Introduction to Black Powder - featuring Rick Priestley

[Music] hi guys I'm Tobias Whitmarsh and this is Rick Priestley and we are going to run you guys through a game of black powder today and look at the new rules changes for black powder to the second edition so to get started Rick how do we get start with a game of black powder black power is played in turns so you have to know whose turn it is so you can decide amongst yourselves you roll the dice and I suggest you roll the dice and the highest one goes first you you've rolled six so you you go first gonna be me with the French so how do I start off a turn then Rick well what you have in front of you is a brigade rather than an army and the brigade is led by a single commander who's the chap on the hill you and you just say what you want your troops to do and then if you succeed in making your dice test you'll do it so what do you want your guys to do cool so I'm basically like them to advance forward so I can do this either as an individual unit so I can do this as a brigade you can you can essentially if you want to give the same order to more than one unit you only need to give the order once so if you want your two infantry units to say advance to the middle of the table just say I want those two units to move to the middle of the table if you want your light cavalry to come off and sweep around the edge you need to give them a separate order because it's a different thing you want them to do so decide what you want your army to do I think what I'll do as advanced as a full Brigade to the center of the table so give my dice or all right you're rolling against Nate so you're looking to get a number of eight or less because that is the staff that's his staff rating that is the value you are all against you've rolled a seven swarm less if you're all one west you get one move two less you get two moves three less you get three moves if you're all the same number you also get one move there are some subtleties and variations on that idea but that's essentially how black powder works so your guys get one move and a single move is 12 inches and 12 3-year infantry is 1850 cavalry there is a slight complexity because you gave the order to the whole unit that hold the whole brigade the whole brigade has to be coherent when you've finished your move loving these they've got to be within six inches of each other yeah basically you move you order them as a brigade you move them as a brigade they have to be a brigade to the end of them as a move so there you go so Rick what would you say black powder is black powder yeah black pounds again that I put together with Jervis Johnson did that out of ten years ago now mmm to play big games of Napoleonic s-- and all the black powder periods but essentially Napoleonic round at the Perry twins and Perry twins have got a big game set up and we would often play multiplayer games so three four people aside sometimes and we wanted to play them relatively quickly you can't when you fill a table then you imagine this is just a small portion of a table when you fill a table and you've got three full players aside it can take a long time to play game mmm using conventional rules anyway in fact quite often we end up it was midnight and we'd only just started to engage quite a large pool yeah yeah you know it's a school night as well so you know we decided to try using my war master game system mm-hmm it was Gervais that suggested it nice and Gervais did all the initial rule we'll work on it but once he'd got this rough thing sketched out he didn't really have the time to finish it so I basically wrote the game up hmm and the essential difference between war master and black powder was a little in wall master you make sequential moves so you given orders for unison it moves you can think of it further order and then you can give it a further order mostly three but we didn't want to do that with all the 28 millimeter figures we've got because they're based by either like or even worse individually I laugh and the Parrish collection is based every way every which way you cannot imagine you know no consistency in base sizing no consistency in the unit frontages or anything so I just wrote a game up that allowed you to play big games of the poly onyx on black powder generally the big games of napoleonic with whatever people brought along and however many people played hopefully getting it finished before midnight mmm and that's kind of what the games about it's a great club game it's built as a club game and it's built as a multiplayer game he's not built to be played on small tables with small forces between two people so what we're doing here is demonstrating the game rather than playing a game you can't play it like this I don't think I think it loses a lot of its essential character and charm for that for the reasons I've explained but one thing is I've literally done one command and I've moved across the table so I can see how it's a very quick very quick and how do I not been blathering endlessly they we would have played another turn at least so shall I take my turn so yeah don't forget and people do sometimes forget including me you can forgive people if they forget all the best to take the piss you've got to move you commander oh yes he's slacking it the back is because it is is one of those things in the game that the further away I am further away you are the harder it is to give a command so you don't want to be skulking at the back you've probably had an unfortunate of bowel movement having consumed the English army so I'm going to move up so I'm in the center of my army so then I'm not in range to fire and that is that's 12 inches and yes the the you want to make sure that your commander is within 12 inches of everything he wants to command in the following turn if possible I'm gonna be able to do that well I'd suggest to that would be a good place yeah getting stuck in don't worry about your commander getting shot your commanders cannot be targeted so they're never vulnerable they're really a focus for your the technical command of the of the brigade they're not representing individuals in quite the same way as they would might in a skirmish war game understand well I think that's the end of my turn so is your turn oh yeah sure well I shall them I shall meet your your pathetic attempt to advance upon me for my boldly marching forward brilliant so you need to be specific about your your I could say move forward as far as possible yeah in which case I'm at the mercy of whatever I roll on the dice mm-hm and sometimes that's quite a convenient order you're playing on a big table it's quite easy to say Wow I'll charge that unit over there and a charge is a move intended to bring you into contact but if you're further away then you can possibly reach you might as well say I'll charge the enemy army and then you just obliged to go straight forward as fast as possible people sometimes do that sometimes they regret it the friend of mine once said the faster you move the faster you get into trouble them on this occasion we're getting to advance in a sensible measured fashion to about their so on parallel with them now you can do that when you're given orders perfectly acceptable to say I'll go over there I'll go here you know just gesture I mean if you want to play the role of the pot you can quite you can quite easily say I wish the fifth foot to advanced to guard this position by this village if that is