Moving Napoleonic Artillery

I never quite understood the reason why horse artillery batteries are able to zip around the battlefield as if they were self propelled guns. All artillery batteries regardless of weight and nationality were manned to do the task that artillery batteries perform. Having all the men mounted on horses does not make it easier to put or take a gun out of action. It does allow the battery to travel at a greater rate. Below are my first ideas on moving batteries in Black Powder.

Moving Artillery
Foot gunners were expected to walk, however artillery company commanders were often mounted. All horse gunners were mounted and so the battery could move faster. Horse batteries were, paradoxically, slow to come into action, because although it could maneuver at perhaps twice the speed of a foot battery, it took longer for the gunners to dismount, park their horses, and run to their pieces.

Changing Formation
Unlimbering was easier than limbering up and usually took approximately 1 minute on the training ground.

Unlimbering an artillery unit can be done for free at the end of a move, the order to unlimber must still be part of the order. Note: Horse batteries are unreliable if part of the order is to unlimber. Limbered artillery batteries still get a free move if they fail an order test as normal; as unlimbering is free also, they can move and unlimber on a failed order if that was what was ordered.

Limbering a battery always cost one move, whether foot or horse.

Moving Unlimbered Guns
Pulling the guns forward on the battlefield during combat was done with or without horses. For longer distances it was done by horses on a prolong permitting them to maneuver as well. For a short distance it was done by men using bricoles to hand haul the guns, though it was much more difficult changing the direction the battery was facing.

Prolong: the battery may move as normal, though each move is 4”. The battery can fire if it is only ordered to makes one move, though the fire is at an additional -1 to hit. Exception: British batteries do not suffer the -1 for moving.
Note: Heavy Guns are Unreliable and Light Guns are Reliable when prolonging the battery.

Hand Haul: the unit may make one move (4”) and still fire. Light guns may move 8” when hand hauling the battery. The move may not be in a flank zone, nor may the battery change its facing by more than 45°.

Cavalry Support Charges

Most of our house rules have become second nature to the group, and I think it is time try out a new one, Support Charges. This being one that is currently most talk about, that being the ability of a cavalry units to “protect” nearby friendly units. Below is my rough draft and I hope to get a chance to use them early next month.

Support Charge
More often than naught during the Napoleonic Wars, cavalry charging enemy formations was an act of opportunity rather than being ordered from above, especially in the French army where individual initiative was encouraged.

During your opponents Command Phase,  cavalry units can react to advancing enemy units under certain circumstances. All conditions for charging must be met as normal, i.e. they must see the target, the enemy unit is in the front zone, they are not Disordered or Shaken etc… This is not automatic, but instead the cavalry unit must pass a command check and if successful will then make a charge move.

To attempt a support charge:

• The cavalry unit cannot be disordered or shaken.
• The enemy unit is not making an initiative move.
• The enemy unit must be within one normal move and to the front of the unit.
• The enemy unit must be in LOS.

Note: Deployed artillery batteries and skirmish companies do not block LOS.

Once the enemy unit moves to within one move of the support charging cavalry unit (or starts within), make a command check with these additional modifiers:

• -1 if the enemy unit did not start the turn in the front arc of the cavalry unit.
• x2 double any command distance modifiers.
• +2 if the cavalry unit is rated as Opportunist Chargers (typically French cavalry).

If the check is passed the support charging cavalry unit immediately makes a charge move. The unit being charged now makes normal response moves for being charged. Checks that Blunder are treated as normal, ie roll on the blunder table, in addition the unit may not attempt anymore support charges this turn.

Note: Some elite infantry units can support charge, they will be denoted with the Opportunist Chargers special ability.

Basing Artillery

I have had several discussions with friends on how to better visually represent a battery in our games of Black Powder.

Each artillery base is made up of one gun model with four artillerists on a 60mm wide by 80mm deep base. Below is how Black Powder suggests players should base up artillery batteries.

My main issue with that system of basing is that an eight gun battery would have had approximately the same frontage (about 120 to 140 paces) as an infantry battalion, which is around 160 paces. And as per the BP rules, a standard infantry battalion is made up of six bases of four figures on a 40mm by 40mm base (240mm in line). Which compared to an artillery battery is about four times as great.

The small size of batteries has an adverse game effect as well. In that it is very easy to position it around the battlefield, especially in between units. With their super human ability to limber/unlimber, horse batteries essentially become unarmored tanks!

Our first attempt to “fix” this problem was to use two bases of guns. This brought the batteries to half the width of a battalion. Along with a few house rules on horse batteries, artillery batteries in our games began to look and feel more like Napoleonic artillery. Of course in my never ending quest for the “perfect” game, I felt that half the width of a battalion wasn’t as good as it could be.

So the next proposal was to use one artillery base per two actual guns, generally three to four bases (below). This is very old school and appeals to many in our group, but not me. In my opinion the cost is too high for what amounts to visual effect on the game. Artillery would have gone from two bases to four bases, effectively doubling the cost.

But more importantly I don’t think it gives the right visual look in the first place. The reason why a battery was near the width of an infantry battalion was that there was room in between the guns, around 20 paces or so. But using four bases with guns gives the impression that the guns were placed hub to hub, which was not the case.

So to increase the size of the battery and get a “better” visual of the spacing of guns, I have been testing out adding in spacer bases between the two gun bases.

The spacer base is a normal artillery base, 60mm x 80mm, with just a couple of artillerists on it. There is plenty of space to add in extra bits as well. By only using a couple of extra figures, the cost remains low and the battery increases its width to 180mm which is about right for a six gun battery and a little shy for an eight gun battery.

For the large Russian batteries I’ll use three gun bases with two spacer bases. You also have the added benefit of the unit being much longer when limbered (240mm). All which means it is more difficult for artillery batteries to zip around the battlefield like a WW2 tank. So not only is this a cheaper solution, but IMO a more visually appealing look for a Napoleonic battery in Black Powder.