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 Wehrkind wrote:
How good is Black Powder? I see Jervis Johnson's name attached and a I get a little leery. Anyone have experience with the game and how well it works?

Haven't played Black Powder, but Jervis actually has an awesome track record in terms of games he's written.

---------------

I was just actually looking and wondered whether Wild West Chronicles was any good? PDF is $9, and Warlord has everything else available for free download.

 Wehrkind wrote:
How good is Black Powder? I see Jervis Johnson's name attached and a I get a little leery. Anyone have experience with the game and how well it works?

Black Powder was written by Rick Priestley and Jervis Johnson - and is pretty much the standard game they, along with the rest of the Nottingham crew, have been playing for a long long long time. It's just organized and put into a nice full color rulebook. (remember, all those GW and Mantic and Warlord and Foundry and Perry Bros etc are all friends and hang out and game and drink together. Black Powder is their generic go-to ruleset for when they get together and drink beers and push around soldiers)

It's pretty fun, and works best with 5 or more brigades per side (3+ brigades minimum i'd say)

Ahh that makes sense, and explains why people say Bolt Action is a good alternative to 40k for those sorts of battles. I might give it a pass then, as I have gotten a little bored with the GW style "4+ to hit, 4+ to wound" style rules. Thanks for the info!

From what I heard BP is designed for scenario gaming and does not usually use points for army composition (but there is an option for them), is that right?

I'm not sure about other time periods that BP covers but I played a 300 point per player (8 players) 1815 Napoleonic game last night. I had a great time even though my French Brigade failed command tests in the first couple of turns. It's a good "rank and flank" game system for when you want to put a lot of toy soldiers on the table with a lot of friends.

 endtransmission wrote:
We had a Clockwork Goblin one somewhere in the dim, distant past that contains their current models as well as sneak peeks. Seems like a good place for Konflikt to go.

Aaaaan here we go. All updated

Good job, might be an idea to update the title of that thread too so people know it contains Konflikt 47.

 judgedoug wrote:

 Wehrkind wrote:
How good is Black Powder? I see Jervis Johnson's name attached and a I get a little leery. Anyone have experience with the game and how well it works?

Black Powder was written by Rick Priestley and Jervis Johnson - and is pretty much the standard game they, along with the rest of the Nottingham crew, have been playing for a long long long time. It's just organized and put into a nice full color rulebook. (remember, all those GW and Mantic and Warlord and Foundry and Perry Bros etc are all friends and hang out and game and drink together. Black Powder is their generic go-to ruleset for when they get together and drink beers and push around soldiers)

It's pretty fun, and works best with 5 or more brigades per side (3+ brigades minimum i'd say)

How did Jervis Johnson write BP with Priestley while he's been working for GW this whole time? I'm surprised they let him.

 Wehrkind wrote:
Ahh that makes sense, and explains why people say Bolt Action is a good alternative to 40k for those sorts of battles. I might give it a pass then, as I have gotten a little bored with the GW style "4+ to hit, 4+ to wound" style rules. Thanks for the info!

Oh dear me, no, that was not my intent at all. Bolt Action plays _nothing_ like 40k (pinning is king) and Black Powder could be considered a distant relative of Warmaster due to the command/control system... but that's about it. When not confined by GW's imposed design limitations, that's where all these guys _shine_.


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 ntdars wrote:
How did Jervis Johnson write BP with Priestley while he's been working for GW this whole time? I'm surprised they let him.

I'm guessing once Warhammer Historicals folded there was nothing in his contract that said he couldn't do a historicals game. Not 100% sure

 judgedoug wrote:

 Wehrkind wrote:
Ahh that makes sense, and explains why people say Bolt Action is a good alternative to 40k for those sorts of battles. I might give it a pass then, as I have gotten a little bored with the GW style "4+ to hit, 4+ to wound" style rules. Thanks for the info!

Oh dear me, no, that was not my intent at all. Bolt Action plays _nothing_ like 40k (pinning is king) and Black Powder could be considered a distant relative of Warmaster due to the command/control system... but that's about it. When not confined by GW's imposed design limitations, that's where all these guys _shine_.

Oh! Well, that is more interesting! I might have to risk the wrath of wife and sneak an order in for that then! My father likes black powder age stuff quite a bit, so it might be a fun way to get some games in with him (he's more fluff driven than rules, pretty much the opposite of me.)

 Wehrkind wrote:
Ahh that makes sense, and explains why people say Bolt Action is a good alternative to 40k for those sorts of battles. I might give it a pass then, as I have gotten a little bored with the GW style "4+ to hit, 4+ to wound" style rules. Thanks for the info!

