After having completed around sixty AWI units last year, all based for British Grenadier, it was nice to be able to get a few of the units out for our first game of Sharp Practice as part of our Monday night gaming at my friend Dale's.
I have had the rules for years but never really had the opportunity to put on a game, and it also gave me an excuse to bring out some never-before-used terrain such as a teddy bear fur mat, some Early War Miniatures roads and, the star of the piece, the beautiful Trostle farm constructed by Mark of 1866 and All That https://stracmark.blogspot.com/ Not strictly AWI of course and in a different configuration here, but identifiably North American:
I took on the Continentals and Dale the British, and we diced for sides and deployment points with the sheep on the road representing mine, and the lone brown cow in the distance the British.
Even though it is a skirmish game I decided to keep the colour parties in the units to provide a bit more, well, colour.
First unit to make an entrance was a group of British skirmishers:
Followed by a group of rifle-armed and another of musket-equipped Continental skirmishers under a Level 2 leader, and then three groups of State Line:
Only two groups of State Line are pictured here as I had forgotten the third and I wasn't about to drive home to get them, but wasn't overly concerned as I knew I the game would span a few evenings being our first run at Sharp Practice and I could add the third group in later:
Dale then got his three groups of line on:
While my rifle armed troops moved to cover the crossroads:
It was at this point we realised I had probably been moving them too quickly so I pulled them back a little to compensate, only to subsequently realise I had not in fact been moving them far enough. Part of the joy of learning a new ruleset.
The British skirmishers started moving across broken ground toward the Americans:
While also receiving additional reinforcements in the form of two groups of light infantry:
Likewise the Continentals receive two groups of ten militia who also make their way up the road, accompanied by three groups of Continental Line and the force commander who make their way up the right flank:
The British skirmishers are now in range and fire first:
Causing two points of shock on the Continental line troops who are caught within the arc of fire. The British also have also drawn three command cards in a row and the commander of the Continental line rather amusingly compounds this by falling off his horse and spraining his ankle. Luckily I had paid an extra support point for a Physic, the lady in pink who just happened to be accompanying this unit, so the commander was only out of action for one turn:
The Americans return fire with the two groups of six skirmishers and manage to take out two British skirmishers and cause five points of shock:
Meanwhile, the last of the British units, the Loyalist Butler's Rangers, entered the field meaning all groups were now deployed:
The State Line advance while the Continental skirmishers move out of their way to the left, and the British line advance to replace their light skirmish troops.A long distance firefight ensues. The State Line are rated as conscripts and can only fire one controlled burst followed by uncontrolled fire, while the far more disciplined British maintain their controlled fire. The white smoke indicates who has fired but is yet to reload:
The State Line get in first with two salvoes, inflicting two casualties and eight points of shock. The first salvo involved twenty-seven dice with a five or six to score a hit. The British unit however has a preacher attached whose inspiring words allowed them to rally off five of the eight shock points:
Meanwhile the small contingent of Butler's Rangers continued their movement around the flank:
The Continental Line, their leader now back on his horse, start a slow advance through a cornfield to meet them. And slow it was, taking from memory seven movement actions to cross it, with the leader obviously still suffering the effects of that sprained ankle:
I am however much happier at this stage with the Continental deployment as it is looking more organised and less like a traffic jam:
The British lights also make painfully slow progress through their cornfield allowing the Continental skirmishers time to redeploy to meet them:
The Continental rifles fire first and inflict one casualty and a couple of points of shock, but the lights return fire and eventually account for four riflemen and force this group of six into an involuntary withdrawal. The firefight for the crossroads continues with casualties and shock mounting on both sides: :
The Butler's Rangers take position behind the fence line and cause two casualties on the advancing Continental line:
The Continental troops hold their fire and gain the fence line. Their first salvo reduces the Rangers from six to two figures and lightly wounds their leader:
Pressing home their advantage, the Continentals cross the fence line and account for the two remaining Rangers, with their wounded leader escaping behind the barn, reducing the British force morale by a point. They then turn to their left and form column to advance toward the British line. albeit in no hurry managing to throw only a double 1 on the two D6 movement dice:
Seeing an opportunity, the remaining four British skirmishers rally off some shock, sneak into the barn, and fire into the flank of the Continental infantry:
Meanwhile the Continental rifles suffer another round of fire from the British light infantry line, causing more shock and forcing them to exit the table, reducing the American force morale by one. The Continental militia, bored with standing around and doing nothing, turn to their flank and decide to cross the fence line to join the remaining frontiersmen:
Once in position they turn to their flank and let loose their first volley at long range, causing two casualties on the British lights and forcing them to withdraw.
In the middle however the British start to gain the upper hand in the firefight and the State Line are overwhelmed by shock, forcing them to withdraw with the loss of two more force morale points:
The British line then wheels to get a shot at the Continental line who, getting fed up with the fire from the British skirmishers in the barn which has picked off four of their number, about face and let loose a volley, reducing the skirmishers from four down to two. The British line then shoots at the Continentals, causing several points' worth of shock:
The exposed left flank group then makes a dash for the now vacated barn door, while the other two groups of Continentals continue the firefight against the two remaining British skirmishers:
Rather improbably the American skirmishers and militias win the firefight against the British lights, causing one group to break and the other to withdraw. The broken group could have had a deleterious effect on British morale, but a dice roll of 1 means the British force just shrugs it off:
The withdrawal of the lights leaves the militia and rebel skirmishers free to pressure the flanks of the British line. Sensing this the British turn to flank:
Deploying along the fence line they even have time to let loose a controlled volley, all while the Americans slowly wheel into position. Thankfully for the latter there are no casualties, but the militia accrues several points of shock:
At this stage I was feeling reasonably confident. Apart from the two remaining British skirmishers in the barn there was only the British line unit remaining in combat and it had the militia to the front and the American Continentals to their rear:
The American skirmishers were also in position to pour in fire from their flank, and the State Line (just out of picture) were on the other flank having recovered a fair amount of shock but still in range and preparing to pour fire into the British flank, so four units effectively surrounding the British Line:
The Americans were still on a force morale of 5 while the British (thanks to Dale's propensity to throw 1's) were on a comfortable 6. This is were it went completely wrong for the Americans with the Continental literally unable to hit the side of a barn and despatch the two remaining British skirmishers:
While the British managed to secure four quick activations for the line before the militia could return fire. This piled shock upon shock for the militia and resulted in an injury to their leader, reducing his status to zero and rendering him unable to exert further control over the unit. This final picture was taken halfway through the carnage:
One of the militia groups finally broke and the other was forced into several withdraws which, along with the leader's injury, necessitated five force morale rolls all of which the Continentals failed, reducing their force morale to zero and resulting in a British win.
The whole game took around nine hours to play across four evenings but a fair amount of time was taken up with consulting the rules, and we became noticeably quicker as the game progressed.
As for the rules themselves, we thoroughly enjoyed them. The outcomes all seem plausible and the unpredictability added to the excitement and, at times, frustration. Tactics don't play a huge part but if you do anything stupid you can expect to be punished.
We are about to back this up with a second and possibly third game to consolidate the rules and already have the table set up for a 'sweep the table' scenario, the centerpiece being the magnificent Hartwell Tavern and accompanying barn that Mark recently constructed for me. Hopefully this next game will be slightly quicker now we have some familiarity with the rules.