forces.  Now to the sequence of play and the game's system.  

PHASE 1 REINFORCEMENTS, EVENTS AND COMMAND CARDS

New random Event chits are drawn and each player plays one chit.

Place reinforcements.

Draw command cards.

PHASE 2 COMBAT AND MOVEMENT

Unlike the majority of area movement games, there is no variation in cost whatsoever between entering a friendly or enemy area or adjacent to an enemy area.  Movement couldn't be easier - 1 MP (movement point) per area.

Combat on the other hand is a different matter altogether. You only have combat within an area; there is no combat between adjacent areas.  Combat resolution begins with a very familiar simple differential between total attacker and defender strength points, with a few equally obvious modifiers for such things as unit type, card play and Event chits.  Roll on the Combat Table and apply the loss in points to the loser.  However, how those loss points are applied is distinctly unfamiliar and took some getting used to.  At first it seemed straightforward.  If all individual units are higher in value than the loss, then all losing units simply retreat 1 or 2 areas.  If the combat loss is equal to the strength of the weakest unit, then the unit is dispersed - i.e. removed from the board. If French the unit is automatically returned as a reinforcement on the next turn, if Spanish roll the D10 and a result of 6-10 it too automatically returns as a reinforcement, but a roll of 1-5 eliminates it.  Any other units are retreated.

However, any loss result greater than the strength of one or more units will cause some element of immediate elimination and possible dispersal and retreat.  I couldn't discern a simple, logical process to work this out, but had to rely on following the summary of results.  Fortunately, this summary is fairly short and with practice becomes familiar.  Bu it wasn't initially helped by the use of "scattered" instead of "dispersed" at one point and "retired" instead of "retreated".   Just a bit more focus in proof-reading would have avoided this.

Close up of the strongly coloured map board

PHASE III THE UPRISING BOX

(Note that the sequence of play printed on the back of the rule book labels this phase as REVOLT BOX).

Each player keeps a tally of combat points lost for units and characters (i.e. leaders) and these are called the player's Fury Points and at the end of the turn the French total is deducted from the Spanish total.  The result is called The Uprising Box and determines which player draws 3 Event chits and the other 2 Event chits at the beginning of the next turn.   Again all seemed very simple, as all of these scores are reset to zero at the beginning of a turn.  However, the second example in the rule book for this Phase contradicts the rules by stating that each player started a turn with +2 Fury Points which was added to that turn's casualties.  As this didn't seem to make any sense, I simply disregarded the example.

The basic rules end with the Victory Conditions.

An automatic Spanish victory occurs, if the French do not control at least 2 districts by the end of Turn 4 - an outcome I cannot foresee ever happening.

Otherwise, the French win, as stated earlier, if they control at least 6 out of the 8 districts.  If the French win, you determine the scale of victory which runs from Decisive to Pyrrhic with the proviso that if the French lose 22 or more points their victory shifts down a level meaning that a Pyrrhic level victory would shift to a Spanish victory!

Continuing on from the basic rules, there are a few optional rules that add a little more colour and detail.  They cover such things as cavalry charges and special French cavalry movement, officers and significant historical characters, unit support, further combat modifiers, French garrisons and fog of war for Spanish civilian units which are randomly drawn and set up face down.  Most are simple and easy ti introduce and personally I would choose to play with nearly all of them as standard.

The rules booklet is rounded off with something I always like to see, namely Designer Notes, a troop Composition Table and rather oddly only now do we get the rules for Reinforcement Placement and the Set-Up and Reinforcement Schedule.

The last neat touch is to present an historical narrative of the day, hour by hour, giving details along with the appropriate unit and where to place them. 

Well illustrated rules

To sum up, Cuidad de Patriotas is an essentially light and intriguing exploration of a brief and small. but significant event in the Peninsular War.  The game is very attractively presented in all aspects and the rules are generally short and comprehensive, with one or two grey areas that would have benefited from a little more detail and clarity.  With a maximum of six turns and a small unit count, it provides a swift game that can easily be played in a single afternoon or evening's play.

As always it's with many thanks to Trafalgar Editions for kindly providing this review copy and their rapid replies to my rare queries on a few rules.

LIMITS OF GLORY

NAPOLEON'S EASTERN EMPIRE 

FROM

FORM SQUARE GAMES

Almost a year ago, I reviewed the prototype of this game.  I was majorly impressed by the quality and the originality of this game.

