Well I have been rather absent in posting anything here of late, and my overriding excuse is working on the house. For the past two months the majority of my time out of work has been spent doing DIY on our house as we finally got our building warrant through. I did manage to sneak in a wee trip over to Musselburgh and Deep Fried Lard, hosted by the Legendary Wee Derek.
It was a fantastic day, and this time I stayed around for the curry which really does make a fine end to the day. Getting to sit around and chat all manner of things, especially wargames, with fellow Lardy Lovers was great fun.
I got to have my first ever shot at Sharp Practice, and a game of CoC in 15mm which was a new experience too. I could go over what games were available and show some dazzling pictures of them but frankly this has been done much better by Jim here and Jeremy has posted fantastic pictures here too. So instead I'll dump some of my pictures here but also give a brief run through of the one of the games I played, and some thoughts on the other! Exciting stuff!
Sharp Practice - Biscotti Wars (Garibaldi)
This was a delightful setup, terrain, figures and configuration of the table! The board itself was setup on a number of packing crates so that the playing surface was raise above the table. This meant there was a lower admin space for off table troops, dice rolls, unit rosters, QRS and biscuits! Those requiring a nibble could express support by selecting garibaldi or bourbon biscuits!
The terrain it self was all Grand Manner and painted to an incredible finish, laid out on a Tiny Wargames mat, with a one piece crafted road, cut to size and shape out of a larger piece of rubber or pond liner type material.
The scenario itself was beautifully simple and gave a really good game. Both sides deployed on the same short side of the table (opposite corners) and the objective was to get a unit into the large monastery on the far side of the table and hold it for a turn. This gave both forces an interesting dilemma. Do you make a run for the monastery and try to fend off the other force, hoping you move more quickly, or do you engage early to delay the other force and potentially clear the way for your own to move up to the monastery?
As mentioned earlier, I had never played Sharp Practice before this, although I do own the rules and have read them! I decided to play the forces of Garibaldi and would try to disrupt the Bourbon forces as they deployed whilst simultaneously trying to sneak a unit up to the monastery. I hoped to utilise my skirmishers to harass the deploying bourbons enough that they would be distracted enough not to go for the monastery at first.
Things pretty much didn't go to plan almost immediately! I deployed my skirmishers and another unit and looked to move the skirmishers forward to some light cover.
They pretty quickly got hit and some shock from the Bourbon troops with their longer ranged rifles. Bad shots and muskets don't do much to impact a well ordered force at a distance! This ended up sucking in another group to try and absorb some of the firepower.
I did follow part of my plan in setting a small group off to the monastery under the command of a Status 1 leader.
The Bourbon hordes poured onto the table and started marching in column towards the monastery. This force would annihilate my small group heading towards the monastery so some preventative action was needed.
I decided (on earlier advice) that to stand any chance I needed to get my chaps into close combat led by Garibaldi to smash up the less physical (but better drilled) Bourbon forces. I gathered up three units of men and tried to advance towards the bourbons, and picked a gap between two buildings to launch towards.
Sadly it was deemed to be a bit constricted and would impact my ability to charge through, this lead to a bottleneck and basically standing in a group in very close range waiting to get smashed up by the bourbons. Which is exactly what happened.
Rather than let Garibaldi get hit in this bogged down and rather fruitless manouver I moved him towards another formation and worked on getting them into a position to charge a bourbon unit to the rear, if successful I would potentially be able to attack the bourbons in a flank or rear and relieve my beleaguered troops. Sadly the Bourbons were able to reload and faced the charge head on, I also rolled appallingly which really caused more of the problem! and Garibladi was thrown back with a huge casualty rate.
Now this all was going rather badly, however my sneaky little status 1 leader was making decent progress and by throwing a supplementary leader towards the small group meant I could really get them motoring and remove any shock resulting from the double time marching. The heroic if somewhat pathetic actions at the deployment end of the table had managed to hold the Bourbons back long enough to get within spitting distance of the monastery. All I need was a good run of cards and to survive the long range fire of a solitary bourbon unit.
As luck would have it I got to move my troops to the entrance of the monastery and then only had to endure one instance of bourbon fire before being able to move fully inside in the subsequent turn.
At this point we called it a day, without having to hold the monastery for a turn, and also called it a draw. A fair result I think as although I made it to the monastery, the rest of my forces (90%) were in absolute disarray, and had only survived by being forced back under bourbon fire behind a building which resulted in breaking line of sight and therefore no further morale rolls. And Garibaldi himself had been knocked down and had not yet recovered!
This was cracking good fun! So much so that I now need to sort out a few small forces to give Sharp Practice a go with my erstwhile gaming chum!
The other game was an early war Chain of Command scenario - Going with a bang! I played the Germans, trying to secure a route forward against the defending French who were looking to blow up two culverts before I could seize them.
