Stripped Down for Parts: All Are Brothers: The Battle of Solferino, 1859

 

 

I’ve only really started to gain a big picture view of the many, many conflicts in Europe through the time between Napoleon’s defeat Waterloo and the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand over the last two or three years. I knew a little about the Crimean War, of course, and I’d heard of the Franco-Prussian War. I knew the Italian states became a sovereign nation around 1870, but I knew nothing about the two wars of unification that lead to that point. It’s an incredibly rich patch of history, particularly military history, and a chapter ripe for wargaming.

My latest addition is Bryan Armor’s All Are Brothers: The Battle of Solferino, 1859 (Legion Wargames, 2025), a tactical, brigade-level game dealing with the pivotal Battle of Solferino, which took place during the Second War of Italian Unification. At any given time, I probably have thirty or forty (or fifty) games on preorder with a handful of publishers, or that I’m keeping an eye out for in the case of crowdfunding campaigns, but within that number, there’s always a subset of four or five games that more keenly anticipating. That subset dropped one in number when All Are Brothers arrived.

The box cover sets the tone for the game with a portion of a painting, The Battle of Solferino, by Swiss-born Italian artist, Carlo Bossoli. Bossoli was present during the campaign, having been commissioned by a London-based publisher to produce paintings and lithographs for their British audience. The painting is an extraordinary work that seems to ripple with energy, capturing a moment of the French army’s surge forward to a waiting victory. You can see the full painting here, courtesy of Wikipedia.

The box itself is standard a standard 9” by 12”, 1½“ deep, and solid enough to protect the components. I think the weight of Legion’s boxes is very good, a nice balance between weight and durability. A box of this weight is prone to a little dishing in the front and back panels if it’s mishandled, but that would be on the owner (or his lazy cousin who doesn’t know how to respect other people’s games, but I digress).

All Are Brothers was designed by Bryan Armor. This appears to be Mr Armor’s first published design (at least so far as I can ascertain from Boardgamegeek.com), which makes the whole effort that much more impressive.

The back of the box.

The game description on the back offers a brief historical outline of the battle and after. I find it extraordinary that, for event that hard such a profound social and cultural effect on Europe and the world, it doesn’t feature as significantly in the public imagination as Balaklava, Gettysburg, or even Sedan. Jean-Henri Dunant, a Swiss businessman who witnessed the aftermath of the battle, was so moved by the suffering of the wounded, he became the driving force behind the development of both the Geneva Conventions and the International Red Cross.

The box back also informs us that the scale of the game is brigade-sized units and 500 metres to a hex, with each turn representing an hour of real time. We’re advised the playing time will run from four to six hours, depending on the scenario (though the game does come with a two-turn introductory scenario that shouldn’t take this long), with the full campaign taking twelve or more hours to complete. The components list for the game is both long and deep, but I’ll get into all of these in due course.

Legion use a five-position Game Meter which works well for their oeuvre. This covers the number of players (one-two), the Complexity of the game in question (All Are Brothers is rated Medium, or three out of five), and Solitaire Suitability (in this case, Medium-High, or four out of five). On the face of it, I think I would agree with both measures. I’m hoping to put the solitaire suitability to the test inside of the next week.

The Rulebook. 

The rulebook runs to 20 pages, laid out in the two-column format typical for Legion games, and is printed in full colour on a low-gloss paper stock (about 100 gsm, if I had to guess), making it eminently readable. I really appreciate the effort that goes into the company’s rule- and scenario-books They are among the most easily readable and navigable I’ve come across in the whole industry. The rules proper come to about sixteen and a half pages, with the cover page given over to a table of contents and historical introduction to the game situation, about a page and a half of designer’s notes, and the back cover devoted to a pretty thorough bibliography that I’m looking forward to diving into.

Rulebook - sample spread.

