Gill brings you inside the command tents of Archduke Charles and Napoleon, explaining the multitude of options, hopes, and fears that descended on the commanders in chief and their senior commanders. Better yet, you also get the political influences, and especially the Austrian infighting, that accompany Archduke Charles and Napoleon as they weigh battle versus the fragmentation of their armies in retreat and pursuit.
This fantastic four-player game — admittedly a little long in the tooth now, but entertaining as ever — pits English and Spanish players against two French players (north and south, or as the counters are colored, blue and green).
It’s a point-to-point map. Markers and unit counters cover the Iberian peninsula showing who owns what space (regular, key, and fortress). Cards drive the system — you can either play a card for its action point value: move a stack for 1 point, recruit a strength point for 2 points, and so on; or, play it for its stratagem: swap strength points, get reinforcements, lose strength points for outside the playing area deployments, change political ownership of a space, gain a battle advantage, cancel a battle advantage, etc., etc., etc. — if you can think of an effect, there’s likely a card in there somewhere. Some cards are events: They take effect immediately and contain a similar variety of strength point effects.
Vikings 878 is an entertaining game like the other Academy wargames. Simple to understand, the cards switch things around enough during the first few playings until you learn how many cards of each type are in a deck, and the little minis are a step up from the cubes.
by Harvey Mossman The Flight of the Eagle is a set of rules that harkens back to early days of war gaming when Kreigspiel was done with
Borodino 1812 Review Borodino was the climactic battle of Napoleon’s ill-fated invasion of Russia in 1812. Napoleon needed a decisive defeat of the Russian army
A Decidedly Professional and Excellent Design Overview It is currently the bicentennial of the war of 1812, a conflict that is often neglected and misunderstood
The Boardgaming Life 