I've made a good bit of progress on building out my collection of 6mm ACW figures and terrain. The picture to the left shows a test game I've set up to get a better understanding of the Black Powder ruleset. The painted Union forces consist of 28 infantry regiments, 4 calvary regiments and 20 artillery batteries. Each base equals one regiment or battery. The Confederate force is a bit smaller, with 24 infantry regiments, 4 calvary regiments and 14 artillery batteries. It's a total of 1,852 painted figures! This force size allows for games pitting 2 Divisions for each side against one another.
This is a picture of the Confederate left flank, which is anchored on a wooded hill and is defended by a brigade of infantry and 2 batteries. A calvary reserve can be seen in towards the rear.
I'm using regiments as the base unit. Normally with Black Powder, each unit would consist of 4-6 stands that can be arranged to form columns / lines / squares etc. I wanted to keep the base unit fairly small (60x30mm) so there are no individual stands. To compensate, I made up some formation counters for march and attack columns. While not that attractive, they are clear and serve to space the units out accordingly. The picture above shows a Union Brigade in March Column moving up to support the developing attack in the center.
I also made counters for other Black Powder specific status levels such as "Dis-Ordered" and "Shaken". The red squares with numbers will be used for casualty markers.
The scenery has been enhanced with my first tries at building 6mm "scale" forest and wall sections. The forrest are made using 1"-2" high Woodland Scenics tree armatures and clump foliage. I also tried my hand at making stone fence sections using thin plastic cut in 4mm high strips and glued to a base. The wall section is N-Scale railroad ballast that's attached to the plastic strip with white glue. I spent about 45 minutes planning and making the 3 120mm sections and I think they came out pretty well. I add some more later this week. I doubt I'll try to make split rail fencing as that may be too small for me.
Lastly, there was a small bit of progress on the naval side as I based the ships. I used a pointed base layout to help players readily understand where the bow is - some of the ironclads are a bit hard to tell. The shortest base has some gloss medium stippled on as a test to simulate waves and such.
The play test today went well, but it wasn't a full battle - just a bit of pushing bases around to get a better understanding of the rules. I'll be hosting a few games later this summer so it helps to know the rules. More importantly, I really need to get a firm grip of the BP rules by July as I'll also be helping my friend, Ernie, stage his Black Powder game at Historicon "Black Powder in the Peninsular". Heres a link to his website that describes the game:
http://greenstuffandbrass.blogspot.com/2010/05/historicon-2010-game.html
Your set up is very impressive. The only 6mm game I've played so far was a Roman Seas game at a convention a couple of years ago. I liked the look of the figures used. Interestingly, there was a recent ACW "scale" discussion on my local NHMGS Yahoo group. 6mm was first suggested to a new to the area gamer & of course a pile on soon occurred with 10mm-28mm advocates & advice. The end was a tongue in cheek suggestion of 2mm (brush bristles) wargame :)! Anyway, your stuff looks great and would be well received by any player. Regards, Dean
ReplyDeleteThat all seemed to come out very nicely, I will follow your progress with this ruleset with interest.
ReplyDeleteJohn
Thanks for the comments
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comments
I've liked fiddling around with 6mm, but still prefer 28mm. I can only manage moderate painting quality in 6mm, although, the GW washes do work wonders with 6mm scale figs.
The whole thing seems to work well with Black Powder and I can stage a very large battle on a 8x4 table.
Nest up will be some river bank scenery and few more test games.
Brilliant stuff, Miles as always - love 6mm!
ReplyDeleteMonty
Thanks Monty
ReplyDelete6mm is a great diversion and works surprisingly well with Black Powder. My son is thinking about using the setup for a history project - finally some proof that there may be something to the "but it's educational" excuse I give the wife when she has the audacity to question yet another purchase!
How is your ACW -Black Powder project going? I'm in the same situation that I have ACW forces painted up and based for Polemos but don't really get on with the rules. BP sounds like it might work.
ReplyDeleteI plan to build 6mm ACW armies and want to know recommendation (and reasons) for figures. The two I've researched and been advised to consider are Baccus and Adler.
ReplyDeleteThose with experiance, who've painted and based, I'd greatly appreciate your thoughts.
Want to game both regimental and brigade (usually F n F is perferred, but BP looks interesting).
Alan in CA