It was definitely not a campaign where the French covered themselves in glory.
Well, that narrows things down!
Shhh...Cyrano will hear you!
I'm particularly interested to see how well the game models operations by light cavalry forces for scouting and raiding. The command system is definitely designed to support it.
that sounds pretty neat
The command system is pretty detailed, if at times a bit fiddly. Each capitano has his own card. Units are placed on these cards on a numbered grid that indicates SPs for that unit. In addition, they have spaces to store the counters for subordinate and unemployed capitani that are under their command. Only the counters for the capitani commanding forces are placed on the map. If the force/capitano in question enters the map as a reinforcement they are placed face down, so your opponent doesn't even know what leader that force has.
If there are available capitani, a force can be split up. Each force then needs to have an order (Attack, Maneuver, Garrison, Stand, or Retreat). Orders can only be placed or changed at the beginning of the turn (5 days) and require action points to be spent to do so. Action points are allocated to the capitano generale every four weeks or so, provided he can trace a LOC to a designated supply head.
So definite opportunities to detach raiding forces, and definite opportunities to use those forces to interdict lines of communication. Forces have to reveal their composition if adjacent to an enemy force, so scouting forces come into play as well.
The activation system itself is almost a meta-game. It's possible to force your opponent to activate when he might not want to; it's also possible to deprive him of an opportunity to have his second activations during a turn. Knowing what force is in a stack might have a significant bearing on what you do with your activations, so the scouting bit can be important for that.