State of Play: Commands & Colors: Napoleonics - Wagram, 4-5 July, 1809 (Part 1)

 

 

French advance repelled (Yay, Team!).

The Austrian Army expansion (GMT Games, 2013) for Commands & Colors: Napoleonics (GMT Games, 2010) offers twenty scenarios, split across two time periods. The first five present battles fought during the War of the Third Coalition (1805-06, although all of the battles presented occurred in ’05), and fifteen scenarios covering the War of the Fifth Coalition. Of these, Half of theme are shared across two battles; five battles make up some of the constituent parts of the Battle of Eggmühl (which I’ve written about recently), and the final three scenarios cover the Battle of Wagram. I this post we’ll look at the first two scenarios in the Wagram triptych.

 

Wagram – 5 July 1809 (Gross-Enzersdorf)

Gross-Enzersdorf is a classic holding/delaying action; Napoleon had pulled a ruse on Archduke Charles, convincing the Austrian leader he intended to cross the Danube at the same point he had on his first incursion into the region, resulting in the Battle of Aspern-Essling (a month after Eggmuhl and about six weeks prior to Wagram, in which the French forces were repulsed and had to withdraw). In fact, Napoleon brought his troops across the river further downstream, transferring 150,000 men under the veil of night, meticulously executed logistical feat for the books.

From the scenario description: 

“When Charles realized he had been outflanked, he rapidly retreated to the Wagram position, leaving the VI Corps and the Advanced Guard to fight a delaying action. Taking up a defensive position around Gross-Enzersdorf, Nordmann’s Advance Guard began fortifying the village.”

While deploying the bulk of his army, Napoleon gave the task of clearing the march ahead to Massena’s IV Corps. It’s here we pick up the action, as the IV Corps light regiments begin there push toward Gross-Enzersdorf.

Set up at start.

I say this every time, but Gross-Enzersdorf is a tough scenario for the Austrians. It’s not a cakewalk for the French either, if they can push the enemy out of the town hexes and infiltrate their own troops, they can potentially nab two-thirds of the Victory Banners necessary for a win. In an earlier go at the scenario, T, again playing the French, lucked out with a Grand Maneuvre, and managed to place two French Light infantry units in the two vacant Gross-Enzersdorf hexes in the very first card play of the game, but that was one of those fluky card-things you get in Commands & Colors games. The town is lightly defended, with the bulk of the defending Austrian forces further back from the board latitude of the town, but the geography works against a coup de force, limiting the avenues for rushing advances.

To be honest, progress was slow and tedious. I tried to recreate a blow by blow of the play, but I nearly dozed off twice. So, dear reader, I will summarise the progress in a few board snaps and captions.

After two full turns of push and pull, the first banner fell to the Austrians. The whole
game would be like Max Weber’s description of the work of politics,
“The slow boring of hard boards.”

By round six the Austrians had taken a convincing lead (4-1; due to a quirk in the scenario
rules, I earned one of those Banners by playing a Scout card – this was the first time either
of us had won a banner by playing a Scut card in probably half-a-dozen plays-through of
Gross-Enzersdorf). Apart from not seriously attempting to take the town-hexes, T’s
overall operational strategy was solid, but whatever he had done to piss off the
dice-gods, they weren’t over it yet.

By round nine, T had nearly evened up the count, partly through grabbing a piece of
Gross-Enzersdorf and its accompanying temporary Banner.

At the end of round eleven it was still anyone’s game; the French had lost their foothold
 in Gross-Enzersdorf, but earned back that banner in the Austrian left, where there were
now dome low-hanging fruit ripe for the picking. One good attack could easily clean up
two banners for a French victory.

In all, the game took twelve full rounds to reach a conclusion. What could have been a swift French victory (assuming better die-roll results) turned into a slow, exhausting grind, coming own to the very last Banner. T should have been able to pull it off with his Assault Right Flank, with two chances at an elimination with his Light Cavalry attacking Mayer’s crippled Line infantry set on the baseline (roll of three dice, one retreat (ignored) and Mayer survived), and his other (leaderless) Cavalry attacking the remnants of an Austrian Foot battery holding the high ground on the Austrian Left (Combined Arms with a Foot Artillery unit for four dice, but no hits, then pushed back a space with a retreat result in the defending roll).

