Garry Wills

I don’t have Epic, I can only assume they are referring to deep formation from Clash of Eagles. A column formation other than march column is clearly a valid option. One of the things with Warlord stuff is they are not great at being consistent from one publication to another.

Not under the standard rules but they are allowed ‘deep formation’ in the Clash of Eagles supplement (p.96), which gives them some benefits in movement and combat resolution but greater vulnerability to artillery and reduced combat dice.

1. Well that is a bit unfair, the break tests are integral to the close combat results section.

2. No the victorious units excess casualties are removed after all the ‘necessary break tests’ have been done. This is a case of the rules not being explicit as the victorious units don’t need to take break tests. However it is implied by how the rules…[Read more]

Just for clarity, the same wording I referred to is in BPI, it is not a change. I, like Alex, think some movement is appropriate, so measuring any movement from the back rather than the new front of the unit could work.

All the best

Garry

Hate to disagree Alex, but I will anyway, p.36 of BPII includes reversing facing (i.e. about face) as part of normal movement rather than a formation change. So it is free provided that the unit is ordered. This will seem too easy to some although the 28th Foot at Alexandria would beg to differ, I suspect.

All the best

Garry

Entering potentially difficult terrain here … but here goes. There is no wheeling required in this game, so the bases would be simply turned around, the key point is that it would need to be ordered or an initiative move with all that that implies.

Regards

Garry

My comment was certainly not directed at you, my first comment expressed my gratitude for your pointing out these differences. A lot of players only use the QRS and this leads to a lot of misunderstandings. The EB diagram you shared is clearly inconsistent with the core rules. I tend to interpret ‘less than half’ in terms of frontage. Columns are…[Read more]

Definitely Alex, there are surprisingly few people who have actually read the rules.

Big Al, ‘failed to mention’, I think you will find, I thought it was irrelevant to the discussion. All the best Garry

BP is pretty clear that the only range that matters is the distance between the leader model/centre of front to the closest visible base of the target. If this distance is in range, the whole of the firing unit and the whole of the target are in range. The rules explicitly states this.  The best way to picture it, for muskets, is the 18 inch…[Read more]

Thanks for posting this, I wondered what the differences were. I have too many 15mm already to divert to Epic. Anyway regarding your question, I would have thought a leader model was the same in all formats, it is the leader model that determines visibility not a leader base, so in a 13.5 mm model of 5 ish mm wide, it cuts down the options. The…[Read more]

This is the Heavy cavalry rule which comes in different forms. Hvy Cav +1, means that when they charge or countercharge they add 1 to the combat resolution, i.e. equivalent to an extra casualty inflicted. Hvy cav +D3 is similar except the addition to the combat resolution is based on the score of a D6 halved, i.e. an addition of 1, 2 or 3.

Thanks very much CTG, the youtube channel started as support for my books, but has evolved into a record of my games. 40 years ago I used an A4 hardback notebook for this, but it is good to move with the times. Enjoy.

Garry

Personally I think Black Powder works better in 15mm on most tables, since you get more room to manoeuvre. You can see my games here https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuj8XPFZLKIDi6WqgTihHDMTBPzY-AU7f

Garry

Because I am an OCD nerd I converted the metric frontages in the book to inches and used those numbers as cms;

 
BP1

figs
BP1

(mm)
BP2

Min-Max (mm)
Implied figure #
Men (1:20)
cm scale frontage, mm
Figures 15mm 1 rank
Men (1:33)

Large
36-40
360-400
260- 325
26-32
520-640
102-128
17-21
563-704

Std
24-30
240-300
200 -…[Read more]

I have always played BP with 15mm and use three key changes to take advantage of the extra space on the table;

1. use cm instead of inches, it is the easiest conversion, at least for those of us in Europe.

2. increase artillery ranges by 25% (you will struggle with some historical scenarios with out this)

3. the brigade move maximum separation…[Read more]

The other thing to remember is that despite there being no figure scale, in reality a standard infantry unit clearly represents more men than a standard cavalry unit, which must be so given the same frontage for both. I could bore you with my own conversions, but this effect is very dramatic, and explains why dismounted cavalry become skirmishers…[Read more]

Hello Mick

Glad you are sticking with it. On movement of columns you are being too selective in your examples if you look at all dice throws the march column will move 2 moves per turn including the free move vs 1.4 moves per turn with a Staff rating of 8, so it does depend on the size of the table, I use 15mm figures and cms instead of inches,…[Read more]

The command test fundamental determines how far units move. So a unit in line with a Staff rating of 7 will move an average of one 12″ move per turn, in march column the staff rating goes up to 9 (ie. plus 2 for march column on a road) and on average the unit will move an average of 1.8 moves a turn. Your example doesn’t work because you started…[Read more]

In the ACW supplement the author removed the benefits of attack column, as being not appropriate to the ACW, which seems fair, so march column and line are the way to go as explained by big Al.

I find the points system useful in designing historical scenarios. Unfortunately a lot of people in the historical hobby see points systems as an easy…[Read more]