Some Preliminary Photos

Here are some pictures from our trial run of Sharp Practice - the ones I mentioned that were not worth showing, well, um, here they are anyway. A lot of the miniatures need their bases finished and some of the terrain is still work in progress, note in particular the red towel thatching. We are getting closer to being able to start this campaign for real and I believe our stuff will represent the British in Indostan well. As can be seen the photos aren't great, but you get the picture, no pun intended. (Click the images to enlarge)

Brave Captain Flashard commands the Line.

Cavalry closing on the Grenadiers!

A ragged charge.

Sharp Practice - First Game

We played our first game of Sharp Practice, from Too Fat Lardies last night, on the Anzac Day long weekend. My first impressions were very good. The rules revolve strongly around characters (Big Men) and a little role-playing brought the whole game to life.

I have to say I really doubted the smoothness of these rules when reading them, but was happily mistaken during play. I umpired and let Dave and Adam slug it out. I had taken a lot of pointers from the Sharp Practice Forum and tried to learn from the experienced players mistakes during their initial games. Some last minute comments read just before the game probably saved a lot of time searching for the more obscure rules in the book.

It took a bit of work, but I made a set of custom cards and tweaked the Bonus Deck slightly to give it a more Indian flavor. The scenario was a rescue mission to save an East Indostan Company official who had been captured by a local warlord and was being held in a village. Captain Flashard, the brave and popular leader of the Brits was determined to make a name for himself by stealing in and saving the day. I made up the scenario on the fly and it did not prove too well thought out, as the British had trouble getting into the village before every Indian on the table arrived to see them off.

After Dave had to leave unexpectedly I took over for a while and had a go playing. All in all I think the rules worked well, and I'm looking forward to giving them another bash.
Unfortunately no pictures worth showing at the moment, but a couple of noteworthy events were:- Sergeant Nobbs, a drunkard and a coward, who stood on the British left flank, fled the formation with his men after a couple of Indian musketmen opened fire, hitting nothing, but scaring Nobbs half to death. Later came a devastating Indian cavalry charge against a small group of Grenadiers, led by the eager Sergeant Uppem, who unfortunately failed to live up to his name and retreated with his men over a fence.
A really enjoyable game and the rules pretty much covered everything we will need - except maybe elephants - but I'll deal with that later.