A shallow walnut case holding a green modelled battlefield seen from above and to one side: two walled farms, a cross of pale roads, rows of red and blue troop stands, and a front apron carrying cards and counters.
The main display, deployed exactly as the setup table in the rulebook lists it. The two Prussian groups and Blücher sit on the apron at the front edge; they have not arrived yet.

Waterloo Command

It arrives at 11:30.

A framed battlefield that comes to you finished: the field as it stood at 11:30 on 18 June 1815, before the great attacks and before the Prussians came up. There is nothing to build. Then, whenever you like, two of you take it apart and fight the afternoon, and a reset rule puts the morning back.

Board
104 × 86 cm, in a case
Pieces
59, every one moved by hand
Players
2
Dice
None

A shallow walnut case, 104 × 86 cm, rebated for the field with an apron along the front edge.

A cork field, then contour layers that lift the ridge a few millimetres above it. The relief is deliberately shallow — you have to be able to reach across it.

The Brussels road running north to south, the sunken lane along the top, hedges, ploughed furrows and the woods on the eastern edge.

Hougoumont, La Haye Sainte, Papelotte, Plancenoit and La Belle Alliance. Four of the five are worth fighting over; the fifth is where Napoleon stands.

Files A to J west to east, ranks 1 to 7 north to south, engraved into the rails. Nothing on the board moves without naming a square.

20 combat units and 3 commanders, laid out as the field stood at 11:30. Every one of them lifts off.

Then the unit cards, the order tracks, the round track and the counters. The display and the game are the same object.

What the board is showing

French formations stand across the southern ranks facing north. Above them Wellington's British, King's German Legion, Dutch-Belgian and Nassau groups hold the ridge and the walled farms. It is a command-group interpretation rather than a surveyed order of battle, and the landscape deliberately compresses real distances so that the ridge, both farms and the eastern approach fit on one tabletop.

The whole battlefield from directly overhead, with file letters along the top edge and rank numbers down the left, four white walled farm compounds, a pale road running north to south through the centre, and troop stands deployed across the field.
The whole deployment from overhead: 70 squares, four walled places, and the reserve apron along the bottom edge.

Four squares decide the main battle

  • B4
    HougoumontThe walled farm anchoring the western flank. Infantry may only enter it in column or square.
  • E3
    La Haye SainteThe farm astride the Brussels road, directly in front of Wellington's centre.
  • E2
    The ridge roadThe crossroads on the crest. Assaulting it from the south runs uphill into the ridge bonus.
  • H6
    PlancenoitThe village on the eastern approach, where the Prussians will arrive.

Hold three or four of them at the end of round 8 and France wins the day. Hold one or none and the coalition does. Exactly two is a draw, and an empty square counts for nobody — a unit has to be physically standing there when the last round ends.

The Prussians are not on the field at all. Bülow's advance group, Zieten's support group and Blücher wait on the labelled apron along the front edge of the case and enter on rounds 4 and 5, provided the entry square is clear when their turn comes.

A detail of the brown apron at the front of the case, engraved reserves not yet arrived, with three marked rectangles holding two blocks of infantry stands and a mounted commander, labelled P1, P2 and Blücher.
Three marked positions on the apron. On the display they read as reserves that have not come up; in play they are the arrival schedule.
The battlefield seen almost edge on, showing the low step of the ridge, the pale sunken lane, farm buildings with white walls, round trees, and the card apron at the left end of the case.

The ridge is a step, not a symbol

The landscape is modelled in shallow relief, so the rules that turn on ground are things you can point at. The crest along rank 2 adds a point of defence against an assault delivered from directly south. Artillery standing behind it cannot reach the reverse slope on rank 1 at all. And the sunken lane running between ranks 1 and 2 stops every march outright and costs cavalry an extra stress every single time they cross it, in any direction, including a forced retreat.

None of that needs a chart. It is why the crest is worth holding, and why horse does not casually change sides of the lane.

