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Welcome to the Blue forces thread. Red force read no further! Generals. You have been tasked with commanding our glorious forces. Victory is assured, the enemy cannot stand before you! You have had time to marshal the armies, Of course, with the war being young, I have not had time to write down your order of battle. Let us refresh ourselves. Army construction. You all need a commander to represent yourself on the field. Commanders can be rated from 4 to 10, and this is the score you have to roll under to do anything. Each point of commander skill costs ten points. Infantry. The backbone of your forces, they are scored as follows. Size 4 points per level (is 4 for tiny, 8 for small ect..) Morale - 4 points per level Hand to hand - 1 point per level shooting 1 point per level if range 12" (smoothbore carbines) 2 points per level if range 18" (smoothbore muskets/rifled carbines) 3 points per level if range 24" (Rifled muskets/breech loading carbines) 4 points per level if range 30" (Breech loading Rifles) 5 points per level if range 36"(Bolt Action rifles) Cavalry The fancy horsemen are costed as follows Size 4 points per level (is 4 for tiny, 8 for small ect..) Morale - 4 points per level Hand to hand - 2 points per level shooting 1 point per level if range 12" 2 points per level if range 18" 3 points per level if range 24" 4 points per level if range 30" 5 points per level if range 36" Heavy cav 4 points. Artillery Size 2 points per level Morale - 2 points per level Hand to hand - 1 points per level shooting 4 point per level if range 12" 8 points per level if range 24" 12 points per level if range 36" 16 points per level if range 48" 20 points per level if range 60" This should be fairly simple. Aim for 3-6 units per battalion. For reference, here are the basic unit profiles given in the book.  You have a total of 1500 points for your force. If you want to do anything a bit more special, let me know and I can see if there are any specials that would fit. Good luck generals. Ps. Though you have been given the red colour, feel free to flesh your imagi-nation out a bit, and let me know what you want to tell your foul opponents. Grey Hunter fucked around with this message at 08:36 on Jun 30, 2020 |
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Jun 30, 2020 07:34
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Any special rules for horse-drawn "fast" cannons? Also, in the main thread it looks like only cavalry can be scouts and thus ignore the penalty for being outside 12" of a commander. Is there any chance of Tiny infantry units used as scouts for the same purpose? Seems like they might be useful for more heavily wooded areas that cav would have more trouble with.
Shoeless fucked around with this message at 09:57 on Jun 30, 2020 |
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Jun 30, 2020 09:43
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Is that 15000 points for each of us, or 15000 points combined? Also, how does artillery shooting work? I notice the example has three values.
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Jun 30, 2020 09:48
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Shoeless posted:Any special rules for horse-drawn "fast" cannons? Also, in the main thread it looks like only cavalry can be scouts and thus ignore the penalty for being outside 12" of a commander. Is there any chance of Tiny infantry units used as scouts for the same purpose? Seems like they might be useful for more heavily wooded areas that cav would have more trouble with. I'll allow tiny infantry to act as scouts. Artillery The first value is for short range (6"), the second mid (up to half) and the third long (half to full). Horse artillery moves faster when limbered (18" rather than 12" for foot art.), and can limber/unlimber for free at the start and/or end of a turn. - but they are limited to 1 stamina and 24"/48" range. (for smoothbore or rifled) It's not clear in the books how to cost this (as points are apparently for filthy casuals, as are boards less than 4"x12") - but looking at their example all guns fire at 3/2/1 and you are just paying for the range. So if you want horse artillery, it should be stamina 1, 24 or 48" range and just call it horse.
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Jun 30, 2020 11:44
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Im thinking of making a brigade of the following: 1x Voltigeurs or Chasseurs as a small scouting and screening force 2x Infantererie De Ligne 1x Old or Middle Guard Let me know if this brigade is good.
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Jun 30, 2020 15:16
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quote:Shoeless -High command Just quoting this so I can remember who wanted what. I'll take an infantry brigade, since someone has to do the dying. I assume the 1500 points is for the whole team? 6 of the given base infantry unit would be 216 points. quote:Units can be of the following sizes - Also quoting this because I was having trouble contextualizing the points per level. Generation Internet fucked around with this message at 15:38 on Jun 30, 2020 |
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Jun 30, 2020 15:33
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Yeah 1500 for the whole team. Commanders are on average level 8 and therefore 80 points.
