Great Bargains At Our Local Bring And Buy - And An ACW Sharp Practice Game Afterwards

Longish title, I admit, but knocked out two great events on the same day. The first was a bring and buy less than 5 minutes from my place at Fort Steilacoom. The second was a Sharp Practice game just a couple miles from the fort at my buddy's place down the road. There were a lot of great bargains at the bring and buy, and I ended up picking up a box of Warlord Games Battalia Starter Army and several pre-painted buildings from Black Site Studios. Although I thought I'd never get back to ECW Pike and Shotte after selling off my large collection last year, I just couldn't pass up what this box was going for (less than the normal price of a box of 30 figs!). Plan to go with skirmish games with these, and basing them individually - possibly for Pikeman's Lament or other skirmish rules. The buildings were also bargain basement prices, and the garden walls and outhouse thrown in for free. Plan to use the buildings for a Leipzig game in the future as they appear to have the same architecture I've seen in period illustrations of the battle; mainly for aesthetics more than anything.

Here's what the bring and buy looked like this morning. It was nice seeing all the folks, most of whom I've known for many years.

Here are some pictures from the ACW Sharp Practice game later in the day. The game was based on the Battle of Honey Springs in 1863. I ran a contingent of native troops allied with Union forces, as well as an artillery battery. The scenario had the Confederates trying to reclaim one of their standards left on the field from an earlier engagement. It ended up a slugfest with the Confederates never making it to the flag. It was the first time I've played Sharp Practice in over a decade - and first time with the newer edition. It was a fun game, mainly due to my buddies knowing the rules pretty well - they are big fans of TFL rules.

My unit of 2nd Indian Home Guards in skirmish order screening a unit 1st Kansas Colored Infantry. The battle involved quite a variety of troops. The Confederates should have also had native troops, but my buddy was still painting them :).

Background and map of the battle.

Part of the Confederate battle line in the woods. My battery took out one of their cannon.

The flag too far laying in the kill zone.

Union troops advancing.

Confederates manuevering onto the table.

All in all a great day to spend with like-minded folk, and acquiring some great new projects. Hope you all are doing well!

Fix Bayonets! 9/24/11

Another winner 2nd year in a row. This is a smallish game day put on by a few local gamers at an historic venue; Fort Steilacoom. It is held in quarters number 2 - the fort's original commanding officers quarters. Here it is restored with a bunch of Canadians marching out in front.

In the first period, I got into a Command & Colors game hosted by Mike G. His figures are superb, and the game was quick and fun to play - first time for me.

In the afternoon I ran a Sharp Practice game. It's really cool to host a game with players who've never played the rules before. The game is fast-play, and the only thing new players have a little trouble with is the concept of Initiative and Actions. It was French victory - the Artillery Train managing to make it to the safety of the garrison. Here are some snapshots I managed to take of the game.

A couple of photos I lifted from my buddy Adrian's blog - View from above the French garrison; hussars riding out to search the woods for guerrilla activity; 12th Legere within garrison walls; cuirassiers rounding bend in the road to the right. In the distance British troops - 60th & 95th Rifles, as well as 23rd Fusiliers.

And the ever "loyal" Spaniards under Tuco; a mandatory unit for Sharp Practice (at least Peninsular scenarios).

Truants Final Game for 2011 - 8/26/11

Hosted a Sharp Practice game today at the Game Matrix. This was the final Truants game for the season. Several of the Truants managed to make it in for the game today. Bruce and Al ran the French, and Adrian and Scott the British. The scenario was a French plan to ambush and destroy British and allied forces. The French commander, Colonel Steve Zissou "the Mad" had devised a scheme to trick the British into thinking an artillery train was carrying gold to their garrison. Unfortunately, the plan sort of back fired as the British, with units of 42nd Highlanders as well as two units of British Rifles used superior fire power to send the French scurrying back to their garrison. As I was GMing, I only managed to take a few photos - not one of the artillery train, unfortunately.

In spite of most of the players being new to the rules, as well as me being a bit rusty with them, we all had a good time. We even discussed adding some house rules to make them flow better. One was changing Formations. We think a Big Man with appropriate Initiative should be able to change his Formations without having to roll for movement to succeed. Just the cost of the Initiative should allow this.
EDIT Here are a few more photos taken by Adrian (lifted off of his Facebook): Guerrillas on a hill spying the French.

Hussars taking fire from their right flank - prior to charging into the Highlanders in column to their front.

Also, I had recently posted a "Want Ad" on TMP for Old Glory French Middle Guard and/or British Fusiliers. TMPer VirtualScratchBuilder quickly responded that he had a few spares and sent them to me free of charge. They look great and size up well with Perry and Victrix.

