"Black Powder Artillery Question " Topic

When using Black Powder how many actual guns would an artillery piece represent?

How many would you like it to represent?

If your playing with your infantry units representing platoons, then its probably just 1 gun.
If each unit represents a company, then a section of two guns.
If battalions then probably a battery of 6 guns.
And so on.

Hello Razor.

In Black Powder the Artillery unit represents one battery of cannons, but it is up to you to decide how many cannons models represent one battery.

My recommendation is to use one gun model to represent one battery.

To give you an example following my own project to build up the French 1 Corps d'Armee at Waterloo, one artillery battery was given to each line Infantry Division so I should have one cannon model every 8 battalions (1 division = 2 brigades of 4 battalions each). In gaming terms each of my units is one battalion.

This said, I may still decide later to double the number of Artillery units – simply because I like the models and it is a good break from painting loads of infantry – and aim instead for one cannon model for each Brigade. this would be less consistent with the historical approach adopted and in theory would make the Artillery pulling a bit more weight on battles.

I hope this helps!

Lorenzo

We use 3 gun models to represent a 6 gun battery. Looks better on the table and takes up the right amount of space.

Remembering that a deployed battery takes about the same frontage as a battalion in line.

I think frosty dog is correct -- artillery is often under-represented in terms of space occupied on the table.

I also use 3 gun models to represent a 6-gun battery.

Agree with the OP. I think a good solution (cost be damned) would be to allow for 2-gun sections to be represented. When employed individually, a section fires like a 4-gun. battery, but must re-roll hits, and it has a Stamina of 1. Two sections make a 4-gun battery, three sections make a 6-gun battery, etc. Batteries fire as intended in the rules, but now they have the proper frontage (and looks!). Gun crews will usually be over represented, but hey, looks! Oh, and limbers should only be on the table when their guns are limbered because, technically, their footprint is already covered by the unlimbered gun bases; potentially use 2 horses per section. Alternatively, keep them on the table even when their guns are unlimbered, because… looks, but remove them if they are in the way. (Note: I'm writing this post from an ACW standpoint).