Review: Napoléon 1806

 

Napoléon 1806: La Campagne de Prusse (Shakos, 2019) is the first game in the Conquerors series by designer Denis Sauvage and French game publisher Shakos. Since it was released, two more games in the series, Napoleon 1807: la Campagne de Pologne (Shakos, 2021) and Napoleon1815: Waterloo (Shakos, 2022), Rumour has it the next Conquerors game in the series will be Napoléon 1870 (pertaining to Napoléon III and the Franco-Prussian War – one can only hope).

Napoléon 1806 is also the third game completed from my own 6x6 challenge. After six runs at this game, I’m still not sure I can speak with any real authority about it without making it seem somehow less than it is. It’s true, it’s the most rudimentary of the three games; 1807 offers a multitude of scenarios compared to 1806’s two, while 1815 brings the option of a third player to the mix (again, with a higher number of scenarios). In case I forget later, in the tall grass of the review, I’ll mention now that 1806 is an absolute gem of a game, a finely wrought puzzle, a balancing act, and a game that will reward repeat plays with new insights.

Appearance

The production values in Napoléon 1806 are as good as the best-produced games I own. Nicolas Treil’s artwork is at once evocative of the subject and the era, and quite beautiful in its own right. All the action and a lot of the activity takes place on the 24"x24" mountedgame map, and presented to appear like a Napoleonic-era map, complete with spyglass, compass, and map-creases. The movement is point to point, the distance between points representing around five or six miles. The map also contains the game’s turn track, scoring-track, and a placeholder for a weather event card, which I’ll come back to.

While Napoléon 1806 is technically a block game, it takes a quite different approach than the Columbia or Worthington block games you may be familiar with. Rather than having a unit’s status represented by pips on the block which you rotate to indicate its current health, a unit’s status in a Conquerors series game is recorded on a separate, concealed board. This board lists all of that side’s marshals, each with his own track to indicate the strength and health of his troops. Each marshal has a corresponding block on the Board with that leader’s name and portrait, and any special abilities he brings to the table (this information is replicated, slightly more readably, on the tracking board).

Napoleon and his marshals, with pennants and retreat markers in the foreground.

The blocks themselves are coloured in an appropriate dark blue for the French and grey for the Prussians. Every block has an eagle on its reverse, opponent-facing side, French Eagle and thunderbolts and Prussian crowned eagle (the Alliance blocks in Napoléon 1807 feature the Russian double-headed eagle on appropriately green blocks). The intention is that during play, when a block had been activated – regardless of whether the formation had managed to act during its activation – it would be turned upside-down, so the little arrowhead at the top of the eagle would point downward and make it clear to both sides it had been activated that turn. By our second game we found ourselves placing them face-down instead to more clearly indicate activation.

French Order of Battle

With it’s separate Tracking boards, referred to in the game as Orders of Battle, coloured blocks – two colours for each side to distinguish infantry and attached cavalry – and orange cylinders, as well as the wooden playing pieces and track tokens, you could be forgiven for mistaking Napoléon at first glance for Euro-style resource management game. Part of the game’s charm is its emphasis on tactile experience, and it does indeed have an aspect of resource management in maintaining the operational efficiency of your forces while pushing them to the limits of their endurance. The blocks feel weighty and move ponderously along the paths. Every loss of a block or gained exhaustion cylinder is a visceral reminder of the precarious state of your army. Other wooden components are also provided, standing pennants on poles to indicate the control of citadels (or to provide the enemy with a visual reminder of their target destinations), and little arrows to be used as a mnemonic for the direction of retreat for an attacking force.

The Prussian Order of Battle after a narrow victory by the French.

The game leans heavily on the use of symbols and illustrations to convey the meaning of rules and actions in play. The shields for the force tracking boards are usefully decorated with the game’s symbology, succinctly explaining what can and cannot be performed at each step of the action. Everything in the game is at once decorous and informative, an elegant synthesis of design and communication.

