Cavalry in Warlord's Black Powder Rules

[mdauben]

Over the weekend, I played a game of Napoleonics using Warlord's Black Powder rules.  Overall everyone had a great time, but there was one universal concern.  It seemed that cavalry consistently underperformed in the game.  Speaking to some of the other players who had done more games with Black Powder, they said our game was not unusual in this, and the group had pretty much come to the conclusion that they were going to give up on the Black Powder rules because they felt they did not model cavalry correctly.

I was wondering what other people's experience was?  Is cavalry too weak in the Black Powder rule set?   

[Golgotha]

In what way were the cavalry been used? If being sent against solid blocks of infantry in good order then they should do badly.

[Axebreaker]

It would help if you described the situation, because in general I don't think that's true at all. Also, Black Powder is a rule set where you can alter units to behave as your group sees fit by adjusting stats or adding special rules. If anything Black Powder is the most flexible rule system I know of or played to date. In fact the author encourages players to adjust the rules to make them work how you want.

Christopher

[mdauben]

In what way were the cavalry been used? If being sent against solid blocks of infantry in good order then they should do badly.

Charged a unit of infantry in march line (single file along road) and was bounced.
Charged a unit of infantry in firing line (single rank) and was bounced.  Charged again and were destroyed.
Charged a disordered unit of infantry in the flank.  Barely eked out a win but the infantry just fell back.

I hope that's clear.  I'm not sure I got some of the formation names correctly but I tried to explain what I meant.

This was just in one game.  As I said the other players claimed to have had similar experiences in several previous games.  

[Conquistador]

Charged a unit of infantry in march line (single file along road) and was bounced.
Charged a unit of infantry in firing line (single rank) and was bounced.  Charged again and were destroyed.
Charged a disordered unit of infantry in the flank.  Barely eked out a win but the infantry just fell back.

I hope that's clear.  I'm not sure I got some of the formation names correctly but I tried to explain what I meant.

This was just in one game.  As I said the other players claimed to have had similar experiences in several previous games.  

Not overly familiar with the rules:

Nit picking but when charged (first case) was the charge head on the front of the column or the flank of the column?  Turn to face and shoot in the flanking case?

Charging a firing line not a great choice unless low morale unit...

Last example seems odd but we're the dice unloving to the horsemen?

Played Zulus ( two newbies ) versus British ( three experienced players) only.  Almost broke British first turn but had to sweep Boer cavalry out of the way first.

Edit, it was after that turn that the rules started seeming "odd" to me but that is off topic.

[mdauben]

Not overly familiar with the rules:

Same here.  I was mainly passing on the concerns voiced by my more experienced friends, although I admit I was quite disappointed in my cavalry's performance.

Nit picking but when charged (first case) was the charge head on the front of the column or the flank of the column?  Turn to face and shoot in the flanking case?

Charged against the head of the column (single stand) with the rest of the unit strung out in line behind it on the road.  To my understanding this is the least defensive formation in the game but they easily repelled my charge.  

Charging a firing line not a great choice unless low morale unit...

Charging a single rank formation is not a great choice?  Everyone else at the table seemed to think it was and was surprised at the poor results.  

Last example seems odd but we're the dice unloving to the horsemen?

Not especially.  There just seemed to be very minimal benefit to the charging unit for hitting a disordered unit of infantry in the flank.


Really, I don't want to get hung up on the specific situations and results from my single game.  Chance and dice roles could have been reason enough for that.  According to my friends, however, this is a consistent problem they are seeing across multiple games using these rules.  They say cavalry are just not as effective in combat as they should be.  They are pretty well decided to give up on BP and use a different set of rules, so I was just wondering if other people are seeing the same problem as we did with cavalry.  

While as I said I'm new to the BP rules, I'm hardly a new historical gamer, and have at least a basic understanding of tactics.  My friends are experienced in both this historical era (Napoleonics) and with several rules sets for this era.  I just wanted to be clear we are not a bunch of newbies who didn't know what we were doing.  

[Conquistador]

Mdauben,

Hopefully not seemed critical of you but my experience in the last decades has been versus rifle armed colonial and not musket armed Napoleonic troops so apples and oranges?

[mdauben]

Mdauben,

Hopefully not seemed critical of you but my experience in the last decades has been versus rifle armed colonial and not musket armed Napoleonic troops so apples and oranges?

None taken.  I was just trying to be clear about where our comments were coming from.  

At this point I'd say to everyone please just ignore the specific situations in my one game.  I'm just looking for an informed opinion; are cavalry in the Black Powder rules weaker than they should be?  If the consensus is yes, that's great.  If the consensus is no, then maybe my group need to dig into the rules a bit more and see if we are doing something wrong before we give up on Black Powder.  

Thanks!  

[Sunjester]

In my experience so far, i'd say the cavalry seem balanced. Admittedly we only use them in mass for the War of Spanish Succession, as we  don't use cavalry much in our later games (ACW and 1859 Italy). In the WSS games the cavalry are usually facing off against the opposing cavalry commands, but when they do break through onto the infantry it has been pretty mixed. I have seen cavalry bounce off of disordered infantry in one game and roll up the entire flank infantry command in another.

[Eric the Shed]

Heavy Cavalry against infantry assuming they are not in square (which is very unlikely) will get 8 attacks needing 3+ to hit - the infantry being in column will only get one shot (maybe) and six attacks needing a 5+ to hit. I don't believe march columns can be supported. Add in the heavies d3 bonus its extremely unlikely that they will lose this encounter

Our games have shown that cavalry very rarely gets to go close and personal with infantry but they do force them into square which make them vulnerable to artillery and infantry as it should be.
   