Simple Peninsular Terrain

Here's a simple layout with easily transportable terrain that will be used for an upcoming Sharp Practice game. Since the game will be held at our FLGS, The Game Matrix, I wanted stuff that was not only easy to set up, but also easy to store and transport.

The ground cover is a cloth which has been given some variation of color - mainly light green & tan. Two low hills were created using some packing material that was cut into irregular shapes, and stuffed under the cloth.

One hilltop is forested, and the other has a church which will be a garrison for the French.

I've had the pine trees for a long time and can swap them out with other types using the bases that have slots for the trees. The roads were a prize I won from the recent Enfilade! convention. They were donated by Wizard Kraft Modular Terrain. Here, the recently completed French Artillery Train along with some Perry and Victrix figures are testing these fine roads out

Looking at the set up now, I think I'll either pull the walls back or remove them altogether - to allow more space for cavalry to maneuver.
ADDENDUM: I rearranged some things to allow a larger area to maneuver forces - the two hills were moved back towards their edges; and the walls were moved away from the roadside and more or less enclose the church/garrison.

Enfilade! 2010 - Sharp Practice

Well, it's late in the evening, and I'm relaxing with a St Pauli Girl Special Dark and ready to hit the sack for an early wake up for another round at Enfilade! 2010. But, before I do, I wanted to post a few pictures from the Sharp Practice game I hosted this afternoon. This was during the first period of the convention - starting at 2:00pm. Surprisingly, there were actually more folks wanting to play then the four slots planned - so I let two more folks in; total of six players. The nice game mat is Adrian's, who let me use it - quite an honor, as it is the first time being used. Adrian helped me co-host, but he hadn't played it in a long time and pretty much let me run the show. Half of the players either had a copy of the rules or played a somewhat similar Too Fat Lardies game - I Ain't Been Shot Mum!; one player - Mitch B., actually ran the first Sharp Practice game I ever played at a previous convention. He hadn't played it in awhile too though. So, this sort of experience helped out in some ways, but in others, it led to a lot of questions - as I Ain't Been Shot Mum! does  have a few differing mechanics. Add to that the Sharp's rules aren't the most detailed - so I had to make some on the spot rulings (which is why Game Masters get paid the big bucks :)!

Anyways, here a few photos Adrian was kind enough to snap whilst I was knee deep in running the game.

This was only my second time hosting a game at Enfilade, but being in the early period on the first day allowed it to be pretty low-key and low-stress. In fact, there were still a lot of great games going on. Right next to this table, a really nice Hundred Years War game using Crusader rules was being run by Chris C. I played a new board game with Adrian in the next period - Richard III. It's a pretty cool game, but I like pushing figures around better. Tomorrow, I hope to get in a few more games - actually pre-registered for a Colonial game in the afternoon. Sunday morning is another biggie - for me - co-hosting a WAB game with my Epirote army taking on Adrian's Republican Romans.

Sharp Practice - Final Playtest Before the Big 'Un

Thanks to my gaming buddy James R., I managed to pull off one more playtest before Enfilade - only three weeks away. I feel pretty good that this could be a fun and fast playing game. It all depends on the players of course; I think aggressiveness, on both sides, will increase the effect. This was only the second actual Sharp Practice game James played, but he really read up on the rules and it was great to play with him. I managed to snap a few pictures of the game - but, only when I remembered to - as I was playing the French as well as "honing" my GMing-skills :)!

Thanks to the previous playtest, I used a suggestion by one of the players to arrange the groups in a somewhat disordered way to show that they are not in formation. Only when they are formed into "formations" will the bases be on line with each other. It worked out well in the game.

Having been mutually spotted on the Tiffin, both the 9th Legere and 3rd "The Buffs" come onto the table in march column. A French sentry in the bell tower spotted a blind earlier, but it turned out to be a dummy blind - he moved to join his parent unit on the Tiffin as well.

The pictures above show a change of formation from column to line by "The Buffs" using a house rule I came up with from the last game. James bought off on it today, but we agreed it's probably easier to just move the column to the position you want, and then do a 90 degree facing movement.

Initial movements in the center by the 27th Line.

The artillery did well - basically providing a strong deterrent to the advance of the 95th Rifles. The gun on the left didn't fire during the game as no one came into their line of sight. I used a Games Workshop flamethrower template to allow a little arc of fire for the guns.

Spanish Guerrillas placed on the table no closer than 12" to any French unit - James tried to get to the Big Man One on horseback in the center of the garrison, but too many other French units were nearby - ha ha ha!

Soon after the picture above, the Voltigeurs as well as the Chasseurs who later turned their facing fired upon the Guerrillas to good effect. The Guerrillas received enough Shock Points to lose their Bottle and had to leave the table on the next Tiffin Card. This was very different from the last game, when they took out a French Big Man early on. In fact, James played the French in that game - hmmm, there might be a common denominator here - just kiddin' James.

