This is
the review I never intended to write. I feel a particular fondness for Commands and Colors: Napoleonics (GMT Games, 2010) for several reasons. While it’s
not the first of Richard Borg’s Commands and Colors series I ever played – that
appellation goes to Commands and Colors: Ancients (GMT Games, 2006) – it
is the one game in the family with which I’m most familiar. It was, I think,
the first game I bought within a month or two of its release (thank you, Noble Knight Games).
My wife
was in hospital for about three-and-a-half months in 2010; in that time Jess’s
eldest sister and her husband would have me around on a weekly basis to make
sure I was getting at least one home-cooked meal a week, and one night I
brought the game along and taught my brother-in-law how to play. The following
week we played it again, and the one after that. After a couple of months, T
wanted his own set, which saved me from dragging it over each week. That weekly
Napoleonics game helped keep me sane while Jess was healing and convalescing.
After she came home, we kept up with our weekly game, most weeks at least, and
we’ve been doing it since. But in those first few months, this game helped keep
body and soul together.
For the
first nine or so years, we played C&C: Napoleonics almost exclusively
(toward the end of year six we had to get a replacement board from GMT – the fold-hinges
start to give out sometime north of 300 games – and about a year later, a new
set of stickers because some of the faces had worn off the original dice set).
We’d play the scenarios in order from the book twice over consecutive weeks,
taking turns as the French. Not long after we’d finished the last scenario and
begun replaying them from the beginning, the Spanish Army expansion (GMT
Games, 2011) was released, offering a new army to get to know, and a suite of
new scenarios to try out.
And
this happened for another three nation expansions, roughly a year apart from
memory. Each time we were reaching the end of a new army box, another would be
released, with a completely new set of scenarios to try, and a new army with
its own strengths and foibles to get to know.
 |
While I was writing this review, we played the Quatre-Bras scenario from the core
set at T's house. Note the under-strength Guard Grenadier units on the British Right
flank. In our shared parlance, this is called "doing a Peter," an instance where
one makes a (probably) innocent but personally beneficial mistake. |
We
played C&C: Napoleonics without interruption for the better part of nine
years before I could convince T to try some other different games. These days
we play a lot of other games, including many of the other flavours of Commands
and Colors, but we still play C&C: Napoleonics probably half a dozen times
in a year. We keep coming back to it. I did some calculations a couple of years
ago and estimated – conservatively – that We must have played somewhere well
north of 450 games together, just of C&C: Napoleonics. We’ve played through
all the scenarios in the four Army expansions at least twice, all but two, I
think, of the scenarios in Expansion 5: Generals, Marshals and Tacticians
(GMT Games, 2015), and about two-thirds of those in Expansion 6: EPIC Napoleonics (GMT Games, 2016). Which brings me to my hereto reluctance to
review the game.
After this
duration and with my level of familiarity with C&C: Napoleonics, I’ve
always felt too close to it to be objective. I wasn’t sure I could trust myself
to examine the game through a critical lens, or to not gloss over its
shortcomings. What motivated me to write this review was the number of times I’ve
heard complaints or condemnations of the game that really just boil down to
personal preference or a dislike for a particular mechanic (and if it’s on a
forum, Dunning-Kruger sets in if somebody calls them on their grievance not
being a legitimate fault with the game, but I digress).
 |
This was my opening hand for the aforementioned Quarte Bras game. A pretty solid
start. Alas, this tends to be the exception rather than the rule, but that, as a player,
is what keeps you on your toes. |
Appearance
I’ll
start out like I’m talking to someone who has never played a C&C game
before, so bear with me. When you open your new box, you are confronted with a
huge bag of wooden blocks painted red, navy blue and mission brown, of varying
sizes. These are blank. If you’ve read the back of the box, you know about the
sticker sheets – each block needs a matching sticker applied to both sides, in
matching orientation, before you can start playing the game. Even if you did
read the back, the sheer number of these blocks is daunting. You may have
grumbled to yourself before about having 400 counters to punch and sort, but
this is next level prep, and not for the faint of heart. You’ll find out for
yourself just how tricky it can be to get those stickers to apply square to the
block-face, without any overhang.