what it is you can get into it if you want you really get into it if you feel like it but there's a I think in practice it's often easy to say I'm going to advance to this position along unison and not worry too much about the words that's the other thing about powder it's a consensual game it relies upon you describing what you want to do and then doing it and you have to do what you say you're going to do which gives you every opportunity to play word games if you're feeling so inclined and to a challenge what your opponent said but you only really works if you're good friends and the game was played designed that way it was designed to be played between friends it wasn't designed to be played in a tournament or a competitive style hmm and I think you'd struggle to do that but you can get around all off those things by being just being more literal so this is where I'm going to advance to only my infantry and and I would point out at this point I only have infantry and an artillery piece here tiller is not included in this order it's going to stay where it if so I've rolled a six again at stores because I'm also an eight as my staff rating so I get two moves well the two moves will allow me to get to where I said I was going to go in fact just over one move we'll but I'll make those about that it's about that's about 14 inches so why you're even those rec I massage me another question so the second addition how did that evolve from the first edition mostly because we keep reprinting the thing and when you keep reprinting a book you tend to think oh gosh photograph looks a bit dodgy and if we were doing it today we'd do these things slightly differently and I think the game has evolved a little bit you know there aren't human eighths that effect and some of the supplements have also introduced changes which people have liked yeah and which we thought were worthy of incorporating into the new game particularly on fire find too much skulking at the back of you know they get involved yeah they're going to they will so we just thought well it's been out ten years hmm why don't we just do an updated version of the game second edition it's not a radically different game yeah the main changes are in the scenarios we've replaced all the old battle reports with a large selection of scenarios and they've all been written by the contributors to the supplant so they've been written by these the people have a special knowledge of those periods rather than by me I've updated the rule set as I say but it's not a radically different if you play black powder already you'll be playing black powder mmm you know I haven't changed it it no longer yeah I haven't made a d-10 based system or introduced to anything but bazzara usually the stats are all good the existing supplements are all good even where I've changed a few things like for example there are a set of selection of special rules for commander figures we're not using today we're playing basic game but just as there are selection of special rules that apply to some units which allow you to differentiate between different time periods and different qualities of troops there are there are rules for commanders and I change those because previously they were done on a random generation principle and some of them were a little some of them weren't used so I've changed the way the overall generals work a little bit I've changed the specials for commanders which are all optional but I've retained the names so even though some of the supplements refer to those rules they'll still refer to a rule so does that mean the supplements that we've had out for quite some time is still useable for black I think that's the point I'm trying to make no problem home yeah they are okay well I've advanced into the teeth of the enemy yes and what what what rotted in ghastly teeth they are now the range for musket fire is 12 inches tall and you measure from the middle so lawdy lawdy i do appear to be somewhat out of range I might just be able to erase there well this is one of those consensual situations I'll let you go for it then that's very gentlemanly of your thank yous reversed yes I think there's there Justine okay this is how you do shoots so you don't shoot as individuals do you in black powder unit shoots and you typically get if that's a full sized unit which we that is typically what a full sized unit would be units can be different sizes they can be large in which case they get better stance or they can be small in which case they get poorest at these cavalry units are typically small size and what makes them small is not necessarily the number of figures but the frontage they deploying when they're in line and that is this is a typical frontage for a unit and this is about half there's a general idea if the frontage is about half is a smaller unit so so we have two small units of cavalry four times unit three shots yep is there outlines to get more muscular let's get three shots if they deployed into a column which the French typically do because they get they get certain advantages in column which we impress demonstrate later then you only get one shot if you're in a March column which you would only use to move towards the battlefield really then and again you don't you don't get the shooting a you really have to be in a line to shoot and that's typically what you deploy and it's typically what you fight in three shots in this case I've got this whack of terrain here this bit of this imagine that's a village or a group of buildings rather than a single building well it lies within my frontage and frontage is 45 degrees I'm shooting like this if something lies within your frontage you usually get a penalty so rather than rather than the normal to hit we did get one sadly fives to hit normally is fort yeah bit of a bit of a bit of going on there so five so we get two sixes and a three miss with one shot and I've got two sixes yes with the sixes are very useful in black powder because when you roll six when you shoot you cause a disorder mm-hmm so do we have a disorder marker do you we have something you can use anything as a marker we're going to use these these are the actually pin markers that's where we sell for bolt action and also for a gate santori's but we'll use them for a disrupter markers because they're quite distinctive so what does this sort of represent in a warfare sense does this represent them having a good shot good shot honor yes he could be one of the shots has taken out some officers yeah then they're all going what's going on guv not if they're French plainly and or they could have taken out so just a proportionate number of troops and they're suffering from the shock of fire it could also occur that you need it could also be that the informations have been disrupted by other factors loud noises of loud noises a sudden gas bill we weren't expecting whatever so that they are disordered that affects them next turn and will they means they can't move we can explain that one more importantly I got two hits on you yes I thought I'd forgotten no no no of course not so that means I have to roll two dice as a morale safe yeah he's called the morale safe because the the principal is no matter how many casualties you've got if you're going to we can take it then that then it doesn't really matter it's more a reflection of a units ability to withstand fire rather than the number of casualties killed so two dice and you're we can also refer to as