"Warlord Games "Black Powder" rules" Topic

Sounds interesting:

warlordgames.co.uk/?p=136

I've always been looking for the holy grail of rules for my style of non-competitive horse-and-musket gameplay. They would not necessarily be detailled representations of a specific period, but instead be a means to control the moving diorama of miniatures on the table-top. They would have to be simple, elegant and fun.

From the initial write-up about these rules, there seems to be some possible potential here ….

Also check out Field of Battle by Piquet.. sounds like it would fit your requirements..

Rick Priestley, Jervis Johnson, John Stallard, Michael and Allen Perry, I didn't need to read past the first sentence to know I was hooked. These guys have had the influence on me that Grant and Featherstone did on a previous generation.

I like that this is unabashedly a "toy soldier" style game. That is definitely my prefered style of play.

Now if they just produce quality plastics…

I agree with the recomendation for Piquet FOB, it is PK for people who don't like PK.

It will be interesting how they can cope with the change in tactics from 1700 to 1900 worth a look methinks

doesn't the sword and the flame already do this? With many small variations, of course.

Piquet – the three most horrifying, embarrassing 'Con experiences ever. I've never seen three scenario hosts so aplogetic in my life. And their chat room the single worst I've ever visited – the regulars and their game designer being chief of the horrors (I was trying to figure out the rules I'd just bought), I wouldn't touch anything by them ever again in the hope that they'll move on to torturing small animals they catch, or whatever their other interests are.

I'll take Larry Brom any day.

I wasnt sure what scale it was is it like TSATF? which I like a lot but doesnt the blurb say this can handle huge armies?

Lowtardog,

TSATF is only one (although the most well known) of Larry Brom's large selection of rules.

Warlord Games is demonstrating the game at Salute but I didn't see a release date. Does anyone know when they plan to go public?

Bill.

"Does anyone know when they plan to go public?"

The infantry-only rules are in every box of Perry ACW plastics. Simple? I was playing wargames with very similar rules about 40 years ago. They were in Don Featherstone's books. Please note I am NOT accusing them of a rip off, just that there are only so many things you can do to produce a set of dead simple horse and musket rules. If they get people playing, then great!

"Piquet ? the three most horrifying, embarrassing 'Con experiences ever. I've never seen three scenario hosts so aplogetic in my life."

Since I don't know of the instance that you speak of, I can't comment on the game or the hosts…

"And their chat room the single worst I've ever visited ? the regulars and their game designer being chief of the horrors (I was trying to figure out the rules I'd just bought), I wouldn't touch anything by them ever again in the hope that they'll move on to torturing small animals they catch, or whatever their other interests are."

Hmm. I don't know what "chat room" you're talking about. And I can guarantee that I have never exhibited any of the behaviors you're mentioning – in person or on line.

"I'll take Larry Brom any day."

Larry is a gentleman and his rules are fine. You can't go wrong.

Sorry for any bad experience you may have had with Piquet. Play what you like – that's my philosophy.

"Black Powder" does have some similar design intentions familiar to Field of Battle players. Always glad to see fun rules that take absolute control away from players.

Brent Oman
Piquet Inc.

I can only speak from my own experience on this, but I have always found Brent and the current Piquet Yahoo group to be courteous and helpful.

I will admit having tried very hard to like classic Piquet and found it not to my taste for the usually expressed reasons. I have found Field of Battle to give an excellent game with all the good points of Piquet, fog of war, uncertainty of action from the cards, etc, while still having a structure that keeps both players involved in every turn.

As I say "Field of Battle is Piquet for people who don't like Piquet"

I have no experience with their rules, only their web site, and I was quite unhappy with it.

As some of you may know from recent posts, I am in the process of tracking down info on various ACW rules, to get into this genre. Field of Battle was recommended, but there was also a post that said it was too generic, and had little feel for the ACW. They suggested getting the core PK rules and their ACW supplement (Hallowed Ground), which of would be aimed specifically at the ACW – thus lots of period feel.

Headed off to the PK site and found virtually no info on what their games contained. Read a wonderful – repeat wonderful – philosophy of gaming article. Loved every bit of it. I do prefer my games to have more chaos, less chess-like plotting.

But couldn't find anything useful at all concerning the various rules themselves. I would have thought that clicking on any rule set would bring up a page devoted to that rule set. With lots of info (ground scale, time scale, soldier scale – designed for 10mm, 15mm, 28mm or what, 1 soldier = how many, base sizes perhaps, army lists, points values, average game length, scenarios included, etc)? Nothing.

In fact, the only useful bit of info was the cover for Hallowed Ground, which stated Company, Battalion and Grand Tactical Levels of Play. That was it.

So I passed. I've made buy/no-buy decisions in the past for various products, based off of additional feedback, advice from places like TMP, etc. But I've never been turned off a product by the product's own web site before. That was a first.

Steve

Glad to help Steve. Enjoy your games.

Brent