War and Peace: Game of the Napoleonic Wars

War and Peace: Game of the Napoleonic Wars is one of those hex-and-counter monsters that stares down from the shelf and makes you wonder whether you own enough table, time, and emotional resilience. Mercifully, it shares a quality I value in Atlantic Chase: The Kriegsmarine Against the Home Fleet 1939-1942: a run of introductory scenarios that takes you by the hand before leaving you with the full beast.

The first scenario, the invasion of Italy, gives the French the bearing of Primaris Space Marines, while the Austrians have a humbler but perfectly clear job: slow them down long enough to hold Milan until winter. The asymmetry is not decorative; you are either applying pressure or scrambling over the obstacles the other side has put in your way.

Those scenarios introduce the game a piece at a time, so its considerable weight arrives in portions rather than landing on you with the first move. Then the forced-march die appears, because of course it does: you can push for the vital advance, and it can condemn you with the cool indifference of a small plastic cube.

The opening scenario was comfortable, engaging, and sharp enough to make me want more, without persuading me that the 160-hour grande campaign is a sensible human undertaking. For something this vast, that is a very good beginning.