1st Game of Sharp Practice II

Most of my hobby time has been devoted to doing commission work, but I have that finished now, so I had a chance to finally try my hand at Sharp Practice II.  I have made movement stands for my figures that include tags that give all the information for the individual group.  When I purchased the rules I also purchased the tokens, so I used those today.  It's a bit different than using cards, but I liked it..

In this encounter, I had seven leaders for each side as well as three command cards.  I tried to keep things simple so I could just get through as many turns as possible.  The French had the objective of taking a town from a combined force of British and Spanish.

This is the village.  It was also the deployment point for the British/Spanish forces.

The deployment point for the French was at the opposite end of the table.  As luck would have it, the British tokens came up much more frequently than the French.  But by using command tokens, the French were able to keep pace with the enemy.

The first conflict came between a British light company that occupied a small farm on a hill and an opposing German company of skirmishers.  Over the course of three turns the Germans came out a little bit ahead.

The Brits have lost a figure and received three shock points; the Germans have suffered only one shock point.

Along the road is where most of the action took place.  A voltiguer company boldly advanced and inflicted a casualty and some shock on three groups of Spanish in a line.  But on the next turn, the Spanish token was pulled first and the controlled first volley literally blew the French skirmishers away.  I need to look at the rules more closely to see if I missed some modifiers for shooting at skirmishers in the open.  My initial examination didn't find anything.

The next turn I used two command tokens to charge a troop of dragoons at the now unloaded Spanish companies.  The dragoons won the melee and drove back the Spaniards 9 inches.  But later in the turn, Captain Sharp's company of rifles was able to pour in a volley and take out another figure from the dragoons and add some more shock.

The victorious dragoons take additional casualties from Sharp's company of rifles.

 On the last turn of the game, two companies of the 28th Regiment of Foot fired a volley at long range against the oncoming 63rd Ligne.  22 dice ended up being rolled and 17 hits were inflicted.  When the smoke cleared, six of the French were out of the fight and three points of shock were added to the two French groups.

The 63rd receives a hot greeting from the British 28th Foot.

That's were I ended the game for the day.  The French clearly took a beating in these early turns, but the Spaniards were certainly shaken up by the French cavalry.  I will continue the battle tomorrow to see if the French can use their superior numbers to turn things around.  Stay tuned.