Napoleon’s Quagmire

About this board game

Napoleon’s Quagmire is a two-player historical wargame covering the campaign in Extremadura from March to November 1809. It is the seventh volume in OSG’s The Library of Napoleonic Battles series, formerly known as the Napoleon’s Last Battles series.

The game follows a turbulent year in the Peninsular War. After Napoleon left Iberia to face the Austrian threat on the Danube, his brother Joseph remained in nominal command as puppet king in Madrid. French forces achieved important successes, including the conclusion of the siege of Saragossa, but fighting continued across several fronts.

Napoleon’s Quagmire focuses on the battles fought along the approaches to Madrid from Portugal, where the future Duke of Wellington had arrived with a small British Army to support the Spanish Army of Extremadura. The featured battles are Medellín, Talavera, Almonacid, and Ocaña.

The campaign’s setting highlights the challenge of command over great distances. A dispatch traveling from Vienna to Madrid could take 12 to 14 days to cover 2,400 kilometers, meaning that orders might arrive days or weeks after circumstances had changed.

• Two full-size color maps and two half-size maps
• Two counter sheets containing 560 units
• Two 50-card decks, for 100 cards total
• Rulebook, scenario folder, and 15 player aid cards

Using the series scale of 480 meters per hex, one hour per turn, and 400–800 men per strength point, Napoleon’s Quagmire presents the 1809 campaign in a finely measured historical framework.