Black Powder Napoleonics

The Prussians


Hand to Hand, French Top, Prussians Below

I had another bash at Black Powder last night using 15mm Napoleonics. My opponent was Jonesy, and Guido umpired. Simsy was meant to turn up but cancelled at this last minute for something he called a "booty call." This time we used two Brigades a side and added two cannon per side to give the artillery rules a whirl. Nothing special about the terrain as these are learning games.

Artillery seemed easy to use. Range of artillery depends upon the gun used. In this case we used Smoothbore Foot Artillery which has a range of 48cm in 15mm. Distance decides if you throw 1,2 or 3 dice to attack. You get to use 1D6 if the range is over half, 2D6 if the range is up to half, and 3D6 if the range is up to 6cm. There are some modifiers to add in depending upon enemy formations etc. A roll of a 6 always disorders target.

The target needs to roll to save any hits. The usual 4+ save needs to be modified by -1 if hit by artillery at long range, or -2 if hit by artillery at medium and short range.

During this game artillery was charged by a regiment of infantry and the hand to hand result was as expected. Artillery die easily.

The rules cover artillery, howitzers and machine guns (for later wars).

An enjoyable game. Jonesy took line honours by inflicting more damage than I did. Sorry about the poor photos. My camera is not up to scratch for low light. Jonesy took a couple of pics with his super camera and I will post them if he sends them to me. Next game we try out cavalry.