"# of units in a black powder game?" Topic

How much is too much? How many 28mm units per side do you guys field on a 6x4 table playing warlord's Black Powder rules?

I don't play BP, but a dozen units per player seems to be the maxim across any miniatures game period or scale. On land that is.

What's your unit frontage? Some people use 12 man units, some use 24+ figures per unit.

At 28mm using 24 fig infantry units I find it tough to field more than 12 units per side – the frontage on a battalion in line of battle is 9 inches, so you run the risk of wall-to-wall troops which hardly strikes me as sporting

I would say read the rules. They give guidelines depending on figure size and unit size.

The other thing to keep in mind is that the army is divided into several commands (brigades, divisions, whatever), each of which will break when it loses half of the units. For a decent game you'll want at least 3 commands per side, and each should have enough units to soak up some losses before it breaks. Anything less than 9-12 units will be over very quickly.

If you're using a 6x4 table with 28mm figs, the game will be more interesting if each unit has fewer figs but there are more units and you shorten ranges and moves proportionately. Less of a problem with the frontage issue mentioned above, and the forces will get the chance to maneuver a bit before the decisive clash…

For BP ACW games in 28mm I use the following sizes: each stand 4 figures in a 2x2 arrangement 40mmx40mm size.

Large units 6 stands
Standard units 4 stands
Small units 2 stands
Tiny units 1 stand

Go bigger than 6 by 4