"Tell me about Black Powder" Topic

I keep hearing good things about these rules.
My first impression was that it was on the scale of Brother Against Brother, ot The Sword and the Flame, with battles averaging 80-100 figres per side.

Now, when I read about the various uses to which it is being put, I wonder.

What is the figure to man scale?
Are the figures individually based (TSATF), or "element" (British Grenadier, Age of Reason) based?
What size battles can you play?
Is it multi-player friendly?
How much?
Where can I get it?
Are there pretty pictures?

Oddly enough, I just noticed after all these years that there are no Boards for "rules"!
I guess I have not been paying attention.

John

it's a Unit based game, rather than figure based – if your units are 300-man 6mm figures it cares not, provided those of your foe are broadly similar in frontage. if you wanted to play it with cardboard rectangles you could do so.

yesterday my club-mates and I played a 3-player per side game in which there were over 50 units per side – that was ACW – to completion in 5 hours. there would have been nothing stopping us doubling the size of the units, so rather than 24 figures in a battalion there were 48 – but we decided against it.

Because passage of lines is utterly free, manouver free and easy and support beneficial, players are eager to deploy in depth with such things as reserves and supporting units.Which is nice.

Warlord games sell it. Because it was their first go at a set of rules, they stuck to their patchy principles and refused to provide army lists. They DID bend so much as to give a simple points-calculator to allow people who wanted to to work out balanced armies for pick up games, but their basic philosophy is 'stick all your figures on the table'.

Pretty pictures? Lots and lots and lots. My copies (one for the bookshelf, one for the game) cost about £20.00 GBP each. they are more than that from the Primary supplier, YMMMV.

I had some …interesting Sudan games last year. This year we are focusing on ACW

Pat

What he said. Plus yes its multi player friendly. That's pretty much its entire ethos.

Black Powder "as written" is for 28mm figures, 4 to a 40mm base, average 6 bases per unit (24 figs per unit). Table size is in the 6x8 foot range.

What you call a unit is up to you and units can also be tiny, small, or large.
Rules are based on Warmaster but rather than roll over and over, the level of success on a single roll defines if you don't move or rocket 36" across the table.

It has lots of pretty pictures and could have multiple players per side with each command rolling and moving as the rules are IGOUGO.

A game could play to conclusion in a 2-4 hours depending on size and the cost is in the typical $50 USD range. As most armies need about 12 tactical units, figure closer to 200 to 250 figures rather than 100.

I like the game in 15mm with 1" bases, measuring in centimeters, on a 4x6 table.

A fun game, has historical flaws, but none that can't be worked around by suitable adaptation of the basic mechanisms, many of which are covered in the rulebook. It really is a system best suited to scenarios rather than competition gaming. and can work from 6 to 60 units, the latter if you have enough players, and the authors advocate multi-player games.

It's a different sort of game, in some ways, honestly.

Things like figure ratio, unit size, etc., are all very much up to you- they provide suggestions (more-or-less 1:1 figure/man ratio, with 3 or 4 sizes of unit- I remember Tiny, Average, and Large, but I think there's a 4th, as well.

Basing's unimportant- examples in the book show both individually based figures & units based on a single base, with all points in between (units of mixed basings- 6 or 8 to a couple bases, 4 figs on a few bases, and a few single-based figs to fill gaps). Personally, I plan to individually base all of my figures, and then build unit trays to put them on, just because I like individually based figures. I also use round "slottabases" exclusively, however, so as always, YMMV.

Oh- skirmishers, if based as a group, require a larger spread between figures, I remember that much. Probably best based individually, but group can be done totally simpatico w/the rules.

Battle sizes should easily range from smaller skirmishes, up to huge brouhahas- I'd say very large (a few hundred figures per side, if not more) are its pain et beurre, but I've played around with much smaller, skirmish-level engagements of 15-20 figures per, while soloing the game (well, playing both sides) to get a handle on the rules, and it worked just fine.

