"Back to Black (Powder) GNW AAR" Topic

So having given Lilly Banners a four game trial we were back to Black Powder for Great Northern War but with some pretty heavy amendments. Write up on the blog with a lot of pictures. See what you think, link

I do like your blog but hate it as when i look at it I want to do GNW and i don't have time for a new project yet lol

But great work, please keep it up!

..aah! but which set did you feel was:
-a more realistic outcome
-gave a better (more enjoyable) game ???

I'd be in interested in the answers to Parrskool's questions as well. I'm right in the middle of painting up a Russian GNW army. Right now, I think we'll try Maurice, but like most rules, the GNW seems a tacked on afterthought. Don't get me wrong – I absolutely love Maurice, but I'm also interested in exploring other options for GNW.

Your ideas for adapting Black Powder seem quite interesting. I admit I've played BP using the changes in the "Argument of Kings" supplement for the SYW, and wasn't terribly impressed to be honest.

Mind you, perhaps the idea of adapting Black Powder for the GNW seems attractive to me simply because of your battle report – your figures and terrain look fantastic!

Thanks veyr much guys, I am definately leaning towards Black Powder as suiting the big ttables and alrge volumes of troops we have available, you will see what I mena with the report from the follow up game I played today (on the blog mid week probably) the key thing with Black Powder is to amend it until it feels like Great Northern War. Firing efore moving makes a big difference. Tony if you are playing SYW you need to amend it so that the Prussians can oblique but no-one else can for instance (we allow the Swedes to oblique) Frostie you can never have too many project LOL! parskool you could argue that Lilly Banners is more realistic (apart from how robust the morale is, nothing runs away) and I really like the mechanism that gives better troop types better dice to role but BP is so much more flexible and you get a result in a decent ammoutn of time. BP is winnign but I still have reservations that need tweaking.

have you seen Twilight of the Sun King from the Pike & Shot Society….. big battles, realistic expectations of outcome….. fairly simple once you get the hang of them.

I generally don't have a good word to say about Black Powder, but when I used it for the GNW it worked OK. I'm no expert on the period, but from the limited amount I have read it produced a reasonable facsimile of a GNW battle.

Never tried Twilight of the Sun King parrskool. The biggests issue for us is 8 players most of whom will only play twice a year and 40 to 50 units on table! Jeffers the latest Black Powder game showed me we need soem more tweaks (report to follow soon) biggest issue was Russians firing into Swedes then charging them whilst they were dis-ordered. Compeltely un-blanced the game.

Roger
From memory, the Russians had low command ratings so they were limited to slow and steady. The Swedes were better to give them more chances of Ga Pa-ing. I can't remember the factors for units, I'm afraid, but I do remember my Russians won!

Jeffers The Great…?

Hah, cheers Jeffers, I think we still need to try some stuff out. The game Sunday (report nearly written) just didnt work, although my opposite number commandign the Russians didnt agree of course (he won)