by Zachary Grant, 21 March 2024 ~ #UnboxingDay
For this month’s unboxing, we are examining Kevin Zucker’s The Seven Days of 1809, published by Operational Studies Group in 2004. This is one of the four games from the Days-Series. No need for the Armchair Dragoons Wayback MachineTM for this unboxing. Instead. we can use the Wayback TelescopeTM to get a clear view of what Mr. Zucker offered us 20 years ago.
Game Box
I really like the cover art on this box. Why you might ask? Because Napoleon isn’t anywhere to be seen on the cover! Instead, we have a very dapper Archduke Charles. As with most of Kevin Zucker’s games, we have information in both English and French. A very satisfying cover.
click images to enlarge
The back of the box has a short description of the situation taken from F. L. Petre’s Napoleon & the Archduke Charles and a list of the game components. Standard back of the box info, and very well done.
Inside the box
Lifting the lid reveals the game components inside the box. Here’s a group shot of the contents before we move onto the individual items.
Let’s start by looking at the game counters. Due to the operational level of the game, the smallest unit is a regiment, with most units at the brigade and division level, which means there is only one counter sheet. The counters are well made and easy to read. Mark Simonitch gets the art credit, so no surprise about the good quality of the art. The only downside is the counters are all ½” in size. I would have preferred ⅝” counters and this game was produced at a time when ½” counters were standard.
Next up are the various charts and playing aides for the game. There are the usual suspects here: a turn record and reinforcement track, a CRT, terrain modifiers to movement, casualty record track and more.
The rulebook measures 8½” x 11” and uses saddle stitch binding. The rulebook is 28 pages and has a Rules of Contents page on the back with a bibliography! The rules are organized using an SPI case system. There are no color pictures and that’s fine. The black and white illustrations get the job done. The last four pages are dedicated to historical notes which are chock full of excellent info and some footnotes. There is a page in the rulebook devoted to Order Slips which can be used if the game is played with teams instead of two players.
As usual, we are finishing this unboxing with the map. The map is 22” x 34” and was also created by Mark Simonitch. The map covers the area of operations south of the Danube River. Place names on the map are easy to read and the only game tracks on the map are for units awaiting reorganization. This is an excellent map.
That concludes our unboxing of The Seven Days of 1809. This looks like an excellent game. I hadn’t realized it could support team play, so now I’m curious to learn how well this might work as the basis for some sort of kriegsspiel. Have you attempted that with this game? If so, head over to the Armchair Dragoon forums and let us know.
Thanks for joining this month’s #UnboxingDay with the Armchair Dragoons and we hope you enjoyed a look under our hoods! You can always leave us your feedback in our #UnboxingDay thread, or in the comment area on this article, below.
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The Armchair Dragoons with zest,
Unbox games for all of the rest.
With dice and cardboard so neat,
They unveil and can’t be beat,
In the tabletop world of the best!