It not only works nicely for multi-player engagements, but it's pretty much designed for them, right down to having a preferred method for orders to be relayed from sub-commanders to the overarching general, and 3-sided, 4-sided, and so forth engagements will work perfectly well with it, as well. Honestly, I see no reason, from my admittedly limited experience with it, that a 6 sided engagement with an acting general and two subordinates on each side wouldn't work- provided you have the tolerance, figures, tables, adult beverages, and personal space to accommodate 18 players.

I got my copy for $35 USD, via Amazon, w/free 2nd day delivery, since I'm one of the suckers who pops for Amazon Prime membership yearly.

The hardback is loaded with very pretty pictures, great snippets of unobtrusive flavor text, and a fine sense of humour about itself. The lack of existing army lists, if anything, struck me as a positive- and I'm generally a fan of points systems and the like- since it just really helped to convey the spirit of the game, and of the period, without leaving the system wanting for their absence, IMO. Again, YMMV.

- Monk

Note that some Army lists are available in the "Last Agument of Kings" supplement coveing most 18th century conflicts- although not the Revolt of the North American comonies which is supposedly getting its own supplement.

We use BP for Spanish Succession, AWI, Napoleonic and war of 1866 and the odd ACW game. It works for all of them and plays a decent size game in 2 hours. We like them a lot.

Best of all it does away with basing issues and figure scales in a very easy method.

Sunday! Sunday! Sunday! Moomin Cage Fighter vs Sumatran Rat Monkey in a Black Powder match to settle the score!
Sorry guys your screen names just made me think of old style motocross advertising that was common in the US in the '80s.

Does Black Powder use a similar style ground scale to Lasalle measuring ranges in base-widths?

Really? You're on this site continuously. There have to have been 15 similar posts with answers over the past 2-3 years. Your search ( you did search for such on obvious topic first, right?) revealed none of these?

Sheesh.

Black Powder uses a set of ranges in inches… but I've used centimetres to go with my 10mm FPW games.

You didn't ask, but this is a bit of a love-or-hate set of rules. Movement (except close to the enemy) is by command roll, and you can go from zero to three times the standard move (12" for infantry). So it can be a fast moving game – or you can end up doing nothing. You do have to specify your intentions before you roll, so if you try and move up to the enemy in march column, deploy and blaze away…. you might end up just moving up close. If you don't like this sort of thing, these rules are not for you.

There are an excessive number of pretty pictures in the rules, and a lot of chat. The actual rules are pretty brief.

I've played good multi-player games with it, usually as game-master. I ask someone what they want to do, get them to roll the dice, then tell them what happens. Seems to work and moves things along quite quickly.

I prefer it for pre-1850; Others think it works ell (unchanged) beyond that time; I feel it needs a serious mod or two for that to happen.

Bede, this is, in case you have forgotten, a forum where questions get asked. Only severe pedants really care if the question has been asked before.
I always think of the repetitive questions like a teacher who gets asked the same thing every semester.
"Did Loyalist regiments carry colours in the American revolution?" Why, Billy, yes some of them did, if they were line troops! That pops up about every other month or so.

I COULD do a search, but I prefer to ask friendly people friendly questions. Get a fresh perspective, as it were.
Others may prefer to not be friendly, and if that is your preference, who am I to argue with you? Have a nice day, and ENJOY your TMP experience in any way you can.

For the life of me, I cannot remember why I unstifled you, but I won't make that mistake again.

I don't get black powder or any of the warmaster clones.

For me, the outcome of the games depend on a few dice rolls rather than the generalship or tactics of the players involved.

I can see that they would be good for colonial or solo games but don't bring anything new to the party.

+1 slam for OFM! :-)

The Rat sums it up well! You will like it. Since it handles Awi thru ACW nicely, it would be a great value for you. I consider it the best value rulebook I ever bought, though I don't consider myself hardcore. If you don't like something, you can easily home rule it without breaking the system.