a save it is effectively a save your unit force applause right okay so you've you've passed your morale saves their yeah I can't do anything else but wait what's this at the back it's my cannon cannon can't fire overhead cuz it's on a hill yeah it's got a range of 48 inches you're 30 far away it's over it's over half range well a cannon fires if it's over half range you could fight anything so I've got a choice of target I don't have to fire the closest normally you always have to fire the closest thing should have said that before but in this case I've got a choice of targets but I'm going to shoot to that units straight in front of me brilliant because it's no bad shots of mine has warned a hit yeah because it's long range it's a minus 1/2 hit so I'm looking at force 5 60s I need a sixth is it just one nice because of the range it's only one dice close to the range if it was within half range on this predictably if it was in half range it beat - and if it's close it's three yeah it close range is only six inches so you don't tend to get the point-blank range and I suppose that represents with grape shot and then able to use Callahan roll and closing thus yes balsam so so I'm done that's everything you can do so it's now my couch it is over to you sir brilliant brilliant so you've ruined my plans over here to charge with the cavalry because they won't be able to do anything now because yeah because they disordered they basically can't be given an order this turn and they can't make an initiative move we haven't talked about initiative moves yet but some had they've been because because I shot at you we established you within 12 inches if you're within 12 inches of the enemy you can make an initiative move instead of being given an order so for example these guys here and the other things we haven't mentioned this but it's worth saying we don't fuss about measuring you can measure anything anytime bust anything anything on the table any time so these guys are within 12 inches of me mm-hmm which means we needs two things if you want to give them an order mmm it's a minus one penalty mm-hmm if you want to use an initiative you can do so so the tendency is that you'll give orders talk you need to get quite close and once they're close you can you can close in on initiative there's a way to do it so there's initiative moves go before orders yep really so in making these to those fools and and if you wanted to do some of that you could do I think I'm going to I'm gonna use my initiative over here for this unit of cavalry to charge into your infantry okay you only do that you just crack on you don't you don't have to make a test right because unknown within 12 I am of course the Napoleonic infantry yeah which automatically form into a square brilliant so they all do that thing it works for this so just move them into a physical square so they were facing all different edges there is a there is a obligation to take a test mm-hmm this is where you might blunder but you might get disordered or hasty square basically a comic square easily with these but you know just something like a square will do yeah in actual fact Napoleonic squares varies hugely from army to army and some of them weren't at all square there are a lot of them quite all blonde or in clump you know and they were all proper formations that they could they could make in response to cavalry charge Austrians been seriously bad at into forever and British were quite quick so yeah but anyway I've done it there is a test to be made yeah the it's called forming a hasty square because and I basically roll two dice and I don't want to ones and I didn't want to sixes so I'm looking for seven plus five is fine they're two ones or two sixes would mean I would be caught disordered or unable to form square because moving that many men at one time is gonna be a bit of a hard challenge so fun so so there we go so can I actually charge into a square some of these formulas yeah you can't you know you can't so does that mean I have to sort of you bounce back bounce back so you the distance you move towards about 12 inches only so you basically bounce the rest of you move which isn't very far as movies just like yeah makes sense brilliant so that's - Jim you've done with the cavalry so no I can't do anything with these chaps who are here so what I'm going to do with these guys here is advant advantage and put them at ranges six inches saying you're really close and get a benefit from the shooting and then open fire so I know I'm not within twelve interests so I'll need to roll for this okay rollin eight so that's one movement one probably get you closer my getting close you know it's worth checking this case before you move if you within eighteen as you are then you can move to winning point one if it's a little bit marginal it's always best to make them move before you move because as you move towards you invariably get a little bit out of skew yes so it just makes it absolutely crystal clear that you can do what you said you were going to do yes so move trying chin there these chaps as well as really soon just measuring from the middle isn't it you measure the from any part and no part of the unit can move further than the distance you measure rate shooting from the middle back that makes sense there we go brilliantly so I'm just gonna at the end of all of that I'm gonna move that chap their brilliance oh we're about to go on to the firing so you're going to entertainers with your musketry sir I think highway lethen IV could be fun he's the same as me so you basically roll three dice with this your shooter the closest target and I'm playing that was right in front of you so it's not a problem that's not a significant thing anymore to some extent it's a matter of judgment whether something gets in the way of the shot or not and in this case it plainly doesn't so let's go for a three three dice you need force I figure close range so you need three threes so I've got a 4 and a 6 under to two saves required by me yeah and disordered as well yeah and the six will disorder me once evolved a 5 and a 3 so 1 1 save and I want casualty we're more casualties with it you can use anything to more casualties including casualty figures by that one you can just put a distinctly colored dice beside the unit like in this sort of fashion the only problem with doing that is it's all too easy to pick the things up and roll them yes or we can use some of them were kind of mock because we're using the pin markers for a disorder we'll just use a little you've been last last bead one of these things because they're quite distinctive and they'll show up on the camera as well and then I'll give you a disordered as well as a sex good a bit of French shooting there so I'll go on to the next unit then for name that's the first casualty mmm a standard sized unit can take three casualties in total before it becomes out of action but we will address that when it when it comes to it these guys gonna show you there are so three again and again it's three it's an additional plus one because it's a point-blank so it's three plus and we go six and A five all those sixes two saves required and in this case I've failed both so that's two casualties don't you so the French shooting was good today yes mmm characteristic and there was the six amongst those as well so yes again and disordered he's not going well for Wellington of the same is looking very very little G is it right at the