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Jun 30, 2020 16:23
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Grey Hunter posted:Yeah 1500 for the whole team. Commanders are on average level 8 and therefore 80 points. I'm a tad rusty on BP rules: 1. Which edition are you using? 2. I can't remember but does every brigade need a commander or can a commander command multiple brigades
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Jun 30, 2020 16:47
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1st edition. And every brigade needs a commander.
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Jun 30, 2020 17:13
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As ~High Commander~ I'd like to suggest folks build their forces aiming for 200 points each. This will leave 100 points of wiggle room for people who are a few points over, and maybe a few extra goodies at the end.Grey Hunter posted:it's not clear in the books how to cost this (as points are apparently for filthy casuals, as are boards less than 4"x12") - but looking at their example all guns fire at 3/2/1 and you are just paying for the range. Okay, and we need to roll the shooting value or lower on a d10 to hit? So only a 10% chance at long range? Grey Hunter posted:1st edition. And every brigade needs a commander. Commanders are on average level 8 and therefore 80 points. Okay, and with 7 brigades that's 560 points. That seems rather a lot for just the commanders, over a third of our points. Am I understanding that right?
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Jun 30, 2020 17:41
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I don't wanna be the level 4 commander but if we gotta do a few I guess I'll volunteer. Also what time period are we doing? I don't want to build a smoothbore musket brigade if Redfor is gonna be bringing out breech loaders or bolt actions.
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Jun 30, 2020 18:00
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Phi230 posted:I don't wanna be the level 4 commander but if we gotta do a few I guess I'll volunteer. If this is based on the same era as the Black Powder table top game from warlord games which it might be even may actually be? Then this is probably Napoleon era fighting. The two main roles for cavalry will be scouting and charging weakened or out of place infantry units and possibly artillery batteries if we can out flank them. Therefore I suggest we don't spend too many points on the cavalry, our main fighting will likely come from the infantry and artillery. Also do we have an agreed consensus on what nation to base our force off for names or can we just mix and match whatever we feel like?
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Jun 30, 2020 20:53
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koolkevz666 posted:If this is based on the same era as the Black Powder table top game from warlord games which it might be even may actually be? Then this is probably Napoleon era fighting. Black Powder covers all the way up to like 1890s IIRC. It has rules for breech loaders and bolt actions.
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Jun 30, 2020 21:01
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Phi230 posted:Black Powder covers all the way up to like 1890s IIRC. It has rules for breech loaders and bolt actions. Ah thank you for the clarification.
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Jun 30, 2020 21:03
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koolkevz666 posted:Ah thank you for the clarification. Even machineguns!
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Jun 30, 2020 21:07
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So if I have worked this out right then I came up with a small cavalry force like this for my control: 2 x units of Poneys mangeurs d’ail Unit - Poneys mangeurs d’ail Size: Standard ( 12pts) Type - Cavalry Armament - Long barreled pistols, sword Hand-to-Hand - 10 (20pts) Shooting - 18" range. 5 (10pts) Morale - 1+ (24pts) Stamina - 3 Special - Heavy Cavalry (4pts) Total of 70pts per unit. So 140pts in total. Led by Commander Macron De Fromage Pané, commander level 8 at 80pts. Total is 220pts. koolkevz666 fucked around with this message at 00:07 on Jul 4, 2020 |
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Jun 30, 2020 21:19
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koolkevz666 posted:So if I have worked this out right then I came up with a small cavalry force like this for my control: Gotta love the Mac n' Cheese. Those definitely look like potent cavalry, albeit expensive. Do we want to hash out an overall strategy/unit theme for this? Like, artillery+infantry focus with minimal cavalry, or heavy cav with minimal support, etc. Or would people prefer to make up their forces and we fight with that? I think having a cohesive overall strategy that everything works towards may be more effective, but ultimately this is a game played for fun so if everyone just wants to make whatever speaks to them then that works too.
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Jun 30, 2020 22:27
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We should definitely pick at least a general direction and infantry+artillery should be the bread and butter imo.