A brilliant game, where I had my head thoroughly kicked in! I really didn't think losing could be enjoyable but it actually was. It was in 15mm which I hadn't played in before and my goodness it is almost a different game at that scale. I loved it. So much so it has thrown me into confusion over what to do with my collection of 28mm models for a number of future chain of command projects! I suspect I will be unable to part with anything yet so will continue in 28mm but will certainly attempt to build up 15mm too. Easier to strore, cheaper to acquire, and the space on the table is simply glorious!
However as I have most of 28mm para force collected, not to mention some plastic russians, variety of brits, some painted DAK and random FJs, I think I'll persevere in 28mm for now. All I lack just now is time!
It was a fantastic day, and this time I stayed around for the curry which really does make a fine end to the day. Getting to sit around and chat all manner of things, especially wargames, with fellow Lardy Lovers was great fun.
I got to have my first ever shot at Sharp Practice, and a game of CoC in 15mm which was a new experience too. I could go over what games were available and show some dazzling pictures of them but frankly this has been done much better by Jim here and Jeremy has posted fantastic pictures here too. So instead I'll dump some of my pictures here but also give a brief run through of the one of the games I played, and some thoughts on the other! Exciting stuff!
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| The battlefield perspective from the Garibaldi deployment point |
Sharp Practice - Biscotti Wars (Garibaldi)
This was a delightful setup, terrain, figures and configuration of the table! The board itself was setup on a number of packing crates so that the playing surface was raise above the table. This meant there was a lower admin space for off table troops, dice rolls, unit rosters, QRS and biscuits! Those requiring a nibble could express support by selecting garibaldi or bourbon biscuits!
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| Choose your faction! Vote with your mouth! |
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| Jaw dropping Grand Manner Monastery |
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| So pretty! |
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| The Leaders and forces available to Garibaldi |
Things pretty much didn't go to plan almost immediately! I deployed my skirmishers and another unit and looked to move the skirmishers forward to some light cover.
They pretty quickly got hit and some shock from the Bourbon troops with their longer ranged rifles. Bad shots and muskets don't do much to impact a well ordered force at a distance! This ended up sucking in another group to try and absorb some of the firepower.
I did follow part of my plan in setting a small group off to the monastery under the command of a Status 1 leader.
The Bourbon hordes poured onto the table and started marching in column towards the monastery. This force would annihilate my small group heading towards the monastery so some preventative action was needed.
I decided (on earlier advice) that to stand any chance I needed to get my chaps into close combat led by Garibaldi to smash up the less physical (but better drilled) Bourbon forces. I gathered up three units of men and tried to advance towards the bourbons, and picked a gap between two buildings to launch towards.
Sadly it was deemed to be a bit constricted and would impact my ability to charge through, this lead to a bottleneck and basically standing in a group in very close range waiting to get smashed up by the bourbons. Which is exactly what happened.
Rather than let Garibaldi get hit in this bogged down and rather fruitless manouver I moved him towards another formation and worked on getting them into a position to charge a bourbon unit to the rear, if successful I would potentially be able to attack the bourbons in a flank or rear and relieve my beleaguered troops. Sadly the Bourbons were able to reload and faced the charge head on, I also rolled appallingly which really caused more of the problem! and Garibladi was thrown back with a huge casualty rate.
Now this all was going rather badly, however my sneaky little status 1 leader was making decent progress and by throwing a supplementary leader towards the small group meant I could really get them motoring and remove any shock resulting from the double time marching. The heroic if somewhat pathetic actions at the deployment end of the table had managed to hold the Bourbons back long enough to get within spitting distance of the monastery. All I need was a good run of cards and to survive the long range fire of a solitary bourbon unit.
As luck would have it I got to move my troops to the entrance of the monastery and then only had to endure one instance of bourbon fire before being able to move fully inside in the subsequent turn.
At this point we called it a day, without having to hold the monastery for a turn, and also called it a draw. A fair result I think as although I made it to the monastery, the rest of my forces (90%) were in absolute disarray, and had only survived by being forced back under bourbon fire behind a building which resulted in breaking line of sight and therefore no further morale rolls. And Garibaldi himself had been knocked down and had not yet recovered!
This was cracking good fun! So much so that I now need to sort out a few small forces to give Sharp Practice a go with my erstwhile gaming chum!
The other game was an early war Chain of Command scenario - Going with a bang! I played the Germans, trying to secure a route forward against the defending French who were looking to blow up two culverts before I could seize them.
A brilliant game, where I had my head thoroughly kicked in! I really didn't think losing could be enjoyable but it actually was. It was in 15mm which I hadn't played in before and my goodness it is almost a different game at that scale. I loved it. So much so it has thrown me into confusion over what to do with my collection of 28mm models for a number of future chain of command projects! I suspect I will be unable to part with anything yet so will continue in 28mm but will certainly attempt to build up 15mm too. Easier to strore, cheaper to acquire, and the space on the table is simply glorious!
However as I have most of 28mm para force collected, not to mention some plastic russians, variety of brits, some painted DAK and random FJs, I think I'll persevere in 28mm for now. All I lack just now is time!