[Axebreaker]

Charged a unit of infantry in march line (single file along road) and was bounced.
Charged a unit of infantry in firing line (single rank) and was bounced.  Charged again and were destroyed.
Charged a disordered unit of infantry in the flank.  Barely eked out a win but the infantry just fell back.

Sounds like the Cavalry rolling poorly and the infantry rolling well. Situations you mentioned would likely see the cavalry charging and hitting on 3+ unless disordered and the infantry will be striking back at best at 4+, but more likely 5+ or even a 6+ if it's a flank and disordered.

Christopher

[Cubs]

This came up several times on the Warlord Games forum a few years back when the rules came out and were played a few times outside the playtesting arena.

It must be said, opinion was divided as to the realism or justification for what more than a few people saw as the under-powered nature of cavalry, focussing around the Napoleonic era type units.

From what I recall the arguments went something like this -

- supporters of the rule thought that trained infantry in this genre would automatically form square when faced with cavalry, and be drilled in such formation changes to the extent that they could adopt the square pretty much automatically and be safe (in fact so few accounts of squares being broken by cavalry make it a statistically negligible possibility).

- also, supporters point out that cavalry was at a distinct disadvantage facing even infantry in line if they held their ground, since a bristling hedge of bayonets, combined with each cavalryman being faced by multiple muskets at once (cavalry regiments being much smaller than infantry ones and attacking in waves) didn't often end well. Frontal assaults by cavalry most often led to a lot of dead cavalry if the infantry stood their ground.

HOWEVER!!

- critics argued that infantry that were caught by surprise/disordered or in a formation other than square and charged from the flank/rear were in big trouble, especially if caught by heavy cavalry or lancers.

- also, they felt it was unfair on cavalry to give infantry what amounts to an automatic square formation when charged by cavalry, since very often infantry who were less well drilled or caught on the hop (see above) did not have time. Certainly a marching column caught by cavalry should be all but guaranteed to be routed.

From memory the argument went back and forth in true internet style with a few choice insults and accusations regarding expertise, knowledge and possibly parentage. For one such as myself, who loves a good cabaret, it was time to put my feet up, crack open a cold one and enjoy the show for a while.

Sadly it did shake itself out some sort of sensible solution. I believe a suggestion was made to house-rule infantry caught out of square, such that a successful roll had to be made in order to form square (I forget the mechanics, but better drilled infantry had an almost automatic chance, whereas untrained or raw or disordered troops had a cumulative penalty to roll and a decent chance to fail). Troops unable to form square were then automatically counted as disordered and then suffered a further combat penalty. If they chose not to adopt square they had to fight it out - line vs cavalry front-on were still fairly strong if not disordered, but other cases where a line was charged in the flank, or in column (assault or marching) there were further combat penalties.

Also, if I recall correctly, cavalry making a multiple move into contact (ie. haring across the battlefield excitedly) gave the defender a better chance to change formation, so long as they were visible to the defender at the start of their move, compared to cavalry who only made a single move into contact. This represents making the opponent decide whether to take the prudent option when cavalry is around, and get into square early, or risk getting 'bounced'.

I have no idea how these house rules played out, but it's the way I remember the discussion back then, but I may have gotten them a bit wrong. Hope they help! Or at least entertain, which might even be better.   

[Cubs]

PS. My own thoughts were that I've never been able to use cavalry properly anyway and keep getting them killed with wild charges (much like British cavalry commanders really). I feel it takes more subtlety to get the best out of them and their job is to move around and threaten, to manipulate infantry/artillery into disadvantageous positions, not to mention taking on and nullifying the opposition cavalry to stop them doing that to you. That said, a cavalry charge on disordered infantry or a marching column should be what every cavalry commander dreams of at night.

[mdauben]

Heavy Cavalry against infantry assuming they are not in square (which is very unlikely) will get 8 attacks needing 3+ to hit - the infantry being in column will only get one shot (maybe) and six attacks needing a 5+ to hit. I don't believe march columns can be supported. Add in the heavies d3 bonus its extremely unlikely that they will lose this encounter

Sounds like the Cavalry rolling poorly and the infantry rolling well. Situations you mentioned would likely see the cavalry charging and hitting on 3+ unless disordered and the infantry will be striking back at best at 4+, but more likely 5+ or even a 6+ if it's a flank and disordered.

Reading these responses, I'm beginning to think we were playing the combat incorrectly.  I'm going to take a closer look at the rules and see if I can figure out where we went wrong. 

- supporters of the rule thought that trained infantry in this genre would automatically form square when faced with cavalry, and be drilled in such formation changes to the extent that they could adopt the square pretty much automatically and be safe (in fact so few accounts of squares being broken by cavalry make it a statistically negligible possibility).

This confuses me a bit.  I thought forming square required a command under the rules (like any other formation change).  Why would there be a command to do something the infantry did automatically?  I guess I find it counter intuitive that even a well drilled unit could make a major change in their formation so quickly while the cavalry is bearing down on them.

I have no idea how these house rules played out, but it's the way I remember the discussion back then, but I may have gotten them a bit wrong. Hope they help! Or at least entertain, which might even be better.   

Thanks for that insight into the intentions of the rules. 

If our games played out as intended, I think we are probably going to switch systems, as no one in our group was satisfied with the performance of the cavalry and it threw a real crimp in our enjoyment of the game.  If we figure out we were doing something wrong (and I have to say at first read, I didn't find the combat rules as clear as I could wish), we may keep trying. 

Thanks again, everyone!

[Cubs]

This confuses me a bit.  I thought forming square required a command under the rules (like any other formation change).  Why would there be a command to do something the infantry did automatically?  I guess I find it counter intuitive that even a well drilled unit could make a major change in their formation so quickly while the cavalry is bearing down on them.

They might have added this to the newer edition of the rules then, since it was a bone of contention in the old rules.