As much fun as our games are, there are those that like a good competitive game.

So thoughts have turned to how to field a competitive Napoleonic Army using Black Powder 2 rules?

At this point John Hutton has played with his light bulb and had a bright idea(he tends to have bright ideas…) and has done some serious numbers crunching and come up with a series of army lists. The initial lists correspond to the armies we are using at the moment, namely French and Russians. The rest will follow in time.

The aim is to be able to have a game in roughly 2.5 to 3 hours therefore allowing for a game of an evening, or our target for the year to commence a tournament for a minimum of 8 players at the local “Call to Arms” convention in August 2019.

Our initial points per army is a 300 point army.

I hosted 2 games the other night where my Russians faced Roberts French and Paul’s Russians faced Russell’s French Imperial Guard. The French won both games. For the purpose of these first games we decided to rate all commanders as rating 8’s. The standard in future will be 7 and then you pay 7 points extra to increase to an 8 and then 7 more to a  9 etc.

My army was:

• Commander in Chief
• Brigade Commander with 4 bttns Grenadiers plus battery
• Brigade Commander with 4 bttns Musketeers plus battery
• Brigade Commander with 4 bttns Jager
• Brigade Commander with 2 regts Cuirassiers and 1 regt Uhlans
• Brigade Commander with 2 regts Hussars, 2 Regts Cossacks and 1 horse battery

Robert fielded:

• Commander in Chief
• Brigade Commander with 6 bttns and a battery
• Brigade Commander with 6 bttns and a battery
• Brigade Commander with 2 regts Cuirassiers plus a horse battery
• Brigade Commander with 2 regts Dragoons
• Brigade Commander with 2 regts Chasseurs, 1 regt Lancers and a horse battery
• 12pder battery

I got walloped. Tried to move up slowly allowing my artillery to shoot at long range where have extra shot…didn’t work. Skirmish line of Jager didn’t work,  cavalry wouldn’t charge(well try to) or when did…failed to reach French…and when we did reach them and fight…even with odds in my favour…Robert saved wounds and dealt them back…..with extra pain…..and Robert had his heavy cavalry on his right flank and they had a good time chopping me up and his horse artillery got onto flank of my cavalry who didn’t want to move.

Sigh…… one of those forgetable days at the office.

So lessons learned from game?

1. Light cavalry are not battle cavalry and in a competitive game, you need battle cavalry so out they go and Cuirassiers/Dragoons the way to go. They will have their place in scenario/campaign/fun games.
2. The heavy cavalry need a commander on a rating of 9 to ensure the cuirassiers who are reliable are running around on a rating 10. When you order them, you need them to do it. Dragoons will have to settle for a 9!
3. Playing 3 small brigades of Russian infantry may be historically correct….but cannot afford it. Command rating 7’s with units in column gives a command rating effectively of 8. 2 brigade commanders 23 inches apart with the overall commander in between allows me to reroll a command roll either way and negates need to spend more points on them.
4. Artillery…am Russians…need to field more guns…somehow…few test games to be played and will continue to tinker around. In meantime, Front Rank are going to need to send me some more figures as don’t have any Jager and subbing in Austrian landwher just does not look right.

Pictures of the 2 games below.

 

And that was it….2 French victories. Hopefully that won’t happen next round of trial games.