End state.

With my last play, I used an Attack Right Flank to finally put to rout (eliminate) the half-strength and unsupported Line hanging forward on the French Left, ending the battle (until the following day, at least). French progress delayed, the action was won, but the battle only prolonged until a couple of nights later, when we moved on to the McDonald’s Square scenario.

French orders played.

Austrian orders played.

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Wagram – 6 July 1809 (McDonald’s Square)

Some action on the Austrian Left (round three).

On the 6^th, Charles knew French superiority of numbers would win the day if something wasn’t done to equate the imbalance. Having repelled small probing attacks in the late afternoon of the 5^th, he took the bold step of attempting an envelopment attack on the fielded French army before Napoleon could bring his force up to full strength. Charles was a competent, even gifted military leader, but was let down by the Austrian army’s internal inertia and lack of good staff-work and reliable communications that undid his manoeuvre. The French, recognising the French (with their superior communications), responded with a radical manoeuvre, the mobile mega-square of numerous formations that could move practically as one.

McDonald’s Square gives the French player a potentially insurmountable advantage on the field. So long as the “square” (more of an ellipsis on the board) maintains cohesion, any movement order given to a single unit will activate all eight units.

This session brought out one of the things I really love about C&C Napoleonics; each scenario has a seemingly infinite capacity to surprise. McDonald’s Square has seven-banner victory threshold, not a high bar but a banner higher than Gross-Enzersdorf. Generally, playing the Austrians, there can be a tendency to turtle a little bit, to wait out the French until they come into range and try to thin their ranks with ranged fire before engaging in close combat. This is especially true in the 1809 scenarios, where the French almost always enjoy superiority of Leaders, overall unit numbers, and a larger hand-size. But the Austrians can’t afford to do that in this scenario. While in their (roughly) square formation, McDonald’s infantry command of eight Line units move as one. Any manoeuvre order that is given to move one of them can move all of them until the formation is broken. This manoeuvrability combined with, say, a Give Them Cold Steel order could be devastating for the Austrians, so there is an impetus to try to break up McDonald’s Square if possible, before it gets too close.

 

Set-up at start. McDonald's Square is clearly positioned straddling
the French Center and Left.

T began with an Assault Center order. Normally he would be able to order up to his hand-size in units (in this case, six) to deploy and engage if able. This brought Macdonald’s Square up a space, which put them in musket range of the Center defending line. Some desultory fire reduced two of my line units and ended his turn. I responded with a Recon in Force. This allowed me to bring to bear volleys on two of the frontmost units of McDonald’s Square, thinning their ranks but not breaking their discipline, and to bring my Cuirassiers up off the back-line on the Austrian Left into a position where they may be able to do some good.

No plan survives contact with the enemy, but T stuck to his, ordering a bayonet charge (which, in truth, if he had committed in the first round, would have probably been devastating to the defenders and may have shortened the game even further). The dice didn’t go so well for the French, with hits, but never enough to finish a unit. The Austrian return fire was withering, but just as inconclusive. I played a Bombard, firing into one of the depleted French Line (under the command of Lamarque), but too only a single block (in the confusion of battle, I forgot to manoeuvre my other battery up from the Austrian baseline to the hex between Süssenbrunn and the little copse on the Austrian Right). At the end of the second round, McDonald’s Square was in complete disarray and all four of the Austrian Grenadier units had been reduced – two to a single block – but still no banners had been exchanged. That would be rectified in the next round.

End round two. The Austrian lines are scattered, but so is McDonald's Square.
Still, no banners exchanged.

Round three opened with the French playing a Leadership card. This allows any units attached to a Leader to be activated and to fight with an additional die, either in Ranged Fire or Melee. In the resulting exchanges, the French finished off two of the depleted Grenadier units (though Prochaska escaped capture, retreating to the back-line Artillery battery) and reduced a third to a single block.