Four stands, three shapes

Each of the 12 infantry units is a set of 4 matching stands that stay together all game. How you lay them out inside a square is the unit's entire tactical identity, and changing it costs an order you could have spent moving or firing. This is the decision a Napoleonic commander actually made, and here you make it with your hands.

Four stands of redcoat infantry set end to end in a single row, two figures to a stand. The same four stands stacked one behind another into a deep block. The same four stands arranged in a hollow ring, every side facing outward around an empty centre.
The same four stands, relaid three ways. Reforming is one activation and one order.

Stands side by side, every musket bearing. The best fire on the board, and the shape you want facing an enemy you can see coming. Take it in the flank or the rear and it loses a point of defence.

Fire
3
Assault
2
Defence
3

Nothing is left to a die

Every attack is one subtraction. Take the attacker's value, take the defender's, subtract each side's stress, add whatever the ground is worth, and read the answer off four rows. There is no randomiser in the case, which means either player can check the other's arithmetic and neither of you gets to blame the dice.

Attack minus defenceFireAssault
Below 0No effectThe attacker gains a stress
0The defender gains a stressThe attacker gains a stress
1The defender gains a stressThe defender gains a stress
2 or moreThe defender gains a stress, then retreatsThe defender gains a stress, then retreats
A board excerpt from the rulebook: a five by five grid of pale green squares with file letters and rank numbers, red coalition markers and blue French markers, and an ochre arrow running one square south from the marker labelled AS into the marker labelled FG1.

Round one, fourth activation, straight out of the illustrated guide. The allied rifle screen in D3 fires south at the French battery that has just rolled forward into D4. Attack two against defence two: a tie, so the gun takes a stress and holds its ground.

Stress runs 0, 1 or 2. A unit that would reach 3 comes off the board at once, all 4 stands together, and its card goes face down on the apron.

Four battles on one board

One main battle and three short ones. They share the rules, the roster and the board; what changes is who starts where, how many orders a side gets each round, and what counts as winning.

  • The ridge and the road

    8 rounds, 6 orders a side

    French units on three of the four objectives at the final count. The Prussians arrive mid-game and the Guard starts on the field, so the reserve question is yours from round one.

  • Westward diversion

    4 rounds, 3 orders a side

    A French unit standing in B4 at the end. Can you erode a garrison, or tempt it into the open, on three orders a round?

  • A breach at the farm

    5 rounds, 4 orders a side

    French units on both E3 and E2. Your own gun starts in front of your column, and cavalry cannot enter the farm at all.

  • The eastern commitment

    5 rounds, 4 orders a side

    A coalition unit holding H6 with at least one Prussian group still alive. Commit the Guard to the village, or ride the open ground while it delays them.

The three short battles are openly counterfactual. They put units in places and at moments that never coincided, and they exist to make a decision interesting — not to argue that the day could have gone another way.

Then put the morning back

The main scenario's setup table is the display. Reset clears the counters, returns every unit to its listed square, formation and facing, and parks the two Prussian groups and Blücher on their three marked positions. The scenery never moves — it is fixed to the board. Whatever happened on the table, the object that goes back on the shelf is the one you bought.

What ships

Framed board
104 × 86 cm, scenery fixed, no assembly
Pieces
59 in all: 48 infantry stands, 3 cavalry, 3 guns, 2 skirmisher groups, 3 commanders
Cards, tracks
20 unit cards, stress and activation counters, two order tracks, a round track
Printed matter
An illustrated guide of 26 pages, 4 scenario sheets, 4 pages of command aids
Rules
Original, v1.1, for 2 players, no dice
Ships within
14 days
Item code
VB-JA7455JG

Price, stock and delivery live on the product page.

The digital design and the rules have been checked computationally and reviewed visually. Printing, handling and human play are still prototype work, and those checks do not establish durability, balance or enjoyment.

Close photograph of the printed pieces on their olive bases: Napoleon mounted beside a tricolour standard, two cuirassiers, a crewed cannon, and green, blue and red infantry stands, all showing fine print layer lines.
Commander, cavalry, gun and infantry stands. Two figures to a stand; 4 stands to an infantry unit.