I have tried it a couple of times for my 25mm Sikh Wars army but my group didn't like the rules. We like simple rules such as TSATF and other Larry Brom rule sets. I read through the rules and even made notes but really did not have a good feel for the rules. They certainly seem simple enough. A really good rule synopsis and cheat sheet might help.Many people like them so I hope to try them again--hopefully playing in someone else's game. I think I would like Rank and File better--more Bromian.Maybe some of the guys in my group will chime in with an opinion.

I'm in the "hate" category of the love/hate experience mentioned above. I have never cared for activation roll games because someone inevitibly sits around nearly the whole game. However much it might be realistic (I don't think it is) it isn't fun and people game to have fun. The Warmaster mechanics and abstractions of reality I might be able to live with, but put it all together and I dropped my "play it three times" rule after just one play. It is not for me.

I was sort of kidding. But I see you find it funny only when dishing it out, not taking it.

Best set of Horse and Musket rules for this generation, and to my mind represent a real watershed in rules development.

The key to their elegance, and why they get criticised for being unhistorical, is that they push all the detail and period flavour to the PRE game preps, leaving the players free DURING the game to make nothing but immeadiate tactical decisions….Hence a fast and furious game.

However if you skip the (considerable) pre game work you will get an anodyne game….

You will need to do something about the skirmisher rules. Skirmish units rule the area they are in. They get a +1 to fire and can't be charged as they can evade. I played a game based on an AWI battle (Camden). The British had nearly half their troops capable of skirmishing, all on their right flank. They simply shot up, or ran from, any Continental unit that got into musket range of them. The +1 to hit that they have, plus the "run away run away" ability makes the skirmisher the super troops of the game.

Unit size was in the 4-5 stands range. The Continental left flank was made up of militia, which rarely moved, and the right had the Continentals, which moved occasionally. I believe the scenario is from the book, and if that is correct it certainly displays the problems with the rules. The GM informed us that in the previous two games the Continentals had won, but admitted that the Brits hadn't used the right flank troops as skirmishers, getting them slaughtered in their assaults against a much larger Continental left flank. The Brit players in our game understood the massive advantage skirmishers have with that +1 in a six-sided system and the entire Brit right flank were placed immediately into skirmish order and proceeded to destroy anything they got near or that got near them.

I want to like these rules and understand I can make rule changes. But at the price I shouldn't have to fix a broken system.

21eRgt, completely agree that failed activation rolls can ruin a gaming session and that's too high a price for me. But that problem is fixable with a pencil!

Blitzkrieg Commander uses the same command system. During the first gaming night when command rolls were going horribly for one side, we immediately pencilled in that the first order for each commander always works (with no additional rolls if the actual dice roll failed). Ta da – enjoyable games every time without risk of wasting set up time and a gaming session.

With regard to Mikhail Lermementov's comments:
1) To call a rules set broken because in one scenario one side came up with a tactic that that their opponent's couldn't find an counter to is rediculous.
2) If you don't like adding house rules to suit your prejudices, BP are not for you. Being free & easy with the rules is a part of the philosophy of the system.

Following is my experience with Black Powder – Not an enjoyable game. Granted it was our first time playing and I was relying on another player to 'know' the rules…

I commanded a British Napoleonic brigade of four Highlander Bns. The French had a heavy cavalry Brigade of four units across the table and to my left front.

Turn 1 – French move – one of his cavalry units charges my front unit from his baseline – he rolls very good and moves three 'moves'. My front unit is forced into square because they have 'the form square special rule'. Cavalry can't charge squares and stops 3" away and within 12" of the rest of my brigade partially pinning them in place – I can't even shoot him because I just formed square and the rest are blocked or out of fire arc !!
On my move I failed my Orders rolls and couldn't move.
A couple turns later after I had failed more rolls he finally was withdrawn due to the rest of his brigade being destroyed elsewhere. I think I only ever moved two of my units by games end.

Considering that Napoleonic Cavalry could and did charge home into Infantry squares, I find the rules a bit odd and confusing!!
I assume we did some things wrong, but others in my group didn't really like them either.

