2025 is upon us – time for new minis, new wars to study, and new uniforms to paint! Perhaps you received a big pile of minis under the tree or treated yourself to some, or have a big backlog that you want to get through. Now is the perfect time. The children yearn for the muskets.
How do we turn this bare plastic and metal into marching armies that are fully combat capable? Today we’re going to start from the start, plan out what we’ll use for rulesets, background history, uniform research, setting inspiration, scale, and basing. We’ll walk through how I’m going about this with my new Second Seminole War project.
Rulesets
There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of black powder era rulesets. I personally define the era as 1700-1870s – so we’ll look at some that are more prominent and have a dedicated following. For our article today we’re assuming you’re looking at building a large skirmish force that you could then later build into something bigger if you wanted. I define large skirmish as between 20-60 models per side. We’ll take a look at three multi-conflict rulesets that fit the bill.
Muskets and Tomahawks
M&T uses points to build forces – usually around 20 models per 200 points. Activation is done with cards – you can activate your own troops as well as your opponents – you do gain benefits for doing that, though, in the form of command points. More elite units get more activations. Both players use the same shared deck, and Player 1 might have cards that are activate Player 2’s troops, and Player 1 has to decide when to play them. Three clock cards are inserted and when the third is drawn, all played cards are reshuffled. Hand size is three cards and generally is not refreshed until a player has played three cards – meaning the way the clocks work, a unit could activate multiple times before another. The troop cards place an emphasis on activating the units – not commanders – an important distinction. Officers in M&T are not the focus, it’s the men.
If you’re going to try M&T (I definitely suggest you do!) checkout the different conflict books that are sold separately to get an idea of how to build your models into effective units. Most units seem to be between 6-12 models.
M&T goes the non-traditional route and tosses D6s to the side, going for more granularity with D10s. One of my favorite elements of M&T is all the flavor it has – there are weather rules, random events, and Intrigues, which are small side actions that your officer takes part in. If you don’t complete your intrigue by the end of the game, the best chance you have is for a draw. Intrigues are optional.
Muskets have a range of 24″, which is fairly common. Rifled muskets and rifles have range of 72″ (but shooting over 24″ is at extreme penalty). M&T has spotting rules, an intriguing difference as someone who has not used anything like that before. It is entirely possible, especially in a North American setting, to limit visibility to your troops in woods or hard cover if they haven’t shot yet. There are rules for formations and how they work, as well. Movement for most units is 4″, but some get bonuses, and if no enemies are near you get a bonus as well.
Overall, I think M&T distinguishes itself with the cards mechanic, spotting, and the extra flavor like Intrigues, weather, and random events. I think it might be especially compelling in dense North American terrain with irregular troops like Native Americans.
Sharp Practice
We’ve covered Sharp Practice extensively here. Each player builds a force – most starter lists are around 50 models – made up of infantry, cavalry, and / or artillery. Like most TooFatLardies games, SP is focused on command, control, and friction. Your troops won’t always do exactly what you want and they won’t always move as far as you want or shoot when or where you want.
When planning your force it’s important to know how many models you’ll need: line infantry come in units of eight, militia in units of ten, and tribes in units of 12. Cavalry come in units of eight with six dismounted models. Skirmish units come in units of six. Line infantry and militia are generally formed together with other units – creating formations usually between 16 and 24 models.
Units generally don’t start on the board – they’re brought on the board via deployment points. This simulates units moving around before the actual firefight begins, out of sight. It might also simulate them hiding and throwing down an ambush or unseen charge. Usually this means there isn’t a whole lot of time wasted before the shooting starts. Muskets have a range of 24″, rifles can shoot 36″, while rifled muskets are 48″.
Leaders are activated on a turn of their card. They have a set number of command initiates, based on their leadership quality, one through four. They can boost their troops by using these initiatives – commanding them to shoot a certain direction, form up, etc. If a Tiffin card is drawn, the turn is over and all cards are reshuffled. Players might receive command cards – a red or blue flag – that allows them to again boost their troops, by making them move faster, shoot better, etc. Units that didn’t activate with their officer can be activated at a turn end with a command card. Units move a random D6″ for each action they spend doing so, usually up to two.
You can read more about Sharp Practice in our review.
Blood and Steel
B&S uses a lot of the foundation from Blood and Plunder to create a compelling and interesting wargame for wars from 1837-1901. Activations are run by dice and bidding – you roll a pool at the beginning of the turn, and any dice showing a 4-10 (d10s are used) allows a unit to do two actions, while any dice showing a 1-3 allow a unit to do a single action. Fatigue then comes into play to make it harder for that unit to do anything as well. Most actions you’d expect are here – move, shoot, charge, reload, etc.
Muskets can shoot 30″, while rifled muskets can shoot 40″, and breechloaders have unlimited range. Interestingly, units in B&S must shoot at the closest target when that target is within 10″. They can take a test to ignore this, but if they fail, must shoot at the closest target. Units have a 360 degree LOS in B&S.
Units in B&S, like Blood and Plunder, do not have a set unit size – they have a minimum and maximum (usually four to eight, or sometimes ten). The rulebook contains lists for some really interesting and very lightly covered conflicts: Second Seminole War, US-Mexican War, American Civil War, Second Taranaki War, Anglo-Zulu War, and Spanish-American War.