The rules are clear and well-presented. The rulebook is printed in colour (another bonus), with good counter illustrations and the odd explanatory diagram, but the pics have been kept to a minimum to keep the page count down. I’ve only glanced at the rulebook thus far, but I think anyone who has played a Blind Swords game before won’t have too much trouble getting All Are Brothers to the table.

Scenario Book.

The separate Scenario Book shares the layout of the rulebook, and is also printed in colour on the same paper stock, with the distinction of each scenario – of which there are five – possessing a colour-coded title bar. I’ll park this until we get to the Army set-up cards.

Of the scenarios, the first (entitled The Final Assault) is a two-turn learning scenario, utilising just one corps each side, and some Imperial Guard units for the French, and just a nine-row slither of the map. If you’ve played Position Magnifique: The Battle of Mars-la-Tour, 1870 (Paper Wars, Issue 81) (Compass Games , 2013), At Any Cost: Metz, 1870 (GMT Games, 2018) or any one of the Tiny Battle Publishing or Revolution Games releases utilising the Blind Swords system, you could probably skip this scenario in favour of one of the longer ones. I’m a cautious player, so I like to start with an introductory scenario if its available (sometimes, though certainly not always, these can also be a good option for a game it you only have a limited time available; a good introductory scenario should still have some replayability).

The other three shorter scenarios each examine aspects of the battle; San Martino, Campo de Medole (Medole Plain), and the Heights of Solferino each bring an aspect of the fighting into focus. The campaign game, All Are Brothers – the Battle of Solferino brings all the boys to the yard in a truly massive undertaking, both historically and in the reduced setting of the play area. I can appreciate why the box-back advises setting twelve or more hours aside for this battle. Realistically, I can’t see myself getting to play the full campaign in anytime soon, but I’m already thinking about we might manage it.

The map. The play area takes up nearly the entire sheet.

The game map art is the work of Edmund Hudson. I confess before now I was unfamiliar with Mr Hudson’s work but it turns out I’ve admired his work in ignorance for some time; he’s responsible for several of maps for Revolution Games’ Blind Swords system Civil War series, as well as Kerry Anderson’s Death of an Army: Ypres, 1914 (Revolution Games, 2022), and Vance von Borries’ Invasion: Malta (Legion Wargames, 2024). The map for All Are Brothers is very nice to look at, and I think it will be an interesting geography to play. Everything, from the various terrain types to roads, railways, and settlements, is clear without being showy or distracting. Every aspect looks right and fits in well with the whole, but perhaps more importantly, looks quite usable; you shouldn’t have any problems working out movement costs or combat DRMs.

All Are Brothers' two counter-sheets. My only criticism would be that a couple of the
colours identifying the individual Austrian corps are a little hard to pick apart at a glance. 

The counters for All Are Brothers are clear and readable, quite nice in appearance, and look great set out on the map. The two sheets are printed on a good weight white-core cardstock which will be familiar to Legion fans. The counter art was contributed by the game’s developer and Legion Wargames stalwart Kim Kanger, who I understand also did the work on the PACs. I’ve only ever considered Mr Kanger in terms of his design work – La Primogenita (Legion Wargames, 2022) was one of my favourite releases from 2022. As it turns out, Mr Kanger contains multitudes.

There are three basic types of fighting units in All Are Brothers, infantry, cavalry, and artillery, but headquarters (for establishing command range) and individual leaders are also present. Headquarters tokens display the flag of that army’s nation, and a portrait of each leader markers adorns his token. Infantry units bear the figure of a soldier in uniform, cavalry markers a horse-born trooper, and Artillery, a light field piece.

Units bear several pieces of information. Atop each counter is a coloured band baring the name of the particular unit. The band colour identifies the formation to which that unit belongs. The numerical information is easy enough to interpret; the number in the red circle is the unit’s Morale Rating, its movement value is shown in a white arrow (I see what you did there), and the Strength Point Value is represented in a slightly larger font in the corner of the counter. The mix also includes HQ and Leader markers, admin and status tokens and the usual VP trackers and such.

