Today was a day of firsts.
Our first game of Black Powder, the first time my 28mm Napoleonics have ever seen combat, and the first victory for General Victor-Eugène Bouillon-Cantinat!
Our first game of Black Powder, the first time my 28mm Napoleonics have ever seen combat, and the first victory for General Victor-Eugène Bouillon-Cantinat!
The 1/28e Regt. Légère takes it's place at the end of the French line. It was to be one of the few French units to survive the game, albeit taking significant casualties. The game ended in a French victory, but with a huge butcher's bill on both sides.
The British were provided by Matt, and many of the French by Achilleas. Between them, they fielded a good number of extremely well painted and inspiring figures from Perry Miniatures and from Victrix, mostly plastics. In detail I found these the equal of many metal models out there, the proportions were better, and they were a lot easier to carry! I'm becoming increasingly sold on plastics.
I'll be posting more pictures later on the West Tokyo Wargamers blog. But for now suffice to say that it was a great game and very much a "near run thing". So far the Black Powder rules seem to be giving us what we are looking for in a club game. Something that can be picked up fairly easily by those unfamiliar with the rules, which can be played to conclusion in the time available, and which is both fast and furious.
The British were provided by Matt, and many of the French by Achilleas. Between them, they fielded a good number of extremely well painted and inspiring figures from Perry Miniatures and from Victrix, mostly plastics. In detail I found these the equal of many metal models out there, the proportions were better, and they were a lot easier to carry! I'm becoming increasingly sold on plastics.
I'll be posting more pictures later on the West Tokyo Wargamers blog. But for now suffice to say that it was a great game and very much a "near run thing". So far the Black Powder rules seem to be giving us what we are looking for in a club game. Something that can be picked up fairly easily by those unfamiliar with the rules, which can be played to conclusion in the time available, and which is both fast and furious.
With French cuirassiers chomping at the bit ready to puree the British 45th Foot at the first opportunity, the much-depleted 1/28e Regt. Légère fires the final volley that will cause the last remaining British infantry unit to fail its break roll and retreat back off the table, as Bouillon-Cantinat looks on. Vive La France!
The way we played it, the game had a very "Featherstone-esque" feel to it, as we determined to finish it to the end with no brigade morale rules (we wanted to try out as many of the rules as possible, so voluntary retreat was not an option for either side!).
Despite the usual mistakes and omissions that is the case on both sides whenever a set of rules is being played for the first time, loads of fun was had by all.
The way we played it, the game had a very "Featherstone-esque" feel to it, as we determined to finish it to the end with no brigade morale rules (we wanted to try out as many of the rules as possible, so voluntary retreat was not an option for either side!).
Despite the usual mistakes and omissions that is the case on both sides whenever a set of rules is being played for the first time, loads of fun was had by all.
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5 comments:
OOO AAAAA Cantinat!
Sorry couldn't resist :-)
Nice write up and lovely figures - larger pictures please :)! Dean
Like it, Paul. I like it! I think you have just given my French army it's new chant for the "pas de charge" ; )
Dean, the pictures of the game were taken using my less-than-adequate cellular phone camera, but I'll see what I can do.
Also this was no display game for Salute or Historicon! We really wanted to get playing Napoleonics even though none of us had finished our collections yet, so the pictures I used were carefully chosen and cropped to leave out the half-painted battalions that made up a fair percentage of the armies involved! Even then as you can see from the pics there are some bases here and there which hadn't been finished yet.
But after having now got a game under our belt, we are all inspired to get to work on finishing what we've got and adding to the collections, as we hoped we would be.
Congrats Robert, a game, finally! I hope this is just the beginning of a long campaign ;-)
The pictures look great, and the map is totally awesome! I'll have to learn how to do that someday.
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