Black Powder 123 Tourney at the Hall of Heroes!

They say small is beautiful. And today at the Hall of Heroes, my local FLGS in Campbelltown, NSW, I had a series of small wargames, which, in their way, were beautiful.

Philip and Bryan organised a series of what we call 'Black Powder 123' games - sort of 'speed dating' for Black Powder games. Six moves per game, 6 x 6 foot table, no more than 1-2-3 units by arm, and hopefully time to get in at least 3 games with 3 different opponents. Purpose being to have the time to learn the rules carefully in time for our big Waterloo 200 bash in June next year.

We had 8 players turn up, as well as Philip and Bryan umpiring, so we duly set up 4 tables and set out the first of the 3 scenarios on each 6 x 6 table. We started off with a brief, and then straight into it after the important business of ordering coffees and lunch!

The first scenario was 'Capture the Building', the second was 'Break the Lines of Communications', whereby you scored a point each time a cavalry unit got within 6 inches of the enemy LOC, and the third game was my fave - 'Ambush'.



Brits laying into a Prussian flank - 'Shome Mishtake Shurely!'

We had a selection of armies available, and of course the nature of the day's organisation meant that sometimes we had some ahistorical match ups. But as all units had identical, generic, attributes, the better to master the core rules, this didn't matter too much, and I managed to control my outraged twitching enough that it didn't affect my die rolling!

I ended up playing my Prussians throughout the day, which was a welcome change for me as latterly I have been playing either Peninsula games, or 1815 games fighting for 'Le Tondu'...



Ambush scenario - Look to your left, Kameraden, that copse is full of Voltigeurs...

Everybody seemed to enjoy themselves as much as I did, even if Philip only had time to quaff half a gallon of tea instead of his normal ration, and we recruited a new player to the Waterloo 200 Project. We resolved to do it all again in August, hopefully with a few more scenarios....

How did I do? Well, since you ask, played 3, lost 2, drew 1! But I learnt a lot, made a new friend, and had fun in good company!



Auf Wiedersehen!