The Austrian Set-Up Chart...

And the French and Sardinian Set-up Chart. Note the colour-coded bands for
each scenario. These correspond with the title banners for each Scenario
in the Scenario Book.

The set-up charts incorporate another cool innovation* for scenario set up. Rather than separate set-up cards for multiple scenarios in All Are Brothers, the entire force for each side is represented on two 11” by 17” bi-fold cards, broken down into their respective commands, and each command (division or corps) is underlined with two or more coloured stripes. These stripes each correspond to a scenario, with the lowest stripe – appropriately in a lighter shade of claret or blood – corresponds to the full campaign. Superimposed over the various stripes beneath each unit is the location hex number for that unit to be placed for that scenario.

I’m a fan of scenario set-up cards. This might seem like double-handling, but I find it much quicker that trying to read set-up hexes in one-pica tucked into a corner of every unit counter and matching it to the hex. I’ve managed to get nearly all the counters into a twenty-pot counter-tray (some of the admin counters had to go bagged), with one formation to a pot, so these set-up cards should quicken the set-up process quite a bit.

The rather neat, simply named Terrain Chart. The future of TECs.

All Are Brothers comes with a Terrain Chart; no surprise there. But I don’t think I’m overstating it to say this might be the best approach I’ve seen in a terrain chart in some time. Rather than a table of terrain graphics, the centre of the card features a couple of map abstracts, representing the full gamut of terrain features found on the map. Against each of these is a label and three numbers in colour-coded squares, indicating the movement costs for Infantry, Cavalry and Artillery respectively. It’s an intuitive approach that’s immediately understandable for novices and grognards alike.

The Terrain chart also provides reminder lists for units that are Out of Command or have failed their activation, as well as the the allowed actions for HQs in Aggressive or Defensive postures. This is the kind of thing that I’d be going back to the rules for repeatedly for my first couple of games, so having these reminders in reach will be a boon at the table.

Fire Combat Table (top) and Assault Combat Table.  

The Fire and Assault Combat Tables are clear, simple and easily understandable, but where these charts excel is, again, in the presentation of the peripheral information, particularly the roll modifiers. These are presented in a series of coloured arrows, pointing left for negative modifiers and right for positive ones. The higher value the modifier, the longer the arrow. I’m a big fan of these kinds of visual cues in everyday life. It feels revolutionary to se so many packed into a wargame. I don’t know who was behind these, but I applaud their vision.

The Track PAC, with its serpentine Game Turn Track.

Another PAC is devoted to the Turn Track and Morale Track. The Turn track takes up the upper two-thirds of the card. At first blush, it looks a little confused, a burnt orange band scrolling across the width of the card, adorned with numbers, clocks, icons, and portraits, and surrounded by pictures of units. I’m used to plainer looking, more linear turn tracks, but again, there’s a reason for everything here.

The turns in All Are Brothers represent an hour of the battle. The clock-faces are a reminder of the actual time of the battle. In truth, I haven’t discovered yet if this is germane to play, but it does serve as a reminder of the carnage that was wrought by both sides in a single thirteen-hour span of daylight. The Cloud icons are mnemonic devices for players incorporating the optional Variable Thunderstorm rule for the second half of the game. The rows of unit markers are reminders of which units come on as reinforcements at which turn and from which entry hex (helpfully marked on the map borders with corresponding letters).

The Victory Point Track by contrast is a simple race-track loop running up to twenty. VP markers are included in the counter-mix for singles and twenties. The curling path of the Turn Track may be look a little odd, but everything presented is there for a reason, and if should all add to the smooth running of the game.

Austrian (top) and French/Sardinian Force Displays. These may not be absolutely
necessary in this game in particular, but they are worthwhile having in case
of serious stacking events.