Background History
It’s a good idea to grab a few books from your favorite place – I usually try to get (at least) one general war history, one on each unit or force that I’m focusing on, and a personal account of the war or action. Depending on what you’ve chosen, there could be tons and tons of available literature or not much at all. I’ve chosen the Second Seminole War for my new project and it definitely falls into the second category. Here are some of the books I’ve chosen:
This is a general history book released by a University press. I figured it’d be a great intro as well as comprehensive history of the politics and engagements.
This book stood out to me as a very different look into the war, something that we don’t see with other conflicts. The author is a very distinguished professor, historian, and museum curator. He examines the impact of the Black Seminole’s actions during the war and how it was likely the most successful slave rebellion in America.
I had to grab this simply based on the title alone. Old soldiers went hard with the titles of their accounts in the 1800s.
The Missalls serve on the board of directors of the Seminole Wars Historic Foundation, so I knew this would be another good general history source. In addition, it’s a more recent publication – I generally try to find books written post-2000, especially given this is a conflict that involved native and enslaved people.
Uniform Research
Once you’re set with some general history and some unit history, you must of course purchase Osprey books. Osprey have a few different lines of literature: they start with Men-At-Arms and Elite, the most basic uniform guides that tell you everything you need to know about uniforms either for both sides of a war or a certain army / force in that conflict; then there are Combat books, which usually detail the day to day life, uniforms, and combat styles of one soldier of each side; then there are other books they make like Campaign, Raid, and many others. The yellower the cover, the more well-loved the Osprey book is, the better for your shelf.
I usually buy any Man-At-Arms, Elite, or Combat books that I can about the conflict that I’m gaming. For Second Seminole War I picked up the following:
This Men-At-Arms title has uniform info and color plates for basically everything I need. It’s not entirely extensive – Seminole clothing was extremely unique and varied during the time period – but it gives you a good baseline.
The Combat series is a more recent addition to the Osprey line – this book came out in 2022, so I knew it would have the most up-to-date research and uniform information out there. There is some really great art in it along with maps of the major engagements.
This is the most in-depth uniform book I bought – it’s even got patterns for reproduction of period items – and I love it. It might be too in-depth for general applications but as a former re-enactor myself I always want to know exactly as best we can what they wore.
Setting Inspiration
Generally when I’m really into something and painting up a ton of troops, I try to find some novels, movies, or documentaries on the subject. This helps me envision what I want for the battlefield and how the troops looked and move. Unfortunately for me, the movies about this war are all from the 50s – considered ‘Florida Westerns’. It’s really tough trying to find stuff for most 1800s combat (besides ACW and Napoleonic) because it’s all old and usually very wrong.
Distant Drums was released in 1951. While this movie was shot in the Everglades, so you do get a great picture of what the terrain would look like, the uniforms and clothing are entirely awful. Seminoles and other Native Americans are not portrayed well. Weapons are almost entirely wrong, with some using repeating rifles that definitely weren’t available. Maybe the only redeeming quality? The Wilhelm Scream came from this movie.
I have not yet watched this one, but reviews online make it sound much better than Distant Drums. It is more sympathetic to the Seminole people and actually historically accurate in what happens in the movie, while also showing how flawed the US Army’s strategy was in Florida, and how that impacted the people there.
Scale
This is pretty simple and may impact our next decision. Do you want to play with 10, 15, 20, 25/28, or 35mm troops? We did a roundtable here on what thoughts we had about scale. With 10,15, or even 20s you can transport the minis really easily and they may be cheaper. Details are fewer so they may be easier to paint. 25 and bigger have more detail, will be easier to see, and be more readily available in the market.
My chosen scale is 28mm on a big 6×4 mat pretty much every time. I have to formally measure the new 2nd Seminole War minis from Phalanx Games & Sundry but they strike me as closer to 32mm, which only matters to me because of the next topic we’ll cover.
Basing
Generally for all of my black powder era stuff I base my troops on 20mm round bases. This started way back when I first painted some ACW minis – I found 20mm round bases inserted in a sabot ranked up very nicely and gave me the look I wanted for ranked up troops in close formation.
With the 2nd Seminole War minis from Phalanx, they’re a bit bigger, so I chose to put them on 25mm bases. 25mm bases are more stable and don’t knock over as easily but will still rank up. They won’t be as close together, but the terrain in Florida doesn’t really make it easy to move in ranked formations, either.
Other things to consider – are you going to glue your troops to a big multi-base and just mark off lost troops before entirely removing a base? It might be easier with small scale minis. Minis are less likely to have damaged paint that way as well as there is less overall handling of the figures and less chance they’re going to fall over.
If basing individually then you’ll want to find the sabot bases (big movement trays with holes cut out for each individually based soldier) that you’ll use and make sure you like them. Personally, I suggest MDF or plastic 3D printed trays. If using a pewter figures definitely magnetize the bottom of their base and put a magnet in the sabot so they don’t fall out.
New Year, New Army
If you’re brand new to the black powder era or even just trying to wrap your head around a new conflict, I hope this article has given you a peek into how I usually approach a project like this. Hopefully it helps you get going on yours for 2025! Let us know down below if we’ve missed a step or any other details you think are critical for projects you work on.
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