Sunday, January 8, 2012

Black Powder Napoleonics (2) & FOW League Prizes

Today I got to play another great Black Powder game at Adler hobby hosted by the guys from the Boston Trained Bands. The scenario was from the 1813 Leipzig campaign and featured a Prussian attack on Wartemburg which was defended by Wartemburg infantry and cavalry supported by a brigade of French Infantry which I was able to command. The photo above shows an early turn with the Prussians rushing over a pontoon bridge advancing on a remote village outside Wartemburg. In the foreground you can see the outskirts of Westphalia proper with my French brigade taking up positions on a dike overlooking a stream which is between my troops and the Prussian advance.

Below left is the village being assaulted by the Prussians who had great success early knocking out half of the defending Wartemburgers. The right photo shows the other brigade of Prussians advancing towards the stream and dike with one brave battalion of French advancing out to meet their march columns to hopefully force them to deploy. The tactic had limited success early, but eventually with help from a second French battalion was able to stop the advance on this wing.


Left photo is a close up of the advancing Prussian column - beautifully painted figures! Right photo below is the last advance units of the Prussian force being met by our reserve cavalry and one of my infantry units who were able to rally to the center after repulsing the Prussians on the left flank. This was a great game which could easily have gone either way. The more Black Powder I play the more I think that it lends itself to larger games where the additional units can help average out the large swings in both combat and break checks (morale). With only a few units a couple bad rolls can sink you, but with more units things tend to even themselves out a bit more.


Below is a photograph of me receiving TWO prizes from December's Flames of War league at Adler Hobby. I was lucky enough to win the monthly random draw and also won the sportsman award (thanks much to those who nominated me). Each of these awards gives a blister as a prize (or equivalent credit towards larger boxed sets). I chose as my prize two Wirbelwind AA tanks to add to my late-war German force which I'll be fielding in Adler's upcoming late war league starting sometime in late February or early March. Battlefront generously sponsors the leagues at Adler with great prize support, which is icing on the cake when you add to it that you get a lot of GREAT gaming while you play in the leagues.


6 comments:

DeanM said...

Nice looking BP game; very clean table top with nice terrain & figs. Also, congrats on your prizes. Best, Dean

AdamC1776 said...

I think you are right BP is really built around big battles... it works for lower levels but I think you need to tweak the C&C rules to make it run right

VolleyFireWargames said...

I agree I got the rules late in 2010 before I went to Scotland played them a few times in Edinburgh - They are a bit quirky compared to other rules I have played - but the random movement (especially if modified as they have done in Scotland slows the game down) also I have made a few modifications as I play it concerning melee modifiers (infantry CANNOT be used in supporting cavalry melees and changing support to count for break test results instead of who wins the melees)Also introduced a rally phase for broken units. So they arent necessarily destroyed unless they are surrounded and have no retreat path. Also I can use the stuff I have based as is without any changes - some of the guys in Scotland had skirmishers mounted on octagon bases which look really cool. How much artillery did you have in the game? That is another quirk is that one gun tends to be used to represent a whole battery.

AdamC1776 said...

French had one Horse artillery unit and the Prussians had two horse artillery units.

AJ (Allan) Wright said...

Actually the Prussians had regular foot batteries.

Christopher(aka Axebreaker) said...

Nice looking game!

Christopher