Bach-Sachenkrach's First One - Sharp Practice Game #1

Today I played my first game of Sharp Practice at our final NWA meeting for 2019 at Croydon RSL.
I played a brave Prussian contingent against a gang of pernicious Frenchmen commanded by Andrew (one of my previous General d'Armee opponents!). Another Andrew, who I've seen at the club but only got to know today, umpired the game with his experience of Sharp Practice in hand.

I set up a pretty basic table because I wanted to keep things simple and easy to negotiate for this test game. I used a basic downloaded list for 1814 Prussians with 2 commands of a pair of infantry groups and a third command with a unit of skirmishing fusiliers and a unit of schutzen (Prussian riflemen). Andrew's French had an equivalent force with 2 commands of a pair infantry groups and two units of skirmishing voltigeurs. We both had a Level 3 commander, two level 2 and two level 1 commanders.

This was a simple Encounter Scenario - We rolled and both had a starting Force Morale of 10. The French entered the table in a small orchard behind the central building and the Prussians on a road by the castle.

To The Sound of The Guns!

The fight started with lots of French chits being pulled which enabled them to deploy voltigeurs into the orchard and line infantry behind. The first Prussian schutzen appeared on the road followed by a column of musketeers lead by the newly appointed: Leutnant Bach-Sachenkrach.

Keen to impress The Major, the young leutnant halted, dressed his troops, and promptly tripped over a rabbit hole (three flags and a random event).

The skirmishers of each side took up positions and began a lively fire with the French coming off the better. Picking himself up our brave young hero, dusted himself off and eyed his men with a withering glare. He turned smartly to his front and promptly tripped in another rabbit hole (another random event) and ended up back on his arse.

Not the prestigious start to his career that Bach-Sachenkrach had envisioned.

Meanwhile The Major had arrived and lead his men into the central meadow. The skirmishing continued with the schutzen now gaining the upper hand but advancing slowly. The sergeant leading the voltigeurs had taken a light would which reduced his command capabilities.

Opposite the Prussian commander the French had advanced with great haste to a hedge and took up position behind the cover. The Major formed his men into line and advanced! A chance taken, and The Major (now with 4 flags) opened fire on the French causing considerable injury to his foes. A firefight ensued with both sides giving and taking minor casualties & shock.

Needing no further direction our young hero moved up to join his superior officer and... trod in a massive cow turd (a 3rd random event!). With dung up to his knee he waded forward into the battle line.

As young Bach-Sachenkrach finally moved into place The Major brought his own troops back to form a powerful firing line. They pummeled the French and smoke filled the meadow. Maybe it was confusion caused by the smoke but a cry rang out and Frenchmen left their cover with intent and swarmed forward (another random event) only to be met with a withering volley than sent them tumbling back over their hedge.

The skirmish fight continued with one unit of voltigeurs taking considerable casualties and shock broke and routed. A random shot rang out (yet another event!) and the French colonel who had moved to support his skirmishers was lightly wounded.

As the unequal firefight in the meadow continued the French commander decided to vacate the field and left it to the victorious Prussians whilst still in good order.

And so, Leutnant Bach-Sachenkrach, in his first action, looked sidelong at his commanding officer and thought to himself: I survived!

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Conclusion:
Being my first game of Sharp Practice this was really a leaning process. It was fun and some entertaining events happened. I feel that the generic army lists are a bit wanting and could use some tweaking. The random nature of activation makes every move uncertain which I quite like. I took a gamble with moving my troops up in the center hoping to get 4 flags and the ability to activate them again. It paid off. But there were a few times that I found my troops floundering.

As far as command and control are concerned I can see that you really need your commanders in the right place. My skirmishers were difficult to control because I couldn't form them into a single formation due to them being different types (fusiliers and schutzen). The French didn't have this problem. I ended up moving the fusiliers back and out of the fight. Andrew, on the other hand, moved his level 3 commander up to support his skirmishers which left half of his line infantry floundering and unable to maneuver into a firing position. That was a pretty major mistake.

During the long firefight, I was also able to manage the shock with my level 1 & 2 subordinate commanders. Remembering to use the Flags is important and I feel I got the hang of this fairly quickly and tried to use them any time I could, often just to use Sharp Practice and get my rifles re-loaded.

I'm hoping to play another game sometime soon to get the rules firmly embedded into my thick skull and also to see what may happen next to the brave Leutnant Bach-Sachenkrach.

Thank you to Andrew & Andrew for the game. I really enjoyed it. I also won which does make it easy to enjoy the game just that little bit more.

EDIT:
Some extra photo's stolen from NWA member Russell.

See that fine, handsome fellow in dark Prussian blue.

 And a somewhat larger Napoleonic affair on the opposite side of the room.

Waiting for Sabot

Almost immediately after deciding that there was a re-basing that needed a-dooin', it was also determined that I'd need sabot bases to hold the figures in formation. As mentioned in my previous post I asked Mike at Battlefield Accessories if he could make them for me.

So I made a design using photoshop and in record time Mike made them (the design wasn't exactly anything groundbreaking). That was Sunday and they arrived on my doorstep a on Wednesday (yesterday).