What I had to say then can be found by clicking on this LINK.

The game was launched later last year on Gamefound and rapidly reached its target for publishing and was a complete sell out.  Roll forward less than a year and here is the published product safely and proudly in my hands with many thanks to Andy Rourke, the game's designer and founder of  its publishing company Form Square Games.

In this brief reprise, I mainly want to highlight the extra notch or two by which the final professionally published game extends the existing qualities of the prototype.  Perhaps the most obvious step up is the map which suffered in its original draft from a strange abnormality in the colour of the sea.  Here, below, everything is as it should be with a perfect translucent blue sea, but my photograph still cannot capture just how strikingly bright the whole effect is.

Next come the counters - identical in every way to the prototype, but just that bit sharper and perfect in the images; especially the circular counters, two for each leader, one of which goes on the map and the other marking their Glory Points on the Leader Displays.

The Leader Displays too reveal the same increased precision with the background colouring and outlined cartoon images distinct and clear.

However, what I want to comment on most is the rule book.  In its prototype it was a simple set of black and white A4 stapled sheets.  It did the job clearly, despite the originality and novelty of so much of the rules.  The final product deserves my wholehearted praise and approval.  It's magnificent!  So here goes for a quick dip in, from the front cover...

to the admirable index on the back page.

Everything about it signals quality perfection.  Physically, it is a delight to hold and turn the substantial, smooth pages and reading the rules is a pleasure.  Large print and spacious layout complement the presentation and add to the ease of reading and comprehending what you read.

Substantial illustrations simply enliven the text...

while the majority serve to support and clarify the explanations.

The text, as in the prototype draft, is designed to be read consistently in chronological order.  This may seem an odd comment to make.  Surely all rules should be read in chronological order?  True, but I know many experienced gamers often turn to certain sections (e.g. Combat or Movement) for a preliminary scan.  This game and series introduces so many intriguingly original, yet simple, mechanisms and takes you carefully step by step through them at each appropriate stage of the game play that I think it worth emphasising.

There is so much to like about this presentation from the massive main headings for each stage of the rules to the comprehensive alphabetical Quick Reference page on the back of the rule book.  Understanding of the rules is supported by the many examples, all immediately recognisable by being highlighted in pink background boxes, and a factor I always like is the detailed explanation of all  the Events, which are particularly important in this game.

The richness and the attention to detail throughout in the artwork, the colour, the cartoons drawn from the historical period and the sheer physical quality contributes so much to the pleasure of the game.  It also testifies to the designer's love and appreciation of the game's subject and his desire to communicate this in a way that is so much more than just a set of rules.

If you did not back the boxed version of this game, it is still possible to buy the folio magazine version either directly from Form Square Games  or Second Chance Games.

And finally, I am more than happy to say that the second game in this series, Maida 1806 is well under way and shortly you will be able to read my review of the prototype here on A Wargamers Needful Things.

 FOURTEEN DAYS IN JUNE

FROM

STRATEGEMATA

It may sound like the title of a spy novel, but as you can see we're back in familiar war gaming territory... or, perhaps, not so familiar.  Especially, there's no need for the immediate exclamation - not another Waterloo game.  Why? Well, because this isn't the typical focus of the three days, but as the title and subscript spells out, it's a treatment of the whole two weeks leading up to and culminating in the battle of Waterloo.  This is a very refreshing change, especially as it's a game coming from a designer that I already rate highly.  Several of his games I've already reviewed for A Wargamers Needful Things and nearly all his other games are in my collection.  So, it was no surprise to see "A game by Stephen Pole" featured on the front of the game box.  It's a detail that would immediately make me pick up a game and have me well on the way to buying it.

However, once again I've got Strategemata to thank for their kindness in sending me Fourteen Days In June to review.  Opening up the box revealed typical features of both a Stephen Pole design and Strategemata production.  Much as I've liked the sequence of their smaller mounted maps in recent games, I was more than happy to see a full sized paper map for this game which gives justice to the necessary scale for this campaign.

The counters remain of very average quality by current standards and remind me very much of the simplicity of when I first encountered board games through SPI magazine games back in the 1970s!  Everything is functional and serviceable and so is the rule book, which remains a simple twelve page, stapled, black and white production.  