I like Black Powder. It's fun and gives a good narrative game. Here's my review of the game: http://adventuresinminiaturegaming.blogspot.com/2009/11/warlord-gamess-black-powder-rules.html

The review is a bit long. It might help to take a look at this report of a recent battle I had: http://adventuresinminiaturegaming.blogspot.com/2015/12/black-powder-american-civil-war-battle.html

I like the game a lot, but it definitely is a 4+ to hit (with a few modifiers), 4+ to save (with a few modifiers), then take a morale test when you've taken too many unsaved hits kind of a game. But the real great part about the game is the command and control rules.

 Consul Scipio wrote:
I'm not sure about other time periods that BP cover

Black Powder generally covers the period from the Jacobite rebellion to the Mahdhist revolt, when gunpowder technology was advanced enough to make dedicated melee near useless but not enough to obselete regimented formations and melee cavalry.

Black Powder covers a long period from 1698-1913

RazorEdge wrote:
Black Powder covers a long period from 1698-1913

So far all of the supplement books and models (that I know of) WG have released have been in the inside the time period I already mentioned.

Albino Squirrel wrote:

 Wehrkind wrote:
Ahh that makes sense, and explains why people say Bolt Action is a good alternative to 40k for those sorts of battles. I might give it a pass then, as I have gotten a little bored with the GW style "4+ to hit, 4+ to wound" style rules. Thanks for the info!

I like Black Powder. It's fun and gives a good narrative game. Here's my review of the game: http://adventuresinminiaturegaming.blogspot.com/2009/11/warlord-gamess-black-powder-rules.html

I read over your review and agreed with a lot of it; however I was wondering about your point about the command. I had always assumed that there was an increasingly greater chance of getting 3 moves from higher valued commanders because the commander is good; conversely, a much less chance as that value goes does from 9 to 8 to 7 and so on for lower valued commanders. There's a greater chance of getting just a single move on lower command values due to command ineptitude (the percent chance of 3 moves gets smaller). And the 2 moves was slim for all commanders because either the order goes off flawlessly (3) or is barely understood (1), so the 2 is kind of a rare middle ground.

 sing your life wrote:

 Consul Scipio wrote:
I'm not sure about other time periods that BP cover

Black Powder generally covers the period from the Jacobite rebellion to the Mahdhist revolt, when gunpowder technology was advanced enough to make dedicated melee near useless but not enough to obselete regimented formations and melee cavalry.

I'm sure the British at Isandlwana would disagree with you.

General Hobbs wrote:

 sing your life wrote:

 Consul Scipio wrote:
I'm not sure about other time periods that BP cover

Black Powder generally covers the period from the Jacobite rebellion to the Mahdhist revolt, when gunpowder technology was advanced enough to make dedicated melee near useless but not enough to obselete regimented formations and melee cavalry.

I'm sure the British at Isandlwana would disagree with you.

Of course the Brits at Rorke's Drift would agree with him.

 Dawnbringer wrote:

General Hobbs wrote:

 sing your life wrote:

 Consul Scipio wrote:
I'm not sure about other time periods that BP cover

Black Powder generally covers the period from the Jacobite rebellion to the Mahdhist revolt, when gunpowder technology was advanced enough to make dedicated melee near useless but not enough to obselete regimented formations and melee cavalry.

I'm sure the British at Isandlwana would disagree with you.

Of course the Brits at Rorke's Drift would agree with him.

The British only really lost so badly at Isandlwana due to their bad leadership and unpreparedness. The Zulus usually took a lot more casualties than their colonialist opponents.

I think we can agree that melee was pretty useful at Isandlwana, but a lot of factors broke for the Zulu, while a lot broke against the British as well.

The thing I've heard and read over and over about massed bayonets is that it's less about the wounds caused, as the fear it causes. Successful bayonet charges rarely led to huge casualties for either side, but rather they cause the enemy to give up a position.

I had read similar things about hoplite combat. Not many people died in the scrum itself, which was mostly just shoving to and fro, but once a line broke and lost its nerve then lots of people died in the ensuing chase. Essentially so long as a force kept cohesion it was relatively safe, but good luck with that.

 Wehrkind wrote:
I had read similar things about hoplite combat. Not many people died in the scrum itself, which was mostly just shoving to and fro, but once a line broke and lost its nerve then lots of people died in the ensuing chase. Essentially so long as a force kept cohesion it was relatively safe, but good luck with that.

It was also a form of combat that allowed for armed rivalry without a huge death rate. Sure, you'd capture a ton of hoplites, but they were worth more in ransom or as prisoners than dead.

I think roughly the same thing happened in the mercenary wars between Italian City states.

The total war that arose from nationalism and industrialization is very different from a lot of earlier "let's take this outside" low intensity conflicts.

I don't know about that; I have read arguments that "total war" was largely built into the "western" style of warfare (which is to say, Greek, Roman and those who inherited their institutions), not so much a later development.

