Marengo: Napoleon in Italy, 14 June 1800

In early 1800, Napoleon Bonaparte, the First Consul of France, was fighting for his political life and needed a strong victory in his Italian campaign against Austria. Seeking to besiege an Austrian army defending Alessandria on 14 June 1800, Bonaparte instead was surprised when Austrian general Michael von Melas sent his army out of the city on a sortie against the French. For a time, the Austrians drove the French back and threatened to overcome them, until a French relief force under Louis Desaix arrived in the afternoon and tilted the balance in favor of the French. Desaix was killed in the battle.^[1]

Marengo is a two-player wargame in which one player takes the role of Napoleon, and the other takes the role of Melas. The game lasts for 14 turns.^[2]

The folio edition includes:

• 17" x 22" paper hex grid map scaled at 800 m (870 yd) per hex
• 100 die-cut unit counters plus 20 Random Number counters (to use in place of a six-sided die)
• Rulebook containing rules common to all four games in the Napoleon at War quadrigame
• Rulebook containing rules unique to Marengo

Marengo uses a simple "I Go, You Go" system of alternating turns where one player moves and fires, and then the other player moves and fires. When both have completed a turn, this represents one hour of game time. Zones of control are absolute — that is, once a unit moves adjacent to an enemy unit, it cannot move any further until one or the other of the units has been eliminated or forced to retreat. Additionally, during the first turn, French movement is halved, and French units cannot move into Austrian zones of control. In the last six turns of the game, the French can declare a "counterattack" during three of those turns, when French attack values are doubled.^[2]

In 1975, SPI released the quadrigame Napoleon at War, which subsequently appeared on SPI's Top Ten Bestseller List for six months after its publication. One of the games included was Marengo, designed by David Isby, with graphic design by Redmond A. Simonsen.^[2] Marengo was also released as a separate "folio game" packaged in a shrink-wrapped cardstock folio.^[3]

Following the demise of SPI, Hobby Japan acquired the rights to the game in 1986 and published a Japanese language edition as a pull-out game in Tactics Magazine.^[3]

Decision Games then acquired the rights to the game, and Chris Perello revised the rules. The result, retitled Marengo: Morning Defeat, Afternoon Victory, was published by Decision in 2010 using the painting "Marengo" by Louis-François Lejeune as cover art.^[4]