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Jun 30, 2020 22:38
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I think we should have a full light cavalry brigade of 3-4 squadrons of something like Hussars or Chasseur a Cheval, and the other have a reduced brigade of heavy cavalry like Cuirassiers, Dragoons, or Lancers. Maybe 2 squadrons, 3 at most of Heavy. Our infantry should be cheap and plentiful, keeping guards/grenadiers, even skirmishers, to a minimum. I like the idea of our artillery commander having something akin to a full Grand Battery to support the infantry. Strategy wise we should use our light cavalry to scout and more importantly to feint and force the enemy to either deploy to our advantage or deploy slowly. Light cavalry should also be used to intercept other cavalry. Heavy Cavalry should support the infantry; attacking skirmishers where possible but otherwise attacking weak or disordered infantry units at key points along the line. Artillery should also help fulfill this purpose, hammering on their larger or more elite units or units at key points in a focused barrage. Black Powder puts heavy emphasis on morale. The more units we disorder the better, and we should focus on disorder where possible and then go for the kill. This means that we poke holes in their lines so we can double up infantry battalions against theirs. In my previous black powder the games the the whole grand strategy usually takes a back seat to by-the-numbers one/two punches of infantry and cavalry. Phi230 fucked around with this message at 22:49 on Jun 30, 2020 |
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Jun 30, 2020 22:46
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Infantry+artillery focus was something I had in mind myself. With koolkevz666 providing us some very heavy (and versatile with that shooting) cavalry, Phi230 giving some scouting cavalry and standard infantry, I would say that (should we go with this) we want a few more units of scout cavalry, more infantry, and a hekkin' lot of cannon. Looks like the standard artillery is 27 points with 48 inch range, and unless I've got something wrong a 60 inch range version would be 31 points a piece. Looking back at the original thread I see that we have two people who have a preference for infantry, so that'll keep things covered on that front I think, and El Spamo wanted cavalry; that would take care of further scouting needs. Hippocrass wanted arty, and then Generation Internet it looks like you didn't have a preference. Would you be okay with taking more artillery? All of this of course assuming that no one's especially opposed to this strategy.
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Jul 1, 2020 00:28
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Agreed basic line infantry wins battles in the end, the rest is show.
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Jul 1, 2020 00:30
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Shall we agree on a unified infantry formation?
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Jul 1, 2020 00:31
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I'm all good with taking artillery. Dignity, brawl, etc. This is all making me want to play Napoleon Total War.
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Jul 1, 2020 00:44
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Blue Team Team Building Exercise: Let's Play Scourge of War Waterloo
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Jul 1, 2020 00:45
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So the strategy then is to have mixed brigades? In that case I'll propose my brigade as the following: 1x Light Cavalry (chasseur a cheval) 2x Infantry of Line 1x Middle Guard, to keep costs down 1x Brigade Commander at 6 or 7 skill?
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Jul 1, 2020 00:49
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Phi230 posted:So the strategy then is to have mixed brigades? I mostly was mentioning that since your initial brigade you mentioned earlier was mixed. And I don't want people to have to be restricted to only one thing if they would prefer some variety. I think as long as overall our force has a reasonably heavy focus on infantry and cannon with some light cav and sparse heavy cav, we'll be good whether they're segre
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Jul 1, 2020 01:24
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As an example I have been working out a quick infantry brigade to play with, I would be interested to know which directions to go in to improve it, also apologies I have defaulted to British style naming but can easily change that; Infantry Brigade Commander - 80 2 * Line infantry Batalion - 74 Guards infantry batalion - 54 Light infantry company - 28 Total - 236 Line infantry batalion; Size - standard - 12 Weapon - smoothbore musket Morale - 4 - 16 H2H - 3 - 3 Shooting - 3 - 6 Total - 37 Guards infantry batalion; Size - standard - 12 Weapon - Rifled musket Morale - 6 - 24 H2H - 6 - 6 Shooting - 4 - 12 Total - 54 Light infantry company Size - Tiny - 4 Weapon - Smoothbore musket Morale - 3 - 12 H2H - 6 - 6 Shooting - 3 - 6 Total - 28
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Jul 1, 2020 03:37
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Im gonna reread the rules tomorrow but if I remember correctly stamina is incredibly important as it measures how many casualties you can before a risk of routing or being destroyed With regards to that infantry brigade I feel we can maybe add another skirmish company and standard infantry battalion. Might be too expensive but I feel at least one reinforced brigade as a shock force would be good
