Sharpe Takes on the Little Wars Convention

 

Table set up for my Sharpe's Bridge game on Saturday 
The British light division was trying to escape across the Coa River before
being overwhelmed by superior French numbers.

ccc

Here are some pictures of the three games that I hosted at Little Wars this years. 40mm Napoleonic skirmish games based on the Richard Sharpe novels by Bernard Cornwell. My game was tucked away in some hard to find room next to the vendors area so it is understandable if you were at the convention and couldn’t find my game.

Major Hogan, one of Wellington's Exploring Officers, leads a scouting party
trying to find where Der Alte Fritz's games were being held at this year's Little Wars convention.

My game table featured custom built terrain using 2-inch pink insulation board which allowed me to sculpt and form realistic terrain . The figures were mostly Sash and Saber castings plus a few Perry 40mm figures and some of the Sharpe series personality figures from Steve Barber Models to represent Sharpe, Sgt Harper, Theresa, Pierre Ducos, and Jane Gibbons.

Sharpe (left) and Harper (center) - Steve Barber Models personality figures

The buildings were mostly 3D printed models from Battle Honours and I did all the painting and terrain making starting August 2025 through November 2025 so as to have the game ready for the Fall In Convention in Lancaster, PA. I added more bits and bobs and refinements through March 2026 before bringing the game to Little Wars this year.

Battle Honours buildings - 3D printed in 40mm scale
Cobblestone mat is from Lemax

We had a good group of players for all of the games and they made the games fun by really embracing the role playing element of a skirmish style of game. Some serious acting chops were put on display in my games. A big thanks to all of the participants for making it a good time.

The gentleman on the left played in two of my games, first playing the role of Richard Sharpe,
and then playing in the second game as Obadiah Hakeswell. He role played his characters to 
the hilt and demonstrated great acting chops and Oscar worthy performances.

Theresa (left) draws a bead on Hakeswell's hat (what would Mother think?) as she
attempts to rescue Lady Jane Fish and Lord Hamilton Fish. Somehow Hakeswell
talked his way out of this jam, only to fall into the hands of French General Calvet
who finally put Obadiah out of his misery for good (or did he?).

Theresa Sharpe (yes that Sharpe) also known as The Needle, leads her merry band of 
guerrillas around the wilds of the Little Wars hotel searching for Der Alte Fritz's game room.

40mm Sash and Saber British Riflemen figures

Perry Miniatures 40mm Peninsula War British light company figures representing
the South Essex Light Company.

Vistula Lancers comb the countryside trying to pick up the scent of Der Alte Fritz's game trail.

The South Essex Regiment on the march towards the Coa River bridge.
Flags by David Morfitt of "Not By Appointment" fame.

Colonel Henry Simmerson of the South Essex Regiment.
He led his men from the jaws of victory to a horrible defeat.
At least he didn't lose the Colours in this battle.

Besties Sharpe and Harper reach out to each other as they expire on 
the battlefield after hand to hand combat with the French. Corporal Harris (Jason Salkey)
looks on in despair, knowing that Sharpe's death means the end of his acting gig in the 
Sharpe television series.

Both Sharpe and Harper had a plus eight die modifier in melee, yet both men were cut down by swarms of French soldiers and incredibly bad dice rolling. Prior to the melee the game master was heard to say something along the lines of "Sharpe and Harper both get a +8 to their D20 die roll. They can't lose."

Colonel Henry Simmerson mucked up the retreat across the Coa River Bridge by suddenly stopping the South Essex road column and ordering his men to dress ranks and put their leather neck stocks back on. This blocked the road and prevented all of the other British units from reaching the safety of the bridge. However, Karma briefly reared its head and cause a Spanish mule driver to accidentally (?) strike a whip to the rear flank of Simmerson's horse, causing said horse to go careening back down the road towards the advancing French infantry.

The South Essex rally and reform on the safe side of the Coa River as Captain Leroy takes temporary
command of the regiment at the behest of Major Hogan who has relieved Simmerson of command.