The game comes with a box-sized, four-page Quickstart booklet which will (after stickering up the block for play) will allow you to get straight into play. The quickstart guide strips the game back to its essentials (movement and combat), offering a good grounding in how to play, but leaving enough meat on the carcass to still provide a challenging experience. If you are looking for a fast game, you might be happy enough to stick to the quickstart rules for your first couple of goes. Even at three turns, the first couple of games are probably going to run to about 45 minutes to an hour.

The Quickstart rules set-up guide.

The Rulebook s 24 pages in length, printed on good gloss paper-stock. It’s been produced in full colour and with copious illustrations, and with a pleasant, buff background that is merciful on the eyes. The first thirteen pages cover the “Rules for the Recruit”. This is the meat and potatoes of the game, covering in a little more detail what has been sketched out in the Quickplay rules, but incorporating the start-of-turn card draw, the use of Actions, Rain and other hindrances, and a few more details that enrich the play experience. The remaining pages introduce the “Rules for the Grognard”, optional rules spelling out the free-placement guidelines and the use of the Cavalry Vedettes blocks, “Rules for the Marshal” which cover tournament play, some notes on the card events and actions, and a brief (three-page) history of the campaign, interspersed with designer’s notes.

Every aspect of the production is of excellent quality, from the wooden components to the poker-weight cards in the two decks. My only grumble (given my age and history, I’m entitled to one from time to time) would be that the Order of Battle cards, while a pleasing weight of card (about 2.5mm thickness) have developed a slight camber and don’t lay perfectly flat, but while the use of a thinner card would have rectified this, it wouldn’t have been sturdy enough to ensure the shield stays in place around the board. For that, it’s an inconvenience I’m prepared to put up with.

 

Davout and Soult engage Blucher, Tauentzien and Ruchel in a moving attack (at the
cost of one combat result card. If the battle had taken place in the woods(the green-
coloured areas, top-right), the defenders would have gained an extra card. 

Play

For such a gamey-looking game, Napoléon 1806 offers a satisfying simulation of l’Empereur’s Prussian campaign. You’re not going to get the granularity of a regimental-level simulation (à la Hexasim’s Eagles of France series), but the game achieves what it sets out to do.

Victory in Napoléon 1806 can be secured in a number of ways. The scoring is kept on a pendulum table, starting at ten. Twenty points on the board will secure a French Victory immediately; in the unlikely event the Prussians can beat down on the French hard enough to get the score to zero, they will win. After seven rounds (a fortnight in game time) if the French haven’t secured victory, it’s a default win to the Prussians – the home team must hold out long enough for international support to arrive. A sudden death victory can be won by one side controlling all four citadels at the beginning of their turn. The Prussians start with three – Eufurt, Halle and Leipzig, while the French begin with Bamburg as their home base. On the remote chance that one side kills/captures the others leader, that will also result a sudden death victory,

Napoléon 1806 runs on its cards. Each side has its own deck of thirty-six cards, much like Combat Commander (GMT Games, 2006), and like that game, cards fill in for several roles, including dice damage applied in combat. Each card has a points value printed in the corner (1-5 for the Prussians, 1-6 for the French). These points are used for both determining initiative and establishing how far an ordered unit can move, if at all. The cards provide mandatory events and tactical options, and determine the amount of damage inflicted on the enemy in combat.

Bernadotte and Soult harass Halle and Leipzig as Napoleon considers his next move.

At the beginning of a turn, the players simultaneously draw cards from their draw deck and compare the number, with the highest point-value winning the initiative for that turn (meaning that player goes first, with the French winning ties). Then the players draw three cards each for their hands. There is no hand-size limit in the Conquerors series, so a player can end up with more cards in their hand than in their deck if they’re not careful. Cards in hand can be used for their Actions, usually small perks that can offer an edge in combat or movement when played at the appropriate time.

