• Game: 1812: The Invasion of Canada
• Publisher: Academy Games
• Designer: Beau Beckett and Jeph Stahl
• Genre: Team-based Dudes on a Map
• Players: 2-5 (definitely designed for 5)
• Playtime: 60-90 minutes



• What's Hot: Innovative team-based design; extremely fun and fast-paced; brilliant mixture of abstraction and detail; slick, ultra-tight design work



• What's Not: Subject matter may not seem to be immediately compelling for some; really needs five players to meet its potential

by: Michael Barnes

If you take a look at Academy Games’ 1812: The Invasion of Canada and dismiss it because it looks boring, you’d be making a grave mistake. Despite its Plain Jane looks, nondescript wooden cubes, and history nerds-only subject matter, it’s one of the better games in recent years. 1812 is a masterfully executed and highly innovative design that doesn’t play quite like anything on the market- it’s a team-based, ultra-light card-driven war game that plays quick with a small rules set and a tremendously fun dice-based combat mechanic that supplies plenty of high drama and a surprising degree of tactical flexibility.

As the title suggests, the narrative takes place during the War of 1812. The young American nation takes advantage of an England beleaguered and belabored with the Napoleonic Wars in Europe by declaring war and invading the last remaining English colonies on the North American continent. The conflict is fought in game terms along an area-based map of the Canadian border between five armies controlled by two to five players. It’s the American Regulars and the American Militia versus the Canadian Militia, the Redcoats, and Native Americans. This is not a two player game with a team play option- it’s designed to be played by five players. The way this team thing works out is simply phenomenal.

Each group is represented by a unique set of 12 action cards and a set of color-coded dice. These cards and dice convey a very specific sense of differentiation between the combatants in terms of mobility, command, effectiveness, strategic value, and even their propensity to get demoralized and quit the fight. Units and special actions are activated by cards indicating how many armies can move and how far. Here’s the kicker. An army is any number of allied units. So a territory full of American rabble can be essentially marshaled and marched by a single American army unit. Movement is very limited, so there is a definite sense of codependency between allies to get the troops to the fight from their mustering areas. Details such as naval movement (including Native American canoes) and other specific narrative events are also handled through the cards.

Battles are fought with any number of wooden-cube soldiers from each side, but each side can only roll up to two or three dice regardless of the number of units. The roll results are hits, fleeing, or a tactical decision where the controlling player can decide for a unit to quit the battle and move to any adjacent area. For the Redcoats this might represent reinforcing a defense in a neighboring territory, for the Native Americans this might represent an infiltration move to ambush an American position. And those darn Canadians seem like they’re always running away. Fled troops return to mustering areas at the beginning of the next turn, their cowardice forgiven.

The combat system is absolutely brilliant. With nothing more than a die roll, you get plenty of tough choices. Each round of fighting could result in disaster, with units breaking or those crackshot Redcoats scoring all of their dice as hits. Or it could result in a complete shake-up of the battle dynamics in the area as units shift to different positions. Because of the nature of the team play aspect, every player at the table can be involved and participating in critical battles with no one on the sidelines. Collusion and discussion is required, wallflowers need not apply.