"BP Brigade Skirmish Screens" Topic

Was wondering if you guys make a skirmish unit for a brigade skirmish screen in Black Powder, similar to the one in General de Brigade? I very much like that concept of GdB.

If not, do you guys use any rules to abstract the brigade skirmishers or ignore skirmishers altogether like many sets do?

Our group at the Hall of Heroes Campbelltown has been around this issue a lot, and are getting something in place for our Waterloo 200 project.

Essentially we have nixed the 'Mixed Order' attribute in favour of allowing upto 20% of a forces line infantry battalions to be deployed as a skirmish unit, replacing the line unit with two 'coffee coaster' sized bases, firepower 2, stamina 3, H2H 3. The unit can then be returned to line duty in a move, keeping the opponent informed throughout. We have yet to tie down how far such a unit can stray from its parent brigade…

So you see that of the two 5 Battalion French brigades in the photo neares the camera, the nearest one has chosen to give up a formed unit for a skirmish unit, whereas the further one is doing without skirmishers…We hope this will allow skirmish action to be represented without bogging down a big game too much.

I like the GdeB concept too. All my figures are mounted on separate magnetic bases, so it makes it easy to separate the light company figures to form a brigade skirmish screen.

Many players go part way by separately mounting just the light company. Still others with have two light companies; one mounted with individual figures and another in close order formation.

I have separate skirmish screen bases that are single figure depth and each figure is separated by a full figure base distance.

Interesting comments.

Sparker- Did you guys kick around an "inherent" Brigade screen based upon how many battalions present and type (line/light)?

Basically one that comes default. Kinda like that idea better than the sacrificing of an entire unit, however I could see your system working just fine.

We did try that, giving it the equivalent strength to a light battalion, and in my opinion it worked very well – but it was open to abuse with the skirmish screen getting moved a long way from its parent brigade, and generally being used as a force multiplier rather than to screen its own brigade!

At least now players think carefully about whether to sacrifce a line unit, and so have a specific purpose in mind for the screen. We still tend to have 'wandering' screens though!

Good food for thought, thank you Sparker.

Similar to Sparks, here we see the Lt Bn of a Bde deployed in a Bde skirmish screen:

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Tally Ho!

Nice eye candy!

Does the whole battalion is in skirmish formation?
Afaik only part of the battalion was in skirmish, the rest in reserve?

I think at any level skirmishers always left around half of their number as a reserve to rally back on in case of cavalry or other dangers emerging – by half company, company or battalion, makes no odds.

So how to represent in BP a legere battalion in skirmish order?
I suppose not as in the last two pictures and you only pu t part of the battalion (brigade screen ) on the table?

Brunet, my Bns are either 4 or 6 bases of 8. In the phot above the Legere Bns are deployed in Bn skirmish a straight line with a space between each base,

Tally Ho!

Nick, we did this also but shouldn't it be approx. half in skirmish line and half as formed reserve behind? That's what I wonder.