The Force displays are helpful way to eliminate board crowding and potential accidents with on-board counter stacks. In All Are Brothers, stacked units may not add up to more than ten strength points, with just the top-most six SP or part thereof making up the actionable front for the force. The two Force Displays allow the player to use a representative marker on the board for a given stack, while the stack itself I laid out on that marker’s column, with the front units closest to the top of the column. I’ve seen this kind this before in terms of unit pools, but the force ladders make perfect sense in this instance. And as someone who will admit to occasionally spilling a stack, it makes for an elegant answer to table clumsiness.

The table of Event Descriptions. Feeling lucky? 

Nobel Prize-winning author Isaac Bashevis Singer was once asked why he wrote his stories in Yiddish before translating them himself into English, He replied, “Yiddish contains vitamins that other languages don’t have.” This is kind of how I feel about the Blind Swords game system (and its sister system, Black Swan).

All Are Brothers is built on the Blind Swords system. System designer Hermann Luttmann has made reference to a version of the Three Fs of War; in this case they stand for the Fog of War, The Fortunes of War, and the Friction of War. The Fog of War is represented in part by the chit-draw activation of units – even the best units and leaders have bad days – while the vagaries of war’s fortunes are simulated in the Random Event Draw during each turn. You’re going to need multiple opaque containers; I prefer rounded-bottom ramekins or coffee cups, as these seem to put less wear on the counters.

The Event chits are Nation-specific. There are five for the Austrian player, six for the French and three for the Sardinians. Each scenario in the game will dictate how many event chips go into the draw mix for that game. That number is picked at random from the faction’s selection and placed in the aforementioned draw-cup. The legend on each on each chit corresponds to an explanation of the game effect on the Event Description Chart (above). This will usually be applied to a single event, such as an engagement, and will offer a discrete benefit to the owning player in a given situation and can be carried over from turn to turn.

The whole box and dice. And baggies. I managed to get most of the counters into a
single tray, with just two bags used for some of the more populous admin counters.

All Are Brothers comes with three dice – two six-siders, one blue and one red, and a yellow ten-sider. At first, I wasn’t sure I liked the smaller Legion dice (familiar from Skyhawk (Legion Wargames, 2022 and Aces of Valor (Legion Wargames, 2022)), but I usually use a snap-fast hexagon dice tray and I’ve found these almost never bounce out of the tray when rolling, unlike some slightly larger dice (*coughs* commandscolors *clears throat*) and they’re still quite readable at a glance.  The ten-sider is a standard size and so a little larger than the others, but I’m sure they’ll all do the job.

Having Skyhawk, I don't know if I can justify Thunderchief as well, but I'm really
tempted to get Knights Over Stalingrad. A Forgotten Sideshow and
Failure at the Tugela are auto-buys.

Anyone who has ordered a game directly from Legion will probably be familiar with these, but my copy of All Are Brothers came with two additions not directly related to the game. The first was an ad card. I’ve received advertisements in Legion games a couple o times before (and as often as not they lead to further purchases). This one was different. Businesses often avoid humour because they don’t trust their audience to get it or to not take offence. The folks at Legion trust their customers.

Awww.

The other thing was the Thank You note. About half my Legion games I’ve bought directly from the publisher. Every time, without fail, I’ve got a card, signed by Randy Lein and Jodi Joachim (the collective beating heart of Legion Wargames), thanking me for the purchase and wishing me luck with my rolls (spoiler alert: this second part hasn’t tangibly helped so far). It’s a little thing, but it means something. And I’ve lined them all up and looked – each one is actually signed by hand. That is just so cool.

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I think I’ll be writing about All Are Brothers again soon. The game promises to be a rewarding game experience. This peek inside the box has taken me longer to write than I’d anticipated, but I didn’t want to rush it. Every part of it looks great, and it’s a learning opportunity. Now I’m going to go mine the bibliography for a book or three on the subject.

 

* I should say that the scenario colour-coding of the set-up charts and the novel approach to the Terrain Chart are both new to me, though not necessarily new to wargaming. If there are earlier examples of these, call me out on it in the comments; I’d be curious to know.