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Jul 1, 2020 03:45
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@Grey Hunter, can we get horse artillery? Signing up as a staff officer/replacement. Mixed brigades probably aren't a good idea. The Big Man himself certainly wasn't a fan. Napleon posted:"The practice of mixing small bodies of infantry and cavalry together is a bad one, and attended with many inconveniences. The cavalry loses its power of action. It becomes fettered in all its movements. Its energy is destroyed; even the infantry itself is compromised, for on the first movement of the cavalry its left without support. The best mode of protecting cavalry is to cover its flank." I do think we should also consider our posture and our tactics. Are we going to strive for an offensive battle where we take the fight to the enemy? Or are we going to hunker down and make them come to us? Are we going to go for a Frederician linear battle? Grandes bandes skirmisher swarms? Fuckoff huge Emory Upton-style attack columns? Each approach is going to lend itself to different force compositions. Linear tactics lend themselves to veteran troops with decent weapons. Skirmishing favors troops with long-ranged rifles. Columnar attacks are a numbers game, with some lower-quality chaff to absorb enemy fire and some higher-quality troops to seal the deal (the French put their elite troops at the back of their battalion columns partly for this reason). I would suggest having a handful of elite skirmishers with very un-French rifles (maybe even breechloaders) and the massed artillery battery Phi230 proposed to pick apart their infantry before unleashing a massed assault in columns.
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Jul 1, 2020 03:59
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Excellent post but knowing BP rules I might favor less reliance on mass artillery. Artillery is good, but if we are going to do Grand Battery we need heavy hitters before I feel they're reliable. Like 12 pounder napoleons and having 6-8 of them. poo poo, bigger the better, give me 6 24 pounders behind me and ill feel good as an infantry commander.A good strategy under this rules regime ive found is to pin enemy battalions with an infantry battalion of your own, then when the time is right, charge with a second, more elite infantry battalion in column. Also do not forget special rules. An elite infantry battalion may have marginally better stats but one or two special rules turn them into a fearsome force to be reckoned with on the tabletop. Phi230 fucked around with this message at 04:40 on Jul 1, 2020 |
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Jul 1, 2020 04:25
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Bacarruda posted:@Grey Hunter, can we get horse artillery? He said this earlier: "Horse artillery moves faster when limbered (18" rather than 12" for foot art.), and can limber/unlimber for free at the start and/or end of a turn. - but they are limited to 1 stamina and 24"/48" range. (for smoothbore or rifled) It's not clear in the books how to cost this (as points are apparently for filthy casuals, as are boards less than 4"x12") - but looking at their example all guns fire at 3/2/1 and you are just paying for the range. So if you want horse artillery, it should be stamina 1, 24 or 48" range and just call it horse. " --- As for posture, I was going to go for aggressive scouting while artillery takes advantageous positions early on to pound the enemy as soon as they're found.
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Jul 1, 2020 04:28
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Phi230 posted:Blue Team Team Building Exercise: Let's Play Scourge of War Waterloo Stop reading my future LP ideas.....
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Jul 1, 2020 05:17
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Phi230 posted:Also do not forget special rules. An elite infantry battalion may have marginally better stats but one or two special rules turn them into a fearsome force to be reckoned with on the tabletop. Are we playing with special rules? If Red Force gets something like Steady Line, attacks in column get a bit dicier and defending in line gets a lot more appealing. Shoeless posted:As for posture, I was going to go for aggressive scouting while artillery takes advantageous positions early on to pound the enemy as soon as they're found. What's the infantry going to do in the decisive phase of the battle? I'm not opposed to a certain amount of "wait and see" at the start of the battle wherevwe probe for weak spots and grab key terrain. On the flip side, Napoleonic fighting really punishes indecision and demands full commitment to a plan of action once it's in motion. And our force structure will determine what courses of action we can pursue. Would a force structure like this make sense? 1x Shock cavalry brigade(-) (koolkevz666's Mac n' Cheeses?) 1x Light cavalry brigade (El Spamo?) 2x Line infantry brigade(+) and 1x Guard infantry brigade(-) or 3x Infantry brigade(+) with additional light infantry, grenadiers, etc. 1x Artillery brigade Alternatively, we could just cheese everything and go for a small corps of riflemen with breech and bolt/action rifles and re-enact Königgrätz.
