2nd Printing

Generals Marshals Tacticians is the fifth expansion for GMT’s Commands & Colors Napoleonics game system. In my opinion, this expansion will impact your Commands & Colors Napoleonic gaming like no other expansion has done to date.

In this expansion, there are 18 historical battles. A number of these scenarios focus on the engagements of the French army of 1813 against the Russian, Austrian and Prussian armies around Leipzig. Players will also find a few new units including, Russian Lt Lancer Cavalry and Militia Lancer Cavalry, British Rocket Battery, and French Guard Horse Artillery.

But what makes this expansion stand out is the introduction of a deck of Napoleonic Tactician cards. These 50 cards are designed to spice up each and every player’s Napoleonic experience by enhancing the role of leaders on the battlefield, without adding additional complexity or pages of rules. Tactician cards also add an element of suspense and will challenge players to coordinate their use in a timely manner. In terms of game play, they represent leader actions and Napoleonic battlefield happenings or unit abilities. These cards may hinder the opposition army, enhance a player’s units or may instantly change the course of a battle. The number of Tactician cards each player will take at the start of a battle is indicated in the scenario notes. For earlier scenarios, players must refer to the Commander Tactician Rating Reference Card, which is a comprehensive listing of all Commands & Colors Napoleonic scenarios released to date with a commander’s tactician rating for each army.

COALITION! is a game about the Napoleonic Wars (1805-1815) for two to six players that can be completed in a single evening. The scope of the game is grand-strategy with some operational components (as the execution of maneuvers as Marching to the Sound of the Guns), being the British player launching successive Coalitions to destroy France and his Empire. You will remember and reenact this flamboyant period handling historical Generals, Armies, Fleets and Event Cards. Prepare to fight from Austerlitz to Waterloo in just one evening!

The British Player will launch successive Coalitions of allied countries to destroy the French Empire, and the French player will try to survive and win the game by earning Gloire and Victory Points or by surrendering Great Britain through the Continental Blockade. Also, in the 3-6 players version, every individual player will control a Major Power with his own agenda, trying to win the game also through their own Victory and Gloire Points...

To demonstrate how the entire Napoleonic Wars of ten years can be completed in one evening, here is a sample play narrative of how the Waterloo campaign could play out in ten minutes:

In 1815, after playing the Hundred Days Event card, you have Napoleon and the Armée du Nord in the Low Countries, which is controlled by the UK player, your enemy. The UK Player has also, in two different stacks, Wellington and the Allied Army and Blucher and the Hauptarmee Prussian Army, also in the Low Countries.

After making an attrition check for all the players, the United Kingdom player acts first. In his first sub-round, he moves his Prussian Hauptarmee army under Blucher and attempts to form a stack with Wellington´s Allied Army. The French Player tries to intercept Blucher via a Maneuver action with Napoleon and the Armée du Nord. The French player rolls a dice and gets a 6, thus Napoleon and his army have successfully intercepted Blucher, and then he attacks them. Both armies having strength of 2 points, so the ratio is 1 to 1. The French player adds +2 for Napoleon and the Prussian player adds -1 for Blucher for a net modifier of +1 one for the French. The French player rolls a dice: a 5, and adds the modifier of +1. The net roll is a 6. Blucher Army is defeated and is forced to retreat and losses 1 Strength Point. As a result of his victory over the Prussians, the French player gains 1 Gloire Point. In historical terms, the players have just fought the battle of Ligny. Quatre Bras was such a minor battle that is not represented in the game...

It is now the first French sub-round. Now, the French player decides to launch an Attack against Wellington’s Allied army with Napoleon´s Army. Each side has 2 Strength Points so the ratio is 1 to 1. However, it is now Blucher’s turn to attempt a Maneuver action. Blucher attempts to March to the Sound of the Guns and to join the Battle. He rolls a dice and gets a 5, joining the battle. The players now recalculate the odds. The French have 2 Strength Points and the allied armies total 3 Strength Points. So the ratio is 2 to 3. Napoleon’s tactical rating adds +2 for the French. However, Wellington adds a -2 when defending, thus nether side receives a modifier. Seeing his chances of winning are minimal, the French Player decides to play the Grognards of the Old Imperial Guard Event Card which will add a +1 to his dice roll. The United Kingdom player responds by playing Wellington´s Reverse Slope for a -1 modifier to the French dice roll. Again, the French player is left without any modifiers to his dice. He rolls and gets a 3. Both sides suffer a 1 Strength Point loss, but it is the French player that has to retreat. The players have now re-fought the battle of Waterloo, and according to the Hundred Days Event Card, then France surrenders....

