Jon's Painting Service
Historical & Fantasy Miniature Figure Painter
A review of Sharp
Practice
By J Pattison
Sharp Practice is
a set of Napoleonic skirmish rules produced by TooFatLardies. The
rules have been designed to be able to play skirmish games movie
style. The whole concept revolves around big men, heroes like
Richard Sharpe or any important officer taking a lead role. Big men
are central to everything you do during the game and how you use
your big men will decide the outcome of the game. Big men amongst
other things are needed to move units, charge and rally disrupted
troops. In fact big men are so important losing one could prove to
be a disaster (imagine Richard Sharpe being killed half way through
a mission).
The game
mechanism is quite simple but novel and refreshingly different to
most systems currently available. A game doesn’t need an umpire but
will play more smoothly with someone running things and making
decisions that keep the game flowing.
Each game or
scenario will contain a different amount of big men and units. You
can have as many or few as you like depending on the size of game
you want to play. There aren’t any recommended numbers so it’s
important for a game master to design a scenario and decide what
each side gets. An average sized game of 2 players a side might
contain 4 big men and 5 infantry groups each side. Big men are
single figures either on foot or mounted. Infantry or cavalry groups
can be between 5 and 10 figures each. There isn’t a figure scale,
but you could class each group as a company and game with half or
full battalions deployed as companies, Ideal for recreating an
episode of Sharpe with his small group of men.
Each turn the big
men make their move, randomly decided by mixing together both sides
set of cards with their names on. This adds to the fun of not
knowing if your big man will get his turn when it’s most crucial.
Each big man has his own status, the bigger the status the more
influence he will have not only on the units around him but on the
game as a whole. The status will range from a factor of 1 up to 4.
Each factor allows the big man to perform a task, so any big men
with a status of 4 may perform 4 tasks. These tasks can include
activating a unit within his command radius or 4 units if he has the
status. This can be crucial to doing well. The big men can also use
their status points to remove shock (disorder) from units or
challenge enemy officers to duels. How the big men use their status
points must be considered carefully especially if their status is
only a 1 or 2. You will find early on in the game that you don’t
have enough status points to go round. It’s at this point the game
comes in to its own. Do you activate and move a unit or remove shock
and steady a unit? Perhaps your big man can’t do either and has to
fight a duel. Command and control is what this game is about and
does it very well.
When a big man
takes his turn and activates a unit, that unit can now take its
turn. The unit gets dice depending on how good it is. Most units get
2 dice, but poor troops might only get 1 dice and good units might
get 3 dice. This will be decided by the game master when working out
the scenario. The unit then decides how to use the dice. 1 dice is
used to fire, 1 to reload. You can use up to 2 dice for movement,
rolling the dice to find out how far you move. This is a good and
easy way to use different quality troops. Elite troops might be able
to move, fire and reload, while poor troops might have to move
instead of firing.
The firing
mechanism is also easy to use. Getting 1 D6 for each figure plus a
few bonus dice, if a big man is attached to the unit firing, his
status is added in dice. The unit fired upon will receive either
kills or shock points. Shock points slowly reduce the units ability
to perform until it stops and is forced to pull back. Shock can be
removed by big men trying to rally the unit.
The rules go a
lot further allowing different formations, melees, volley fire,
artillery, terrain cover and random events. You can even go as far
as role playing the big men if you wanted to, giving them extra
factors like swordsmen or duellist. There are also random events
generated by certain dice rolls during the game. You might find a
big man bottling out of melee quickly followed by the unit he’s with
or charging forward going for glory, totally out of the owning
player’s control.
There is however
a negative point to the rules, if you look at it in a negative way.
The rules are not written for competitions and several parts can be
interpreted different ways. I strongly suggest you allow the umpire
to keep the game flowing and just accept his judgement and
interpretation of the rules. It could also be a good thing as
different scenarios might benefit from slightly different
interpretations on how things are done. The rules are flexible in
this way, but the core rule mechanisms are sound and the flexibility
of the rules should be embraced and made the most of by creating
entertaining and diverse scenarios.
The game
mechanism lends itself to creating a multitude of scenarios for a
variety of games; perhaps even a role playing campaign, only your
imagination will hold you back. The game will last from a couple of
hours if you use 2 or 3 units a side, or you could have 8 units a
side and play all day. The rules could be used for any of the black
powder periods. you could even have Indians commanded by their
chiefs or pirates fighting over treasure. The rules are great fun to
play, just don’t take them too seriously and as your big men are cut
down in their prime and your elite unit runs off just keep reminding
yourself it’s only a game.