My impoverished hand offered only poor options for ordering units. Another Recon in Force served better than I had any right to expect, allowing me to take out two of T’s reduced Line units, and to capture Lamarque for a total of three banners, as well as seeing off an incursion on my left by an advancing French infantry unit, halving its strength and routing it (pushing it back a row with a Retreat result). My next card draw proved fateful, and would decide the game.

T's next – and as it happens, final -command was Forward. This allows two units in each section to advance and engage the enemy. T brought up four of his Cavalry squadrons from the back; none could engage in this turn, but I suspected he had a Cavalry charge in his hand which would have wreaked havoc across all three sectors and probably earned him the game. Two Infantry advanced on the French Right and Center, one of them taking out a third Grenadier unit for a third Austrian Banner.

Austrian Bayonet Charge, Ordered units circled in yellow, target units in red.

I replied with the card I’d picked up at the end of the third Round. Bayonet Charge doesn’t offer additional dice for attacks, but it does allow up to four units – regardless of their sector of origin – to move up to two spaces and still engage in melee combat. I had already made a provisional plan during T’s turn of which units I would bring to play. It may have gone badly, and I certainly didn’t think this one card would be the decider, but I thought O might gain a banner or two so I didn’t feel so embarrassed when the French overran the Austrian remnants in the next two rounds.

Reader, the dice gods smiled down upon the field of battle, and many French were routed that day. I worked across the field, right to left. The intact Austrian Line formation closest to Süssenbrunn attacked Broussier’s reduced Line infantry, clearing them from the field, though Broussier himself evaded capture.

The most brazen attack was committed by the remnants of the Grenadier regiment that had been forced to retreat sell back from the fighting. Keen to earn back their honour, they attacked Lamarque’s reduced regiment, vanquishing their rivals and capturing Lamarque and his staff (for two more banners). The third banner came with another fresh Austrian Line unit pushing up into the mouth of the of the IV Corps combined battery, taking out a half-strength French Line unit that had already been bested once that day. The final move was a bloodied Grenadier regiment under D’Asper, mounting the short rise to face their opponents further along the crest. Blows were exchanged, and the result in that quarter remained undecided, but that was of no consequence.  With the annihilation of three formations and the capture of General Lamarque (who, in this alternate timeline, would not proceed to lead ten thousand troops to put down the Royalist uprising in Vendée), the Austrians carried the day, the French retreating to regroup and contemplate trying their luck elsewhere.

Orders played (French left).

The Commands & Colors system often rewards good tactics and keeping an eye on the prize. T’s tactics were generally solid in this game, but he was too enchanted with McDonald’s oversized formation to realise his other options. He could have used his Cavalry to take all three villages, which would have scored him three easy Victory Banners. He may have had trouble keeping those, but that would have given me more to think about and taken my focus off the Center. But sometimes it just comes down to. Literally, the turn of a card. Even at one Banner ahead, I felt like it would be a clear French victory in sixth or seventh round, until I picked up that Bayonet Charge and saw the possibilities. This is why I’m so fond of this system, and the Napoleonics flavour in particular.

Line of Fire: a fast Interview with Nadir Elfarra

 

Dawn's Early Light: The War of 1812. Still my favourite CDG.

Nadir Elfarra is a prolific graphic designer in the wargaming apace, with over a hundred art credits on Bordgamegeek.com. I first became cogniscant of his work in David McDonough’s Dawn’s Early Light: The War of 1812 (Compass Games, 2020) – while not the prettiest map I’ve ever come across (Nicolas Roblin’s map for This War Without an Enemy (NUTS! Publishing, 2020) takes that gong, but I’d definitely put the Dawn’s Early Light board in my top five , every visual element in that game helps immerse the players in the era and the situation of the conflict. After that, I began seeing Mr Elfarra's work everywhere, it seemed, particularly in Compass and Decision Games releases. 

I possess an abiding interest in visual arts and art history (readers may have picked this up from my extended discourses on some game covers), and I have a growing curiosity over how a game’s artwork impacts the playability of a game, using an often purely visual medium to convey information crucial to play or to understanding of a particular historical situation of course of events. I took the opportunity to reach out to Mr Elfarra and quiz him about his career in wargames and the state of the Art of our shared hobby.

