With this My Favorite Wargame Cards Series, I hope to take a look at a specific card from the various wargames that I have played and share how it is used in the game. I am not a strategist and frankly I am not that good at games but I do understand how things should work and be used in games. With that being said, here is the next entry in this series.

Card #60: French Leader Napoleon from Congress of Vienna from GMT Games

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. Congress of Vienna has two different but related phases including the conference table where players first debate over the control of issues germane to the factions and the period of the war and second these issues are then used on the battlefield to recruit units, attack and take overall command of battles. The players will be playing cards from their hands to “debate” over the various issues that were placed on the table, which include all types of things such as Military Operations, Recruitment, who will lead the combined Coalition forces (Generalissimo), Future of French Government, British Financial Aid, Liberalism vs. Absolutism, Austrian Neutrality and several other issues, and then later the players will use their accumulated Resources gained from the issues to enact action on the Military Map and do things like mobilize troops, place Military Support Markers and the ultimately to conduct warfare.

The game relies on cards and cards can be used to negotiate, i.e. move an issue to your National Track. Cards can provide a particular issue with positive and negative DRM’s depending on which nation plays them and can also be traded with another player during the Diplomacy Phase. Certain cards are better than others for debating an issue moved by another player; and finally, if they are saved for the War Phase, staff cards can be used to modify dice rolling in battles. These are very versatile cards and the players will have to learn them and their benefits in order to be effective at the game.

In this entry, we are going to take a look at the French Leader Napoleon card, which is one of the more powerful cards in the game. There is actually quite a bit of information found on the card but it all has a purpose and clearly explains when it provides bonuses when used on the various issues such as Minor Country Issues, French Recruitment as well as its various Dice Roll Modifiers during combat. This card is very powerful and must be used at the appropriate times for what the player is trying to do. Early in the game, the card can be used for its French Recruitment ability to gain new troops, the French will then gain 2 additional Units to use. When used during the Diplomacy Phase to effect the location of issues at the conference table, if used to move any issue it will provide a free French Military Operations Marker to be used on the battlefield to cause units to attack. The uses of Napoleon are many and players will need time to best understand when and where to use his abilities. But, his most impactful use is on the battlefield where he will grant various DRM’s depending on what French army he is commanding. If used with the Grande Armée, he will grant a massive +6 DRM while when being used for the Army of the Elbe he will only grant a +3 DRM. As the games wears on, and the Allies are at the gates of Paris, if used in defense he will grant a -3 DRM to the Allies attacking. These choices are very important and the correct choices will need to be made at the right time to be successful.

After playing now a few times, I am here to say that Congress of Vienna is probably my favorite game in the Great Statesmen Series. I believe that this game has matured the system and made it something that is more than where it started. Congress of Vienna is very much more like a true wargame and was extremely interesting. We are still learning and need to keep playing this one but I did enjoy what it was that we were doing.

Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) was a French military and political leader who rose to power during the French Revolution (1789-1799), became Emperor of the French (1804-1814/1815), and conquered much of Europe through brilliant, though costly, military campaigns, leaving a lasting legacy as one of history’s most famous and controversial figures, known for his strategic genius and ambition. He implemented significant legal reforms like the Napoleonic Code but ultimately faced defeat and exile, cementing his image as a complex figure of power and downfall. 

Born on the island of Corsica to a family of Italian origin, Napoleon moved to mainland France in 1779 and was commissioned as an officer in the French Royal Army in 1785. He supported the French Revolution in 1789 and promoted its cause in Corsica. He rose rapidly through the ranks after winning the siege of Toulon in 1793 and defeating royalist insurgents in Paris on 13 Vendémiaire in 1795. In 1796, he commanded a military campaign against the Austrians and their Italian allies in the War of the First Coalition, scoring decisive victories and becoming a national hero. He led an invasion of Egypt and Syria in 1798, which served as a springboard to political power. In November 1799, Napoleon engineered the Coup of 18 Brumaire against the French Directory and became First Consul of the Republic. He won the Battle of Marengo in 1800, which secured France’s victory in the War of the Second Coalition, and in 1803, he sold the territory of Louisiana to the United States. In December 1804, Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of the French, further expanding his power.

We have done 2 videos on this game including the following RAW Video after out 1st play at Buckeye Game Fest in May 2025:

We then did the following full Review Video after our 2nd play at WBC last July:

In the next entry in this series, we will take a look at Mobile Vulgus from Time of Crisis: The Age of Iron and Rust Expansion from GMT Games.

-Grant

With this My Favorite Wargame Cards Series, I hope to take a look at a specific card from the various wargames that I have played and share how it is used in the game. I am not a strategist and frankly I am not that good at games but I do understand how things should work and be used in games. With that being said, here is the next entry in this series.

Card #59: Sullivan Expedition vs. Iroquois and Tories from Liberty or Death: The American Insurrection from GMT Games

In case you didn’t know, I love Liberty or Death: The American Insurrection! This is my 2nd favorite volume in the COIN Series and is such a fantastic game filled with the history of my favorite historical period the American Revolutionary War. Liberty or Death was the COIN Series’ first foray into non-modern warfare and takes us to the 18th Century and the days of the Brown Bess musket, the 18 pound siege cannon and nice and tidy formations better suited for a gentleman’s war. The focus of the game is the struggle of the American Patriots against their mother British government as they have made their intentions clear to become independent with the Declaration of Independence. The game is a multi-faction treatment of the American Revolution, which includes the Patriots and their allies the French against the British and their reluctant allies the Indians.

