Napoleon’s Triumph is a unique and deep wargame with outstanding production values, dice less combat, and many other unique mechanics.  It’s playable in an evening, and best of all, the game does a great job of focusing your attention on what I consider the most important element of a successful wargame: maneuver.

 

 

Anyone who is familiar with Bowen Simmons first game Bonaparte at Marengo (hereafter “BaM”) will know that Bowen produces games with outstanding components, particularly relative to standard wargame components.  No paper maps and thin cardboard chits here.  And in Napoleon’s Triumph (hereafter “NT”), the components outshine even Bowen’s early effort.

 

Like BaM, NT includes long thin wooden blocks which serves to make a game in progress look like an old fashioned battle map.  NT, though, includes two fully mounted maps and adds metal commander pieces that BaM lacked.  A nice touch is that Bowen included two copies of the rules in both games, but in NT, unlike BaM, they are full color.

 

Suffice it to say that even a eurogamer will be happy with the components in NT.

 

 

 

 

The rules in NT are only 10 pages long, but that is a bit deceiving because they are exceedingly concise, to the point that it is rather difficult to grasp all the implications of what you’ve read.  There is an annotated copy of the rules available on Boardgamegeek that I recommend a first time player seek out; they add a lot of commentary that makes the concepts in NT clearer.  

 

Even with annotated rules, though, be prepared to struggle a bit through your first game.  It’s not that the game is complex, but it is so unlike anything else that it will take a while for the mechanics to sink in. Players of BaM will have something of a headstart, but there are still a large number of changes, and only the most basic concepts remain the same.  Another factor to be aware of is that combat is very process heavy.  Included in the annotated rules is a two page flow chart of how combat works, and I found myself referring to it for every combat in my first game.  Once the mechanics are internalized, though, this can be dispensed with.

 

In terms of complexity, this game is low-moderate by wargame standards, and high but other game standards.  Target audience is aged 12+.

 

 

1) Blocks

 

One of the most obvious and important mechanics in NT is that it is a block game.  As can be seen, the blocks are not the normal rectangle normally found in block wargames, instead these are long and thin.  As such they better invoke the feeling of an old battlefield, but they lose the ability to be used as a step reduction mechanism.  In most block wargames, there is a unique strength for the unit on each edge of the block.  By rotating it as it takes damage, blocks allow for a simple way to implement a four step reduction system.  In NT, by contrast, you indicate that a unit has taken a hit by removing it and replacing with a block of a lower value.

 

The long blocks, though, retain their ability to implement a “fog of war” aspect to the game by hiding a unit’s strength until in engages in combat.  In NT, this attribute is extremely important since combat is entirely deterministic with no random variables.

 

2) Dice less combat  

 

One of the most unique aspects of NT is that combat is not random at all, except to the extent that you may not know the strength of your opposition when the battle begins.  Instead, combat comes down to a simple strength comparison, with the stronger unit winning.  Of course, it’s a bit more involved than that, with strength modifiers based on terrain, units types (of which there are four types: infantry, elite infantry (i.e. the famous Imperial Guard) cavalry, and artillery.

 

 

 

One of the things that requires getting used to is that head-on assaults rarely work.  If you throw your corps into a defended position, you’ll find yourself with your men streaming to the rear in complete disorder, with the corps near useless for several turns.

 

Instead, you have to work, often for several turns, to undermine a defensive position with artillery bombardment, feints, and flank attacks.  This is one of the things I like most about the game, and I’ll take more about it a bit later when I share my game play impressions.

 

3) The map

 

Another interesting aspect of the game is the map.  It is essentially an area movement map where the terrain is divided into irregular polygons, whose size and shape is determined by the underlying terrain.  For example, in congested areas such as towns, hills, and light woods, the areas are smaller, meaning it takes longer for units to move versus open areas where the polygons are larger. 

 

 

 

4) Leaders

 

NT added the concept of leaders to the BaM system.  Leaders are important because the allow the creation of corps, or groups of up to 8 units that can move and fight together.  If a corps loses a battle, it retreats and shatters, such that all attached units separate.  Since a leader can only reattach one unit per turn, this can often mean a corps is out of commission for at least several turns.  It also makes the corps vulnerable to follow up attacks that can mean it never really recovers (which is realistic and something I like about the game very much).

 

Reflecting the superior and unified French leadership, the French army can activate all their corps commands each turn, while the Allies are limited to five corps activations.

 

 

The best thing about Napoleon’s Triumph is that is imparts a terrific sense of maneuver.  When your opponent steals a march on you, and flanks one of your corps, you will both feel it.  He will feel exhilaration and you will feel anxious.  There is no praying to the dice-gods to get you out of your mistakes in the game.  There is, however, always the possibility that your opponent is bluffing you, and that eight unit corps is really a paper tiger, with a number of single strength units only demonstrating to your flank.

 

Which brings us to another great feature of NT; bluffing.  In most block games there is some element of bluff, and if anything, that sense is enhanced in NT due to the deterministic, non random nature of combat.  And what’s more, in NT is very much an all or nothing affair.  Whomever losing the battle, has their corps shattered, with every unit detached.  Thus, a single skirmish can mean the collapse of the center of your line, or that of your opponents.  Then is back to maneuver as you attempt to cobble together your line.

 

Another feature of NT is that while there is just a single battle to play, you can play the single day battle, where most of the corps start on the map, or the larger scenario where the games starts the day before the battle, and most corps start off map.  In the longer scenario, the element of maneuver is even more pronounced, as you have greater control over where to align you main axis of advance.  The playtimes, in my experience, run about three hours for the one day scenario and four hours for the longer scenario, though games can and often do end earlier when one side or the other breaks and loses immediately.  

 

While NT is a great game, and one of my new favorites, it is not without flaws.  The first of these is in the victory conditions themselves.  Like most games where the victory conditions are primarily driven by inflicting casualties on your opponent, it sometimes can come down to headhunting units, particularly near the end game when your opponent is about to reach their demoralization level (in NT, each step loss suffered by a unit in a losing battle reduces an army’s morale level by one – reach zero and is all over.)

 

 

 

Another problem for some is the scale of the game – its somewhere between operational and tactical in scale – call it grand tactical.  In other words, the game covers the battle in its entirety, which precludes such details as explicit cavalry charges, double shotted artillery, and infantry forming square.  The leaders, too, are completely generic, and if you choose you can have Murat leading the Imperial Guard.  Another slightly odd rule is that units in reserve in a location cannot reinforce units in the line that come under attack (if there was no unit in line, the reserve can step up and defend, but if there is already a unit in line defending, the reserve just sits there and watches).

 

Finally, as mentioned above, the combat is very procedural, which is quite awkward initially, but once you’ve gotten it down, its no problem to determine your odds of success for a certain attack.  The only uncertainty is in knowing if that infantry line you can see through the gunpowder haze is a single line or triple line backed up with cannon.

 

 

In summary, Napoleon’s Triumph is not without its flaws, but it is a brilliantly produced, unique, playable, and most importantly, very fun game that does a great job of recreating the sense of maneuver that is the primary reason for playing a Napoleonic game in the first place.  I highly recommend it (I rate it a 9 out of 10) and look forward to playing more myself.