-----

A Fast Game: Thanks for agreeing to an interview. Can you tell us a little about your path to becoming a professional artist and how you came to work in the wargame sector?

 

Nadir Elfarra: I studied architecture at university so the art / drawing we all do as kids got “upgraded” through that program.  Even though I didn’t stay in the architecture industry, I maintained some competency with graphics programs of the day (mostly Adobe Illustrator).  I have been playing war-games since I was 10-12 years old, with most of that being Squad Leader (Avalon Hill, 1975) / Advanced Squad Leader (Avalon Hill, 1985).  The Southern California ASL club was very active in design and playtesting, so we were often creating art for those projects. 

When Avalon Hill announced they would no longer be supporting ASL, the independent development of ASL products took off.  My first “professional” project was as publisher (art and layout) for Brian Abela’s Baraque de Fraiture: Parker’s Crossroads (Front Line Productions, 1996) design (a scenario pack with an historical map, first published independently, then republished by Critical Hit). 

Front Line Productions' release of Baraque de Fraiture, courtesy of Karl Deckard (BGG).

Years later I met a local ASL player who spent a lot of time solo-playing, and he had a number of homemade counters for aide-memoire purposes (he left his in-progress games set up for long periods of time). I knew I could do a better job on those homemade counters, so I made some for him.  He suggested that I speak to a friend of his who worked for Decision Games at that time, and they decided to give me a chance on counter-art for some of their magazine games. That led to a long-standing relationship with DG that continues to this day, however it’s been exclusively counter art for them.

I subsequently reached out to some other game companies to see if there was interest in bringing me on for more counter art. I got a few nibbles, then Compass Games agreed to have me work on a magazine game for them. In their case, however, it was required that I create all of the art, not merely the counters.  That led to a map-and-counters for the first game, and subsequently maps, counters, charts, rulebook, box art, etc. from then on.  Other companies have used a cafeteria approach with my work - picking and choosing which tasks I’m assigned on their projects, while other artists handle the rest. 

 

AFG: When you take on a game commission, how does it work? Does the publisher have a clear brief for what they are looking for, or are you given more of a free hand in the approach, or does it vary from project to project? How closely do you work with the game’s designer on things like the presentation style?

 

NE: In my case it always starts with the publisher reaching out to see if I am available for a project.  Generally speaking, the designer has created a play-test version of their game and I use those materials for the initial inspiration since they reflected the designer’s thinking / aspirations. The next step is typically a sample of art to ensure everyone is on the same page before serious hours are invested in creating art.  This process has been successful to date with there rarely being any complete do-overs.  It should be noted that my art is geared towards war-games rather than Euro style games which tend to be far more complex in terms of art - some of those are well above my skill set.

AFG:  Your work has covered a pretty diverse range of historical periods and scales of conflict, from (Imperium Romanum (Decision Games, 2019)) to the near future (Putin Moves South (Decision Games, 2018), but much of your work has been on World War II-era projects. Do you have a particular period or periods you enjoy or prefer to work with, or do you prefer to mix it up? Also, do you have a scale of game you refer to work in?

NE: The industry is focused heavily on WW2 and later eras of conflict, so naturally that’s where a lot of the art is focused, too. It doesn’t hurt that my own areas of interest in military history largely align with that.  That focus enables me to remain accurate (something very important to me) in the depictions I use, etc. I feel like it’s a value-add proposition for designers that I know enough of the history to avoid mistakes that their players would notice. When it comes to other eras (e.g., Imperium Romanum) I try to do a lot of research to ensure accuracy but must then rely on the designer and/or their play-testers as a final check that I’ve gotten it right.

So, to answer your question more directly, personally I prefer WW2 to Vietnam and at the lower tactical scale, but that’s not from an art perspective, it’s just my area of historical interest. In terms of art, I wouldn’t exclude any eras - it’s whatever the publisher would like me to work on (e.g., I recently completed a project for Compass Games set in ancient Rome*).