Major Hogan organizes a defense of the bridge as the Vistula Lancers come charging in.

Birdseye view of the French cavalry breakthrough that cut off the South Essex Light Company from escape.

The South Essex center companies rally on the far side of the bridge.

The remnants of Sharpe's Rifles reform on the safe side of the bridge and begin a 
galling fire on the French cavalry that is charging across the bridge.

The end? Will Sharpe and Harper march again?

cccc

Little Wars Update: Maybe My Best Game Ever?

I hosted my Richard Sharpe Peninsula War (circa 1809 - 1812 for my game purposes) skirmish game at Little Wars thursday evening. The event was listed for 8 players, but I had some extra commands to use in the game so I ended up with ten players.

This game may well be one of the very best scenarios and players of all of the convention games that I have run going back to 1990. The players really took to the idea of role playing and they gave it their best effort. The result was a funny, Hollywood style of game that generated a number of surprises during the game. I want to thank all of the players in my game for such a fun time.

This is what I live for when I run a game at a convention.

"Sharpe! You are no gentleman. Humpf!"
-Colonel Henry Simmerson of the South Essex Regiment

The game was titled "Sharpe's Rescue" and it was loosely based on Bernard Cornwell's book, "Sharpe's Enemy". A band of renegade deserters from all armies has captured Sir Hamilton Fish and his wife Lady Jane Fish and they are being held for ransom. Lord Wellington has sent Richard Sharpe and his 95th Rifles Chosen Men on the mission to deliver the ransom and secure the safety of the hostages. The leader of the deserter band is none other than Obadiah Hakeswell, Sharpe's nemesis and mortal enemy.

"Sharpie, old boy. You are not a real officer. You were raised from the ranks."
Obadiah Hakeswell

Hakeswell was the leader of the renegade army of deserters, some of which were French and others were British. He wanted the ransom that the British were going to pay, but what he really wanted was Lady Jane Fish. He would double-cross anyone, including his own men, to save his skin and to get what he wanted.

Both the British and the French were on a mission to rescue the hostages and their combined numbers would overwhelm the Deserters. Hakeswell took the first opportunity to steal away from the convent where all of the fighting was taking place for he could see that his men were going to lose. So Hakeswell dashed out of the backdoor of the convent with the two hostages at gunpoint, but he ran into a battalion of French regulars who were attacking the convent. He bargained with the French to take Lord Fish as a prisoner while he and Lady Fish took off cross-country to escape.

Everything looked all tickety-boo for Hakeswell who was on the verge of escaping with his life and the forthcoming pleasures of Lady Fish. However, Sharpe had one last bullet in his rifle, he took careful aim, and gunned down Obadiah Hakeswell at 300 yards for the finale.

"Revenge is a dish best served cold."
Colonel Pierre Ducos
Napoleon's master spy and nemesis of Sharpe

Pierre Ducos was Napoleon's master spy and in charge of intelligence operations in Spain. His mission was to find and capture Major Hogan, one of Wellington's Exploring Officers. His colleague, Colonel d'Eclin of the French Guard Chasseurs a Cheval managed to capture Sharpe in a melee. Concurrently, Ducos was captured by Major Hogan. Ducos surrendered to Hogan on the condition that he be given his parole and sent on his way home. Ducos proposed the he and Sharpe be swapped as prisoners.

As you can see there was a lot of action and first class role playing going on during the game. The rules were simple and easy to learn, fitting on two sides of a letter sized piece of paper. I thought that the rules really helped propel the flow of the game.

My next game is the same scenario, Sharpe's Rescue, at 1PM Friday. I am also running a game on Saturday afternoon at 1PM, titled Sharpe's Bridge. Sharpe and his men will be sprinting towards the Coa River Bridge to escape the on-coming French, whose attack has taken the British by surprise. Will Sharpe and his Chosen Men escape across the bridge in time, or will that idiot Colonel Henry Simmerson of the South Essex Regiment panic and blow up the bridge and cutting off Sharpe from his bridge.

ccc

Fall In Convention

 

A view of the two game tables that I used for my three Fall In Sharpe Adventures in Spain games.

