Samurai Testing - Black Powder

And now Black Power testing for the Samurai. Any thoughts or opinions on this? 

Black Powder ACW Test

Game Setup

View from Union Commander's pov

End of turn 2 or 3

Played through the Black Powder rules for the first time as a test to understand them and to come up with a game to play with the local group. Used a set of mods to come up with some of the rules. The mods are by The Contemptible Little Wargames Club and they can be found here. They're very comprehensive. In fact, they suggest you play the normal BP way first and then try them out. I, of course, ignore their wisdom and dove in.

Definitely need to understand the rules better though. I feel as though I was missing something. I enjoyed them, just some things weren't feeling right.

WWII 6mm Painting Progress and Basing

Blasted Basing
Go back and forth 60x30, 40x20, 30x30, 20x20... No one warned about The Hardest Decision in Miniature Gaming. And, I don't even know if I really want to play Samurai. Sounds cool.

But is it?

I cut out 60x30s with heavy card stock. Tried playing a couple moves and shooting steps from Black Powder. Something wasn't quite right.

I make it sound like it's a big deal. But I believe there are bigger issues out there. This is what the news tell me. Anyway...

But in the "progress is cool" camp - #hobbytime today saw me prime the 16 US armored units I assembled last night.

Xmas just kills hobby time

A huge work project, kid stuff, wife's new business, xmas travels and festivities, etc, etc, etc, all put a damper into any kind of hobby time. Go to any hobby blog and you'll see a similar kind of note. Not any different here.

When I came back to work on this post I realized that this first paragraph and blog title are quite negative. Not meant to be, just explaining why the large gap. In fact, despite the fact that I posted a long list of hobby to dos on the 6mm Yahoo group, 2012 is shaping up to be a fairly thin year. After posting the list and going over non-hobby related priorities, I realized that I will be hard pressed to do as much as I did this year. Though I would still like to get more games in.

However, for Xmas I did get a couple of gaming related gifts:

1. Black Powder rules - I wanted to see what all the hoopla was about and to see if I could adapt them for the ACW and Samurai time periods I want to try. I know they're designed for big battles. But being that I'm a miniature gamer, I won't stand by and let the rules as written stop me from changing a few things.  Actually, I'm going to use two supplements I've found written by fans for both time periods.  Gleaming Katanas (battle report/AAR can be found here and the rules can be found here).

From Blenheim to Berlin Blog

The ACW adaptation can be found here from the Contemptible Little Wargames Club.

From TCLWC

2. I used some Xmas money to buy some ACW troops from Gordon and Hague. He's having a special to move out his blisters to make way for the new sculpts and paints he wants to sell. So, it's a better deal than buying his army packs. (Except you can't get all the units on special that are included in the army packs as blisters.)

From Gordon & Hague Site

My armies will consist of the following (both armies will be the same exact OOB):
1 General Stand
2 Artillery Stands
6 Cavalry Packs
4 Infantry Command Packs
12 Infantry Packs
4 Militia Packs

Not sure this will do much in BP, but I've got to start somewhere. I'm not too concerned with paint quality etc. I want the miniatures to be worth it, but at 2.19 a base, I'm saving a lot of time and money not having to experiment, base, etc. I will lose some that satisfaction that I did it on my own. Obviously, at this point, I'm willing to suffer through that loss.

Hobby room update: I cut the raised table wood, legs, metal shelf support and moved it all downstairs. Slow progress, but progress.  - refer to the first paragraph of this post.