 

Countersheet for Balkans 1944 - World at War #81 (Decision Games, 2022),
courtesy of Robert "Smitty" Smith (BGG). 

AFG: Wargaming isn’t a very large industry. It seems like there may be thirty or forty artists doing most of the heavy lifting for maybe 80% of the publishers (with a few of them doing double-duty as designers as well), but at the same time there are some amazing artists coming in from outside the field doing really good work.

I guess there are a couple of questions here. Do you think it’s a good thing for the hobby for journeyman artists to dabble in wargames? And could you point to some wargame artists, past or present, that have had an influence on your craft?

 

NE: I certainly see no problem with people engaging in creating art for the war-gaming community, whether for fun or for profit. After all, that’s precisely how I started and transitioned.  In the last few years, the development of AI has opened the field up to many more people, but with some backlash from the community who don’t want to see human artists replaced by AI.  We’ll have to see how that shakes out. In that vein, I have only used AI on one project and that was for some background images on a couple of charts, not primary artwork. Even in that case I adjusted the art, so it was a mix of human+AI.

In terms of artists whose work I find inspirational, I would point to Craig Grando (Against the Odds) who sadly seems to have stepped away from the industry, Iván Cáceres who has since moved from print to digital games, Nicolás Eskubi who has done so much great work for Multi-Man Publishing (MMP), and Nils Johansson who is probably at the pinnacle of war-game art right now. Obviously, all of our art grew out of that inspired by earlier generations of artists such as SPI’s Redmond Simonsen.

 

AFG: You’re also an accomplished game designer yourself. Can you tell us about your Advanced Squad Leader scenario design projects? Have you done any other design work you can talk about? Also, when working on something with a decades-long visual legacy, like ASL, how important do you think it is for an artist to have an affinity with the subject of the product? Is it harder or easier to work with an established property with a recognisable visual style?

 

NE: I can’t help but think in game terms when I read military history, so whenever I’m reading (or listening) to a book, I find myself thinking how I would create that setting or event in a board game.  As such there are dozens of half-baked designs on my laptop or buried in my desk somewhere, from man-to-man to ASL-scale to MMP’s Grand-Tactical-Scale (about as large a scale as I consider).

Edson's Ridge, mid-play on VASSAL. As well as his artistic work, Mr Elfarra has
  four design credits listed on BGG.

As noted above, the first ASL project I worked on was Brian Abela’s design, but concurrently with that I worked on my own projects with the Edson's Ridge HASL included in MMP’s Operation Watchtower (MMP, 2003) being the one that got published. I’ve mentioned an interest in accuracy and one thing that illustrates that in the Edson’s Ridge project is the map.  Common examples of maps in official histories show then USMC’s left flank holding more firmly than the right, but the terrain depicted in those sources leaves one wondering why. Through correspondence with a veteran of Guadalcanal who was working as a volunteer at the USMC’s museum in Quantico, I obtained a post-war hand-drawn map that was used to help the Japanese locate their MIA war dead.  That map, made with the luxury of time and not under combat conditions, showed the steep ridge line hidden beneath the jungle canopy extending to the USMC left flank. The USMC positions shown on most maps match the ridge exactly, though the ridge isn’t shown, explaining why the Japanese had so much more trouble there.  To my knowledge, my map is the only game map that accurately depicts that ridgeline.

I try to bring that kind of accuracy to all of my projects when I can. For example, the Arnhem expansion for Compass Games’ Combat! series has what I would contend is the most accurate map of the bridgehead yet seen on a game map. It was the result of many, many hours sourcing photographs from the obvious military aerials to family photos from genealogy websites or Facebook-based Dutch historical societies, to postcards, etc. Luckily, I was able to convince the designer to let me write an “urban combat” Line-of-Sight rule which enabled me to avoid shoe-horning the art into the confines of a hex grid, letting the players experience the terrain as close to reality was at that time (sadly that battlefield was obliterated by Allied bombing after the battle, so nothing of the original buildings remains today).

Croix de Guerre "in the wild" - courtesy of Fabio Aliprandi (BGG).