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Jul 1, 2020 06:48
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Bacarruda posted:What's the infantry going to do in the decisive phase of the battle? Because iirc the rules say you need to shoot at the closest unit (except artillery), infantry would be a blocking force to keep enemy infantry from double-timing it up to our artillery, as well as threatening enemy cavalry. Once the battle is well and truly joined, they'd advance under cover of cannon fire to further disrupt enemy infantry, force the enemy line to deal with them instead of focusing on our harassing cavalry. As for force composition, I was actually hoping for 2 or even 3 artillery brigades. REALLY hammer home with the cannons. Shoeless fucked around with this message at 08:16 on Jul 1, 2020 |
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Jul 1, 2020 08:02
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Just getting home from work. How specifically should we build our artillery batteries. If I'm reading the thread right, we have two batteries claimed. I have some experience with John Tiller's Napoleon games, so that's really my frame of reference. Do we want a wide variety of range classes, or only a select few. One configuration I had played around with in my head at work was a 6 gun battery of 4 medium range (36's) guns fore anti-personnel fire and two longer range guns, preferably breech-loading if that's available, for more versatility, targeting back line or counter-battery operations. I don't know how feasible this is though. Any thoughts from those more familiar with how the system works, or how batteries were actually set up in period?
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Jul 1, 2020 08:52
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A few resources that may be of interest! The guy who runs the Napoleonic Wargaming channel had a video on infantry defense that cover the mechanics of an infantry column colliding with a line of infantry. French infantry unit composition and tactics are covered in this video. The British are discussed here. He also has a long retrospective on the Greatest Game firefight of Waterloo. It's a long video, but the most salient lessons are about aggression, the efficacy of French columnar attacks, and the "cavalry slingshot". The game's designer, Rick Priestly has a tutorial for Black Powder 2, which is very similar to the Black Powder 1 ruleset we are using. Some grog has compiled a list of the differences between the two rulesets here. They're pretty drat similar. Shoeless posted:Because iirc the rules say you need to shoot at the closest unit (except artillery), infantry would be a blocking force to keep enemy infantry from double-timing it up to our artillery, as well as threatening enemy cavalry. Once the battle is well and truly joined, they'd advance under cover of cannon fire to further disrupt enemy infantry, force the enemy line to deal with them instead of focusing on our harassing cavalry. So we're going with a defensive, firepower-heavy gameplan? Works for me. If that's our plan, I might cut us down to just one cavalry brigade for scouting and screening. That'll free up points for infantry rifles and some bigger guns for counter-battery. Hippocrass posted:Any thoughts from those more familiar with how the system works, or how batteries were actually set up in period? The norm was usually to have the battery be all one type of gun or a mix of guns and howitzers. For example, many armies in the Napoleonic Wars had 6 identical guns and 2 howitzers in a battery. So you might have six 12-pounders and two 6-inch howitzers in a heavy hitting corps reserve battery. Bacarruda fucked around with this message at 14:26 on Jul 1, 2020 |
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Jul 1, 2020 12:50
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Phi230 posted:Im gonna reread the rules tomorrow but if I remember correctly stamina is incredibly important as it measures how many casualties you can before a risk of routing or being destroyed I would love to have added extra batalions but I am aware that the cost is rising fast, and would limit our ability to field artillery.
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Jul 1, 2020 15:11
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If we had to choose between an extra battery of artillery and an extra infantry brigade I'd go with the infantry, personally
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Jul 1, 2020 17:14
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Okay, so lemme put things down that have been picked so far. koolkevz666- Heavy cavalry brigade Phi230- Infantry Hippocrass- Artillery Generation Internet's agreed to go for artillery as well. That leaves Jimmy4400nav, BadgerRat, and El Spamo who I don't think I've seen post here yet. With that in mind I'd like if two of them accepted infantry commands and one scouting cavalry.
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Jul 1, 2020 17:47
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Be aware my cavalry units don't have the Heavy Cavalry rule but I could drop their hand to hand to 8 and pick up the Heavy Cavalry rule. For clarification Grey what does the Heavy Cavalry special rule do?
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Jul 1, 2020 18:56
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