Ligny: Incomplete Victory

In June 1815, Napoleon returned to Paris from exile on Elba, and was declared an outlaw by the Sixth Coalition. As the Coalition armies began to gather in Belgium for a march on Paris, Napoleon realized he had to strike before his opposition could join forces, and determined to split the Prussians and the Anglo-Allied armies apart and defeat them individually. On 15 June 1815, Napoleon's forces attacked the Prussian army under Gebhard von Blücher before it was able to link up with the Anglo-Allies under the Duke of Wellington. The Prussians, although much weaker than the French, had enough time to take up strong defensive positions near the village of Ligny. In the end, although Napoleon managed to procure a tactical victory over the Prussians, von Blücher's forces retreated in good order and were able to play a vital role in the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo two days later.^[1]

Ligny is a two-player board wargame where one player controls the Prussian forces, and the other the French forces. Having a small 17" x 22" hex grid map, basic rules and only 100 counters, this game is relatively short and simple, where "players can usually discern the winner in one evening."^[2] The game lasts only eight turns.^[3]

The rules are based on the system developed for Napoleon at Waterloo published by SPI in 1971,^[3] which uses a simple "I Go, You Go" system of alternating player turns:^[2]

• The French player moves all units desired, and engages in combat.
• The Allied player then has the same opportunity.

This completes one game turn, which represents 1 hour of game time.^[2] In addition, stacking of units is prohibited, and there are no supply rules.^[4] Zones of control are both "rigid" and "sticky": a unit moving adjacent to an enemy unit must stop there. Combat is mandatory, and units thus engaged cannot move away from each other except as a result of combat.^[2]

In 1975, SPI published the "quadrigame" Blue and Gray, which contained four different American Civil War games and one set of rules in the same box. The concept proved popular, and SPI quickly produced more. Napoleon's Last Battles, designed by Kevin Zucker and Jay Nelson, with cartography and graphic design by Redmond A. Simonsen, was published the following year and proved to be one of SPI's most popular quadrigames.^[2] One of the four games in the box was Ligny, which was also released as an individual "folio game", packaged in a cardstock double LP-sized folder.

After TSR took over SPI in 1982, they attempted to get a quick return on their money by republishing several popular SPI titles such Ligny, which reappeared within a new edition of Napoleon's Last Battles.

In the 1990s, Decision Games acquired the rights to Ligny and the other games in the original Napoleon's Last Battles collection, and republished all four games with revised and streamlined rules and new components.^[2]