COALITION promises to deliver a playable and engaging game experience to recreate the entirety of the Napoleonic Wars in a single evening.

Product Information

Complexity: 6 out of 10

Solitaire Suitability: 5 out of 10

Time Scale: 1 year per turn

Map Scale: country-to-country grand-strategic level

Unit Scale: Armies (30-50,000 men per Strenght Point) and Fleets (15-25 ships per Strenght Point)

Players: 2 to 6

Playing Time: 4 to 6 hours

Components:

One Map – 22 x 34"  MOUNTED MAP

Two Sheets of 3/4” Counters

Three Decks of 56 Playing Cards in all

Rules Booklet

Multiple Player Aid Cards

Six 6-Sided Dice

One Box and Lid set

Game Credits:

Designer: Javier García de Gabiola

Developer: J. Mark Scarbrough

EPIC Napoleonics is the sixth expansion for GMT’s Commands & Colors Napoleonics game system. EPIC Napoleonics allows for fighting larger battles with more units.  EPIC Napoleonics is actually two game systems in one – the Epic Battles system, and the La Grande Battles system. Although the scope of our Napoleonic game has changed size wise, the historical feel and the basic rules of play, for the most part, remain the same. To experience the maximum enjoyment with these two new Napoleonic game formats, both EPIC Napoleonics and La Grande Battles scenarios are best played using the Command card and Tactician card decks that were part of the Generals, Marshals and Tacticians expansion.

Included in this expansion are six standard sized scenarios that focus on key phases of the battle of Austerlitz, 2 December 1805. This expansion also features 12 EPIC sized engagements and two La Grande Battle scenarios. Also included are two double-sided mounted maps. The EPIC sided battlefield is larger,  and at 11 hexes deep by 20 hexes wide, it is almost double the size of the standard size battlefield of 9 hexes deep by 13 hexes wide. When laid side-by-side to form the La Grande battlefield, the battle area is a whopping 11 hexes deep by 26 hexes wide.

Expansion for Commands & Colors Napoleonics.

Prior to the Napoleon wars, the Austrian Empire stretched from Italy to the Netherlands and from Poland to the Balkans. Its position in the center of Europe, however, made it the perfect target for revolutionary France and in April 1792, France declared war on Austria. The first war lasted for 5 years. Austria renewed the war against France in 1799 and again in 1805, but in both cases was swiftly defeated. In April 1809, judging that Napoleon’s army was bogged down with the fighting in Spain, Austria invaded Bavaria, but Napoleon recovered quickly and Austria’s defeat at Wagram led to another humiliating peace treaty. In 1812 Austria was forced to provide troops for Napoleon’sthe disastrous Russian campaign, but in 1813 Austria again joined the coalition against him.

Even though the Austrian army was the third largest in the world, the Austrians lost many more battles than they won. At the time of the Napoleonic Wars, the Austrian army was a large multi-national army, made up of Austrians, Swedes, Hungarians, Englishmen, Scots, Irishmen, Walloons, Poles, Russians, Ukrainians, Germans, Croats, Serbs, and even French royalists. The infantry regiments were large and somewhat reliable, but the tactical formations and drill were still entrenched in the past. The cavalry, although well mounted, still applied the practice of scattering their formations in small bodies, which greatly reduced their combat effectiveness. In general, the Austrian army did enjoy many successes on a regimental level, but at the brigade and divisional levels its commanders were not tactically proficient.

In this expansion you will find 18 historical scenarios that focus on the Austrian Army battles from 1805 to 1814 against Napoleon, plus all the new units you’ll need to field for these engagements.

The Russian Army is an expansion for Commands & Colors Napoleonics.

In this expansion you will find 18 historical scenarios that focus on the Russian Army battles against Napoleon, new specific rules for the Russian Army, and all the new units you’ll need to field for these engagements

The Spanish Army is the first expansion for Commands & Colors: Napoleonics.