end of the turn that's when you remove your disordered tokens yes so you're finished your shooting yeah you cannot do anything else ending your turn remove your disorder token oh yeah that's done sweet so that's the end of my turn no it's my turn now I can't do anything move wise with these two guys can't give them an order because they've got disorders mmm these can't change from there the square because they've got cavalry within 12 inches it wants a squares what cavalry within 12 inches it's effectively pinned in place which is a bit inconvenient but I can still shoot from the the square and intend to do so so I'll begin I can't give orders to anything that pending points to the shooting there I know I won't give orders to the and you found my artilleries lot you've been masked now so yesterday into the shooting now because I've got this order marker yeah it's a minus 1 penalty but because I'm at 6 inch range its failure plus 1 so that cancels out so the basic school is forced to hit 3 dice rolled and I've got miss and listen a Miss that's not going well pretty today a few you got away with it then the next battalion result three more misses so again nothing obviously being disconnected by the the French fire now the the square gets to two shots off each square I remember right so to there and that's to hit because on the close range so two plus one so three is a quite it's a two hit so that means only time I make two saves and I get a three and a four so that's one safe so that's yeah I've done oh yeah there we go okay so you've got a well now these guys can as well small units can only take two casualties so that's the model inconvenient mmm my gun I likes playing my guns on the hill here mm-hmm you can shoot overhead but you have to have a certain amount of clearance in front of your own troops and these are too close and those are too close so those so it's actually an awful position to shoot so my guns been masked and I'm somewhat frustrated by the rapidity of the French advance come on strong today so it's the end of my turn mm-hmm the disorder marker comes off and you get to go so one thing I was gonna ask as you said at the start of the game that the French get bonuses with when going into column what are those bonuses and what sorta day do they represent feel free now if you go to : then you get a +1 on your on your stuff staff rating when you give an order so you're more likely to obey an order they're also more likely to survive shooting they the advantage of being in a column is there's a huge morale boost either one way of putting it another way of putting it is that the guys at the back don't care what's happened to guys at the front so as the troops of the front get get hit by musket fire the guys at the back push forward and this is what makes columns particularly dangerous for anyone still to the front of one but dangerous on the point of view of anyone being attacked by them they have a certain amount of impetus that just keeps going and it's worth saying that the column in Poe and the polygon term isn't really a block of men it's really it's really successful succession of lines behind each other mmm just giving that weight and that support but we can't represent that with so few um you can't represent and five six hundred men in those kind of perform a shion's with just 20 or 30 models so we we tend to make columns up if I may in this fashion Center : and that's something like the actual width of a column organized into did initially called column of division somewhat confusingly in reality it would have two companies of men at the front but usually in a battalion has six companies or they're about something very easy for you Oh easy at something yeah lovely the best way to base any black powder figures is like this on a 40 by 40 base if they're infantry or a 50 by 50 base if they're cavalry there is very little to be gained by putting them on individual basis unless they're skirmishing type troops and I imagine these have been done to give them an option to go into skirmish formation with his song troops yes exactly correct yeah yeah but the journey and all the British are actually ethos the organized like this can't so it is my turn so would I be able to take these French take them through the trees and round with is that is that possible is that something I can do everything yeah yeah yeah you can you can't actually move through woods but so we were imagining that these trees merely a decorative feature when you organize your your games yeah it's quite important to the start of the game now which we didn't do it plainly to say well you know that's an area of woodland that's an area of woodland with the space between and the other trees on the table and there are a few here or there or just making the battery look pretty and we shan't pay too much attention to them and if it comes down to it they may even move a little bit and that's generally how we play so it just allows you to make a decorative battlefield without forcing over the terrain getting on with the action so that individual tree is an individual tree any in terms of playing our game we won't worry about it so yes you can't because you can move past this call so in which case then I am gonna give an order to my Calvary on on my right flank to crash through the trees and run around the buildings come into the back of the British yes you can you can't charge the British because if you wanted to charge them you'd have to charge the front which is you can't digs desert rips in the way in you you can actually move through your own troops it's not a not an issue in black powder so that's exciting oh and in that case then would I be able to charge make a charge here through your own unit the same we imagine these formations are a little loose or in practice into here the only thing is you would then stop yourself from firing but all that sounds exciting though that's okay I'm gonna give these giving you can see before you do put you've any losses the end of my move oh yeah I'm sure remove those thoughts so I'm going to send these guys into a charge into your infantry through my own infantry so brave sir very brave the brave French earn today see they are and I'm so I'm so unconcerned by this thing that's an initiative move I presume yes yeah okay so you were able to form square from such a small distance I could but I think I I don't see the point I'd sooner stand there and shoot at you Oh exciting do you have a choice then yeah you don't have to form square he's very troops if sometimes take cavalry the inlines gives more instinctive to form squares in the per Leone tons but often prior to that it was quite common for units to standard shooter to cavalry for an answer this now I mean you get to shoot back meters that one of the choices you can have as a it's a reaction to to be in charge of meters and Josh will do that's at close range so go get the plus one please call assignments make three saves now and I get two sixes and a one so that is one want B to go down morning lots of sixes today lucky lucky brilliant so now what else I'm going to do is it's not a great deal I can do with these guys over here I'm going to give them an order to just come round and round the sights well you need to you don't want because you're within 12 inches of the enemy so seventh citizens and I get an eighth so you don't move so I've felt there we go so I'm just going to go straight into any shooting that I have so as you've