Had the day off and spent it building artillery for Lasalle. Pictured is one of the batteries I did up today, a French 8# battery mounted on 2″ Litko stands. All figs & models are 28mm Front Rank. Of course, I can also use the guns & crew for Sharp Practice, though 1 or 2 artillery pieces is about the max for the size games we typically play.

Photo Credits to Clay, Mike & Richard

I ran two games of “Shockley’s Village Revisited” at Millenium Con 12 in Round Rock, Texas (Near Austin) on November 6 & 7. The games went off very well and I had lots of favorable comments on the game and lots of interest in TFL’s “Sharp Practice” Rules. Many people walked up and commented that they owned the rules but had never played them. Reading between the lines, it seemed that some were not sure how to pull a game off. In any case, I think all the players had a good time, I know I certainly did. I was very pleased at how the game ran for both sessions. SP played very smooth and fit, perfectly, for the 4 hour game slot that it was designed for. Highlights included:

• French Dragoons charge a British formation in line of 2 groups in the flank and narrowly loose (6 dragoons vs. 23 Brit Inf).
• British Hussars charge the dismounted French Dragoons and kill them to a man.
• Random event causes Mallory to retreat taking 2 groups of Brits with him to the board edge.
• Shockley calls out Goodenot to duel on the open field and is killed, only to shake it off later and be revived on a “By Jove, my Pocket Bible saved me” card.
• British assault Villabuena and carry the wall, taking the town.
• a French Fusilier group attempts to come thru gate to counterattack but is repelled.
• The French dismounted Dragoons assault the barn and capture one of the horses only to be driven back under close range artillery fire.
• French Voltigeres attempt to assault the Spanish guerillas, but fail to close. They stand there and exchange fire at point blank range for several turns (cards).
• Goodenot manages to charm Shockley’s best girl (Margarita) in the 2nd game but his advances were handily rebuffed in the 1st game…poor Shockley did not recover his girl in either game.

First game was a Brit Victory 3:1 and saw a good run thru of the game deck for most turns, before Tiffin came up. Second game was a draw @ 3:3 with Tiffin coming up very early on mnay of the turns. We used only one Tiffin Card.

All in all, I had a blast…I think the players did too….great gaming Convention….

See sidebar under “Shockley’s Village Revisited” for the scenario or click this link and then click the briefing and map links….

http://basilhare.wordpress.com/sharps-practice-shockleys-village-revisited-scenario/

Q: Okay, so you have most of what you need for Lasalle, but everything is based for “Sharp Practice” on single 1″ Litko Stands…what do you do?

A: Send Litko some more money and obtain 2″ Litko Stands w/ magnets…all of my collection already has flex steel base bottoms for storage, so all I’ll need to do is place them on sabots as shown…wallah…we’re in business….

And yes, I realize the shako discs are all from the same company…my 28’s are coming out of Sharp Practice (1:1 scale) where you typically have 1 company worth of troops on the table….not going to worry much about it….

There was a recent thread on TMP about using 10mm Risk Pieces for Napoleonic Gaming. I painted hundreds of these up for the old Eagle Games “Napoleon in Europe” about 8 years ago.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3518

Our games club had a great deal of fun with NiE. I painted up all of the nationalities using the 3 poses available, even the Ottomans. Of course, I had to fudge on the headgear as the standard shako is a stretch for several of the nationalities, but thats the best one can do with only 3 poses available. They were an inexpensive way to dress up NiE, as I hated the look of the larger plastic figs for the game. The plastic risk pieces were primed white and then painted to their proper colors.

I finished up my Front Rank 28mm Limber set pulling a 12# gun. I love the set, but was totally frustrated over the traces. The wire traces were a bit fiddly and I made a mistake when mounting the horses and offset them, just slightly to one side. This caused the wire not to fit correctly. Unfortunately, the horses were already glued in place and it was too late to go back and re-do. Im still weighing my options, possibly using thin cord or thread…Im so frustrated with them at present, I may just leave them off. Otherwise, I enjoyed doing the set up.

My latest 28mm Unit for Sharp Practice, a group of 1st Portuguese Cacadores Riflemen. Uniform colors taken from “Uniforms of the Peninsular Wars” by Haythornthwaite. At first I wasnt sure if I would really like the Brown Uniforms, but as the facing colors were added and the figures came to life, the uniform grew on me. All figs are Front Rank.

My latest unit for Sharp Practice off the painting table: a British Center company Line Unit. Figures are Front Rank 28mm’s. As usual, the Front Ranks were a pleasure to paint up, very well defined lines and very little flash. I prefer them to Perry Plastic or Metal. I absolutely love the “well fed” look and feel of the figs!

Note: Purists will note the all white plume normally associated with Grenadier companies. This has been retro-fixed and the chaps now enjoy their proper red-white plumage of center coy troops!

A few of the big men for our Sharp Practice games…my camera flash overpowers the paint jobs…I need to learn to take better pics…oh well, you get the idea…

James and John came up from Abilene this past weekend to help playtest my Sharp Practice Mil Con Scenario. The first two playtests have resulted in a draw, but this game was far more dramatic! James played the French, while John and I “played” the British. James’ dice rolling was uncanny, he must have hit 70% of the time, with half the dice scoring kills. The game was also unsual in that we had two complete “run thru’s” of the game deck with all Big Men & units getting to move in two consecutive turns. This made for a very bloody game, especially for the Brits, as poor Shockley’s command was routed from the field. I made a few more tweaks to the scenario based on James and John’s suggestions…French won big, (and Yes, Margarita once again fell in love with Goodenot!) but I have to think it was more luck than anything…very long day for the Brits and poor old Shockley!