Painting and Play Testing

Now that I have a break from soccer season (which lasted 10 months), I'm getting a little more painting done. Here's a quick rundown:

Uh-oh. Are those Borogravians in 28mm?

A Dystopian Wars Prussian Battleship, some 6mm SciFi troops for Robofire!, and a 15mm Bugbear Chieftain.

ECW Pikestand. I know, always with the pikes. Where's the musket love?

As you can see I have trouble focusing.

Also play tested Black Powder last night. One the Basement Generals, Bill, is building a 28mm SYW Prussian Army and thought Black Powder would fit our group for rules.
The rules call for a much larger table, so we played at 2/3 scale and only 12 units a side divided amongst 3 players. We only had 2 painted "real" units so it was time to dig out the foamcore armies. Not pretty and totally against everything the writers of Black Powder are for: big, pretty armies. But it allowed us to try the rules, so there.
As a first game, of course we did things wrong. The biggest was brigade morale. The sides were battling to a standstill til we caught that. The game would have gone even quicker than it did.

First impressions? I really like these rules. Accomplishes everything I want in ruleset. Quick, with a feel for the period. Everyone's engaged and they accomodate large forces, even if my table doesn't. However, these aren't going to be for everyone. They are wargamer rules written for wargamers. Beginners, rules lawyers and people who like finding loopholes will hate them. With the right group, which I think we have< they are a blast.
Can't wait to try with pike and shot. I ordered Hail Caesar!, by the same folks for ancients to medieval.

More news: Had a chance Saturday to watch another BP game. Somehow I became the expert  after the game Thursday. This was a 15mm ACW game. I think everyone involved was used to Fire and Fury and wasn't quite ready for some of BP's differences. I'm pretty sure they all liked the game, and were amazed how quickly it was over. The brigade break points had a few already talking about  modifying things (mostly the losers), until I pointed out scale. Most of us play F&F and are used to the operating scale as brigades with each player having a division. Those 8 stands of figs we push around are brigades with each stand or two a regiment. They take a couple of rounds of beating for they blow up. With BP you have to zoom down to that 8 stands. Now those individual stands are now our BP block of stands and you're handling a brigade. Those regiments you're pushing around are a lot more fragile. Lose half and your brigade is done.
This is going to require more careful management of your units, keep those flanks secure!