For those who are accustomed to the world of ‘hex and counter’ wargames, the unit pieces in Battlefields of the Napoleonic Wars can be a little disorienting, because they do lack many distinctive elements. There are no NATO symbols, no uniforms, no corps or regiments to which they belong, and – above all – no values indicating movement or combat strength.
After briefly recounting some of the editorial choices for the publication of the game, today I begin to tell a little about what the game is like. The name ‘Battlefields of the Napoleonic Wars’ is not accidental, because it places the emphasis on the places where the battles whose names we still remember today were fought more than two hundred years ago: Rivoli, Marengo, Austerlitz, Waterloo…
Today I start talking a little about Battlefields of the Napoleonic Wars, the first game – designed by me together with Alessandro Zucchini – that will be released under the Ingenioso Hidalgo imprint, the small publishing label I created to follow some projects that are a little more particular or niche than my more typical games.
Very small update: the first Ingenioso Hidalgo game has now its own page on Boardgamegeek. Of course there is also a dedicated page on this website.
In June 1815, at the start of the Waterloo Campaign, Napoleon sought to prevent Wellington’s Anglo-allied army and Blücher’s Prussian army from joining forces. The crossroads at Quatre Bras, where important roads from Brussels, Charleroi, Namur and Nivelles intersected,
became a strategic point.