ASL in particular has that established visual style you describe which can be limiting at times, particularly when you see where graphic art software can take things now. It was state-of-the art at its time, but is well behind now. The problem is that the people playing the game (me included) are happy enough with it and don’t necessarily want to see it change. Despite that I applaud those people who have stretched the look - from Niko Eskubi’s HASL map for Singling Campaign [Operations, Issue 1, (MMP, 2008)] to Le Franc Tireur [#10]’s Fox Hill map (artist unknown). 

When creating the map for Dan Dolan’s Dinant HASL (featured in the recently rereleased Croix de Guerre (MMP, 2020)) or Andrew Hershey’s Trials of Task for Faith HASL (Le Franc-Tireur. 2025) I used slightly different textures while trying to keep the core visual elements in line with the established ASL palette.  Both seem to have been reasonably well received. In that sense, having an affinity for the existing art is important, but shouldn’t be limiting - the issue is to not create new styles that confuse players causing them to have difficulty playing the game.

A portion of the Dinant Campaign map from Croix de Guerre. courtesy of Uli (BGG). 

AFG: One last question. I ask everyone some variation of this, but if you had to pack up your game collection for an extended duration – say, moving to a different state or something – what game or games would you keep to hand to play when the opportunity arose?

NE: I suspect that, while I no longer play it regularly, my choice would be ASL since I’ve played it so long and it, as a game engine, offers so much variety - you never need replay anything - there is always a new scenario or map, etc. to keep it fresh.

 

* That would be Gregory Smith’s Gladiators: Blood and Glory (Compass Games, ~2026). When speaking on a recent Compass Town Hall about the game, Mr Smith mentioned how much he appreciated working with Mr Elfarra.

Blog note: GMT let something slip

So, there has been talk around the traps of Mark Mclaughlin's other classic Napoleonic game, The Napoleonic Wars (GMT Games, 2002), getting a reprint. Well, technically a third printing. I think I heard that is was under consideration form Mr McLaughlin himself on a forum somewhere.

Well, it looks like this has been confirmed. Sort of. Maybe unintentionally.

At the bottom of GMT's newsletters there is a section listing the status of various games in the production queue. This lists the games charging imminently, or that are likely to be charged in the next month or two, then goes on to list other titles at various development or editing stages. I like to have and idea of what's likely to be coming soon so I can budget of those times three or four games drop at once. 

The further out from the current date, the fuzzier the details become regarding different titles, and it's not unusual for a game to be relegated to the next quarter in the Art and Development schedule, or for another to jump ahead suddenly in the queue. All the titles have hyperlinks to their product pages, and ones that are new to the listing or have moved from one rank to another are usually highlighted in bold. 

What caught my eye was this:

Extract from GMT's May 21 Update newsletter.

I don't think most people would be as obsessive as I am about lists. I don't know if anyone else spotted this, or if A Fast Game got the scoop. 

I for one couldn't be happier. The Napoleonic Wars came and sold out not once but twice in the decade and a half I was out of the hobby, so this is on the list of White Whale games for me. Meanwhile, I'll be here, waiting patiently. <sound of fingers tapping>

Let me know in the comments what other out-of-print titles you'd like to see GMT bring back to print.

Stripped Down for Parts: Guerre Eclair

 

 

Oh, happy day! Designer Yasushi Nakaguro’s Guerre Eclair (NUTS! Publishing, 2026) arrived a couple of days ago, but I had some things to finish off before I could pull it apart and have a proper look at it. The game was originally released by BonSai Games in Japan under the name The Rise of Blitzkrieg (BonSai Games, 2019). I own several NUTS! games, but this was the first game I’d ordered directly from the publisher. This was an impulse buy – not something I’m prone to – and shipping coset nearly as much as the (discounted) game itself. Looking back on it, I should probably held off and ordered it from Hexasim, along with La Der des Ders (Hexasim, 2025) and saved a few Euros on shipping, but Guerre Éclair did arrive inside of two weeks, which is quite impressive.

