'The Charge of the Light Brigade' recreates the battle of Balaclava in 1854 during the Crimean War, when 25,000 Russian troops attempted to take control of this strategically important area from the outnumbered allied British, French and Turkish forces.

This is a real-time strategy game and the player can change the speed at which the battle progresses. You can play either the Allies or the Russians, and choose either a computer opponent or play against another human player.

Orders can be given in two modes - 'Unit Mode' where you can give orders to individual units or 'Group Mode', where you can give orders to groups of up to 8 units. Units are represented in the game as animated soldier miniatures, allowing you to select and change groups to five different types of line, column and square formations.