said these guys cannot shoot because they are they have the cavalry in the way for these are in point-blank range so going to bear down on the enemy once more so it's three dice because they're in line and then I put my range so it's three plus and I get two sixes and a four so three three hit men dangerous and I need force save I've saved with one so I get two more casualties you can't actually take one three three is shaken hmm and the extra one which I'll pull down for now triggers a Brahe test with the minus one penalty which I'll take now if we were well organized we'd have play sheets we don't tell just roll the dice I've got eight and eight I believe it's a pass yeah you do this a shot and the the child basically goes and what's your result to dice a pie result is good in this case seven or more it's a shooting rather than a hand-to-hand test so you hold its ground and stays where it is and does not move so basically I've passed a knife I'm just fine had I rolled some specially porous you might have rolled to one's overall two ones then it would go the unit breaks and is being destroyed so you know there's a chance of being living horribly mangled but in this case have passed and you never retain more casualties then your total stamina value which is three in the case of Legion so I and because I rolled a six we give you a on the shooting we give you a so what a marker as well deep joy all that French shootings pretty good pretty good and the disorders are further mines warm but anyway I'm still have passed so okay so you charged me there yep so now we get to see some close combat so does this work very similarly to shooting yeah it's the same sort of idea you you you he's a small unit you normally get seven tanks off a cavalry unit but because you're small you reduce that by two so it's fine I've soaked so named for the law and I get one plus one because you're charging plus one wasn't charging so actually that's four hits then that's four saves one needs to make falls needed I want to fail so I failed with two which brings me to a total of three which means I am shaken that's the maximum number of wounds Curtis I can take and I fight back our fiber with families if I remember right sounds not right to me the enforcing your fours that's much better well that's brilliant five sir brilliant and dude does sixes do anything just don't do anything entering combat they only apply to shooting generally mostly the effect of musketry and I mean it's called black powder in stage when the the muskets tended to decide to the battle very rarely do you get hand-to-hand fighting in the in the traditional sense in that Polonia battles you yeah at close range of muskets and you do get some hand time fighting around defensive positions but it's quite ref things to come down to banners well we've got it now so let's see we can get some saves going so I have - t25 saw what to save but I have made three three none save so that is three more beans - well you can't take Kimmel to zoo but so you've taken three more now this points worth saying that you've inflicted two on me yep now that's that three total I've gotten and I inflicted two one you yeah and this is the amount of is to mount inflicted during the combat those determine who wins I've inflicted two you've inflicted to the same mmm you get support if units within six inches it can support Jeremy over to the flank or to the rear well I'm supported to the flank you're supported to the rim so it's plus one each so it's a draw in a case of a draw we neither neither Reznick test unless we're shaken mmm so yeah so we both need to make a break test so should I take mine first yeah it's per excess casualties mines one so you're on a minus two so I've got an eight minus two units of six right you are it's hand-to-hand combat he's covering you retire one full move yeah I wouldn't contact many and once you once you've actually gone back and go back through your own guys yeah once you've gone back your disordered am I facing away as well no you face anyway well you continue facing the same way from in okay I'm not brilliant no but yeah so you only cute you're dead with you take your dead with you you don't need to retain the to excess ones because you can only take a maximum of two anyway so even is now shaken yeah because it's got two casualties and it's disordered because it's been thrown back in combat I also have to take test I also am the - - yeah because I took - that's not true I'm a mile I'm straight yeah straight number yeah straight wrong six we should be the same with it so I also have to go back and hateful move for move from East twelve there we go so keep my dad with me so as you're doing that Rick and one question sort of ask you is what was it like revisiting the rules as you were rewriting the second dition of black powder well it really was a question of going through the rulebook and just making the necessary changes where where they were needed it wasn't difficult but there were a few things needed on picking the base the most significant piece of work from my point of view was redefining the way charges work because some in first edition as players will know you you determined how many units you would get into a into against an enemy by their relative frontages and how they how much of the frontage they covered but a lot of players played a one-on-one game so one unit can only ever fight one unit unless you've got a very unusual position for example if you've got this situation where you've got a artillery piece right next to a infantry unit and somebody charges the artillery piece and it would seem absurd not to include these if the charges actually cover those as well so there are a few exceptions but generally I've rewritten the charge into contact system so that you now fight one-on-one and actually that's how it's described in the Napoleonic supplements that we do hmm so what's what I've done there is I've incorporated a rule from a supplement into a general situation however the ruling was expressed in or a casual way you know it wasn't written up it was just a an idea of the rule so I I've had to really unstick all of the rules for and charging which is quite a complex but amounts to very little okay so we've finished the French turn mm I believe yes okay it's worth pointing out at this point that um technically there's anyone who plays black-powder will know I have a brigade here the brigade has four units in it but one's an artillery unit artillery are not counted when it comes to working out the brigade morale or status unless it's an artillery brigade ie is all Tillery fundamentally mostly artillery so we've got three units that count of those I've got two which is shaken which is to say they've got their maximum number of casualties on them that means more than half of the units in this brigade are now shaken which means the brigade is shaken which technically means it's the end of the game because there's any one Brigade so the entire army shaken so were we playing this as a game that that that would be very quick answer we we would we would finish there with my inglorious retreat but as we're doing this as a demonstration we'll keep playing and I shall do I shall make forts I can of this particular situation so it's my turn shaken units are um somewhat disadvantaged and they they they fight with penalties and they suffer suffer various penalties in morale and everything so generally speaking what's unit shaken he's