Guerre Eclair is the third in NUTS!’ Combat Rations series, following up from 300: Earth & Water (NUTS! Publishing, 2018) and Port Arthur (NUTS! publishing, 2020). The games in the series (thus far all reprints of BonSai games, as will be the fourth instalment – check out my interview with Mr Nakaguro for more) come in a uniform clamshell box, with a small, mounted board, nice components and cards

Each game in the Combat Rations series has had a different artist attached to the job. For Guerre Eclair, NUTS! went with Zuzanna Wollny. Ms Wollny is better known for her book and poster illustration work and for her truly stunning murals. The box cover is a sepia monochrome illustration reminiscent of a French soldier’s nightmares of the Front; tanks and dive-bombers baring down on the ill-lead defenders of the homeland. The result is effective and helps reinforce the theme and set the pace of the game. But it doesn’t set a rigid path for the rest of the art, as we will see shortly.

The clamshell box design. This appeals to my inner product engineer.

The defining feature of the Combat Rations series – for me at least – is the clamshell enclosure. The roughly C5 envelope-sized box is hinged and sealed with a magnetic clasp. Theis series isn’t the first to use the clamshell design (I have a couple of Osprey games that sport this style of case), and I don’t think it would be appropriate for a lot of games, but it’s a good fit for the Combat Rations ethos of short, numerically low-component, highly replayable games that will travel well – in a case or a backpack. If I was travelling with one, I would probably put an elastic band around the whole thing, just to be sure, but I’ve always had a belt-and-braces approach in regard to keeping things together.

Inside the box. This also doubles as a handy dice tray.

NUTS! Publishing always puts a premium on presentation, and the Combat Rations games are no exception. The inside of the box, looks like an ammunition box that’s been repurposed to hold a French infantryman’s personal effects. This was the same conceit that lined the Port Arthur box, only with a Japanese soldier’s ephemera. It’s an oddly affecting touch, bringing the historical event down to the level of the personal.

The box-back. 

The box-back description leads with a short description of the historical situation, the German invasion of Belgium, Holland, and France in May 1940, as well as a brief account of the game play. The usual caveats of two-players – I don’t see how you could play an effective solo game with the amount of hidden information crucial to play – and a recommended age of fourteen and up are advised. Forty-five minutes is the advised game duration, which I think would be true for anyone familiar with the game, but I’d anticipate an hour or so for an introductory game.

The rulebook.

The rulebook A5 in size, is printed in full colour on a good weight of low-gloss paper-stock. It runs to twenty pages, while the rules proper amount to eighteen pages (including nearly five pages of illustrated examples of play). The rules are pretty straightforward - number of the game’s concepts are familiar from 300: Earth & Water, but executed a little differently. 

Sample spread of the rules. The examples of play appear on a yellow background.

I’ll save the recounting of play for an AAR, but I would say that, in my experience with Mr Nakaguro’s games, simple rules bely rich, decision-point filled gameplay.My only complaint would be an unjust one; the font is a little small for me to read without glasses, but this is a grievance directed more at the injustices of age and decrepitude than the quality of the product, which is undeniably excellent.

The game board. Once again my crappy phone camera does not do justice
to the rather lovely artwork.

The map board is – as one would expect – small (roughly 11” by 17”); it is however mounted, and both attractive and functional. The art is a departure from the original Japanese release, which took a more utilitarian approach with a political-style map – it reminded me a little of the European campaign map in Hitler’s Reich (GMT Games,2018). Ms Wollny’s map is representative of the terrain encompassed in the theatre as it would appear during summer campaign; the lighter greens of the grassy fields give way to the dark, foreboding tones of the Ardennes. The movement in the game is point to point, with clear paths marked out between locations. Each location is defined by its shape; representing a town or city (ellipsis), a port (diamond, with an anchor) or a fortress (heptagon, with a turret silhouette). Belgian locations are marked in yellow, and the single Dutch city, Dordrecht, in orange. Control of locations is crucial to Grman victory, something we’ll touch on later. Finally, there are four Bases, three German – Saarbrücken, Prüm, and Düsseldorf – and one for the Allies – Paris, at the opposite end of the board.