 |
Opening rounds. The majority of cards are discrete section or combination
activation cards like these. The special activation cards usually offer
something a little extra, like +1 die to combat roles (Cavalry Charge,
Fire and Hold), or an additional movement space for that turn
(Bayonet Attack). |
(Pro-tip:
I use a cheap little Kiwi-Brand knife from the local Vietnamese grocers to gently
lift the corner of a sticker that’s gone on crooked, or hanging over an edge,
then re-apply it more carefully. Be careful not to cut the sticker itself, as
these knives are thin-bladed and pretty sharp out of the box. If it’s done
immediately, even if it takes a couple of attempts to get right, you shouldn’t
have any problems with the sticker re-adhering. Finger-and-thumb pressure is
enough to too get a good bond, but apply some pressure to all the edges to make
sure they’re stuck down all round You’re welcome.)
There are
two booklets in the box, as well as two Player Aid Cards (PACs) and a couple of
Terrain Effects Charts (TECs). The PACSs and TECs are printed on a nice weight
cardstock and wear well. You’ll be using both quite a bit for your first few
games, at least (I think it took us about four or five games when we began
playing before we only needed to check these for things that hadn’t come up yet
in the game, but I still go back to them sometimes for the really obscure
things, like sand pits). The first booklet is the Rulebook. The C&C
Napoleonics rules are clear and well laid out, probably because there’s a
legacy of nearly half a dozen other games using essentially the same system to
build on. In fact, if you’ve played Memoir ’44 (Days of Wonder, 2004), Battle Cry (Avalon Hill. 1999), or C&C: Ancients, the movement and combat
rules and the card-driven actions will seem very familiar. The other booklet contains
the scenarios, of which there are fifteen in all.*
The
board is a plain, grass-green hex-grid, and the hexes are probably larger than
any you’ve seen before. The green makes a welcome change from the
limestone-coloured board from C&C: Ancients, but this is your first game,
so you probably don’t know that yet. The board is divided into three roughly
equal sections by two dashed lines. The divisions are called the Left and Right
Flanks and the Center. This distinction of areas will come into play with some
of the Command Cards used in the game, which may order units from a particular
section. You’ll notice the dashed lines bisect some of the hexes; for the sake
of section orders, these hexes can count as either a Center hex or a Flank hex
(this will make more sense when we get
to talking more in depth about the Command Cards).
There
are several sheets of cardstock, but only a few flag counters on some of them
(the Victory Banners for tracking your success in the field), as well as eight
Square markers yellow with blue or red borders (we’ll come back to these later
as well). The rest are hexagons with hills, forest groves, river segments and
towns. These are terrain tiles; these go on the otherwise featureless map to
transform it into an approximation of the historical battlefield on which the
represented battle was fought. The scenarios each feature a set-up map which tells
you where to place the terrain tiles, as well as the placement of the French
and Anglo-Allied units.
 |
The French Right make their move. The French are always blue, the British Red. The
Brown blocks normally represent the Portuguese, Britain's ally in the Peninsula, where
most of the scenarios in this set are set. Here the brown blocks represent Coalition
troops from Nassau, Hanover, and the newly independent United Netherlands. |
Play in
C&C: Napoleonics is driven by a 70-card Command Card deck**. Players take
turns playing a cad from their hand to order their troops to move and/or attack
their opponent’s forces. There are two narrow boards, each with four card- and
four counter sized silhouettes. These are unique to C&C Napoleonics, and we’ll
look at them more closely when we consider how the game is intended to be
played.
In the
bottom of the box are the six label (sticker) sheets. Not only do all the
blocks need to be stickered-up before you can play a game, but in my day, the
eight dice that came with the game had recessed faces which each had to have an
adhesive label applied to them as well. In the most recent printing, these have
been replaced with complete dice with etched and coloured faces. I hear they’re
nice.
Play
Once
you’ve labelled two entire armies** (and eight dice), punched the terrain tiles,
Victory Banners, and Square counters, and availed yourself of the rules, you’ll
be ready to embark on your first game. The first couple of scenarios are a good
entry to the system, introducing the most common unit types and offering the
chance to see how the terrain elements work (hills, woods, a fordable river,
and impassable terrain), as well as the concept of map locations that offer
victory points to one or both sides.
