15mm Black Powder

by **pbeccas** » Sun Oct 18, 2009 5:03 am

Well I impulsed pre-ordered Black Powder with the dream that it will let me dust off my old 15mm ACW figures. Heck, if it's a good game I might even start that 28mm Napoleonic army I always wanted to do but never got around to it.

Anyways, my 15mm ACW are based up four figures to a 30mm x 30mm base. Will this work for Black Powder? And how many such bases would I need to field to have a basic Black Powder brigade? Hope someone can help me.

I am really looking forward to this book. Some great people are associated with it.

Cheers

Paul

by **Paul @ Warlord Games** » Sun Oct 18, 2009 6:28 am

Hi Paul,

I love these kind of posts - makes me realise just how spoonfed gamers have been by recent wargames rules!

Black Powder is going to rather a shock for players who need to have definitive base sizes, points systems and movement with protractors and set squares...

To answer your question you can happily play Black Powder with 15mm models - either half the ranges or play in cm rather than inches.

Base sizes don't matter at all - just play with what you already have. The whole premise of BP was to be able to play with our respective collections whether they were based for different systems or not.

On the size of units thats flexible too - you pick the size of a 'standard' unit and then tiny, small and large units are decided based on a ratio of the standard Sounds a bit mathematical but it really isn't! So, again it's very flexible and aims to allow players to just play gamesd with their armies rather than having to rebase or to have to standardise their armies compared to their mates.

Biased I know but I love the BP system - perfect for playing games after a hard days work and not feel like I'm pouring over spreasdsheets unlike some systems.

We had a colossal Napoleonic game on Thursday at Chez Perry - possibly the best yet. I won't spoil the story as we'll be bringing you a battle write-up on this very website soon...

Hope that helps,

Cheers,

Paul

by **pbeccas** » Sun Oct 18, 2009 6:45 am

Black Powder is sounding very good. I think it's going to be good to get away from points based systems.

Thanks for the reply. I appreciate your help.

Cheers

Paul

by **rick priestley** » Mon Oct 19, 2009 6:21 am

Hi Paul

Though I've not played in 15mm - I have played in 10mm - though mostly just to test out rules ideas - and I do have a nice 7YW 10mm army that was otherwise slacking on my shelves.

Basically - you can play to any unit size or model scale as Mr Sawyer says - in terms of how the game plays, the important relationship is the footprint/frontage of the whole unit and the move/shoot distances. If you get those out of whack it becomes too easy to concentrate fire (frontages too small relative to ranges) or too difficult to manoeuvre (frontages too large relative to move distances).

If you use 15mm models I'd suggest switching from inches to cm throughout and aiming to have infantry battalions with a frontage of about 12cm. Or just halve all distances if you prefer to play in inches. If you want huge battalions - say a frontage of 20cm or more - then I'd recommend sticking to inches and distances as given for 25/28mm models - though I haven't tried this you understand! My standard sized units in 10mm are three 40x20mm stands i.e. 12cm in line formation.

Hope that's helpful

Rick

by **raven6** » Mon Oct 19, 2009 6:42 am

So I am guessing that our 1/72 scale fellahs can have a run-out under these rules as well?We have them based on 60mm frontages (ish) most of us do anyway. And we use smaller units - 12 figs to a battalion 3 horse to a squadron. How would that impacty the relationship between footprint and firepower/range? Would it also affect the morale mechanics?

by **pbeccas** » Tue Oct 20, 2009 4:27 pm

Hi Rick.

Thanks for the additional information. With a Battalion frontage of 12cm, my 30mm bases are going to be perfect. And I rather game in cm's than inches. It's all sounding good. I used a Jedi mind trick on one of my friends and got him to pre-order the rules.

Cheers

Paul

by **darksheppy** » Sun Oct 16, 2011 6:01 pm

hi i game napoleonics using black powder rules in 28 mm
but have 15mm 7 years war army to paint
i am basing my in in 28mm on a 20x20mm base per fig
and was thinking about basing my 15mm on a 10x10mm per fig will have to look at them and see if they will fit ok
the cav i have based my 28mm cav on a 50x25mm base
and 15mm on a 25x12 if they fit

by **Dr Dave** » Wed Oct 19, 2011 9:23 am

All my ACW is 15mm. based for Fire and Fury - Uhhhhh!

We just half everything and keep it in inches.

It's great!

by **Big Al** » Wed Oct 19, 2011 9:42 am

Just for interest. Have you seen the unit boxes for Napoleon at War? Each box contains a brigade complete with bases all in 15mm. They are perfect for those starting a Black Powder army and there is no problem with bases or anything. Three of these and you have a full BP army in 15mm complete with commanders. The figures look quite nice too!

http://www.manatwar.es/

by **NTM** » Wed Oct 19, 2011 11:11 am

Big Al wrote:Just for interest. Have you seen the unit boxes for Napoleon at War? Each box contains a brigade complete with bases all in 15mm. They are perfect for those starting a Black Powder army and there is no problem with bases or anything. Three of these and you have a full BP army in 15mm complete with commanders. The figures look quite nice too!

http://www.manatwar.es/

Figures do look quite good, not keen on the basing convention which is 4 figures on 1x1.25". I would change this to 6 figures on 1.25x1" (i.e. use the long edge as the frontage) for BP, you would still the same number of battalions from a brigade box and they would be close to the recommended BP frontage too. Provides spare bases for an extra unit or two as well. Of course this is based on my expereince with other manufacturers figures these may well be a bit wider needing 1/2" frontage but I'm not yet convinced.