not easy for it to do much but I can rally and out hmm once the entire army is shaken you you can't rally these you see stat ability but as we're playing on I'm going to do that so the first thing I'm going to do is give an order to these guys to rally can't given orders these guys at all because they're disordered as well as shaken so they're just gonna have to stand there and do their best but these are trying to rally so I need to give them an order which is an eight I rolled a three it's so successful commander moves to the unit pull yourselves together yes sir then I remove one casualty so now they're no longer shaken I can do that twice in successive turns and get them down to one but you can never lose your last casualty you can never rally back to full fighting effectiveness right so that's good once a commander has rallied a unit you can't give any further or does that turn he's too busy so I can't give these guys an order in any case they're pinned by these covering can't do anything these guys can't do anything and my artillery on now cheered cheered by the opportunity to shoot at something so I think I can put a reasonably go for the infantry in front of me the range is 21 inches which is sure range up to 24 short range up to 48 long range with artillery okay some artillery is going to shoot there's a target at short range I have to fire the closest target but I think he's filling yellow yeah and I doing a thing as a personal reason sailors closest so I hit with one I missed with war so the hit is a six as well so sort of have a disorder maka in a friendly hit from artilleries little bit harder to save them hits from musketry yeah so in this case you're at short range so it's a minus two modifier so you basically need your one dice you need six no no so there we go so add one to them try showing them casualty you sir you okay so that's that's something these guys they've got to shoot those those are in front to direct in front of them and the closest they're suffering from - worn modified because they're shaken there's also minds one modify for being disorders but it's the same modified shaken Aldous Aldridge it might as one side it doesn't stack close range so they get +1 as well so it all adds up to a fourth force - were doing some damage on oh and I don't make my musket ares turned round suddenly it has so it's sick so that is disordered so they disordered and then three safes too many favours required leading force you potentially shake me yeah yep oh you don't but I do get a casualty so I fell one of those there we go oh good round of shooting sir too familiar yeah uh one in a series everything end of the turn so you take away all your swords oh well you've managed to sort of pretty much everything here apart from you've done a really good job and your cavalry are not doing the job of pinning me down here now is a new rule yep would sure we might as well talk about now previously if you're an analyst would explain if you disordered you can't have a move however if you're within 12 inches of the enemy and can make an initiative move you can make a disorderly retreat now I could have done this earlier but decided not to if you make a disorderly retreat you don't take your disorder off at the end of the turn hmm so it's not necessarily a good thing to do crostini you're going to carry this order through into your following turn but you could do it here you could do it there it's often something you do if you're in a really bad way and you were fast moving and you say cavalry so if you've got a unit of cavalry that's been disordered and he's stuck in front of the units of any enemy infantry that are shooting at it making its orderly retreat is often a good idea but I think in this case no I did you're allowed to stay where you are because you've got the advantage on me today I think I'm just going to stay where I am and just get some fire down on you see if I can get rid of this unit so I've had enough of these Hanoverians so what I'm gonna do first is I'm gonna fire with this regiment here at your Hanna variants well these three dice has always you need force to hit as always but mine is one for this and plus one for the range so it all comes good force so we got one hit one hit save what my point of view which have passed same right the king resilient all the sudden gonna do the same with these guys these can now general ruling is that if you're not entirely within that 45 degree hog which these aren't then you you reduce this in some way and you can either go there's two ways of doing this you can either go well we agree that a proportion of them can fire and or we took miners war and usually it's minus one if most of the units out of the arc which it is so so minus one to hit yeah under here and I think in this case is not unreasonable to say mine is one shot as well yeah and again knowing that people will come to an agreement over for that and it depends how you want to play to some extent it depends how big you units are mmm-hmm but you're off the middle so I think in - one shot and of Mines wonder he's reasonable in that case certainly in the same yet so two dice for - for one so it's minus one for that shaken one for the range so it's would be for vice the extra minus one we going to dice and we don't get anything so there we go so as end of my shooting so it dies the end of my turn right yeah that rule is there to encourage players to advance upon their enemy face-to-face hmm particularly from the middle point or in this case you could have closed in like that yeah to bring yourself within the but obviously you couldn't casual disorder so I removed my disorder it's yeah remove you sort of cow it's your turn but before we do very quickly so you've already sort of talked about it but what can people expect from the new addition what what sort of benefits will it be to to their games you say who's coming I think one of the one of the better things I've done is I've changed the way you work out how the game ends so the victory conditions if you're over the first book has a sanction on the victory and it's actually not within the main rules just talk to a the bank because actually when we used to play black powder it was always a question of what time is it all 12 o'clock how we're doing I think you've won and we had various things of there as times and weird ways of saying well you know that you that Brigade more than half of its units are shaken therefore it's broken two out of your brigades say you've got three brigades or shaken so two out of three have been lost the other guys lost one out of three so you've worn and that's generally how the system still works but what I've done is I've incorporated the rules for victory into the main rules so I've written them up as rules rather than suggestions and I formalized the way in which it it works so you still have to out of a brigade if more than a half that Brigade are shaken or destroyed or otherwise incapacitated you could be driven off the table then you they'd Brigade is is is shaken and it's not functional but I have at the same time put in a caveat that allows players to change their minds some players like to play on until proportion greater proportion of their units our interaction so I bow to them and in some situation where I want to do that and if you were playing a colonial game where you've gotten a small group of Western Europeans or a Wild West game where you've got a small group of colonialists or