Also incorporated into the edges of the board are a turn track (five turns, each representing roughly a week across May and June), and a Momentum pendulum track. Momentum is treated as a currency in the game, allowing the players to spend points gained on small advantages.

The German Shield fronts, illustrated in the sepia tones of a dust-infused breaking dawn.

Associated with the German bases are three card shields. These will conceal the German player’s division of forces across the three bases. The German player divvies up his available forces across the three bases in response to their victory objectives (more on this when we gat to the cards), and in response to the Allied troop placement, which is completed first.

The German-facing side of the shields. These conceal the players distribution of troops
across the three bases.

The shields as printed double-sided on light card, each with a unique illustration on the opponent-facing side and the name of the base printed on the German player side. They are perfectly adequate to their task in structure and size and come pre-folded rather than simply scored on the fold, which is another nice touch. I don’t know about others, but I always seem to mess up and mis-crease at least one of the folds, left to my own devices.

Clockwise from Top left: French (blue), German (grey), and BEF (ochre) units,
and the two Tracking discs for the Tern and Momentum tracks.

The game has no counter-sheet, but instead uses little wooden meeples – soldiers and tanks representing French (blue), British (ochre) and German (grey) forces – where the BonSai release had similarly coloured cubes and discs. Personally, I wouldn’t have minded if the publishers had decided to go with blocks, but the end result is more evocative, with infantry and armour being instantly discernible, and more familiar to Euro-gamers trying out a war-game.

One thing I can appreciate is the attention to detail. The Allied and German tank pieces are different silhouettes. It’s a little thing, but it indicates the care that’s gone into the preparation of the game as clearly as a bowl of M&Ms with all the red ones removed.

Sample cards from the Operations decks for the Allied (left) and German players.

Guerre Eclair comes with three short decks of cards; an eighteen-card German deck, A fourteen-card Allied deck, and a four-card Objectives deck, as well as a single Surrender card. These are standard poker-sized cards, and are printed on a good weight of card stock. Guerre Eclair is a Card Driven Game (CDG), but instead of dealing off the top of the deck, the players can choose which cards they wish to utilise in that round. Cards can be spent to make a move action or utilised for their event. Some cards are only usable in combat for some kind of benefit

The cards are beautifully presented, with thematic art and clear instructions. The art is what I’d call realistic through an impressionist filter. Given the physical scale of the game, the development group may have been tempted to go with a cartoonish style for the artwork generally. Instead, the pictures maintain the serious tone of the game and its subject. Even the choice of fonts for the titles, each reminiscent of period propaganda posters from France and Germany respectively, maintain the thematic integrity of the art.

The four German Objective cards (only two ever in play, with just one revealed to the
Allied player and one hidden), and the Allied Surrender card. I've gone through the
rules once but am still at a loss as to the purpose of the Surrender card. I'm sure
I've just missed something obvious.

The game has four Objective cards, which provide the victory conditions for the Germans. This makes things interesting and adds to the replayability of the game. We’ve seen the same device in another France’40 game, Dunkirk: France 1940 (Worthington Publishing, 2018) but there’s an added twist here; at the beginning of the game, the German player draws and Objective card, then places it where both players can see it. This is the open objective. He then draws a second Objective card, but this one is concealed from the Allied player. To win the game, the German player must meet the demands of one of these Objective cards. This will be easier said than done; while the Germans have advantages in hand-size and a numerical superiority in available troops, the Allies only have to delay the Axis progress over five rounds to spoil a German victory.

The game also comes with four 10mm dice. I've yet to haven't to take the game out for
a spin, but I suspect there may be a case for a couple of additional bones to avoid
the occasional consecutive roll for numbers.

Finally, the game comes with four small but quite readable black six-sided dice. These are nice dice, with a good weight despite their diminutive size. The beauty of the clamshell case is the game comes with its own dice tray.

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I’ve been on a bit of a Napoleonics jag of late, so I think it’s time to mix it up a bit. A fast game is indeed a good game, especially on a school night, so I hope to get an AAR of our first Guerre Éclair game to you, faithful reader, within the next couple of weeks (in between further Napoleonic excursions, I'm sure).