Front page of Rules Booklet

As has become almost standard, it is supported by a similar eight page booklet of rules examples, with plenty of helpful coloured illustrations, but with text in even smaller print than the rules themselves.  

Eight page Examples Booklet

Though these production qualities are a far cry from the gloss of many nascent games companies, the design itself is very much a quality one, blending as it does elements familiar from a number of Stephen Pole's previous games with some very interesting developments.

To start with, what is familiar from 2021's How The Union Was Saved are the wooden stands and oblong leader counters that are all that appear on the map itself.  Each stand and Leader represents a Formation.  They are very few in number, with only eight in total for the joint Allied British and Prussian forces and seven for the French when set up at the start,  growing to a maximum of fourteen for the Allied and twelve for the French.  This is followed by the identical layout down one side of the map for the units that make up each leader's command.  

On the display, you place unit markers, one for each of the three combat arms: infantry, cavalry and artillery.  These markers are numbered so that you can register the current number of divisions of each type that the force contains.  Those placed on each top row will be numbered in black to show full strength and those on each bottom row will be numbered in white to show half strength.

Just as your display was hidden from your opponent's by screens in How the Union Was Saved, so too here.

Each player gets to see a suitably dramatic scene of their enemy in firing line, while on the reverse they face a helpful set of informative tables.  All these elements are identical to those in the previous game, along with the combat system that I'll discuss later.  Virtually everything else is different.

The initial and very obvious difference is the larger size of map which promises that manoeuvre will be even more important than it was for the ACW game.  However, it is within the system itself that the major changes and developments appear and all of them I've found highly rewarding.  

The major one in this game is the issuing of orders.   What is rather strange is that in the Sequence of Play, it doesn't even get named!  There are, in fact, only three Phases listed:

[1] Attrition and Supply

[2] Movement and Combat

[3] Commander Movement

The first, Attrition and Supply, is fairly conventional.  Attrition is affected by two factors - the size of the Force and whether it is in supply or not.  Supply is handled by the tried and trusted method of  tracing to a supply source along a road, but thankfully doesn't allow the often ridiculous ability to allow your road to wander all over the map back to a supply source!  Instead the road you are using to trace supply may only progress three hexes ahead of the compass direction fixed for your nationality - south for the British, north for the French and west for the Prussians.  An extra restriction is that you must be on or adjacent to the road or be separated by a single clear hex.  It may seem a small point, but having despaired of many games with easy, but ridiculously liberal supply rules or some games with immensely complex ones!  Here, it is simple, but realistic.

Virtually all the rest of the game's rules are contained in Phase 2 Movement and Combat.  Personally, I would have labelled this Phase Orders and Movement, as it has five sections. Parts I to IV deal with Orders, while Part V deals specifically with the details of Movement.  However, the type of Order will affect movement and whether you can engage in combat too.  All these combinations depart significantly from the simplicity and ease of understanding that I associate with Steve Pole's designs.  Don't be deterred.  It is well worth getting to grips with and I would strongly recommend following through each part of the rules, using both the examples in the supporting booklet along with physical counters on the map too.  A single play of the game was then sufficient for me to play subsequent games with barely a reference to the rule book about orders.  I'd also suggest that, when first learning and playing the game, you stick to the Historical Set-Up rules and only move on to the Quasi-Historical Set-Up or Free Set-Up when you've bedded in the rules!

Historical Set-Up
 

So, at the start only the French issue Initial Orders, one for each Force on the map and this involves writing a destination village, town or city on a record sheet.   This is a very similar method to Hexasim's Rising/Falling Eagles games that also cover Napoleonic battles.  While under Initial Orders, formations can only move on the road network.  For the first three turns, only the French can move using these Initial Orders, though on turn 2 the Allied forces do write down their Initial Orders and on turn 3 place the Order markers on the map.

Without going into too much detail, what follows on from Turn 4 is the issuing of Further Orders.    This is done one force at a time alternately from one side to the other.  Each time you attempt to issue an order, you test by rolling two dice with a decreasing bonus system to see if you are successful.  Fail and you cannot issue any more orders; also if you decide not to issue an order, you can't issue any more that turn.  There is quite a deal of subtlety here (especially as you can place +1 or +2 markers which act as a sort of delayed order process).  Once comfortable with applying them, it's a system I thoroughly enjoy and would single out as being a major factor.