To
someone coming to Commands and Colors from a regular hex-and-counter wargame background,
some things might seem to be handled differently. The first thing is the
blocks. These represent full-strength units at their capacity (usually four
blocks, but there are exceptions, e.g., British Light units have five blocks at
full strength (this is something I’ll circle back to later), while the Portuguese
Light units only have three blocks, as do all of the Anglo-Allied cavalry).
Something else you’ll notice about the blocks, is they present a representative
picture – say a soldier or cavalryman – and the name of the type of unit represented,
but no values: no Movement Allowance, no Strength Points, no Defensive value.
What gives?
All the
information regarding the different unit types for each side are listed on the
inside of that faction’s Player Aid Card. The number of different unit types and
their varying capabilities, strengths and weaknesses can seem daunting, but by
the end of your second or third game, you won’t have to refer to the PACs for the
more common unit types at least. As a rule of thumb, when engaging in combat, each
unit rolls one die for each block. There are exceptions to this. Light units
roll an extra die in ranged combat (a distance of two hexes), but one per block
in melee (adjacent hexes), while some infantry units (French Line, Guard units)
and heavy cavalry roll an additional die in melee.
 |
Crooked tiles and a French Line block on its side (left); two indications that I didn't set
up this scenario (I'm much more OCD about the tile placement, though I do screw
up the block-placement occasionally). |
The
dice are specialised, with the faces exhibiting symbols instead of numbers. The
faces are colour-coded, with Infantry (blue, with a soldier silhouette), Cavalry
(yellow, with a charging steed), Artillery (red, exhibiting a cannon), crossed sabres,
and a flag (these are both white on black backgrounds. When you roll for an
attack, you compare your results to the unit you’re attacking, keeping in mind
the nature of the attack. At range, the only results that will count are any
symbols matching the type of unit you’re attacking, and the flag symbols. The
unit- matching faces will result in the elimination of a block, one for each successful
die-roll. The flags indicate a retreat, which will force the unit to move back
one or more spaces. Sometimes a unit can ignore a flag or two; it the unit has
an attached Leader, it can shrug off a retreat result under the officer’s
steadying hand. If the target unit has two or more friendly units in neighbouring
(adjacent) hexes, they can also ignore a flag. In the case of both, they can ignore
two flags, but the roll of a third will push them back regardless.
In
melee, things get bloodier. Die-rolls hit for effect on symbols but also on the
crossed-sabre rolls, retreats still apply, but are only taken after you apply
any hits and find out what’s left of the target unit. If the defending unit survives
at least in part, and is not forced to retreat, it can retaliate and counterattack
with their remaining unit strength. This is where C&C Napoleonics differs
from other flavours of Commands and Colors, where units fight at full-strength
regardless of their disposition. But everything is done for a reason in C&C:
Napoleonics; the diminishing fighting strength reflects the nature of
Napoleonic-era combat with the fighting proficiency of a regiment or squadron
being worn down by a combination of exhaustion and demoralisation on top of the
casualties sustained. Combat can be chaotic, and success is never assured. A
well-planned attack is no guarantee of victory, but playing without any regard for
the enemies intentions is a sure path to failure and defeat.
 |
Okay, this was a dice roll form a game we played last year, but I really wanted to put it in.
It was prompted by a First Strike card-play on my part, T attacking a British Line unit with
his French Line (who get and extra die in melee). A roll of four soldiers wiped out his unit,
and he failed the survival check for his attached Leader. Two banner for me! Good times. |
Contributing
to the battlefield chaos is the activation system. C&C: Napoleonics uses a
deck of Command Cards to regulate what each player can do on their turn. Players
each have a hand of cards, and play involves the players taking turns to play a
card from their hand, performing the actions allowed by the play of that card,
then replacing it at the end of their turn with another card from the deck. A given
scenario will spell out which side begins the game and the hand-size of each
side. The hand-size will often vary, to reflect hampered communications or logistical
difficulties inherent in that side’s situation.
Each Command
Card allows the player to order a unit or units, based on certain limitations
built into the command. Most cards order a unit or units of the player’s
choice, but limited to a particular sector, while others will allow one or two
units to be activated in each area. Other cards will offer special manoeuvres,
like Fire and Hold (standing ranged fire infantry/artillery fire) or Cavalry Charge,
each offering an extra die to attack rolls for that activation.