I am back from my trip to the HMGS East Fall In Convention in Lancaster, PA November  6-9, 2025. All told, it was a successful show, having hosted three games featuring Captain Richard Sharpe's adventures in Spain during the Peninsular War of the Napoleonic Era. I won a PELA award for my game on Saturday ("Sharpe's Bridge - The Battle of the Coa River") and I also won the Best Terrain award for the convention. Finally, all three games were fully booked with players and this is always my personal goal when I am hosting games at war game conventions.

PELA Award for my individual game on Saturday morning.

Fall In is held every Fall at the Wyndom Resort in Lancaster, PA. This is the same site as the old Lancaster Host Hotel that used to hold Historicon before it moved to a better facility in downtown Lancaster. New ownership completely renovated all of the rooms, so the floor layout was the same as before, but more importantly, the rooms were brought up to a high standard and they had a fresh and new vibe to them.

Fall In is a bit smaller than Historicon in terms of the number of games available and the number of attendees, but it is larger than the HMGS-Midwest Little Wars convention as a point of reference. The convention organizers gave me a premium table site in the main foyer in front of the large Lancaster Ball Room; so everyone had to walk past my two game tables before entering the main game area.

The view of my tables as you first walk down the stairs into the main game hall.
The food vendors were next to my tables so this brought a few more eyeballs to my game table.

Here are more pictures of my games. I will post a separate report about the other games at Fall In.

I hosted three games: Friday at 10AM, Friday at 7PM and Saturday at 10AM. My favorite scenario of the three was the Saturday game: "Sharpe's Rescue" which was inspired by the Bernard Cornwell book "Sharpe's Enemy". All of the players were very familiar with the Sharpe books in general and the Sharpe's Enemy book in particular. Consequently, they all actively played their roles to the hilt regarding  the forces that they were commanding: the evil Obadiah Hakeswill, the French spy Pierre Ducos, several French commanders, Sir Henry Simmerson and others.

Richard Sharpe was tasked with rescuing Lady Farthingale from the evil clutches of Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill (Sharpe's mortal enemy), who was holding her as a hostage. She was being held captive in a convent high up in the mountains. Sharpe led a force of his own Chosen Men (95th Rifles), the Light Company of the South Essex regiment, La Aguja's band of Spanish guerrillas (commanded by Sharpe's wife Theresa) and a half company of the South Essex regiment.

So Sharpe and his Chosen Men and the South Essex light company assaulted the convent from one direction while the guerrillas attacked from another direction (with the aim of cutting off the retreat of Hakeswill's army of deserters.

While the other forces provided covering fire, the Chosen Men fought their way into the convent courtyard, rescued Lady Farthingale and attempted to fight their way out of the compound to safety. Along the way, Sharpe fought and captured Hakeswill and cut his way through a swath of French regulars (who were also trying to capture the hostages). So far, things were running close to the events in the book. However, Hakeswill's men forced their way into the hut where the Chosen Men were holding off the bad guys and Sharpe was faced with the tough choice of releasing Hakeswill from captivity and escaping with the hostages, or try to keep both Hakeswill and the hostages. 

Meanwhile, Sergeant Patrick Harper was leading the way down the back stairway of the convent. His seven barreled Nock Naval Gun blew a hole through a squad of French regulars and the road to freedom appeared to be secured. Just then, the bad guys won the next initiative card and they shot down Harper.

We were running out of game time, so I reshuffled the card deck and decided that I would keep drawing initiative cards until either Sharpe's or Hakeswill's card was drawn first. That would determine the winner of the game. Hakeswill drew the first card and was declared the winner, but close only counts in horse shoes as the old saying goes.

