Angus Konstam

The following rule change was suggested by Ian Hopping on the Black Powder Yahoo group. Bill Gilchrist of the SESWC (a big fan of Black Powder) tried them out over a couple of dozen games, along with other little tweaks of his own. The aim was to come up with a few "House Rule" amendments that will iron out some of the bugs in what is otherwise a good, versatile set of rules, and to tweak them a little so they better reflect the "black powder" periods we play at the club (Seven Years War, American War of Independence and Napoleonics). TBill has now done this, and the results are posted here.

While my own preference for these three periods are rules from the "General de Brigade" stable (Die Kriegskunst, British Grenadier and General de Brigade), I have to admit that for large multi-player games, or battles you want to finish easily in a club night, then Black Powder is definitely the rules set of choice.

Anyway, here are Ian's amendments - mainly a slight tweak to the sequence of play;

Terrain
Formed troops advance at half speed through woods. Formed troops are not an ‘unclear target’ in woods. Troops in woods get the morale modifier for cover except when charging to contact or in hand to hand combat.

Indian Special Rule
Indians are allowed to charge shaken formed troops.

The Modified Sequence of Play

INITIATIVE PHASE
Declare and undertake initiative movement – there is no change to the basic rules for this.

All moving units to be marked as having moved this turn. (They cannot move again in Command Phase).
Any units charged may deliver ‘Closing Fire’ at the end of initiative.

FIRING PHASE
Moving player carries out firing as per the rules.
All firing units to be marked as having fired this turn (for modified Command Penalties).

COMMAND PHASE
Give orders and move as per the Command phase of the rules.
There is an additional command penalty:
“-1 if fired this turn”
Any units charged may deliver ‘Closing Fire’ if they have not fired before in this turn.

MELEE PHASE
Conduct Melees as per rules