It's the best set of larger scaled Napoleonic rules for a convention – with players trying out the rules for the first time. I ran just such a game this past weekend at our local convention here in the Pacific NW – Enfilade! After a quick overview of the basic mechanics and a 2-sided QRS, the players not only got the hang after the 1st turn, they started running the game themselves, while I discretely slipped some rum into my Coke and further into myself. They all seemed to be enjoying their time and rarely had to ask for GM clarification – which I managed to do somewhat convincingly. They all said they had a great time at the end and did the courteous hand shakes which made me believe they were genuine. Best, Dean

P.S. That all said, it's not what you'd want if you're looking for more historically accurate (read complex) Napoleonic rules.

Here's a link to my blog of the Black Powder game I hosted a couple of nights ago at Enfilade! Best, Dean

It is a set of rules for wargaming with miniature figurine. Each side moves so far, fires so far, routs so far,and has a variety of tests for various possiblities, etc -- also you roll dice for some to add some randomness. Very novel really.
Regards
Russ Dunaway

Russ:

Don't forget the Orders/Command roll..if unsuccessful you can't do all of those things you listed…

Best, Dean

Camcleod, sounds like you missed the Initiative rule – units can always react to enemy within 12, no order test required.

Pat

An excellent set of rules! Designed for fun first and foremost, providing enjoyable games, exciting, fast-moving and coming to a conclusion in a few hours (unlike nearly every other H&M rule-set my mate and I have tried).

It has a simple and complete game engine that provides a good basic H&M game. But to enhance the flavour of the rules for a particular period or theatre, you can tinker endlessly to provide all the super-detailing you'll ever want.

The orders/command rule is not just a simplistic move/can't move throw, as it may appear from some of the above comments – it has a lot more finesse than that, and there is a big element of choice-making as well as the die-rolling.

The whole idea is to add the element of 'frustration' by not always being able to achieve what you want. But that very frustration (the nail-biting "Will they do it?! Won't they do it?!" factor) is what makes the game so much fun. Being involved in an unfolding narrative of what is going on (or not going on!) is much more enjoyable than a game where you can do absolutely everything you want, and then your opponent can always do everything they want.

With BP, my mate and I have had the most enjoyable, hilarious and satisfying horse and musket games we've ever had. As always, though, I accept that what I may enjoy in a game isn't necessarily what others will enjoy, and vice versa – so take my praise as you wish!

What Arteis said so much more eloquently than I….with bells on…

Pat:

True – same as a failed roll for artillery – who get a free move too. Best, Dean

Only if they are limbered

Pat

The rules are definitely on the fun side of the scale.

Farbed, Rivet-counting Grognards who love to use trigonometric equations to check air resistance for their Light infantry foot movement secondary sub-phase will feel miserable.

ACW players – what stats did you use for troops, and what modifications (for instance, ranges) did you make?

Cheers,

Christopher

We used the basic stats from the scenario in the book, with Cavalry as mounted infantry with the 'Marauder' rule, infantry just the same on both sides, feeling that an American with a gun is basically the same on either side. We DID decide that Union Artillery tended to outclass Reb Artillery, so allow Union players to pay for longer range on their guns – 60 rather than 48.

Some players like to give some units smoothbores, one was a big fan of giving some reb units 'ferocious charge' to encourge agression. Lastly there is the enthusiast who believes the Propaganada and has to be forcibly prevented from making his Reb cavalry into deadly killing machines, space-marines on horses. He is our only problem child at the moment.

The only mod we made was to increase the number of gun-models needed for a battery, to discourage the massing of artillery which, in our experience, is the only way you can really spoil the game.

Pat

Farbed, Rivet-counting Grognards who love to use trigonometric equations to check air resistance for their Light infantry foot movement secondary sub-phase will feel miserable.

Well, you know, there is nothing to stop you getting Grognardy with these rules, they are so open-plan you can bolt any special rules on you wish. Make everyone leadership 11 so commands are almost always passed, make up secial rules for this elite or that levy, really they are perfectly amenable to cheese-paring.