and seventh and they're surrounded by Indians they're not going to get to the point where by their half I've gone and got the air we give up it gives there's no point you're going to get massacred so you play on to the end yeah so you have to allow for that kind of thing but in general once a brigade has been reduced to half it becomes ineffective it's a shakin Brigade and that's how it works and once in all me has lost half of its brigades it's a shake anomaly and you generally stop the game at that point so I've changed that that's one of the one of the main things that's different at the same time I've rewritten the special command rules to introduce different rules through commanders which allows us when I was him or more usable differentiation I've changed the rule for the general so that he now confers re-roll so imagine if we have a general who will be this this chap who's lying on the ground for them not for better if he's if he moves to be within annex 12 inches ugly of a commander then that commander can re-roll a failed result so let's say I'm going to give him an order oh no I failed horribly but I've got my commander within 12 inches the commander says for God's sake pull yourself together man do what you need to do there you go success so that's the rule that's actually been ported over from Hail Caesar yeah and I found it very workable in Hail Caesar Hail Caesar has a slightly different system because the generals fight so sorry includes that the general generally speaking there's very few changes within the rules that people will be aware of one we mentioned earlier when we were having a chat before this game was the rules for Rockets which John sitala harangue me over and explained that they thought they were boring they were a little bit of an afterthought to be honest because we didn't use rocketry very much in the original sense of games we played so um having read up a little bit on the poly onyx and they very well they work with her and Rockets they really were quite entertaining there was a very high likelihood of them going off along the ground and hitting your own side exploding flying into the air doing a loop-de-loop and landing back on the unified it I mean they were fairly unpredictable I have to say so I incorporated that into the rules and they are now I would say a comedic element of play and I wouldn't necessarily recommend them to any hard-nosed to players I've done that for example I don't think thought more I included rules for mountain infantry in the previous edition as players might remember the individual scenarios that required them actually have individual rules for um dismounting and mounting but it just seemed a faff so we I looked at the rules that were in the supplements some of which were rather over complex but I chose the best of that and wrote those up so the there's now an official special for mounted infantry it's useful for things like the seventh Cavalry hmm which Maori in the American Civil War cavalry which mostly fought in that fashion and the new rule does include a whole series of new scenarios and they are playable scenarios they're not as battle reports and there's an American Civil War everything behind me to emergency Wars American Civil War one and a pony Wars one in fact I think so the the American cavalry of the mid 19th century do get a good run out yeah I know you circle yeah so is your turn so I just have my turn okay so we'll begin my turn and I've actually managed to get these into working order so I'm going to give this unit on its own and order I don't have to buy yes I did because these are more than six inches from these guys so I can't give them an order together so here we go on order these guys they're going to move back into close range and then hopefully shoot you so I'll do it all to fix this basic eight there's no penalties so hungry 12 inches bangle should put me back to where I was bring them back into line they've recovered then of I have had slight wobble earlier shaking their dead with them does the officer go with them nope not as easy detached himself well they they detach as he as they move he can continue to give orders because he passed that order and he's going to give a rally order to the boat to these kind of earrings and a rally older always has to be the last or do you give I need eights are all six have passed after now join the Hanoverians how'd I take care of so I'm pulling my army together oh you are now you're allowing me to do that because I said earlier because they were in theory that whole army the whole brigade should have been shaken and that stops you giving rallying orders if I'm a student that's designed to keep the game moving because we have to imagine that there are much bigger army but in a small game or small encounter like this it seems perfectly reasonable to carry on and so I do my best i've rallied those chaps I can't move out of my square I'm done moving shooting yes these are me I'm asking because they're within six inches they're masking the what was my original target so my artillery here can only shoot they only target I've got those and the range is three feet my long range is 24 to 48 inches so it's long ranks yeah I want one shot in fact we get minus minutes 72 you caught me cheating there one shot earned I need a thing yep because it was by myself long range much fun so is it 5 so it's - it's a long range it's - worn yet fight I had - so what are you very got to already so that one becomes a what that does is that prompts a yeah a protest with - 105 finally 5 not good from your point of view yeah you have a full move to your rear I'll watch your move - you become disordered and what ticked me off the board okay you're off the board thing does that mean they're gone gone well you can make a test to come back but it's assuming the rest of the army is not shaken so yeah oh that was a good bit of shooting by the Kennedy era well she can I'm shot so is there any more shooting for you - I fear there is yeah I'm now like no longer shaken so I don't get the mines warm so it's threes this is going to be bloody if you survive it which is very likely to these liability again so this is actually quite a managed to hit you three times my initial rubbish shootings being compensated you have also disordered navel sex sakes which means you're so three saves to make yeah and I at two fails so it's a further two men you go for it they go two more casualties now again that's you maximum so you're shaken so yes bad news for you and Hanoverians same again mm-hmm well I've missed all three so he go good Luck's run out there we go these guys these guys say it two shots when I square one hit say one save to make and I pass it there you go she's good news for you because otherwise you know technically you're shaken as well in fact because you've dug that you know it's gone you don't have to you don't have to include small light cavalry elements as part of the bigger part of a brigade when you when you're working out whether you're shaken or not but giving you so many you know in this context so I think we should count them otherwise you'd be sure yes because you've got one two units of shaken mm if we consider that to be a brigade of - yeah we make a special exemption we say actually the whole brigade comes shaken until both units check other wise it's too easy to lose so I think I'm thinking I'm done it's your go that's mine oh so before we do then I some just one last question for