First off, this series is being done as a bit of a lark as wargaming has absolutely nothing to do with Christmas so if anyone is offended, please just stop reading now. Also, I know that traditionally the 12 Days of Christmas happen after Christmas Day (starting on December 25th and ending on January 5th also known as Twelfth Night) but I want to do this in a lead up to the holiday.

On the 11th day of Christmas War Gaming, my true love gave to me…

11 Grognards of the Grande Armée Assaulting

We picked up Churchill back in 2014 when it first was printed. The game system used by Mark Herman and what it is trying to do is just fantastic with its debating over issues, seeing those issues translate to action on the board in the further prosecution of the war and then the way that people work to coordinate their actions. Just a really solid system. A few years ago, after playing all of the games in the Great Statesmen Series, we heard of a new game in the series from a designer not named Mark Herman and I was immediately interested and intrigued as we have had so much fun with Churchill, Pericles and Versailles 1919. Congress of Vienna from GMT Games is a diplomatic card driven wargame based on Churchill and is the 4th game in the Great Statesmen Series. The game is set during the years of 1813-1814 and sees players take on the role of the main characters of the struggle between the Napoleonic Empire and the coalition of Russia, Austria, and Great Britain with their Prussian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Swedish allies. We played the game twice this year, while attending Buckeye Game Fest and the World Boardgaming Championships and absolutely were amazed at the changes and innovations to the system introduced by the designer Frank Esparrago. It was a really good game and we enjoyed it very much!

Congress of Vienna is definitely a wargame as most of the game is focused on the military campaigns of the various powers and combat is a central part of the game as it has its own board that represents the various the Fronts of the war. The board contains six different tracks, also
known as Fronts. Front tracks are divided into spaces each linked to one or more adjacent spaces
starting from distinct locations. All but two Front tracks converge to end on the central space of Paris. Each Major and Minor Power space has a colored border and a 2 letter code indicating its
nationality. Other Minor Countries are indicated by a nameplate containing the name of the country
with a circle above it containing its national flag of the historical period. On these Front tracks, the players will place armies, which are represented by colored wooden blocks, in their corresponding spaces and to these armies will add recruited cubes to represent their forces. These are stored in an Army Box that are nearby the various Fronts.

In the above picture, you can see that the Grande Armée Army Block is located in the Silesia space and has pushed both the Austrian Army of Bohemia and the Russian Army of Silesia back to Poland where they are desperately trying to hold out until they can get additional reinforcements. The Grande Armée is lead by Napoleon Bonaparte and gains major advantages in combat by adding a free Military Operation Issue that allows the Grande Armée to attack and also adds a massive +6 DRM while battling on the Central Europe Front. In this combat, the Grande Armée contains 11 military unit cubes as compared to just 8 for the combined army of Russia and Austria and also has a Military Support marker in the space that will add another +3 DRM to the roll. With this discrepancy, and the abilities of one of the greatest generals of the time, the French are going to have a field day in this battle.

If you are interested, we posted a review video and you can watch that at the following link: