"Black powder" is a term in the same trend bucket as faction. Created by companies to create the market in their own image. Commercially very sensible. Hoover and google are examples.
Hence many gamers will adopt it because they see it so much in the sponsored magazines.
Black powder describes technology from ancient China until just before WW1.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_gunpowder_age
It can be used as a wargames set of rules title no problem.
Does it help in describing a particular war? No, far too loose.
More refined terms might be "horse and musket" for Napoleonic , 7YW, AWI. I would not use horse and musket to describe ECW and colonial.
If I were invited to a black powder game I might bring my ECW parliamentarian army. Should I expect my opponent to have a compatible army?
martin :)
The Black Powder rules by Priestly et al were developed out of the old Warmaster rules. They are, in essence, very simple rules, but their presentation is so wordy that they felt it justified a 200+ page A4 hardback. As it covers the period 1700 to 1900 they further padded it out with a whole plethora of extra rules, thus creating a level of complexity around a vanilla set of easy rules. Then, to further complicate matters, extra volumes on specific conflicts within their time frame were published, which also added extra cost to anyone using this system as their main set of rules for the period. My personal beef with the rules, and I am going back at least 15 years to the first edition, is that they completely wrote off one of the two periods I was most interested in, i.e. European warfare after 1856. The other problem I had with the rules was their tendency to push (yet again) 28mm figures and scenarios featuring a cast of thousands on a table that only the largest houses could accomodate. Eventually, in the ACW supplement, a small section at the back featured 15mm figures, only because the author's own collection was 15mm. So I have to agree that Black Powder, for me, has been a very disappointing project which I refused to invest in. Interestingly, a Dutch company, Bello Ludi, has taken the core principles of Black Powder and refined them to a very manageable A5 set of rules, with a much better QRS. At the end of the day though, period specific rules are better than broad brush rules, thus, many years ago I abandoned using Black Powder for the Seven Years War (which I game in 10mm) and replaced it with Osprey's SYW specific Honours of War, both cheaper and better.
Alan at our club uses the Black Powder rules quite a bit and each time I have played him using them it has been an "experience"! Some of the stuff in the rules works fine but so much just doesnt feel right. Its not a ruleset I could ever get invested in.
Derek
My local club uses Black Powder a lot and we have had a lot of fun games with them without finding much in the way of problems. However, I am now beginning to wonder if that is due to us being, for the most part, reasonable people.
We use them for 15mm, the monstrous 28mm figures fight under the aegis of Sharpe Practice,
I still occasionally use the Black Powder rules (and Hail Caesar too).
Although not up to RFCM standards of course, they do have some fun elements that I enjoy.
regards,
Nick
My initial comments were about losing the term "horse and musket", but thsi has been a good chat about what folks get up to in horse and musket games.
Thank you
martin :)
Black powder seems to have replaced horse and musket as a period term to all by us old school gamers. That period between the last use of pikes and when breach loading rifles really made firepower so much more deadly. In theory most western armies in that period are roughly equal in firepower so other items would be factors in victory other than raw technology. Many troops also were roughly the same so no issues with spears vs. pikes etc which ancients sets have to handle.
That is partly because of the so mentioned rule set - which is as much 'gamer porn' or a magazine as a rules set. It's an ok rules set. It is simple at heart and plays well. There is not that much to it really as others have mentioned. But I think it came out at the right time - the growth of plastics for the 28mm kits and other factors. The other factors was a public generally looking for simplier vs. more complex games sets.
Another example is to look at the rampant rules for example - they are as simple and have been very successful and morphed into all sorts of periods now.
Quote from: Flaminpig0 on March 24, 2025, 01:29:01 AMMy local club uses Black Powder a lot and we have had a lot of fun games with them without finding much in the way of problems. However, I am now beginning to wonder if that is due to us being, for the most part, reasonable people.
What is the definition of a reasonable person?
Quote from: Leman (Andy) on March 25, 2025, 08:26:16 AMQuote from: Flaminpig0 on March 24, 2025, 01:29:01 AMMy local club uses Black Powder a lot and we have had a lot of fun games with them without finding much in the way of problems. However, I am now beginning to wonder if that is due to us being, for the most part, reasonable people.
What is the definition of a reasonable person?
I am not sure but I know an unreasonable person when I meet one. Or so I like to think
I think the "I know it when I see it" definition kind of comes in here. :)
Indeed. It is a hobby after all.
martin :)
No, I feel a statement has been made which is then not backed up. I was disappointed in a set of rules, someone else enjoys them. Two perfectly valid opinions. What has this to do with reasonable people?
Quote from: Leman (Andy) on March 26, 2025, 11:18:20 AMNo, I feel a statement has been made which is then not backed up. I was disappointed in a set of rules, someone else enjoys them. Two perfectly valid opinions. What has this to do with reasonable people?
My belief is that you can work around ambiguities and other problems in rules if you are playing with people who are motivated to compromise and use "common sense" because the game they want is more experiential than competitive. Black Caesar/Hail Powder seem to work on that basis but I feel they would not work so well as a competition set. Which to be fair is not what they are intended to be used for.
I would never criticise anyone for being disappointed with a set of wargame rules