Portable Wargame Horse & Musket

 Not everything is skirmish... A year ago I started to read Portable Wargames from Bob Cordery; his rulebooks are based in an original system where the battle board is a gridded area, similar to a chess board, around 8x8 squares, where you can move your units between 3 and 2 squares, turning them as you need, they have 4 hit points, cavalry 3 and artillery 2. And with a 5+ in your dice, you hit the enemy.

 Although the rules look like simple, they are very demanding to be mastered since, the movements are short and the opponent could surprise you with an involving movement.

Mainly, I have played musket and horses battles, testing various battle boards, and with different success, one of the main aspects that I wanted to improve was the grid aspect, something that as player could distinguish on the board, but difficult to be seen in the photos; another aspect was that I have a bunch of 60 mm front stands, so the squares needed of that size. 

Finally, I contacted with Wargen, a nice guy who helped me find not only the background but also the best squares with the size and line colour to have the perfect mat. This is the masterpiece:

I recommend you to take a look on Cordery's books here and there.

The version of the rule sets that I use is The Portable Pike and Shot Wargame from Alan Saunders, who has modified the command rules to allow that with a roll of dice the number of units that you can move each turn varies, what is very changeling.

And now, you can watch a battle that I have played, the units where:

 

The French side wins the initiative, and the Infantry captures the first BUA.

The French side continues advancing

The English starts to respond, and the muskets shoot

Some movements with the French trying to control the situation.

More muskets and white clouds...

Looks like that the British commander has started to think and stopped drinking...

OK, time to size the Frenchs.

Time up! The British are the winners

 The French side was bearing the Initiative during the first six turns, but the Fortune goddess didn't smile them in the combats since the British showed their superiority with the muskets.

 Finally, the British side won the battle, devastating the French troops.... Rule Britannia!