Once all Order markers have been placed on the map, they are carried out,  again alternately.  One side chooses a Force with an Order marker, removes the Order marker and moves and conducts combat, if desired and possible, and then the other side activates a  Force and does the same.  Like the issuing of orders, if you decide not to activate a Force, then you won't be able to activate any more that turn and any Forces that still have orders on them have them removed!

Part IV (of the Movement and Combat Phase) is named Updating Orders and is the process by which a Force with a +1 marker is given an Order marker and a Force with a +2 marker has it substituted by a +1 marker.  

Included among these central processes of the game are a number of small details that contribute to the flavour and feel of this game.  Route blocked markers that hinder the progress of your own units; the ability to Force March resulting in placing a fatigue marker that affects combat; the use of markers to show that your Force has already been in combat and adds a negative affect to further combat; the role of Commanders for whom only the single highest ranking Commander's standee is ever located on the map and as Forces merge or split new Commanders come into play or are placed on the hidden displays where the unit strength markers are located; and one of my favourites, Inadvertent Moves  whereby every hex moved off-road has to be diced for and a failed roll ends the Force's movement in a randomly generated hex adjacent to the one you've just entered.  The latter is an excellent reminder of the difficulties of off-road movement along with the added difficulties brought on by bad weather. 

En Avant. Mes Amis

The blue markers indicate Route Blocked

Moving on to the Combat rules, they are the identical ones used in Stephen Pole's previous ACW game and they are highly effective and easy to implement.  Commanders once more play an important role, as the number of stars of rank a leader possesses determines the maximum number of dice you may choose to roll and the total rolled is the number of divisions you must commit to a battle.  So, a leader like Napoleon can roll up to five dice which, of course, means, depending on what he rolls, he may be able to commit anywhere between 5 to 30 divisions.  Obviously, if you don't have as many as the number rolled, you simply commit all that you have!  Factors like the quality of your Army Commander if leading the Force, combined arms and terrain add to your total with the final addition of a D6 roll for each player.

Whoever achieves the higher number wins the battle.  Then the difference between the scores is the maximum number of hits that the winner inflicts on the loser and the loser scores half that number of hits on the winner.  Each hit eliminates half a division point. The scale of a victory also involves who retreats and who controls that retreat. This is an excellent and very easy method which does away with unrealistic combat factor counting just to get that perfect combat odds and also does away with computing column shifts and die roll modifiers.  Moreover, losses from combat and attrition are crucial to winning the game.

Unless the French gain an automatic victory by capturing one of the two hexes of Brussels, victory is determined at the end of the fourteen turn game by the number of divisions lost by each side.  

The French win if either the British or the Prussians have lost at lest 10 divisions and the French have lost fewer than half the total number of divisions lost by the the British and Prussians combined.  Any other result is a win for the Allied side.  These conditions influence game play and player decisions from the very start - another excellent factor in the game.

This is a hugely enjoyable two-player game.  It is easy to play and one that will not have your head buried in the rule book, but concentrating on what's happening on the map.  Hidden strengths, the order system and combined movement & combat rules all lead to a fast moving, tension filled contest of cat and mouse game that can be played out in a single sitting.  It’s also the type of game where you will certainly make blunders, as you learn the potential for each side to deceive and pursue unexpected lines.  Learning how to counter these and devise and exploit twists of your own is part of the pleasure.  Even using the historical setup,  the course of the campaign may well not follow history, unless both players pursue identical decisions to their historical counterparts.  But if you want to put yourself in the place of those commanders with all the uncertainty that they faced and execute your plan to achieve victory, this game should just serve your needs.  Personally, I intend to try it out in the future with the added uncertainty of using my sleds so that I cannot initially see who is leading each Force. nor who may be in command when forces split up.

 

Sound of Drums

 

 This is just a brief look at Sound of Drums and their upcoming games. The pictures are about their Eylau 1807 game that is coming soon.

"For thousands of years soldiers all over the world followed the sound of drums marching into battle or marching far away from their homes into unknown territory following a leadership. The Macedonian fighters followed Alexander the Great to India, the French Grognards marched into battle following the “pas de charge” up the hills at the Battle of Waterloo. Military drums have been used for martial music, communication, drill, honors music and military ceremonies."

 

 

  "My name is Uwe Walentin, born in 1970 in southern Germany and playing games since I can remember. I love history, books and board games."