At the time of the Napoleonic Wars, Spain was only a shadow of its former power. Spanish troops and leaders, as many Napoleonic historians point out, performed badly on a large number of occasions. Yet there are a number of battles, Bailen, Tamames, Alcaniz and San Marcial where the Spaniards fought valiantly and gained victory. Ironically, the point most historians overlook is the fact that the Spanish armies constituted a threat that the French simply could not ignore. As good as Wellington’s Anglo-Portuguese field army was, that army faced multiple French armies. They could only defeat one French army at a time. The Spanish Armies and the accompanying guerrilla warfare against French troops tied down the remainder, allowing the Anglo-Portuguese army to ultimately emerge victorious.

In this expansion you will find 18 historical scenarios that focus on Peninsular battles fought by the Spanish army from 1808 to 1813, plus all the new units you’ll need to field for these engagements.

Less than thirty years after the United States won independence from Great Britain, the two countries were at war again. A conflict that began as a political squabble over sovereignty and maritime law would grow into a tumultuous mess stretching from Quebec to Florida and featuring a cast of historical characters and situations rivaling its predecessor of 1776. Three future US Presidents would fight in the war. A charismatic native leader would forge a coalition of tribes across thousands of miles of territory and come within a breath of establishing an independent Indian state on the American frontier. Warships would sail the Great Lakes waterways from Mackinac to Montreal, and for the first time in a generation the British Navy would be decisively beaten in single-ship combat, foreshadowing the great power that America would one day become. And all against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars raging across the European continent. Though it ended in a stalemate, the War of 1812 was a fulcrum of history around which the fate of both nations turned.

Dawn’s Early Light: The War of 1812 is a two-player card-driven grand strategy game: a quick-playing, high-level abstract recreation of the entire conflict encompassing the territorial, naval, political, and economic competition between the two sides. Players will appreciate the high-production quality of the components which includes a MOUNTED game map and large, 5/8" size punch-out counters.

Players take the role of the United States or Great Britain over a four-year period spanning the war and its prelude, with game cards for events and operations that offer players the tools to remix the entire scope of the conflict. Events such as “Andrew Jackson,” “Old Ironsides,” “Laura Secord,” “Tippecanoe,” and “Dinner at the White House” recreate the characters and moments that shaped the war, while operations such as recruiting, campaigning, privateering, raiding, and shipbuilding let players take it in their own direction. Each side earns 

Discern the Secrets of Napoleon's Greatest Maneuvers. My God! Can these Frenchmen fly as well as fight? Jena! The name we give to one of the truly decisive campaigns in history; whereby the sons of the French Revolution under the command of emperor Napoleon Ier, meet and utterly destroy the heirs of Frederick the Great.

Five scenarios span the opening engagement at Saalfeld through the French victories of Jena and Auerstædt. The Campaign Game opens with the French exiting the mountains of Franconia and Thuringia in a drive on Leipzig, hoping to knock the Saxons out of the opposing alliance.

This item is bagged, not boxed.

August 1813, Austria ends its neutrality and enters the VIth Coalition against France. After joining contingents of the Russian and Prussian armies this new army marches north out of Bohemia nearly 200 thousand strong. They march along the west bank of the Elbe into Saxony, its large lumbering columns stretched across the Erz mountains.

From where he has been pursuing enemy forces to the east Napoleon sees this new threat aimed at his line of communications and the city of Dresden, the main supply depot for his army. Only a single French Corps stands in its way. Outnumbered nearly ten-to-one it cannot hold.In a flurry of orders Napoleon redirects his guard and several corps to march to its rescue.

La Bataille de Dresde details the titanic battle that ensued on August 25th and raged through the 27th. Up to 4 players control the Prussian, Austrian and Russian forces commanded by Feldmarschall Carl zu Schwarzenberg, while up to a further four command such French personages as Marshals Ney, Marmont, Mortier, Victor, St. Cyr... or Napoleon, himself. Every battalion of infantry, squadron of cavalry or battery of artillery that was present at the battle is included... and are at their command.

La Bataille des Quatre-Bras is the second of five boxed sets detailing the climatic moments of Napoleon's last 100 days as Emperor of the French. La Bataille des Quatre-Bras reproduces the fateful encounter between Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington on one 34x22 period map with nearly 600 stunning unit counters (including every Anglo/Allied unit found at Waterloo two days later). The small size of this game makes it ideal for players to learn the system. For the grognards, La Bataille des Quatre-Bras is fully compatible with La Bataille de Ligny, and when played together they form the grandest simulation ever presented for 19th Century enthusiasts. (in bag)