There are two types of Actions, before play Actions – assuming you have some in your hand, you can play one of these at the beginning of each turn, before any action has taken place. (they’re marked with a light blue title banner at the top) – and in-turn Actions – these are the ones you may play before combat, gain and extra step of movement, or to shrug off some exhaustion (marked with a green banner). Some Cards actually have Automatic Events instead of Actions; these are marked with a Red banner, and if you draw one of more of these at the start of the turn, you need to play it immediately. Some are punitive (such as preventing one of your formations from acting in that turn), but most are Rain events; there is a place-holder box on the map for a Rain card, below the Turn track, to remind the players of the change in conditions. Rain effects movement and exhaustion for everyone for the turn. At the end of the turn, the Rain card is removed and goes into the appropriate player’s discard pile.

A lucky play that paid off.

In a turn, starting with the established initiative holder, each side will take turns “conducting an operation”. This involves choosing a corps or a stack of units, declaring what you would like the to do, then drawing a card from your draw deck to see if chance and fate agree with your intention. Most often, the order will be to move, either to a fixed position, or along a path as far as the points will allow the formation to go. The currency is one point will allow one unit to move one space. If you’re moving two units together, the first point is spent coordinating the two units, then every point after may be spent on movement. Three units in a stack, you’ll need a 3-point card draw to move them just one space. There will be reasons at various times to have units moving together as one, but it going to take a toll on your manoeuvrability.

There’s also the matter of exhaustion. Units and even stacks can move up to three spaces without any ill-effects, but for each space above three the unit – or every unit in the stack – is going to take an exhaustion point. Exhaustion points are an abstraction of the wear and tear on an army on manoeuvre over an extended period of time. A little exhaustion is tolerable, but it can build up very quickly and sometimes unexpectedly.

With Halle and Leipzig in French hands, Napoleon takes Eufurt
for the game (a sudden death victory in Turn 6).

Below the Strength Points track for each leader/formation is an Exhaustion Points Track. Each time a unit takes an exhaustion hit, a little orange drum is added to this row. Say you draw a 5-point card and move Lannes five spaces because you want him to get past an intersection before a Prussian unit has a chance to cut him off; congratulations – you made it, but Lannes’ corps will now be two exhaustion points wearier. Two points aren’t that big a deal, but exhaustion accrues in other ways as well. If the turn has a Rain event, all movement will add one point of exhaustion to every unit moving, whether their card draw actually allows them to move or not (and added to that, it will cost an extra point to get those chaps moving, along with any stack penalties – Rain is as much an enemy as the opposition).

When you get into combat (which you will want to do, especially playing the French, as this is your best chance to shift the Victory Point marker in your favour) you will not want to be carrying to much exhaustion into battle because fighting is itself exhausting. Even if you win, your forces may come out of it with enough accrued exhaustion to push you up to the limit, which is nine points. A corps can carry up to eight points exhaustion, but if it goes over that for whatever reason, it is eliminated (there’s a handy little memento mori of this on the Exhaustion track – a little skull on the nineth position to say it’s over).

Kalckreuth creeping dangerously close to complete exhaustion.

This isn’t to say that once you’ve accrued exhaustion you’re stuck with it. At the end of each turn, any units that haven’t been activated (i.e., are still upright) can lose ALL their exhaustion. But that’s the cost, they can’t have done anything for that turn. And choosing not to activate a formation may not be a guarantee; if they happen to be attacked by an opposing force whale they are trying to sit quietly, they’ll be classed as having been activated, and they may well gain even more exhaustion into the bargain.

Combat resolution is tied to the cards as well. Each unit will bring one or two cards to the fight. Some leaders gain an extra card, some Actions may offer another (or lower the opposition’s card-count), and in some cases, environmental factors will come to play; defenders gain an extra card draw for wooded terrain or defending a walled citadel.

A rare strong defence for the Prussians (three hits, and nine exhaustion), though those
two Destroyed Bridges cards may have been more useful in his hand..

Combat is conducted simultaneously: after establishing how many cards each side gets to draw, each player draws that number of cards, laying them out face-up in front of them. The cards present the damage inflicted in a box in the lower left corner. Orange circles mark exhaustion points taken, while squares with crosses overlaid indicate the physical damage inflicted on the force’s collective strength. Damage and exhaustion is shared out over the participating formations as evenly as possible (at the discretion of the owning player), and if there is a mispatch in the physical damage dealt, the higher damage recipient retreats. Single engagements will rarely see units annihilated (except perhaps by exhaustion), but they can be brutal. The total damage to each side is compared, and the difference is added to or subtracted from the Victory point track, in favour of the victor.