To
avoid a possible comprehensive loo of an infantry unit from a cavalry attack,
the defending player has the option of having the unit form square. This involves
the sacrifice of a random card from your hand (not permanently, only for the
duration of your unit being in square), which is placed on one of the spaces on
the Form Square panel; the marker token is placed atop or next to the unit that
has formed square as a reminder. Forming square reduces the assailant cavalry’s
attack to a single die. Plus, it allows the defender single die defending roll
before the cavalry attack. While a cavalry unit is adjacent, the infantry unit
must remain in-square, but an activation order will allow it to break square
again and act normally (breaking square will return the purloined card to your
hand).
 |
About six rounds into the game, and I had gained four French banners to T's two British.
We start with our own banners in front of us, and hand them over to the opponent as
they are earned (often with some muttering about lucky rolls). |
Victory
goes to the side that reaches the quotient of Victory Banners required in the
scenario instructions. A Victory Banner is earned with the annihilation of an
enemy unit or the killing/capturing of an enemy leader, and in some scenarios,
with the taking and holding of particular locations on the board, usually a
hill, structure, or town of strategic importance. The first to reach the
required Victory Banner quota wins the game, and that won’t necessarily be the
active player; a lucky defensive action or two can and has snatched victory
from the jaws of defeat.
Like
all good historical games, a lot of research as gone into each scenario. While
the battlefield is by necessity an approximation of the distances and
topography of the actual landscape, efforts are made to make the situations
both realistic and challenging approximations for the players.
Appraisal (and Apologia)
Commands
and Colors games are purely tactical in nature. The situations portrayed usually
took a few hours at most to be resolved. A Commands and Colors scenario will
often play out in a similar amount of time; of all the multitude of C&C
Napoleonics games I’ve played, only a handful have gone over the two-hour mark,
and these have usually been eighteen or twenty banner EPIC-scale games.
There is
a lot of talk about Commands and Colors being a good introductory game for
people new to wargaming. I think in some cases, at least, this is a back-handed compliment, dismissing
the system as not being a real wargame. As for the voracity of the statement, I
think it might be a good introduction to wargaming if the fresh recruit already
has an interest in the Napoleonic era. Pound for pound, I think C&C:
Ancients or Memoir’44 might be a better general gateway to wargaming, given the
lower rules exceptions overhead.
On the
Simulation-Game continuum, all of the Commands and Colors flavours are firmly
and unapologetically placed closer to the Game end. C&C: Napoleonics is no
exception in this respect, and only the most one-eyed fanboy would try to argue
for it to be nudged any further to the left. As I mentioned earlier, the parameters
of the game only allow an approximation of a given conflict, lacking the
granularity of, say, an Eagles of France or Vive l’Empereur
series game. One of the strengths of the Commands and Colors system is that
it doesn’t pretend to be more than it is. C&C: Napoleonics offers a fast-playing,
dynamic tactical engagement that, remarkably, rewards the use of period battle doctrine.
C&C:
Napoleonics has an aggregate rating on Boardgamegeek.com of a touch over 8 out
of 10, across over 3,200 submissions. That said, the game has its share of
critics. Some criticisms are fair, while others just sound petulant. Some
peoples’ issues with the game boil down to the Commands and Colors system simply
not meeting their expectations of what a Napoleonic wargame should be. That’s
fine; you probably already have a go-to game to scratch your Bonapatean itch.
Go play that.
 |
The set-up for a Grande Battles-scale game of Vimiero, from the fifth expansion:
EPIC Napoleonics. A long game (a battlefield 26 hexes across and a duration of
well over two hours),nut not at all unruly to play. Dare to dream. |
Mostly people seem to complain about what they perceive to be a lack of player agency; “I never have the cards I need to do
what I want,” or, “The cards make it too random.” I think people confuse player
agency with personal preference, or simply try to legitimise their personal
preferences by giving them a fancy label. It’s okay to not like a game. It’s okay
not like a game mechanic, like card-driven games. It’s okay not to like games
with blocks (“Some assembly required”). But these things don’t make the game
inherently bad or unplayable.
As I’ve
already said, everything in a Commands and Colors game is there for a reason.
