Preamble

When Essen was getting underway, I read a large number of articles about the various new games being shown there and one that immediately caught my eye was 2 de Mayo. The beautiful box design prompted me to click on the game page and read a bit more and what I found piqued my interest. I'm not a war gamer at all, and in fact, I might say I dislike those types of games because I am generally a fan of quick-playing games and tend to prefer them over games which can run up to 2 hours or more to play. I feel dissatisfied when an entire gaming session gets consumed by a single game and love to be able to play a few different ones in a sitting. As such, DdM (as I will hereby abbreviate it) immediately stood out as a very attractive, quick-playing light war game offering many things I like about games and removing many things I dislike. I will discuss these elements further. If you're like me and enjoy shorter games that can still offer a great deal of tough decisions and strategy, read on, because you will enjoy this game.

Components

Anyone who knows me at all (or has read my reviews) knows that I'm a big fan of nice components and good presentation and DdM excels at presentation. The artwork on the box is excellent. The cover features a portion of a famous painting illustrating the aftermath of the events re-enacted during the game along with what is probably the best title logo for a game I've ever seen. The folks at Edigráfica Arte & Diseño get a pat on the back from me for the graphical design work in this game.

Inside the box is a small game board which is also beautifully designed. The colour tones and artwork are, again, the best I've seen (but I might just have a warm spot in my heart for nice sepia tones and all things Iberian ). There are two small decks of event cards which each player draws at the beginning of each turn. I sound like a broken record, but again, the design of the cards is remarkable. The backings of them have a very classical pattern and the artwork and text on the fronts of the cards are very esthetically pleasing. I don't have photos handy to post, but there are plenty in the images gallery for this game. You can browse the materials there.

Finally, there is a bag of blue, red (and 1 white) wooden cubes. They are used as the military units in the game as well as a turn marker. I love wooden cubes! I heard a reviewer mention that the cubes "do the job, and miniatures might not really add anything to the game". For me, miniatures would certainly take away from the game. I think that the classical feel of this game only adds to the pleasure. One of the things I really hate in a game is when a game has some nice components and good gameplay and tosses in some cheap, bendable plastic army guys. I saw one pre-release of this game in a photo using small cardboard markers of Spanish and French flags, but I still prefer the cubes.

Aside from all that, there's a rules book which serves as a veritable historical alamanac. I started looking through the rules when the package arrived and I was so interested in the historical notes from the designer that I took the rule book to bed with me that evening and read the entire book. Not only is it a very interesting story to read, it makes the game even more interesting to play when you know some more background about the various characters or accounts represented by the event cards and the political environment of the day. This seems like such a small thing, but it really speaks volumes about how much passion the designer has for the story he is telling us by creating this game. I personally had never even heard of this historical event and may never have if I hadn't checked out DdM.

Finally, the dimensions of the box are another treat. The game box is no larger than necessary and lends itself to being a very light and portable 2-player game that can easily be toted around on trips to keep entertained when you need some downtime.

Rules

Yet another of DdM's strengths lies in its simplicity. As you may have read already, the rules of the game are very simple. There are about 3 or 4 pages of rules, but most of it is simply clarification on a few very basic and easy to follow rules governing how many of their cubes each player may order per turn and where and how far the groups are permitted to move. After your first game, the rules just come naturally and you'll rarely find yourself consulting the book again during play.

There were a couple of situations during the first play session I had where we were unsure of how to handle a specific situation (such as border conflicts). The rules are well written and almost every situation is covered, but there could be the occasional small ambiguity to be found. In the only case we were unsure, we were able to get clarification from the game designer in the same day through the BGG forums. Daniel's active presence in here is yet another positive note worth mentioning.

Gameplay

As I mentioned before, I am not a fan of long games or games which just don't feel exciting. I need tension and quick play to be most interested (my only microbadge is evidence of this). DdM satisfies my gaming desires perfectly. The estimated 20-30 minute play time is not an understatement. Our first game was a good 45-60 minutes because it involved my explaining all of the rules to my friend (who is not a native english speaker) and was a slow paced game, as we discussed rules and cards each turn while learning the game. Our second game was not more than 30 minutes and going forward they will definitely be a bit quicker.

Best of all, the game is intense from start to finish. Right from the start of the first turn, the Spanish are up against the wall facing annihilation at the hands of Napoleon's forces. But playing as the French is no cake-walk either! The French player can afford precious few mistakes to be able to satisfy his victory conditions. While defeating the Spanish armies is a simple task, winning the game is not! Losing a mere 4 cubes through the 10 turns (or even 3 cubes with the right card played by the Spanish) will result in immediate failure for the French. Failing to exterminate the rebellion before the end of the game is also a French defeat. It is really an incredibly well-balanced game, despite what it looks like in the pictures. Both sides have a difficult task ahead of them and each turn poses very tough decisions.

To keep the game more interesting, the action cards are drawn each turn to create variance in the flow of the game. You never know which cards your opponent currently holds and some of the cards can really screw up your plans if played at the optimal time. This will give the game huge replayability because it will never be a matter of there being an "obvious" or "best" move each turn. And you will almost always need to be predicting what your opponent will do and act accordingly.

Conclusion

Play time: 20-30 minutes of tense maneuvering.

Complexity: Very simple rules, but without sacrificing depth.

Materials: Great quality materials. Beautiful artwork. Wooden cubes!

Replayability: The varied order of event cards can change the way you must approach your task, so each time out, expect a different path to victory (or crushing defeat).

Criticisms

I guess I ought to also note anything I might change about the game so that the review is complete. I only have two complaints about my experience:

1. Price/Availability

I am not sure what the regular price of the game is. It may be very reasonable, but getting it to me in Canada was no small expense. If you're in North America, DdM is going to cost you more to order from overseas than it would to walk into a shop and buy Agricola in many cases. I don't feel that the game was not worth what I paid, and now that I've played it a couple times, I don't regret the purchase at all, but it definitely would be yet another thumbs up from me if the game was more attainable. This is not something that the people behind the game can control directly, I'm sure, so it's no slight to them. As a customer, it would just be nice to be able to walk in and buy it locally or at least be able to acquire it somehow without the 20+ euro shipping fees for what is quite a small, light game.

2. Board mounting

The board looks excellent and is mounted on a nice solid piece of thick board, so it's not going to wear out at all, however the cut of the board is rather strange. Usually with game boards, the board is cut and then the seem is covered over and then the graphic is mounted so that the board folds in on itself and the seem is strong and covered with some material of some sort. With DdM, the image is printed on the top of the board (or mounted, I don't know which) and then the board is cut down the middle and then a mounting material (paper or whatever) is attached to the back of the board. So, the board folds such that the actually game-play portion of the board is on the outside of the folded board, instead of on the inside. To protect the surface of the board, it would be nice to have it the other way around.

Edit: fixed broken game link