Richard Sharpe and Sergeant Patrick Harper fight their way out of the convent. Rifleman Harris tries to hold the door closed to protect Sharpe's back. Sharpe and Harris made it to safety, but Harper met an unfortunate end.
Or did he? Sharpe and Harper will march again at Little Wars in April 2026.

As often happens during a game, you find some loop holes in the rules or discover a better way of doing something differently.

During a melee, the individual figures match up and both sides roll a D20 die, with modifiers, and the high score wins the melee. Then a card is drawn from the deck: a heart results in a kill, a diamond results in a wound, a spade results in the loser running away, and a club card results in the capture of the loser. During the second game, some of the players started applying this "results method" to small arms fire as well as to melee outcomes. I liked the way that this worked and so I used it in the third and final game. It amounts to a saving throw of sorts and reduces the amount of hits/kills from small arms fire. 

In the next several days I will post some pictures of the other games that I saw at Fall In so stay tuned for more.

A River Runs Through It - Making River Terrain

 

The Coa River and the Santiago Monastery, built by me.

I finished making river sections for the main table of my game at this year's Fall In convention in Lancaster, PA  Fall In Convention web site.  November 7-9 2025 at the Wyndham Resort and Convention Center in Lancaster, PA. (This is the hotel that used to be called The Host). Click on this link  to get to the convention's home page so that you can register for the show and make reservations for the games via the Table Top Events app.

First things first: 

I need some of my followers (you) to sign up for my Friday morning game (see below) because, so far, nobody has signed up for the game. If you plan on attending the convention then I would be most grateful if you would sign up for one of my games. Each game has 8 tickets or player slots. I can run the games with 2 or 3 people since I can then step in and play multiple commands to facilitate the game.

Each game is a Napoleonic skirmish game set in Spain during the Peninsular War and feature the exploits of Richard Sharpe and his Chosen Men against the Forces of Evil, notably Pierre Ducos, Obadiah Hakeswell, and Colonel Henry Simmerson.

Click on the links in blue, for each game below, and sign up for one of my games. I have made some terrific bespoke terrain boards for the game and have painted a number of 40mm figures from Sash and Saber and Perry Miniatures.

Sharpe's Treasure sign up Event number 528 at Friday 10AM (8 of 8 tickets available)

It's 1810 and Napoleon has conquered most of Spain. Captain Richard Sharpe and Sgt Harper must find and retrieve the Sword of Santiago before Napoleon's spy, Pierre Ducos finds it. Legend has it that the bearer of the sword will unite the people of Spain and drive out the invaders of Spain. So Sharpe and his Chosen Men of the 95th Rifles find themselves in a race against time to find the Sword of Santiago before it falls into the hands of the French. This is a Napoleonic skirmish game.

Sharpe's Bridge - Battle of the Coa River Event number 441 at Friday 7PM (5 of 8 available)

Crawford's British Light Division has made a fighting retreat across the Coa River Bridge, but just barely. However, somebody forgot to give Richard Sharpe the order to retreat. Was the lost order the work of French master spy Pierre Ducos? We will find out. Now Sharpe and his Chosen Men must fight for their lives to reach the safety of the Coa Bridge. Help Sharpe escape in this Napoleonic skirmish game.

Sharpe's Rescue   Event number 527 at 10AM Saturday  (3 of 8 available)

Richard Sharpe and his Chosen Men must rescue Lady Farthingdale, who is held hostage by a renegade army of British and French deserters under the command of Sharpe's mortal enemy: Sgt. Obadiah Hakeswell. Lady Farthingdale is the wife of an important British diplomat and the heat is on Lord Wellington to find her. Wellington turns to his only hope:Richard Sharpe. The hostages are being held at a remote mountain village where all sorts of dangers await the rescuers. Napoleonic skirmish game.