I agree that often slaves and prisoners were more valuable than dead guys, but at the same time I suspect that melee combat in general is inefficient enough to keep casualties low until morale breaks and things get crazy. My guess is most battles with a predominantly melee focus are going to have fewer casualties during the fighting part, and plenty of casualties during the "running down survivors from horseback" part. Predominantly ranged focused battles might have the opposite, but I can't think of any in early periods to use as examples, at least not ones where those ranged elements were not mounted (Rome's excursions into the east for instance.)

 Wehrkind wrote:
I don't know about that; I have read arguments that "total war" was largely built into the "western" style of warfare (which is to say, Greek, Roman and those who inherited their institutions), not so much a later development.

I agree that often slaves and prisoners were more valuable than dead guys, but at the same time I suspect that melee combat in general is inefficient enough to keep casualties low until morale breaks and things get crazy. My guess is most battles with a predominantly melee focus are going to have fewer casualties during the fighting part, and plenty of casualties during the "running down survivors from horseback" part. Predominantly ranged focused battles might have the opposite, but I can't think of any in early periods to use as examples, at least not ones where those ranged elements were not mounted (Rome's excursions into the east for instance.)

Wars of conquest were pretty nasty, but I was thinking more along the lines of smaller conflicts among political units that share a culture. Greeks would run down Persians with no restraint, but for much of classical Greece war between the city-states was less lethal.

Essentially, not every war has been fought seeking the destruction or conquest of the enemy.

 Polonius wrote:
for much of classical Greece war between the city-states was less lethal

Until the Peloponnesian War.

 Manchu wrote:

 Polonius wrote:
for much of classical Greece war between the city-states was less lethal

Until the Peloponnesian War.

Yup. It's not a coincidence that the warfare changed when the dozens to hundreds of city states began to form alliances, hegemonies, and outright empires.

No matter how hard they tried, for example, Corinth was unlikely to fully conquer and hold, say, Thebes. But a collection of a dozen states, could and did conquer even a powerful city.

I guess I should make clear that limited warfare isn't due to superior moral culture, but usually due to economic, political, or technological limitations on the ability to wage more complete war.

I think the most important a priori limitation is conceptual. It seems to me that the Greeks blundered into atrocity; they did not and could not foresee the scope of violence coming even despite the motivation for war being the maintenance of the balance of power. To try to steer this a bit back on-topic, this is getting to why I prefer rules designed for a specific period rather than some broad swath of history based on the conceit of technological development, such as Hail Caesar and Black Powder. The thing to remember about those rule sets is that they are very loose guidelines meant to support scenario-based play where the more era-specific considerations are taken into account.

 Manchu wrote:
such as Hail Caesar and Black Powder. The thing to remember about those rule sets is that they are very loose guidelines meant to support scenario-based play where the more era-specific considerations are taken into account.

I think Warlord agrees with you somewhat - hence the specific campaign books (and that Pike & Shotte was originally intended as a Black Powder supplement but eventually formed it's own ruleset!)

Yea, I agree with you guys there: each period and even conflict can really benefit from specific rule sets that capture the feel of various periods and campaigns. I suppose one could make a huge, over arching rule set that hit everything and just used various stat adjustments to make certain rules more salient in one period than another, but then that also sounds like a lot of work

 Wehrkind wrote:
Yea, I agree with you guys there: each period and even conflict can really benefit from specific rule sets that capture the feel of various periods and campaigns. I suppose one could make a huge, over arching rule set that hit everything and just used various stat adjustments to make certain rules more salient in one period than another, but then that also sounds like a lot of work

Well, that's Black Powder The core rule book has all you need for 1700-1900 but the extra books Warlord has released give you a lot more meat, scenarios, and unit rules that add the flavor for the specific conflict. Plus they are just absolutely beautiful and chock full of amazing content. Manchu has several? all? of them I believe.

 judgedoug wrote:
hence the specific campaign books (and that Pike & Shotte was originally intended as a Black Powder supplement but eventually formed it's own ruleset!)

Right, and as you know I really love their scenario books and have been buying them all up over the years. I'd really recommend them to anyone looking for something for the covered period and hope they continue putting them out (would really like to see Taiping and Boxer Rebellion books).


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 judgedoug wrote:
Manchu has several? all? of them I believe.

Let's see, I have Germania, Brittania, Dacia, The Devil's Playground, Zulu, Blood on the Nile, and Albion Triumphant vols 1 & 2 so that leaves the two army list books for HC, Rebellion, and Last Argument of Kings. I'll get them all eventually. and of course, everything they publish for BA has been great and if anything just keeps increasing in quality.

I haven't seen this posted yet, but I read on the Warlord forums that there was a mix up in the announcement of the forthcoming plastic paras. By end of the year they meant end of the fiscal year, so they should be coming in 2016 still.