The Gorgeous Map

"At the age of 13 I discovered my first wargame (“Waterloo” by international team). From there my wonderful journey of learning about (military) history with the help of games started. A fascinating hobby.

From 1993 to 1997 I worked for different French game publishers before creating my own game company: PRO LUDO. We published and distributed a huge range of games (like “Ticket to Ride”) but I had never the courage to publish what I really love: Strategy games with a historical context and wargames. In 2006 I sold my company and in 2008 I quit the gaming industry to work as a professional football coach in different countries in Europe."

Map Inset

 "During these years I did not lose my passion for board games and had many ideas working in my mind.

In 2021 I decided to found my company SOUND OF DRUMS to design and publish the games I always wanted to. Dedicated to traditional strategy and wargames with a lot of experience in quality (i.e. components) “Eurogames-style” publishing, I am convinced that we will find a new way how to design and publish wargames. We will break with a couple of traditions (no ZOCs, please!) and will implement new procedures and game components to our designs. The goals of our designs are highly interactive game play with a minimum of downtime and although being epic in scale keeping the games playable."

Setup at the Beginning of the Game

 "We are shipping as we speak the game series “History of the Ancient Seas” and will publish this summer “Battles of Napoleon – Volume I: Eylau 1807”. The first part in a game series covering the major battles in the Napoleonic era on a tactical level. Eylau will be followed by Quatre Bras, Ligny, Waterloo, Borodino, Austerlitz."

Lestocq is Arriving

 "This fall we will present a fantastic game about the French Revolution by Jason St. Just and late fall a game series by Carl Paradis.

We have many more titles in the pipeline like “Roma Victoria Semper” and “Neither King Nor God”. All epic in scale, highly playable, with gorgeous game components."

 I want to thank Mr. Walentin for allowing me to show these pics from Eylau 1807. Please take a look at their Ancients games also.

Sound of Drums – we develop and publish thrilling historical boardgames

 

AUSTERLITZ:1805

from

TRAFALGAR EDITIONS

Having had the pleasure of playing and reviewing Waterloo 1815, the first game in this system from Trafalgar Editions, I've been waiting with anticipation for this second game to appear.  Apart from Austerlitz being regarded as one of the greatest, if not the greatest of Napoleon's victories, it's a battle I find particularly fascinating for gaming.

Though for the Napoleonic period, Waterloo inevitably has had prime place in history and on the gaming table, for me the close geographical confines have always been a restriction to manoeuvre and above all fog of war when it comes to the gaming table.  The combination of kriegspiel style blocks and the marriage of miniature style elements to boardgame ones in Trafalgar Editions' system was one I relished seeing get its full go-ahead in the much more expansive battle of Austerlitz.

Rather than repeat ground that I covered in my review of Waterloo:1815, I will concentrate on what I consider the differences and changes.  To help with this I've reposted my original review so that you can make easy comparison.

In all respects it's a fine follow-up, though the small wooden units have given way to more traditional cardboard ones -a feature that may disappoint some gamers.  However, I do find that the cardboard pieces are easier to read. Nor do they have the problem of balancing markers on them that was a difficulty with the wooden blocks and, best of all, there's none of the problem of applying very small stickers to wooden blocks that barely fit them. 

The next difference is that the map is even easier to deal with as you have little more than contours to take account of and small villages, especially as the significantly wooded north edge of the map is likely to see little game play occurring there.  Once again it is a solidly mounted board of several panels in two sections.  Though the joins are obvious in the photo below, they soon settle into place very tightly.

The bare map contrasts with the colour of the units that you can see below

I really like the format that they have gone for here and, I believe that they have also introduced them into new editions of Waterloo: 1815.  If this change from wooden blocks is not to your favoured taste, I think that the several other changes in Austerlitz will meet with nothing but applause. 

For me, nowhere is this more true than the rule book which is a major step up in quality., despite the slight hiccup in forgetting to change the year from 1815 to 1805!

 It is a substantial glossy production from the striking battle scene on the cover to the huge improvement in layout inside.  Instead of the very cramped small print which was one of the few problems that I had with Waterloo, these are laid out in two columns of very well spaced text that make reading so easy.  All illustrated examples are now in full colour to add to the quality and the standard case numbering for rules stands out in a clear, bold font.  