Pat

Camcleod:

Regarding your issue about cav vs. squares, it was suggested on the Warlord BP forum at using only 1D6 instead of 2D6 for infantry testing to form square might be a good tweak. Still keep the 1 & 6 results per the book. Best, Dean

Captain Fevola, I await with bated breath your solution to taking out skirmish units with the current system. The Camden scenario was from WI Apr. 2011. The Brit right wing was classified as: First Fire, Steady, Crack, Skirmish, Terrifying Charge. The problem with skirmishers is they are rated +1 to fire die rolls and you get -1 when firing at them, so skirmishers are twice as likely to hit you as you are to hit them. Likewise the runaway rule allows them to stay out of hand to hand. Give me an army completely capable of skirmishing and I will drive your linear army from the field with few losses to myself.

You can, if you give your units the proper abilities, do a very good recreation of an historical battle, with a historical outcome. But still, the skirmish rule is broken. Skirmishers which shoot better than formed troops is wrong. The runaway ability, while accurate, is more likely to cause the unit to disintegrate instead of withdrawing in good order. And again, why pay $50 USD for a rule book which, if some of the comments are accurate, are a framework for a game.

Tinkering and adding house rules is all good and well if you have a constant group that never changes. But if you develop house rules then go to a convention and find that lo and behold, they not only didn't develop the same ones, but developed contrary ones. Or a new guys moves in with a completely different set of biases. Better to have rules that give you less to argue over. I feel like I'm getting more for my money if they are more "complete."

BTW, the folks I gamed with at the convention were splendid fellows and we had handshakes all around at the end. So the players didn't bias me so severely, it was the system.

Also, I've played BKC (reluctently) and I think we've settled on a fixed number of "do-overs" a game for failed command rolls on the first attempt.

we took a slightly different direction with our command roles.

we made it so that you can still give ordered after you fail, just not to the same unit. and then we let the overall give orders to units who had been ordered to do something but then the command role failed.(think more like the activation roll rules for Piquet Field of Battle). this gave a pretty decent "safety" net and generally every brigade got something moving.

in a game of Austrians vs my baden division, my randomly rolled cavalry commanders' rating was 6(yeah, low) so i sat my divisional commander next to him all day and he basically gave the orders whenever the hungarian cavalry general failed(which was often, although one turn he rolled spectacularly low and all 3 cav units got 3 moves!)

I also definitely identified the ranges as too long for my 4x8 table early on, so i went with a 50% reduction in shooting and movement ranges(but not command ranges) and it resulted in a fairly decent game. it took a turn or 2 for infantry to get into firing range, and the cavalry could not charge across the table and kill anything in the first turn(unless the other side did something really stupid)

I was thinking on the skirmisher problem(we only had 2 skirmish units in our 2 forces total, but i saw the potential for disaster). I think an arbitrary test of say 4+ on a D6 to evade successfully. you could also modify that up or down for better or worse quality skirmishers as well. one thing i noticed is that when skirmishers fall back they follow the rules for retiring, so they would be disordered as well(which means they cannot move next turn under standard rules.

I like these rules because they were less random then Piquet field of battle, but sort of kept the spirit and speed of those rules.

The rules are okay, I don't like the activation roles, but that's just a simple rule fix in-house.

One of the things I like about the 'modern' rule sets (says the old gamer waving his autographed "I'm Pete Guilders Love Child" tee-shirt) is the sheer bounty of pretty pictures. Stuff that's so pretty it might almost count as pornography in the minds of wargamers.

(See them sneaking into quite corners to stare at the beautiful pictures of chaos and warfare? Note the drooling lips, blinking eyes and twitching fingers, muttering about paint types, dipping and brush quality? Those are the ones to watch out for!)

And Black Powder, my nice, clean, bookcase only edition anyway, has lots and lots of them. Ooooh, so pretty. Why, they even help illustrate the rules.

But I know why they're really there… oh yes.