Appraisal

Napoléon 1806 is an extraordinarily finely balanced game. The French are the more effective fighting force. They have eight formations to the Prussians nine (though Werternberg doesn’t enter the game until Turn 5), and five cavalry units to the Prussians’ two), reflecting Napoleon’s superior theatre intelligence and the independent command of his forces. The Prussians field weaker forces; the average strength across the French corps is a shade under 6.4 blocks, while the Prussians average at 5.3 blocks per corps). They are forced into a reactionary posture; to some degree they must respond to the intentions – real or implied – of the French. They don’t really have the option of taking the fight to the enemy wholesale. The French superiority in command in control is reflected in their deck spread:

But the Prussians are playing a waiting game; all they have to do is run out the clock to guarantee a default win – not one shrouded in glory, but not an ignominious loss either. It is incumbent on the French forces to engage the enemy and inflict losses, which will translate to points, and to take the Northern citadels, which means they have to cover a lot of terrain just to reach their objectives. Fast movement means a swift accrual of exhaustion points. A corps can shake off all of its accrued exhaustion points by remaining inactive for a turn, but that hands the Prussians another turn to reposition themselves into a better defensive state, or to block a crucial chokepoint. Or allows them to attack while you’re still carrying all that exhaustion.

Drawing three cards every turn potentially removes a lot of cards from circulation. Having useful Actions to play – like the Destroyed Bridge card for the Prussians – can make an outsized impact on the unfolding drama of the game.  But the cards with the most crucial actions are inevitably have point-values, and these will often have superior combat results as well. In such a finely-balanced game, maintain a balance between your holdings and your potential draw pool is crucial.

The final turn; Prussian victory after the French fail to gain distance swiftly enough.

On the face of it, Napoléon 1806 may seem like a one-trick pony. According to the box-description, the game has three scenarios, a short (three-turn) getting-to-know-you game for those either unfamiliar wargames or just new to this one, the full seven-turn historical campaign, and a free-set-up option for the campaign game (places available to the two armies to set up in are marked by a French or Prussian Eagle). In fact, the Quickstart rules and the rulebook (pg. 15) offer alternative set-ups for the three-turn game, so there are arguably four scenarios included.

But this is a game of hidden depths. The paths through Prussia are tricky; there is always a way around, but it may be prohibitively distant, or take you even further from your objective. The cards can be fickle and using the same 36-card deck for every activity will see you burning through it a few times in a game. It's a tough gig for the French - they have to cover a lot of ground, and negotiate a dozen or more choke-points, to get the bulk of their forces north to threaten and harass the Prussians three held citadels. Each is worth three or four points; that's not to be sneezed at when a ten-point lead will secure victory. But France's Achilles heel is Bamberg. If left unprotected, a Prussian formation and some lucky movement-point draws could snatch the city and victory from them before they've begun to prosecute their campaign.

But that doesn't mean it's a cakewalk for the Prussians. The enemy has their work cut out for them, but they are faster, hit harder, and their formations are better-equipped to prosecute martial action. The natural choke-points in the paths offer some advantage, but there are multiple paths north, and you can't adequately guard them all. If you can run down the clock (at seven turns) you will win a minor victory, but it can feel like a long seven turns as you lose ground and French corps manage to slip past your blockades. Nearly every game I've played of Napoleon 1806 has got to the end of the fifth turn with both sides still having a good chance of taking the win. With so many variables at play, nothing is ever a foregone conclusion.

I have some suspicions about prudent courses of action in the game, things that might work in particular circumstances within the game, but I don’t think it’s the kind of situation that allows a player to find one path to victory that works every single time. And that’s a good thing. Napoleon 1806 is a game that will challenge you with new problems and entice you with hereto unseen opportunities each time you come to it.