Like in most wargames, both players can see where all the units are and their
relative strengths. Like other facets of the game, using a hand of cards to
limit your command options is a way to approximate both fog of war, the
unreliability of communications between headquarters and individual formations,
and the apprehension of some generals to engage the enemy. If you don’t like
randomness in your games, there’s always chess.
Block
games aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, I can respect that. They are usually hard
to play solo – this isn’t an issue using Stuka Joe’s CDG solo system
(available in a kit from GMT or as a downloadable print-and-play kit from the
product page). The stickering-up of hundreds of blocks (340 in the base game,
but less in successive expansions as you’re only labelling one army and some
French extras), will take a few hours and it’s done. No mounting and painting
of miniatures necessary.†
I’d be
loath to try to pick a favourite game, or even a Top 10. If I did, though, I’m
not sure Commands and Colors: Napoleonics would make the short-list. In spite
of this, it remains one of my got-to games. There are a couple of reasons for
this:
Familiarity. After so many years of near-weekly games,
playing is second nature now. It’s like picking up a favourite book again,
except the ending it different every time.
Satisfaction. While familiar and – let’s be honest here –
not particularly mentally taxing, the game is time and again a very fulfilling
experience. Win or lose, the experience of playing the game is almost always a tense
one, with a natural ebb and flow of battle developing as the narrative unfolds.
Some of my most memorable games have been when both sides are one Banner away
from victory, but neither can seem to get over the line, until one finally
does. It probably helps that, after this long, T and I are fairly evenly
matched (though if asked, he’d say I win all too often).
Brevity. Most of my gaming opportunities come on school nights (this
blog’s appellation comes from our informal, oft-quoted Monday-night motto). Knowing
that, when set up, nearly any scenario should play out inside of an hour-and--half
makes any flavour of Commands and Colors a natural choice for a weeknight.
 |
Hanoverian Line troops take a pounding from the French artillery. Attacking at range is
twice as effective against infantry as other unit types. |
Coda
Alas, the
Commands and Colors: Napoleonics base set is currently out of print. The fifth
printing was always meant to be a stop-gap measure for people who wanted to get
the individual boxes (the national army expansions have now all been through
reprints recently, and the Russian Army (GMT Games, 2013), Austrian Army (GMT Games, 2013), and Prussian Army (GMT Games, 2014) expansions are now also out of print).
The
good news is that out-of-print does not mean forever. Publisher Gene Billingsley
has alluded to re-packaging the series into two or three big-box editions, in
much the same way that Combat Commander: Europe (GMT Games, 2006) and
the Mediterranean (GMT Games 2007) expansion have been combined for pre-order
on GMT’s P500 list. Commands and Colors: Napoleonics may not be my absolute
favourite game (all contrary evidence aside), but it definitely deserves to be
in print for a good while yet.
 |
| Final turn of our Quatre Bras game. Coalition win, 9-4. |
*
Fifteen scenarios isn’t a bad count – that’s thirty games if you and your buddy
take turns as the French just once through (and who doesn’t want to play the
French sometimes?) but some of the expansions come with twenty or more. And then
there is C&C.net (www.commandsandcolors.net/), a repository for
fan-constructed scenarios that cover battles not portrayed in the official
scenarios, and sometimes even revisit those that are featured in a sort of, “But
have you considered this?” manner. And it covers all the historical flavours of
Commands and Colors (as well as Red Alert (PSC Games, 2019)) Well worth
a visit.
** A
new, expanded 90-card Command Card deck comes with the fifth expansion,
Generals, Marshals & Tacticians (GMT Games, 2015).
*** Okay,
this was written for effect. To be honest, I don’t mind stickering up C&C blocks,
and at least four or five other people in the Commands and Colors Fans group on
Facebook have declared they find the process “relaxing”, “meditative”, or even “therapeutic”.
† I’ve always
through of the blocks in Commands and Colors games as the poor man’s minis. In
truth, the plastic miniatures in Battle Cry and Memoir ’44 always put me off
trying the game. But this doesn’t stop hard-core tin-pushers from co-opting the
C&C: Napoleonics rules for their miniatures games, as a scroll through the
Commands and Colors Fans group on Facebook will demonstrate. Now that I’ve
played maybe half a dozen different Napoleonics minis rules-sets, I think I can
say that the C&C would work at least as well as or better than several of
them.
