A strategic card game about the Napoleonic Wars (c. 1797 to 1815), based on mechanisms from Glory to Rome.
- Decks of event cards, each with action, reaction, unit, and 2d6 roll.
- A bunch of morale cubes.
- A map of Europe and surrounding areas.
- Standees for the various leaders involved.
On your turn, you'll either play a card to lead its action, or draw back up to your hand size ("plan"). If you lead, you get the action first, and then everyone else may play a matching card (or two of any other suit) to take the action after.
Units and actions are paired on the cards:
- Infantry + Maneuver
- Cavalry + Charge
- Artillery + Barrage
- Aides + Recruit
- Skirmishers + Forage
Reactions include army leaders (like Napoleon or Murat) and terrain (like Fields or Forests). The former is played to split up an existing army, while the latter is played on the defense when an opponent attacks.
Before taking any action, you may play a leader from your hand to split up an existing army. Place that leader on the map in the same area as one of your other leaders. Move any number of unit cards from the latter to the former. Set the new leader's morale to one less than the old leader's morale.
Before planning (drawing back up to your hand size), you may merge two (or more) of your armies in the same area. Take all but one of the leader cards back into your hand, and combine all their units together under the remaining leader, who also ends up with the average morale (rounded down).
EXAMPLE: Napoleon (8M) and Murat (7M) are both in Northern Italy, and want to merge. The player pulls Murat back to their hand, combines all his units under Napoleon, and sets Napoleon back down to 7 morale. If Murat had been at 5, Napoleon would have dropped to 6 instead. Then the player draws up to hand size. If Murat's card brought them up to hand size already, they draw one card instead, as usual.
- Discard a card from the deck.
- Reference its roll for the test result.
- Reference its event, if any.
Events include a change in weather and a change in season (which forces all engaged armies to make a morale test).
Move the activated army. There are many ways to Maneuver:
- Engage: move next to an enemy army.
- Disengage: spend one morale to move away from an enemy army.
- Control: move onto a control point.
- March: move onto the border of this area, or off the border into an area.
You may also push your army to go a bit faster:
- You may spend one morale to take one additional Maneuver.
- If your army is entirely cavalry, you may take one additional Maneuver.
(In this way, an all-cavalry army may maneuver at most three times with one action, by spending one morale.)
When you engage with an enemy army who's not currently involved in a battle, they have the chance to play a terrain card from their hand, in front of that army's leader. That card can modify morale tests or various other things about the battle.
The border between any two areas can hold at most one army. If you march into an enemy-occupied border, you automatically engage them in a battle.
Force an army engaged with the activated army to test morale. If unengaged, you may spend one morale to engage as part of this action.
Roll + your cavalry - their infantry, and compare to their morale. If the result is greater than the tested army's morale, they lose one morale and one unit card. Otherwise, the activated army loses one morale.
EXAMPLE: Davout charges with three cavalry units against Mack with two infantry units and 7 morale. Mack rolls (flips over) an 8 - 3 (cavalry) + 2 (infantry) to make 7. Because this exactly equals his morale, Davout loses a morale instead. If he had rolled a 9, Mack would have lost both a unit card (his choice) and a morale.
Reduce enemy morale equal to one more than the artillery in the activated army.
EXAMPLE: Napoleon has two artillery cards (including himself). He may remove two morale from armies engaged with him. Those could both be from the same army, or one each from two different armies.
Add a card from your hand as a unit to the activated army.
TODO: Should recruits mess with an army's morale?
Alternatively, add a leader card from your hand to your capital region, and give it 10 morale to start.
Gather morale from your current area onto your army. If there's no morale in an army's area, or the army is currently engaged, it cannot take this action. Otherwise, remove one morale cube from the area.
Roll + skirmishers - other units. Gain that much morale, minimum one. You may not have more than ten morale.
EXAMPLE: Murat has two skirmishers with him, and rolls a 6 + 2 (skirmishers) - 1 (Murat). He takes one morale from his area, which turns into seven morale for his army. If this would take him to 11 or more, he goes to 10 instead.