Grande Armée has no figure or time scales. It has only a nominal ground scale of 1" = 100 yards.

Each brigade has a number of Strength Points (SPs). This is calculated by taking the historical number of men in that unit and dividing it by a divsor based on its morale value. A unit of 3,000 militia might have only 5 SPs, whereas a unit of 3,000 Guards might have 10 SPs. Thus SPs represent both numbers and morale, because one is divided into the other. The SPs wax and wane with losses and recovery, representing the attrition of battle.

A game day is divided into turns, but no two turns are the same. The day has a "Basic Length" based on the starting time and the weather conditions. Once this basic length has been reached, it is increasingly likely that each turn will be the last, until the day has finally ended. Players can estimate how much time they have remaining, but they can never be certain.

Furthermore, each turn is divided into "Pulses," and one never knows how many there will be in a turn. There may be as few as one, or as many as six, and this is not known until a die roll at the end of a pulse indicates that that pulse had been the last one for that turn.

All of this makes for a very tense and unpredictable situation: You may be expecting reinforcements on Turn 2, but who knows how long Turn 1 will last. You may think you've set up a grand battery with a deadly killing zone, only to find that the enemy has seized the initiative and charged his light cavalry into it before you could open fire. You may have kept your elites in reserve for the big game-winning charge, only to find that the sun set earlier than you expected, ending the battle as your enemy slips away.