As a result, the whole process of learning the rules is much enhanced and the organisation steps you through the sequence of play very smoothly and is augmented with four full pages of additional examples. 

Though divided into separate igo-ugo Attacker and then Defender player turns, there is a strong element of interaction.  In the Rally Phase, only the active player attempts typical rally actions along with removing certain types of markers.  Then Defender Artillery fire is followed by the same for the Attacker.  The Attacker next conducts movement followed by Defender then Attacker Musketry Fire and a player's turn concludes with Close Combat.

The main rules remain virtually unchanged from those in Waterloo but have a much greater succinctness and fluency in the English translation.  Combat, which covers fire and close combat, has been streamlined into a single table with separate modifiers for each type. This is another change that I heartily go along with and its execution is carried out using one of the handy play aids [one for each player] that lays everything out in a large, capitalised font.  Having wilted in the past under one or two of my games that have a slew of tables printed in microscopic print, this gets a big thumbs up!  Though print on the terrain chart is, on the other hand, very small, it is still very easy to read and even easier to remember.  So, no complaints there.

The easy to read, easy to use all-in-one Fire & Combat Table

What Austerlitz 1805 introduces that is wholly new to the system is Fog and Fog of War.  With the battle being shrouded in fog in the early hours and played out on a much vaster geographical canvas, these were the factors I was most looking forward to exploring and the design here is very successful.  The fog itself is handled in a familiar manner - guaranteed to cloak the battle for the first 3 turns, a die roll may cause it to begin to lift on any of the next 3 turns and finally its dispersing will begin on turn 7, if a roll hasn't succeeded earlier.  

As to Fog of War, there's a very simple, but effective set of mechanics.  First of all, each player has a very nice A4 card strategic map for hidden movement of each side's Corps HQ markers.  The French have no restrictions on the number of Corps they can move, unlike the Allied army which has significant restrictions.  At the same time, both players have up to 18 numbered chits for movement on the game map, while the actual units these chits represent are placed in corresponding numbered holding boxes on the Strategic map.  As you might expect some of these chits may well be decoys!  While the actual fog endures, both players are severely limited as to how many chits they may move.

The French Strategic map on the left

The Allied Strategic map on the right

Consequently there is a slow build up that helps get you into the movement rules, before having to deal with combat, while introducing a nice element of bluff and uncertainty.  Little details like all chits having the same maximum movement rate neatly make sure you don't accidentally give away the presence of faster units such as cavalry.

One point that isn't wholly clear is what happens when the fog has totally cleared.  Wording seems to imply that Fog of War rules only apply until the fog has dispersed and this is supported by the lack of FoW in the last of the three shorter Scenarios.  However, in playing the whole campaign, I've chosen to continue to employ both chits and the hidden Corps HQ markers until either an enemy unit/chit comes into line of sight or a player chooses to deploy units on the map.

The Allied Strategic Map with Corps HQs in place

The full campaign can be played in an Historical scenario where both sides have designated Corps HQ set up and specific objectives.  For those who like even more uncertainty, there is what has become the customary choice of a Free set up scenario.  My preference tends to be for historical play, but each to their own choice.

In terms of new elements, the last one is the set of rules for solo play.  These add 4 more pages to the 15 pages of rules and do a good job of guiding you through the actions of your NP [non-player] opponent, with a healthy dash of allowing you to use common sense when the acuteness of an enemy threat should override a mechanistic approach.  For those who like BOTS that must be rigidly stuck to, this may be slightly disconcerting.  Having cut my wargaming teeth in the period when playing solo meant playing each side to the best of your ability, this common sense approach is very welcome.

To round off the package, there is the familiar set of shorter Scenarios, in this case three.  The first is a very small engagement both in number of units and geographical area - an excellent choice for learning the basic rules of movement and combat.

The next takes you north for Lannes against Bagration in a modestly sized encounter.

While the last Scenario, employing only marginally more units, covers the major French attack in the centre assaulting the Pratzenberg Heights.

Altogether, a good system has been built on to provide additional improvements in physical quality and a presentation of the rules that enhances their understanding while introducing strong new elements.  

On my wishlist for their next choice of Napoleonic battle would be Eylau - another climatic clash with opportunity for some really nasty weather rules!  I can only hope.

Once again many thanks to Trafalgar Games for providing this review copy of the game