"Black Powder basing" Topic

Hi there!

I just got Black Powder, and my resistance to assembling an army of gallant 10mm Old Glory Union soldiers is steadily weakening. However, I'm a neophyte to ACW gaming, so I'd like some advice.

First off, would you guys have the Black Powder "unit" represent battalions or regiments? If the former, how many battalions did an ACW-era regiment have, anyhoo? Would the brigade command then instead essentially be a regimental command?

Secondly, what base size would you guys recommend? Is there a "cooler" (if that is the word) set of ACW rules I might graduate to later that I should keep in mind when basing?

In the ACW the term "battalion" indicated any infantry unit smaller than the regulation ten company regiment. Almost all US and CS units were regiments. The normal brigade commander would command from four to six regiments, four being the average for US brigades, while CS brigades often contained five or six regiments.

You might want to take a look at Fire & Fury

The base unit in BP is assumed to be the battalion. They don't give firm basing advice, but their assumption is that 25mm battalions would be based on something like 6x 40mm stands, or about 9.5" frontage. I'm going to be playing BP in 10mm using cm instead of inches for everything (so 9cm frontage per average battalion of about 450). The only warning flag I've received so far is that artillery ranges are very short in the rules, but that's an easy fix (keep Medium range at 24" but extend Long range).

Cheers,

Christopher

I'll be using it for regiments, but I know the size of the units will have to be changed due to the small nature of late war regiments. I use the same basing of 1"x1" with 3 or 4 figures on it in 15mm for all my ACW games.

A unit would be a regiment. These would form into brigades of three to five regiments. Each brigade would have its commander. The regimental commanders would not be present in game terms. A game might have two or three brigades at most. The 'general' of the entire force would be a Division commander, though you should play some games without such a commander because in the ACW they were not present everywhere.

Also, ACW regimental units shouldn't double up into two-stand deep ranks, like the rules suggest for normal units.

More later. I gotta go to work!

I have two large Fire & Fury armies based on those rules – I am ordering Black Powder for fun, but I am not re-basing my units – as long as they are are the same for both sides, should be no big deal

I had planned on using 6 stand regiments with, as noted, four to six regiments per brigade

For Black Powder purposes you might want to consider ACW battalion and regiment designations to be interchangeabe terms. Most ACW infantry regiments will be your basic unit (meaning comrised of six bases). Unlike Napoleonics where you have a regiment consisting of a number of six-base battalions. Though you can call some of you six or smaller base units battalions if it matches some specific historical OB information.

Los

In the scenaios part of the Black Powder book they refer to ACW units as Regiments.

Given the 'master unit' is the brigade, I think it's fine to call them regiments. I will soon be rebasing my 10mm, as my troops were kept thin initially due to lack of cash (over 17 years ago!). I'm going with 30mm square to fit with the Peter Pig rules, close as dammit to F&F, and fine for the 'small scale' (cm instead of inches) BP. Thus will my troops embody the spirits of both sides – The Union – different rules but all together as an army, and the South – All together as an army but still different rules!