The formation of two groups of 9th Legere Carabiniers and Chasseurs eventually got worsted in this firefight with three groups of  "The Buffs." Although the British were only firing back with the two groups in their formation that had line of sight, they are classed as Good and these 9th guys only Average/Regular - so the British did get a few more dice during firing.

The action, well "action" may be too strong of a description, in the center was sort of bland compared to what was happening on the flanks. In fact, that Fusilier formation of two groups in the distance was intact at the end of the game - they did move to try and outflank the 95th guys though. I think the relative "boredom" in the center was due to a combination of terrain and over-cautiousness of both sides.

Ah, this is more like it. Having already traded shots, the British moved into fisticuffs. The British were in column with two groups along with their Big Man One and attendant musicians and sergeants (who can, and did, join in fisticuff). The sole Voltigeur group, classed as Elite, did pretty good considering the British Big Man was their level 4 guy and the Sergeant leading the Voltigeurs only a level 1. They did receive enough Shock Points to have to move back after the Tiffin Card.

We called it a very close British victory soon after this. The French still had possession of the garrison, but the British were slowly, but steadily, wearing down the French on both flanks. All in all, a great game and hope the one at Enfilade is even better.

Some "House-Rules" for Sharp Practice

Perusing the excellent Sharp Practice Forum I've yet to find a definitive answer to a question that came up during a recent play test game. The issue is how to change a formation in column into line. The section on "Changing Facing and Formation", doesn't specifically address the scenario we encountered. That is a formation (which for Sharp Practice is two or more "groups" combined) in march column needing to reform on line to their direction of march. The aforementioned rule seems to only address a change if the column were to turn to line 90 degrees of their march. The optional rules found in Appendix One "Step Sharply" has a good overview of the different drills each major nation performed, as well as excellent diagrams. It even concludes with a subsection of "Using Drill For Table-Top Formations." However, it doesn't include actual application, nor distances to use for these movements.

In the absence of specific rulings, I've proposed to my gaming buddies, the following "house-rule" to change a formation in march column to line in the direction of march. Hopefully the following diagrams with captions are self-explanatory. I have the original as a Power Point Slide Show with the units moving up in sequence automatically - in my previous career I had to stoop to being a Power Point "Ranger" sometimes.

This may all seem a bit trivial and common sense, but it came up for discussion at the last play test and hopefully this "house-rule" will solve our future games in this regard.

Sharp Practice Playtest - 3/27/10

Thanks to Adrian, Scott, James and Lawrence for assisting in the playtesting for a Sharp Practice game being hosted at Enfilade in May. It was a long and grueling day but everyone hung in there and we worked out a lot of bugs. Another playtest will really help fine tune the game; hopefully get in two more playtests before Enfilade.

We actually got in two playtest games today - after the first game, we tweaked the game a little and played another round. The initial scenario is a French unit in garrison awaiting the arrival of a relief column (using blinds). The British with Portuguese and Spanish allies are moving on the garrison - mostly using blinds. Two British Rifle units with Portuguese Cacadores are the only two British units that come on the table without blinds. The Spanish Guerrillas come on with the Blank Card - anywhere on the table up to 12" from any French unit.

The first playtest ended fairly quickly as Scott placed his Spanish guerrillas at a great spot after drawing the Blank Card- next to an exposed French Big Man. They subsequently charged and attacked the level II French Big Man - defeating him and his entourage of drummers and sycophants (drummers, porte-fanion, and pioneer). He was thus captured and my initial Victory Condition was the capture of a Big Man of level II or higher. I didn't realize how quick and easy it would be.

The second game was played with revised Victory Conditions - basically point based, more than certain events occurring that would end the game. Adrian also reconfigured the French garrison to make it more linear and connected. One of the Victory Conditions is for the British to outnumber the French inside walls of the garrison.

We also adjusted the use of Sentries - in the first game we used one lone sentry at a point in the cross-roads - we couldn't figure out a good way for him to get word back if an enemy unit was successfully spotted. Especially since he would use up his two action dice to spot. In the second playtest, we first were going to put three sentries on hilltops, but then decided to place just one in the church bell tower. Here he could spot and easily relay the info to the troops below. It seems so common sense now - but prior to the playtesting, I hadn't envisioned any problems placing him at the crossroads. Okay - no more excuses - moving on to Playtest II.

Another tweak for the next playtest will be allowing the British to come on a bit closer. The two games today had all British come on at table edge - this will be changed to 12" for units on Blinds and 24" the two Rifles units not on Blinds- speeding up engagement or spotting - as some legendary gamers would say, "Let's get to the shooting as quickly as possible!"

Again, many thanks to Adrian, Scott, James and Lawrence for their invaluable assistance and excellent recommendations. They really made the playtesting about as productive and useful as can be imagined. I owe them big time.