The Relief of Shah Wadi Wadi

I just realised I hadn’t posted anything on the blog regarding the game I put on at the club a few weeks ago.  It was a trial of the Sudan amendments and first scenario for Sharp Practice from the latest Lard Magazine.  Here are a few photos:

Whilst we all had a fun game I must admit I’m not sure the amendments quite deliver what I was hoping and I remain uncertain whether trying to use Sharp Practice for this period (as it’s not really intended to cover this late).  I do have several other sets of rules to try out so expect so see some of those turn up at some point.

Gaming in Lockdown: Zoom and the Battle of Fatehpur Redux

 With us being unable to gather to game face to face I decided to try to run a tabletop game over Zoom.  To make life easy I run a scenario we had run before, the Battle of Fatehpur, using Sharp Practice and only 2 player.  I set up two laptops (an actual upside of having to have two for work), one at each end of the table and used my phone both to talk and use for close ups including some photos:

Generally the game worked pretty well, all things considered, but the image quality wasn’t quite good enough for the remote player to see everything on the table.  Having the remote player knowing the rules, the scenario and making their own dice rolls certainly worked so I decided I would have another try but on a smaller tabletop - but more of that in another post!

The Battle of Fatehpur, 12 July 1857

An East India Company force under the command of General Sir Henry Havelock was advancing to the relief of Cawnpore, which was being besieged by Nana Sahib, supported by the rebel Company sepoys. 

Nana Sahib sent an rebel force to check the advance of General Havelock’s column and they met at Fatehpur on 12th July 1857.

Last year, when we were still allowed to gather and game, I decided it was time to recreate the battle on the tabletop.  I decided to use the Sharp Practice rules from the TooFatLardies and my figures from Mutineer Miniatures and Iron Duke Miniatures.  Here are some pictures from the game:

Skirmish 2019: Second Battle of El Teb, 29th February 1884

Once again I volunteered to put on a game at the Skirmish Show in Sidcup in March last year.

I decided on 28mm again but this time with a colonial theme - the Second Battle of El Teb on 29th February 1884.  Having still not found a set of rules I have been entirely happy with I decided to go a little left field and make some adaptations to the Too Fat Lardies' Sharp Practice black powder set.

Here are a few photos from the game:

Surprisingly enough the rules actually worked quite well and we had a very entertaining game with the Mahdists managing to hold up the square for most of the game but failing to break it.

Relief of the Residency

With some interest expressed in a game of Sharp Practice 2 at the club I thought I would get my Indian Mutiny collection out again and stage a Residency sieve game.

The figures are the usual mix of Mutineer Miniatures and Iron Duke with the former predominating (although if I can find a way of storing them - a perennial problem - I may change that balance!)

The Residency itself is from Adrian's Walls and due to the lack of internal support does have a rather annoying tendency to war but is otherwise rather nice.

Here are a few photos:

The garrison only had to hold out until the relief column arrived and acquitted themselves splendidly, particularly some volunteers on the roof of the main building with Enfield rifles who managed to bag two Mutineer officers.  Whilst the Mutineers did inflict some significant casualties and managed to breach the outer defences they were thrown back by the spirited defence!