Black powder for Great Northern War

[Jim Ando]

Hi

Would Blackpowder rules do for the GNW. It`a bit of a strange war, pikes still in use and the swedes with their Ga Pa tactics. I`ve played a couple of games of ACW with them and liked them for their speed but didn`t think they gave much flavor for any particular era which they cover. I don`t own a copy(yet) or the supplement (last arguement of kings) but still quite fancy them.

Jim

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Yes - played a 20mm scenario on Thursday, Sweede vs Russian. The Swedes had 1 less die shooting(2) + 1 die Melee(7).

IanS

[Jim Ando]

Hi

did the that work.

Jim

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Yes - seemed to work well, but then I won it.

IanS

[Jim Ando]

your bound to say that then.

was that a house rule or are stats for swedes and russians in L a o ks.

Jim

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

It was a published scenario - one of the professional mags I think. Will McNally organised the game, it's probaly up on his blog. (Sorry no URL)

The Furious charge is a useful rule in the book, changes in shooting and melee dice were scenario specific. As I understand it it was to account for Swedish pikes, still at least 10%? of Swedish Rgts at the time.

IanS

[Hwiccee]

Swedes had 33% pikes but the Furious rule would be because of their very aggressive tactics. The Russians also had pikes but the % varied overtime.

I think the key question is how outnumbered were the Swedes? In the real war they were usually heavily outnumbered by the Russians - 2, 3 or more to 1. the rules would need to cope with that.

[Jim Ando]

Thanks

It`s a toss up between BP and beneath the lily banners. I used to play the later quite a bit but jesus are they slow I don`t know how you could fight even a small battle in less than 4 hours. We never finished a game. So it looks like it`s going to be blackpowder.

Jim

[Hwiccee]

You could also try other rules? The Ga Pa set is good and we use Polemos GNW rules. I am sure there are others around as well.

[Jim Ando]

Just got blackpowder at last, £19.20 inc p&p from amazon hope thats a bargin.

Borrowed last argument of kings and was impressed by  both can`t wait to have a game.


Jim

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

One thing I did miss - with BP we found the move sequence a bit uncomforatble, so changed it to I move, You Fire, You move I fire. That way you dont need to mark units which used closing fire.

IanS

[Chad]

Jim

Be careful with LAOK the unit classifications are very broad,
too broad I think, and may not give you a good feel for the
period. I was not impressed with the apparent research that
covered the WSS for example. Beneath the Lily Banners is
a better option.

Chad

[Last Hussar]

My mods for BP WSS.

http://lasthussar.wordpress.com/2011/02/01/war-of-spanish-succession-for-black-powder/