And again, why pay $50.00 USD USD for a rule book which, if some of the comments are accurate, are a framework for a game.

But that's exactly the point (the framework, not the 50 bucks!).

For people like me who don't get time to play wargames that often, this is the perfect solution. Here we have one set of rules (or framework, if you like) that gives a basic yet complete game, and which are designed to be able to add bits to make it specific to various periods within its wide horse-and-musket scope.

That way we can use this same ruleset (or framework) for a number of periods. Sometimes my group might only get one game per period in six months. So with BP we don't have to learn a new set of rules (or re-learn an old one) if we want to play a variety of periods over those monthly games. All we have to come to grips with is the period specific fine-tuning, which is easily done.

And now that I think about it, that does make the 50 bucks the point as well – if I can play, say, four different periods with BP, then it is saving me the cost of three other rulesets, is it not???

So John, having received the collective wisdom of TMP, what conclusion do you reach?

So John, having received the collective wisdom of TMP, what conclusion do you reach?

And in keeping with the OP, must be in essay form along with all notes

I'll probably get it.
Regarding the ability to skirmish, I often think that far too many rules get carried away with that ability, and hand it out with the gruel. Everybody has to be SPECIAL.

I played in Dean's game at Enfilade this year and had only briefly skimmed the rules before playing. I found the flow of the game easy to pick up and what I needed to do to get into the battle easy to understand and handle on my own after the first turn or so.
If you look at Dean's blog ( he posted the link earlier in this thread) that whole battle was done with a clear conclusion in about 2 1/2 hours. I also enjoyed the experience.
I would certainly put these rules into the Beer and Pretzels genre of rules, so if you are looking for complex rules this isn't for you.

" Best set of Horse and Musket rules for this generation"

Well John.,

As a counterpoint, I think they are the worst set of horse and musket rules I have come across…..ever….and honestly, I cannot imagine coming across worse.

Easily tweaKed???….a cats cradle of poor interactions with any tweak having repercussions elsewhere. Sometimes a rule itself doesnt actually acheive anything.

How broken are they?

Best assault formation????
3 columns with a line deployed directly behind

….Best defensive formation to counter this?

3 columns with a defensive line behind….this is the best formation to defend anywhere. Its a perticularly good deployment stratagy with AWI american militia.

game effect of deploying battalion skirmishers? I would suggest working it out….it's a hoot. the clue is in the chances of inflicting a casualty on an attack column and a skirmish unit….not hits, but casualties!…and if the designers didnt spot that….well hey, they deserve the consideration they get. If other players dont spot it…not my problem.

I would not go as far as Kevan, but, having played a fair few games of BP, I have decided that I do not like them. The system, as written in the BP book, just does not work properly and leads to some bizarre tabletop happenings and tactics based on exploiting oddities in the rules rather than historical precedents.

The writing style is great, though:).

@Sparker

The key to their elegance, and why they get criticised for being unhistorical, is that they push all the detail and period flavour to the PRE game preps, leaving the players free DURING the game to make nothing but immeadiate tactical decisions….Hence a fast and furious game.

However if you skip the (considerable) pre game work you will get an anodyne game…

Can you elaborate on this? I have yet to look at the rules or play a BP game and am not sure what the pre game preps entail that give it the period flavor?

Can you elaborate on this?

You need an awful lot of gaming to realise what levels all the unit charactoristics should be set at..and knowing what special rules need used……

….and until you do, all your games will be prone to having almost the whole game being moments which are completley ahistoric. This effect when linked with the game mechanics being highly forgiving of positional mistakes give highly erratic swirling games in periods where you expect linear discipline and units positionally punished…but it doesn't happen.

Your right Kevan except. My earleist gaming, before being introduced to WRG 5th, was with simple rules like Terry Wise or Donald Featherstone. You'd take these rules and adapt/adjust them according to the views of the last book you read or a stray comment in a wargames magazine article. It was fun. Black powder invites you to do the same. Suitable for complete begineers playing solo? Well I supose they would learn more from a copy of Lasalle.