Black Powder The fight for the crossroads

[ashmie]

Boom, crash, whizz, pop, bang, shctoooomm, fzzzz, wallop, splodge, chakoom!
A closely fought battle of 5 turns ended with France holding the crossroads, allowing them to gain control of the trade routes and gain further supplies for Napoleon.






























The end of turn 5 found us in a reservoir dogs style shootout between The Old Guard French, cannon and Hussars, Westphalia Landwehr and Prussian line infantry. Thanks to Lovejoy for a great game and sticking with the rules intake. I feel we covered a lot of ground with skirmish, mixed order, traverse and enfilade as well as fighting in buildings. A lot studied. Cheers. Look forward to the next one, I enjoyed today's game. Thanks also to Phil for hosting.

[me_in_japan]

Nice pics! Looks like a good day of gaming was had. I'm particularly impressed by the all-painted nature of those shots. Bravo, sir

[job]

Salute to the brave French men who fell this day. All in the name of Le Gloire!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSocC8DCtG8

May the savage Bosch become more Enlightened one of these days!

Well done gents. Beautiful miniatures and I love the battlefield. May I pass my compliments to the surely proud commander of that fine Victrix regiment of the 60th. Hurrah! Vive L'Emperur!

[ashmie]

Actually we did have a rule query I wonder if you BP players can help us out. In hand to hand combat we were testing twice at times in a turn for break tests. For example the Prussians are wounded and taken over their stamina threshold. They make a break test immediately with modifiers for the number of wounds over the threshold. We then work out the combat resolution. The Prussians then have to take a further break test for losing the combat round.
Is this correct? Should we be testing twice, once right away after reaching shaken and once after the combat res. Or should there only be one break test at the end?
Answers on a postcard please

[Primarch]

Once, at the end of the combat phase.
E.g. Prussians charge French.
French closing fire is resolved.
Prussian/French attacks are resolved.
Winner is determined.
Morale is resolved.

The exception to this rule is that closing fire from artillery causes a break test even if only 1 casualty is caused. Musket fire doesn't cause a break test when doing closing fire. ie NEVER charge guns from the front.

Off the top of my head, the 5 circumstances for break tests are:
Go over stamina from a shooting attack.
Lose combat.
Closing fire from a cannon.
Shaken and draw a combat.
Supporting a combat which you lost.

I will double check when I have my book in front of me. The only time you should be taking two tests in a turn is from charging a cannon then losing combat with it.

[ashmie]

Thanks Prim, we missed your valuable input yesterday. It's a good idea to write out basic stats for each unit on a scrap of paper. We didn't have that ready this time.
So in our instance, in a simple round of hand to hand there should be only one break test taken for the Prussians after they lost the combat res and not before when they became shaken?
I think that makes sense now and seems extreme to test twice, ie once as soon as you hit shaken during wound calculation in hand to hand and once again when you lose the combat res.

To put it simpler. Do we need to take a break test in hand to hand as soon as a unit hits shaken?

[Primarch]

Ok, I have my book in front of me now.

Test for break tests are as follows.
A. If you go over stamina from shooting.
B. If you are shaken by closing fire OR if you take any casualties from artillery closing fire.
C. If you lose hand to hand.
D. If you are shaken and draw hand to hand.
E. If you are supporting hand to hand and the fighting unit breaks (but not if it only falls back or holds it's ground).

Being shaken by hand to hand doesn't matter if you win the combat. It has no additional effect if you lose the combat. It only matters if you draw a combat.

So in short - being shaken in hand to hand does not, by itself, inflict a break test.

[ashmie]

Thank you Sir that's excellent. Thanks for taking time to reference that.
I really enjoyed BP after a long absence. Lovejoy is keen to move on to Hail Caesar and even mentioned using the rules for Warhammer which I find novel but interesting.
For me it's inspired me to bolster my Prussians. Another 3 units couldn't hurt and a few cannon.
I really like the rules and am finding them interesting enough to keep me involved for a long time to come. Got the hobby mojo back!
Prim, Mike, Job etc let me know when you next GM a battle or want to play.
@Prim, on a different note have you seen the Rorkes Drift expansions? Wow

@Job, didn't you pick up some Landwehr a while back you mentioned? Let me know if you ever need a new home for them. I would buy or exchange.

[Primarch]

The break test rules are summarized at the back of the book with the rest of the important rules.

[Lovejoy]

To be honest the only part that I think we both felt we were playing slightly wrong at the time was the break tests, even with the reference sheet. For the sake of expedience we wanted to keep the game rolling so fudged it as best we could, it worked out though.
I like the elegance of the system, the command phase especially makes it terrific fun and really encourages a kind of ownership of and involvement with your little men! Still getting used to the idea of having lists which are balanced by looking 'about the same' instead of having pointed lists, but thats fall out from some other game or other. Hail Caesar on the radar for the future.