Liberty or Death is a 1 to 4 player game focused on all aspects of the struggle including financing operations with Rabble Rousing, infiltrating British held cities to Skirmish, blockading major cities with the mighty French fleet, Raiding the frontiers with the Indian nations, the spread of propaganda to build support for the revolution, fort building and small scale battles. So, with this short description you can see that this game is not a “traditional” wargame but does contain some armed conflict. So a game about the American Revolution that isn’t focused on battle you say? How can that be? Well, I will tell you that this game is probably a perfect representation of the multifaceted struggle that wasn’t necessarily decided on the field of combat, but by the little actions of many behind the scenes characters. Yes battle will decide the control of major areas of the board and decide the fate of troops as they must be concerned about being in supply through a network of forts but the game is so much more than just rolling some dice and consulting a CRT!

The battles of the frontier during the American Revolutionary War were brutal and continuous. The Indians of the time were concerned with the intrusions of and continual westward expansion of the colonists onto their sacred lands and could see that this was going to be a continual struggle for them and their people. The colonists long had disrespect and disdain for the primitive savage peoples of North America and their frontier settlements continually encroached on the Indian lands taking valuable forested area for hunting from them. This created lots of tension and lead to atrocities being committed by both sides as a means to stop the other side. The game is based on a continual struggle over winning the hearts and minds of the people to their cause and forcing compliance or swaying toward revolution. So for the Indians, they want the colonists to embrace their role as a colony of England and not want to become independent. This stance for the Indians is in response to the attitude of the crown toward westward expansion and interloping into the Indian homeland, namely that the crown didn’t want colonists going west. This is not because the Indians believe that the crown values them anymore than the colonists do. But, that they believe that the crown will not encroach on their land due to King George III’s Proclamation of 1763. I also feel that it represents a feeling by the colonists of their level of safety on the frontier and which side will better protect them from raiding and reprisals by the Indians for this encroachment. 

The Sullivan Expedition card in Liberty or Death is one that has the exact same effect for all sides; that of being used to remove either a Fort (if being played by the British/Indian side) or a Village (if being played by the Continental/French alliance). Actually, either side can use the card to remove a Fort and I have found that this is how it is mostly used but the power of removing one of these 2 items cannot be minimized. Normally, during battles, the last removed pieces in a space are the Forts or Villages as attackers must defeat all present pieces to remove their fortified locations. This can take multiple attacks and see lots of actions and resources invested into it when this simple card can do that work in one fell swoop. I have said this before but the really great part of these Card Assisted (or Card Driven) games is that rules can be broken or ignored by the play of certain cards and Sullivan Expedition is one of these rule breaking/bending cards. The card is tied to the history of the conflict and can only be used in 1 of 3 locations being either New York, Northwest or Quebec. These are areas where the Indian faction typically builds up their Villages as this is one of their Victory Conditions being the number of Villages that Indians have on the board as compared to the Patriot Forts. This is not a straight numerical comparison of the 2 sides total but involves some math. Not hard math but math nonetheless. The Victory Condition is actually Indian Villages (the tan discs) less 3 is greater than Patriot Forts. So, let’s say the Indian player has 7 Villages on the board and the Patriot player has just 3 Forts. The mathematical formula would be 7 – 3 = 4 > 3. This would equate to this part of the Victory Condition being met for the Indians. But, the designer and development team made it so you don’t have to do math. There is no great need to calculate the “+3” mathematically since the Indian Villages and Patriot Forts tracks on the map do it for you visually. The Forts Track is offset by 3 holding “boxes” (circles/stars) compared to the Villages track, so if the “lowest” (or “south-most”, or whatever you want to call it) empty Village circle on the Village track is “below” (or “south of”) the lowest empty Fort star on the Forts track the Indians are ahead in their victory condition.

On the surface, this Victory Condition seems simple. But, it is a bit deceiving as these Indian Villages are not easy to build, they actually take a multi-step process that will consume many rounds of turns to accomplish but it is mainly complex because you can only ever build 2 such Villages in any 1 Province. The protected Indian Preserves of Quebec, Florida, Southwest and Northwest can hold a total of 8 Villages for a total able to be somewhat safely built without great concern for attack and removal coming in at 8. The Indians have a total of 12 available Villages and generally start the game in most setups and scenarios with 0-6 Villages already built but this is cancelled out by an existing number of Patriot Forts being built on the board of between 4-7. Thus, this card is a really powerful situational card but an interesting card nonetheless.

The Sullivan Expedition  was a United States military campaign under the command of General John Sullivan during the American Revolutionary War, lasting from June to October 1779, against the four British-allied nations of the Iroquois (also known as the Haudenosaunee). The campaign was ordered by George Washington in response to the Iroquois and Loyalist destruction of American settlements in Wyoming Valley, Pennsylvania and Cherry Valley, New York. The military campaign had the aim at the time of “the total destruction and devastation of their settlements.” 4 Continental Army brigades carried out a scorched-earth campaign in the territory of the Iroquois Confederacy in what is now central New York.

The expedition was largely successful, with 40 Iroquois villages razed and their crops and food stores destroyed. The campaign drove just over 5,000 Iroquois to Fort Niagara seeking British protection, and depopulated the area for post-war settlement. Some scholars argue that it was an attempt to annihilate the Iroquois and describe the campaign as a genocide, although this term is disputed. Today this area is the heartland of Upstate New York, with thirty-five monoliths marking the path of Sullivan’s troops and the locations of the Iroquois villages they razed dotting the region, having been erected by the New York State Education Department in 1929 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the expedition.

If you are interested in learning more about the various Victory Conditions for the Indians as well as a bit about their Commands and Special Activities, you can read this entry in the COIN Workshop Series on the blog: https://theplayersaid.com/2023/01/17/coin-workshop-liberty-or-death-the-american-insurrection-from-gmt-games-indians-faction/

In the next entry in this series, we will take a look at French Leader Napoleon from Congress of Vienna from GMT Games.

-Grant