"My new blog - The Road to Yorktown" Topic

Hello everyone,

I'm relatively new to war-gaming in this period and I've decided to start a blog on my thoughts as I proceed here: link

Some start by picking miniatures, some start by picking campaigns and battles that they want to wargame. For myself, I want to consider rules first. I've narrowed my selection down to British Grenadier or Black Powder with its Rebellion supplement. I appreciate any commentary.

Nice write-up. I've been gaming AWI for several years in 25/28mm. For rules, I will mention Sharp Practice for large skirmish games. I really enjoy these rules for the AWI and since you don't need massive armies, you can get started quicker. Most of my minis are Old Glory, and Perry with Foundry,, Fife and Drum too. My favorites are Perry. I like Fife and Drum but they are a bit 'slimmer' and I don't intermix them in units. Here's the link to my blog if you'd like to see some AARs of Sharp Practice AWI games. Good Luck in your new adventure. minysoldiers.blogspot.com

An interesting blog approach.

The weight of wargaming is certainly with the 28s (or epics) now. When I came up in the hobby, many of us first ventured into the Black Powder periods with sizes 20mm-25s. My initial A.Rev. figs. being 25s, though 15 years later I built up a more complete 15mm AWI collection. Like many lately, what is old is new, and within the past couple years I began collecting back into the larger 28mm scale for the AWI, and in a number of other periods too. Now on a half-dozen or so years of this [ongoing] experience, and with some time to reflect, IMO 28s constrict what I'm able to accomplish with the smaller scales – not just space constricting, but to accomplish getting onto the tabletop.

You've chosen two rules sets that make full use of fleshed-out battalions too – weighty in figs., and they'll look wonderful when painted up, and for taking pictures of.

I'll surmise years will be spent rendering up such units to do even moderate-sized AWI battles with, if someone aims at well-painted figures (and is doing that painting themselves), so to have a battle-ready collection at hand to game with.

Perhaps the battles are less important to accomplish, or ones table space is restricted, and perhaps instead the huge realm of the "petite guerre" in North American offers an alternative scheme to accomplish, and which can be more readily attained with fewer figures, but then maybe that side of the period offers much less motivation to work towards.

I think my post here now reveals a bias I hold towards the gaming side of the hobby, and less towards the painting side. There's many blogs rendering up the next awesomely painted unit on the internet, but the pictures narrow down on "the unit". It's the "battle" that there's far fewer photos of, but when there are, they're certainly epic – and that's somewhat to be expected.

On this board recently, there was discussion of how tactical units might be ratio-ed up, so that fewer stands, of big scale figure units might have the same affect as more numerous maneuver elements are able to accomplish in a battle with. I don't see how that comes out that well, as bigger footprints just won't fit into the same space that many smaller ones can fill.

Well, many of us want the visual spectacle of the big figures – they're wonderful in that regards.

They'll likely occupy a lot more of your time to accomplish the same scope and breadth compared to a wargaming 'tool-box' built up from the smaller scales will.

All miniatures scales have limitations though, and so it's what you value in the hobby I guess.

Thanks for the link to your blog. All of my AWI minis are 28mm (mostly Perry's and Old Glory). Plus I painted up a dedicated set of miniatures for use with the "Commands & Colors: Tricorne" boardgame from Compass Games. It is a fascinating period. What war could be more important than the one that made us a nation?!

As per your question; I prefer British Grenadier over Black Powder as it is more detailed and captures the tactical granularity very well. The look of the battalions at a 20:1 ratio are realistic and appealing.

Black powder is ideal if you want a quick game in a few hours but are willing to compromise on realism.

So it come down to what your priority is; realism versus quick play. Both cater well to their respective advantages.

I seen people say that the best way to learn BG is to have an experienced player teach you the rules. Is it really that difficult to understand/learn?

I'll be running a game of BG at the upcoming CWs convention, if interested.

Here's a thread from TMP that I regard as the best advice on starting in AWI:
TMP link

You'll love it. It's probably the most ‘wargamable war' available and the uniforms are fab. I've been through it in umpteen sizes and have come back to 25mm again, simply because of the spectacle. How practical that is is open to question, but you can see my efforts here:

battle77.blogspot.com

I'm running an AWI Sharp Practice game at Cold Wars based on the action at Spencer's Ordinary outside of Williamsburg. Check it out.

Consider painting time and storage space. I am happy I went with 15mm figs and would seriously consider 10mm if starting now.
The variety of unit uniforms is immense. In smaller figure scales you can have more of them in your collection.

"I seen people say that the best way to learn BG is to have an experienced player teach you the rules. Is it really that difficult to understand/learn?"

No, but it's easier to learn it from an experienced player--"learn by doing." The rules have some key stuff buried in them.

Likely true of any but the most basic rules sets.

Thank you everyone for your interest.

@95th Division,
I will have to look at Sharp's Practice. My concern would be basing for a skirmish game versus a bigger battalion style game.

At the moment I am heavily leaning towards British Grenadier when it comes to the ruleset. I've played with Black Powder, but felt table size and unit movement was an issue. British Grenadier seems to have a lot of little nuances in the rules that play homage to the setting (disruption points and fighting in a heavily forested environment, for one). The history buff in me appreciates that. Black Powder seems more generalized, but that may just be my impression.

Are you going to Cold Wars? Reason being, I am running a game Saturday night using BG rules.

As much as I would love to, I don't know if I will be able to swing time off work to travel all the way to Pennsylvania.