you so the new cover for black powder second edition and also the special edition for it what do you think of it it's very nice yeah yeah and when we did the original version we wanted a a cover that had a kind of 1908 Wardian Boyzone quality toning you know there's sort of a ripping yarn the style of thing we wanted that and that was the that was the intention all along and we had a look at some old books and that we managed to a drag out of at all well I thought collections or from libraries and things but at the time we didn't have the resources to do it I mean if you remember it was a when warlord was only just starting and so we we did this fund that was as close as we could get and then we had the central figure drawn by Peter Dennis and then he produced these vignettes for us and we came up with the idea of doing the collectable cards which was a good gag rather enjoyed and then it gave you something of that quality we were looking for but really that wasn't our intention we wanted something more like them you know and I see a kid of Audion boys own adventure book abandon fad because as the spirit of the game yes and that's what the new book is so in a way it's actually achieve what we wanted originally it looks very nice in terms of what it looks like I mean yeah he's very pretty the my contribution has been to write the rules mmm and my concern is that the rules laid out in a way that's coherent and makes sense it was traded in terms of diagrams that are correct named devil and which actually explained the games as clearly as you can when it comes to the actual illustration in the book I don't have anything to do with that and the important thing there is that it it doesn't get in the way the rules explanation for this very least got a very nice old looking I mean in the ten years since we do this we have accumulated a great deal of artwork and also made model he remember when wall released the first edition of this wall didn't really make any Colleoni figured something may have been a few but they were substantially very few this was the first thing so now if you look on the Shelf you see there are all work is any part of what we sell obviously parterres a whole range of plastic and metal models available for them it just napoleonic s-- and a great deal of all that come and this is all thing this is all heated any sort work put all the whole box I mean it all appeared since we did black powder so the new black powder has got a much broader range of things to call upon including photographs and some of the photographs in the original black powder mostly we don't mind the parries actually you're very very nice they are two very very young very talented photographers and the new ones got lots of pictures by EM the Perry's as well they've contributed all a lot of new stuff but it's been an opportunity to share some new figures some more modern figures as well and all sorts of different things put in whoops I will go on to my last turn and so I'm sure it's my turn oh I'm sure it is mine or Ghana it is yours oh how gentlemanly of you cool so on to my final turn and so oh what's left there to do I think let's just give it one final volley shall we yes if we're going to if we're going to make an end of it the only other thing you might wish to do for the benefit of the gentlemen ladies at home is to charge me with the unit and do it on ten point and let's do it I'd suggest you tow me out of dare you to do it you know me I'll do it so those are gonna charge there we go an initiative distance and you can charge so you won't move charge into contact your the front of the unit so you have to charge the front of the unit mm-hmm and are you gonna fire me as I run in I shall I shall endeavour to do you some damage lolly get and we can do that anytime we before we fight if you wish I'll do it now just yes do it now let's go for it that way I'm not in danger of forgetting so it's three shots close right now so Miss Smith and a66 does that cause disorder it causes thought that it does which is much your disadvantage so that's really why you you do closing fire you try and disorder the enemy because he's a big penalty in the combat mmm you also got one hit so you need to make a safe you know you've passed so which is very good if you fail but I think we would have been a 50/50 as it is you've got a slight advantage okay so yeah shoot with them so they are disordered and then I'll shaken so just oppose our - one you've got you've got a comeback right in your fires oh yeah but I think I'm so close but in this case we'll be ignore it because you know in theory you can kind of draw a line from there to the enemy so we've negotiated so we have a minus one for this order but then close range so so far was needed and we get a six why so generous say makes save and it is sorted by disorder my confess I don't forget there's the six and I make something like you safe there we are and then a last little ditch effort in the middle for some combat then so nothing else to do so so do I fight first is it does it matter or it's not actually mattered that tradition and good manners dictates that he who he who charged make sense well they they who charged a net charge so is it five dice is that correct yeah CC varies there's some some troops more than others in this case a five is a standard and thought for a standard infantry you know sixth and i'm extended sized infantry unit so five dice yours it's normally force exactly the same as shooting and thought you charging c plus 1 yeah but it is ordered 3-1 so forth it is and we get to now this is the point at which I'm Amir has two hits inflicted I should say oh dear bad luck because I've got one pass one fail so someone makes you shaken it shakes me and one inflicted you do have to remember how many are inflicted because I'm carrying two already in return both five I'm just a straight - well you know Paul's fail failed one two three three dice say let's see what I can do and I so you've taken to take interior so I lose the combat my one don't I well let's look at the let's go support I've got to support on my flank yeah and I've got another support on this flanking you on the other end have got a sport on that flank and a support this on either behind or on thank you can only support either to buy the place so actually we're both equally supported hmm so yes you've taken two I've taken one sports are equal you'll defeat teacher so break test police sir - one year - one because you're disordered and also in 1 as long as I lost my work you've not you - one for each can see you've taken over and above what you're allowed to take this your stamina values if you take and for you'd be further - 1 if you've taken 6 in total that would have been - three I see so minus 1 so minus 1 it is and you've rolled 65 which as we know is back a turn and disordered so your so we will leave it there after that bloody battle but thank you so much for the what's quite bloody wasn't it yeah why thank you so much sir thank you let's call it let's call it an honorable drew I don't have more draw definitely with the spirit of the game [Music]

Channel: Warlord Games

Views: 106,379

Keywords: warlord games, black powder, black powder second edition, rick priestley, bolt action, pike and shotte, antares, doctor who, project z, test of honour, blood red skies, konflikt 47, strontium dog

Id: V8tFXhAFSBI

Length: 70min 42sec (4242 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 17 2018