Sharp Practice or Blackpowder ?

[jetengine]

Not sure which to choose or scale. Give me some pros and cons please.

[SteveBurt]

Do you want to play skirmishes or battles?

Sharp Practice is a 'big skirmish' set; there are rules for formations, but it's mostly about small groups.
Think riflemen v voltigeurs in the peninsula, or Mosby's raiders in the ACW, or rangers vs indians in the French & Indian War
You'll need 50-100 figures a side.

Black Powder is a fast play  big battle set designed to allow you to play large games to a conclusion in an evening. You'll need a couple of hundred figures a side (more if you use big units)

[SteveBurt]

It might also help if you tell us what period you are thinking about. 18th or 19th century? What countries?

Speaking entirely personally, I'm not a fan of Black Powder. The games are entertaining, but always seem semi-random and bear little relationship to historical battles. (I feel the same way about Rapid Fire). I realise lots of people love the rules, though, so it's just a personal thing.

Sharp Practice was a good set of rules in its first incarnation and has turned into an excellent set in its latest version. Lots of interesting tactical choices.

[Norm]

BP say 2 - 3 brigades per side with battalions / regiments on the table

SP perhaps a couple of battalions tops on the table

[axabrax]

This is a simple one. If you want to play big battles more on the brigade or regiment level go black powder. If you want to do Skirmish gaming with a 1:1 or maybe 1:5 figure to man ratio do SP. SP also has more of a narrative RPG light aspect. I personally prefer SP.

PS: SP is not a Batallion level game, so the comment above is a bit misleading. I'm not saying you couldn't decide to do it that way, but it's not the intent of the rules. It's a company level game at its largest.

[noigrim]

lasalle 

[squeaky]

lasalle 

What he said ;-)

[agent_pumpkin]

I found Black Powder to be ok, but after the first game all the rest feel just the same with no real historical edge to the games. At no point did Black Powder make me feel I was playing a game set in this era.   

Sharp Practice is the opposite, its fun and my games with it are full of historical "atmosphere".

If I had to I would play Black Powder, but all the time I'll be thinking of playing with Sharp Practice... 

[SteveBurt]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels that way about Black Powder.
Having used it for ACW, Napoleonic and Zulu War, it gave great games but somehow all the periods seemed much the same, in spite of the differing unit abilities. A set of rules I'm quite happy to play, but which I wouldn't use if putting on a game myself.

[noigrim]

Problem with lasalle are the broken army lists: the russians have more guns, the austrians bigger units, and the spanish are oure OP. It's a good system for historic scenarios, but you'll have to negotiate the army lists probably.
Black powder it's more balanced (but I don't like activations) just make the usual amend of firing before moving.

[DivisMal]

I only know Black Powder, and from my experience it needs a lot of tweaking, and while fun the games are too random, plus you'll need huuuuuuge amounts of minis if you wanna play it to da book. But, it is entertaining and a beautiful book!

[robh]

Problem with lasalle are the broken army lists: the russians have more guns, the austrians bigger units, and the spanish are oure OP. It's a good system for historic scenarios, but you'll have to negotiate the army lists probably.
Black powder it's more balanced (but I don't like activations) just make the usual amend of firing before moving.

That is not a "problem", that is the historical accuracy of the rules. The assumption being that historic gamers want to use realistic forces and deploy them in realistic fashion with realistic tactics. It is why Lasalle and rules like Corps de Armee, Grande Armee or Empire give a good feel for Napoleonic warfare while Blackpowder does not.  
There are some Napoleonic Rules (Napoleon at War) that go even further and are specifically designed for equal pointed and exactly balanced armies solely for tournament type games. You are playing a game of toy soldiers with Napoleonic miniatures, you are not playing a Napoleonic wargame.

National Characteristics have always been a contentious point in rules design ("Highlanders +2 when charging" or "Spanish Infantry -5 on Morale checks under fire"), it is a matter of finding enough difference to give a good period feel to the game without creating unbeatable or useless armies.
I saw the semi final play offs of a wargames competition a few years back where 3 of the 4 finalist armies were British Light Brigade with Rifle troops because the rules in use gave excessive advantage to Light infantry for movement and firing.

[noigrim]

then the spanish should have won all battles not just bailen and a few others 

[robh]

 

Living here I keep getting told they did.  Apparently the British and Portugese armies were only involved to support the Guerillas.

[mellis1644]

The Spanish in Lasalle count draws as minor victories for them. They really can play for the draw.