Black Powder again

Started Friday off in Huddersfield. Due to traditional Yorkshire weather (howling gale and rain) we decided to come straight home. The drive back was uneventful and completed in enough time to allow me to prepare for the evening's game.

We went back to the War of Spanish Succession using Black Powder. This was partly prompted as we had an occasional guest who used to do WSS years ago and was interested in revisiting it. Plus I now have a copy of Black Powder. See, I did buy it, even tho' I think there are loads of problems with it.

Our previous game indicated that there's no problem using WRG-sized element based battalions. As you can see in the pictures they're made up of 12 figures on 3 bases. With big flags. Cavalry units are two elements of 3 figures each. This is great as I can't stand the idea of re-basing stuff.

I threw out most of the amendments/suggestions from the Yahoo group. I used the standard values from the book for the infantry, made them Steady and gave the Anglo-Dutch "First Fire". For the cavalry I used the basic Regular Cavalry values, but gave the English the Heavy Cavalry bonus, which I also gave to one French unit.

The three Anglo-Dutch brigades were combined Foot/Horse (to enable them to do the multiple line thing), whilst the French had one infantry brigade and two cavalry. The Anglo-Dutch had 10 foot and 6 cavalry whilst the French had 12 foot and 6 cavalry. This set up also made the French a bit more ponderous.

All in all it went pretty well and I'm pleased with the choices I made. The Anglo-Dutch sat back and let the French come on to them, which enabled the French to impose themselves on the game and they were certainly on top when we had to call it a day.

We had three people at the game out of six of us with a copy of BP and it went slowly as we had to refer back to them on numerous occasions. The lack of a proper index and the poor layout - made subservient to the need to shove in as many pictures as possible - is a real irritant as you try to learn them.

Plus we were a bit mystified as to why a cavalry unit hitting an infantry line in the flank didn't result in the infantry completely folding.

Still, enough in it to revisit on future Friday evenings. Alas it looks like I need to get more cavalry at the point I'm committed to painting my 15mm Covenanters.

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