Attacking the Allied wagon convoy... Marlburian syle

I've always thought one of the best things about Black Powder is the self-assembly form of the rules... although there are stats listed for various periods the rules are designed to be tinkered with and a degree of research into your chosen army is required.  I'm a big fan of army lists too but the BP approach does mean you have to learn a bit more about the period... my old History teacher would be proud!

I haven't wheeled out Black Powder in a while but we played a game last week based around a War of the Spanish Succession.  Andrew and I played the French/Bavarians attacking Dave and new member Kevin's allied convoy.  If you haven't played BP each commander has to roll to see how many orders his units can carry out [or not if he fluffs the dice roll]: my infantry arrived first and sped towards the small village in the centre of the table although I expected the Allies to get there first.  Thanks to a command blunder [by rolling a double 6] my steady advance turned into a full on charge which actually meant I arrived first, charged right through the town and into the leading Dutch troops!  After a bit of a tussle the Allies were thrown back and the French settled down to defend the town.

Andrew's first cavalry brigade arrived and, having successfully passed 3 orders, charged right across the table and rode down half the wagons!  By turn 2  we'd achieved half of our victory conditions.  Unfortunately the first of Dave's infantry reinforcements then arrived right in front of the cavalry and gave an effective lesson in the advantage of massed musket fire.  The cavalry were driven back and eventually, after a few turns of trying to disengage, were routed.

The Allied Cavalry advance

My infantry in the centre were holding their own against the Allied troops despite Kevin managing to nearly turn my flank and managing to get some nast enfilade fire into one unit, and had seen off a cavalry attack on the right flank, .  Andrew's 2nd cavalry brigade then arrived and counter-attacked the cavalry on the right flank, apart from 1 French unit who very sensibly decided to interpret an order to advance as "head back off the table".  The other units charged headlong into the Allied cavalry, breaking them too.  They managed to destroy some more wagons, leaving just 1 which had little chance of getting to safety.



The French cavalry gather...

The firefight in the centre was slowly going the way of the French... although the Allies had been able to bring up a fresh brigade the units were all slowly beginning to reach their stamina limits and there was a danger of the Brigade collapsing.

At this point we decided that the Allies had lost the day with only 1 wagon left, a very shaky centre and French [or Bavarian] cavalry loose on their flanks.  Black Powder always gives a fast moving and pretty exciting game and this was no exception.  So far I've used these rules for AWI, colonial [Zulus], Franco-Prussian War and now the WAS and it works well for them all with a bit of tweaking.

Next week we're having another game, this time based around the FPW.