Making River Sections

The river sections were fairly easy to make. I use cork-backed place mats the measure about 12" by 16" and I cut these in have to get two 12" long by 8" wide pieces of cork board. Next I spray some tan primer on the boards. After that, I draw the outline of the river on each piece, making sure that they all enter/leave the center point of the cork board. This way, the river section water will line up with any of the boards that I make.

Moving on, the water parts of the river are painted black and then dark green on top of the black. Some lighter green color can be used along the edges of the river bank to denote shallower waters than in the center of the board.

Next, I spread a mix of wall board paste and tan paint over the surface of the board, but take care not get any of the goop on the water sections. While the goop is still wet, I sprinkle some fine Woodlands Scenics railroad gravel on top of the goop. Now I let the boards dry overnight.

Now I dry brush several different layers of paint that is lighter than the underlying tan primer.

Note that the final step of the river section boards will be glossing up the water. This is because you don't want any of the fine gravel, dust or other bits of material falling into the water piece and mucking up the surface of the water. I used two or three coats of Mod Podge on the water parts, letting each coat of the material dry before applying the next coat. I use a small craft brush (ten to a bag for about $3.00 at Michael Stores) to brush the Mod Podge onto the water. This produces a moderate amount of gloss on the water that almost looks like water when you look at it.

The final touch is to find a bunch of rocks and spread them along the banks of the river. I do not glue the rocks to the terrain river board. When the game is over, I just scoop up all of the rocks and put them in a metal gallon pail, which makes them easy to carry around.

If you want to add some tall grass or reeds along the river bank, then do this after you have dry brushed the river board. I use a sisal door mat and cut off small bits of the fiber. I dip the strands of fiber into a small pot of green paint. The fibers suck up the green paint so as to make them green. The pieces are then glued to the board using two-part epoxy glue.

ccc

Taking it to the next level

 

Peninsula terrain boards and the Monastery of Santiago for my 40mm skirmish games.

I have been busy as a beaver working on the Spanish terrain boards and terrain ground clutter pieces and I am nearing the end of the construction phase of the project (or at least as far as I can foresee). Recent terrain additions include some vineyards, an olive grove and a mount to place the monastery in the Sharpe games.

I decided that the Monastery of Santiago, the center piece of my terrain, needed to be elevated a bit more to make it truly stand out, so I cut off a chunk of 2-inch thick pink foam insulation board and carved out some steps and  ramps to provide access to the monastery.

Front view of the monastery and the dual entrance ramps.

The church has a back door so I had to have an access point at the rear of the building.
When I elevated the buildings on a 2-inch thick slab of foam board, I was able to carve
some steps into the raised base. Rocks were scored into the foam with a ball point BIC pen
and then painted various shades of grey to simulate stonework.

A view of the raised monastery cited on the far side of the Coa River crossing.
The sides of the raised base will have bark nuggets glued on and painted to match
the stone inside of the river gorge. The driveway still needs some dry brushing and highlights.

This picture depicts the Coa River, but it also shows the monastery layout before I 
decided to raise the buildings two inches higher. On the far back table on the right a 
new board is a work in progress- the pink insulation foam has been painted a dark
brown undercoat color.

A close up view of the vineyards.

NEXT:

Now I have to turn my attention to the construction of some river sections to place inside the river gorge. I have cut up some cork placemats and given them a coating of tan primer. Then the water will be painted onto the boards using black paint and dark green paint; then the ground gets covered with wallboard paste and all other dry brushing work gets done. Finally, a gloss coating of either gloss spray on primer or Mod Podge will cover the water to give it a shiny shimmering water effect. This step must be done last, otherwise bits of sand and dust will get on the gloss surface and stick - this doesn't look good.

THE BOTS ARE GONE?

The bots disappeared at the beginning of October and now my viewer count is deemed more accurate with respect to the number of visitors and page views that each blog entry is getting. The previous entry currently has around 350 views compared to 15,000 views for several of the September postings. I hope that this is the last of the bots for awhile.

In closing, here are two pictures of the Perry 40mm British light infantry company of the South Essex Regiment.