This is the translation to English of the review already published in Spanish by the user Valdemaras. I've tried to render the original review as faithfully as my limited language skills would allow. Any errors are obviously mine not the author's. The dozen pictures provided by the author can be found in the original review in Spanish, maybe the administrator might provide a link to them.

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Last weekend I went to Bailen (Jaen, Spain) to enjoy the reenactment of the Battle of Bailen, at the commemoration of its bicentennial; a great experience that I'm glad to have been able to attend. Furthermore, I had an appointment to meet Francisco Ronco (member of the BSK forum by the nick of Oldfritz; n.t. and game designer), to chat with him and to buy a copy of the game 'Tomb for an Empire'.
Thus we met on Sunday, at the reenactment battlefield, the graphic designer and another member of Bellica were also present. After a brief interchange I bought the game (actually one of the reasons to be there). The truth is that it looks great, as well as the rest of the projects that they briefly commented to me. I wish them good luck because here in Spain we need that kind of initiative in wargaming as we've had before in euros and family games.
Now let's have a quick look at the game components, since I haven't had the opprtunity to play it yet (I'm waiting for the Spanish version soon to be available in their web).

The box is made of good and robust cardboard, the sizes are 31x24x6 centimeters and I personally love the painting chosen for the cover and the box colour, but then that's a matter of personal taste.


The mapboard is made of a type of paper that probably will resist pretty well the passage of time. As a side note, although I still like hard mounted boards, I'm gradually giving less relevance to the fact that a particular game may come with paper mapboards, provided these are of good quality and don't break appart just looking at them.

Though map design is a bit spartan I think it will do fine (all this bearing in mind that as mentioned I have not played the game yet) features are clear, look perfectly understandable and I don't think it may cause any sort of confusion during play.

There is a box printed to the right of the map where battles are resolved, certain order markers are used to control them.

The game also comes with six counter sheets printed on both sides, in them there are armies, generals, battle orders and so on.

The counters representing generals are nice but a bit too unconventional in design, and the names and statistics printed in yellow are a bit hard to read but this is certainly not a big problem, and this is not a criticism, just a personal estimation.

The rest of the game counters do not present any problem, only (again this is my personal appreciation) they are printed in colours paler than desirable. Personally, I would have gone for bright colours instead, but this is not a problem with the game.

Admittedly, the box comes with plenty of stuff: the game map of the Peninsula in two sheets, six counter sheets, two ten sided dice, a handful of small zip lock bags to keep counters, two sets of three sheets of hard cardboard with the tables printed on both sides, one double sided reference sheet for the counters also printed in colour, three auxiliary displays to keep counters off map and prevent an excessive stacking (good for me since I'm not keen on stacks in wargames, I find them too awkward), several control sheets to take notes (I don't know exactly their purpose), one Series Rules booklet and another one with specific rules and scenarios, and finally a booklet containing an example of play illustrated in colour (if I'm not mistaken it's the same available from their website and the same the showed at the BSK forum). [BSK is the main Spanish forum on boardgames]

The scenarios can be played by 2 to 6 players, although all of them could be played by two persons, but then playing time would increase considerably if only two had to do the things that otherwise would be shared by six.

There are scenarios ranging from just one turn to the full campaign and even scenarios designed to get into the battle rules, so game toughness is progressive and can be adapted to different lengths of play , it all depends on the chosen scenario.

As I said, overall I'm quite satisfied with the acquisition and wanting to play it.
I wish good luck to Bellica 3rd Generation and also to everyone who manages to start this sort of initiatives in Spain, whether wargames, eurogames or other sorts of boardgames because all of them are making possible that this hobby keep growing fast, providing us with great games to have good moments, bad moments come by themselves anyway