For Hobbyists
Berthier is a digital umpire for Flight of the Eagle (Le Vol de l’Aigle), Didier Rouy’s matrix kriegsspiel of the Napoleonic campaigns, published by Pratzen Editions. It does the umpire’s bookkeeping so the umpire can run the game.
Berthier holds the true state of the campaign and adjudicates movement, combat, supply, weather, sieges and the passage of couriers by the published rules. Each player sees only his own commander’s picture: what his couriers, scouts and maps could have told him, arriving when it would have arrived. Orders travel by courier, take time, and can miscarry. It is the double-blind kriegsspiel experience without a back room full of maps and an exhausted umpire.
Sixteen scenarios cover campaigns from 1792 to 1815, including the 1796 Italian campaign and the 1809 Danube campaign. You can play at one table with the umpire at the screen, or online: players connect through the relay from their own browsers, each with their own fog of war. Larger games can share the work among assistant umpires, each responsible for their own players.
A web browser, and the published rules: Berthier is a tool for the umpire, not a substitute for the game. Click Back to Berthier, then Start, accept the license, and choose a scenario.