I had the time to put them together, so I put on an audio book and got to work. Not long after I had 28 lovely bases. I also got to work removing figures from bases and putting them onto the 20 x 20 bases that also came with the sabots. I did quite a lot of them.

Adding flock came next. I got about half of them done but not all because I was also flocking the new figures bases. They look nice but I think I'm going to need more if I intend to use them for larger Napoleonic games other than Sharp Practice. We'll see when I have everything done.

Okay... I was taking some photo's and I came across a problem.

When I was doing the sabot bases I thought I'd make some 4 figure sabot "command" bases. I'd only need a few of these. A couple for the Prussians and a couple for the French. My plan was that I would be able to place the command base in between two wings of troops and form a battalion. Easy!

I'd also get some 30mm round sabots made that I could fit the 20mm commanders' bases into for Sharp Practice. I even made up a couple of solid command bases (with figures glued direct onto the bases) because I'd only need a few single "leader" figures for SP.

A battalion with 4 figure sabot command base.

 A battalion with a 4 figure regular command base.

I took those pics and then I realised something: I can't deploy them into an attack column! Not only that, but there's no room for the voltigeur company (for the French). With the Prussians I'd end up with extra figures with nowhere to go.

I actually need to model all of the figures onto 20mm bases and use three full sabots for the battalion. Both my Prussians and French have 24 figure battalions so so I actually need to base them like this:

So that I can deploy them into an attack column (left) instead of the shonky looking column on the right. 

At least I didn't get too far and I only ruined one of the sabots with my dud experiment.

So Begineth the Great Re-Basing

I've been getting dragged further into the world of Lard and as such I have been lured towards the delights of Sharp Practice. This may seem a forgone conclusion to many who play SP2 but it's a bit of a jump for me.

I'm a fan of Napleonic's which I started as a school boy back in the very late 70's but I don't get to play many games these days. Part of this is due to my preferred rules and scale. At my club FOGN in 15mm is popular as is a homespun set of rules called Cold Steel. FOGN - I'm not the least bit interested in. Cold Steel, I played for may years but it lost me somewhere a while back. I don't really know why and I've dipped my toe into CS every now and then but it doesn't really do it for me anymore. I think it's because I learned how to make it really gamey and I don't really like that.

So, a few years back, I went "old school" with Bruce Quarrie's - Napoleon's Campaigns in Miniature. It got me back to painting new troops but the rules are difficult in these modern days. So things came to a halt.

Then I tried General d'Armee and I really like them. I got a few others involved and we played half a dozen games. But that was it. I was happy to keep going but I could see that I was going to have to paint up, at least, twice the troops I already had and I wasn't up to that challenge.

So my French and Prussians have been sitting in boxes for the best part 18 months and I can't seem to interest others in more games of GdA.

Now that I said all that; Why Sharp Practice?

Well I became a fan of Chain of Command a few months back after watching several Too Fat Lardie's videos. I watched, I played and I like it. Recently I watched some Sharp Practice videos and I like the look of the game. I wasn't keen when first given the chance to play them a few years back because they didn't seem to be on  a large enough scale for my liking. But having seen games played I've changed my outlook.

There are also several other members at my club that play Sharp Practice & they have different forces than I have. So this can only be a good thing. Variety is, after all, the spice of life and as we know: The Spice Must Flow! And here we are!

I was unsure how to go about using my troops. After asking around for advice, looking at what I have already and going against most of the advice I received: I decided to re-base my French and Prussians (along similar line to other club members).

"EGAD!" I hear you cry. "What is the fool doing?"

Well, I look at it this way: I'd rather re-base and get to play good games with good people rather than leave what I have in boxes and paint more of what I already have. The difference being about 6 to 12 months of brush-work v's a week and a half of pain. I'll go for the week and a half.

So, now that all of that is said here's what I have so far. What I have will work okay for 1812 to 1815.
The two opposing little forces below will work for 1813/14 for a couple of solo games to work through the rules.

I also have at least thrice the amount of figures still in their barracks-boxes awaiting a shipment of 20mm square bases!

 French:

Level III leader - 2 x Regular Fusiliers

Level II leader - 1 x Grenadiers

Level I leader - 2 x Marie-Louise's 

Level I leader - 1 x Voltigeurs

(I need to base a voltigeur sergeant)

The French don't have any sergeants to help out the junior officers - This represents experienced NCO losses in the Russian campaign. (And because I don't actually have many French NCO's).

Prussians:

 Level III leader - 2 x Regular Fusiliers

Level II leader - 2 x Regular Fusiliers

2x Level I leaders (Fusilier Sergeants) 

Level I leader - 1 x Volunteer Schutzen (V&C) & 1x Guard Schutzen (Skirmishers)

I have some sabot bases on the way. They've been made for me by Mike Parker at Battlefield Accessories. I've had more that I need made up but I have a cunning plan...

My plan is this: I'm going to base one standard, one drummer, and other tête de colonne figures on round bases for use in the game. Others I'll mount on large square bases to match the sabots to make command bases... In this way I can use the command base - Stick two sabot's on either side and I have a battalion for GdA.