I've made a few Big Man cards for the two fat lardies WW2 game "I aint been shot mum" The rules have a similar system to sharp practice and use Big Man cards as well.
A Sharpe Practise
Whack the cock
Scenario by J.Pattison
This scenario will be fought between the British and French in the
peninsular war. The action takes place around a newly arrived British
battalion, their Cock o the walk colonel (albeit suffering from nerves,
sun stroke and the affliction of being a Bourbon) and their mission to
clear a hill ready for the positioning of a British gun battery.
British Orders
TO: Colonel Rupert Delebair,
Take your battalion and prepare that hill for my artillery. You mission
should be straight forward but I stress the importance of my artillery
being on that hill by lunchtime. I have promised Lord Wellesley the
French will be having a hot time of it this afternoon. Having French
ancestors I hope won’t be troublesome, there’s a good chap.
General Hill
Daddy Hill
French Orders
To: Captain Rene Romantic,
Monsieur, Our fate is in your hands. Our spies have informed us that the
English Generalissimo Delebair is planning to take your hill away. The
man has French heritage but fights for those scoundrels damn those
Bourbons. I digress, you
must stop him!!! The man is a bafoon and a traitor. You are not only to
stop the English dogs from taking your hill but to CAPTURE Delbair.
Colonel Maurice D’good
Maurice D’good
Game Briefings
British
You must take the top of the enemy hill to enable the deployment of
British artillery. Your commander ‘Colonel Rupert Delebair’ and the
battalion he commands are newly arrived from England.
Delebair although having a status of 4 IPs is suffering a case of
pre battle nerves. He’s not seen action for many years and is losing his
bottle. In fact the last time was serving as a subaltern for his father
in French service. He then moved to England and charmed high society
eventually being allowed to purchase several commissions using his
Bourbon inheritance.
Today is not a good day for him. When using his Big Man initiative he
must roll a D6, half the number(round down counting 1 as 0) and deduct
the score from his IPs.
Luckily for the battalion there has been attached a jolly good chap.
He’s been in Spain a year already and will have a rating of 3 IPs.
Should Colonel Rupert Delebair
‘lose his head’ The jolly good chap will take command. He will
then be allowed to roll 1Xd6 when using his IPs*.
If he rolls a 5 or 6 then he will get a +1 on his IPs that turn.
The battalion also has a fine fellah and 2 young bucks. Brought up with
the battalion in England, they are as wet behind the ears as the
enlisted men.
Big Men
IPs
Influence radius
Colonel Rupert Delebair
4(-D6 ½ )
18’’
Captain John NoBull
3(+D6*)
14”
Lieutenant Pete Small
2
10”
Lieutenant Joseph Bells
2
10”
Ensign Timothy Wefts
1
6”
1st Battalion North Derbyshire, 4 units of 10 men, average rating
(muskets)
1
company 60th rifles (attached)
1 unit of 10 men, good rating (rifles)
2
6pnd Foot guns, good rating with 4 crew each.
The artillery can’t deploy until it’s reached the top of the hill.
Victory conditions
Excellent: Capture the hill, deploy the artillery and drive of the
French.
Bad: Anything else, Except Colonel Rupert Delebair can retrieve his
honour with a steady hand and a well aimed shot.
French
You must defend the hill and stop the British from getting a foot hold
on it. Captain Rene Romantic is a veteran and has seen a lot of action
in Spain. He’s bold, brave and Loves France. He also dislikes bourbons,
especially the one attacking his hill. You must above all make sure the
British Colonel, Rupert Delebair is taken prisoner so Madam Guillotine
can sing his praise. Extra praise and rewards will be forthcoming should
he be able to capture the British colours.
You have the option when shooting at the colonel to only wound him.
Kills become wounds. Captain Rene Romantic will also receive one get out
of jail card. This can be used just once to bring him back alive after a
kill shot or used twice to remove wounds
from him.
Big Men
IPs
Influence radius
Captain Rene Romantic
4
18”
Lieutenant Basil Bear
3
14”
Sergeant George O' tool
3
14”
Sergeant Petro Head
2
10”
1st Battalion 26th
infantry. 3 units of 10 men. Rating 2 x average 1 x good
(muskets)
1 company grenadiers 1 unit of 10 men rating good (muskets)
Victory conditions
Excellent: Throw the British back down the hill. Capture the British
Colonel.
Good: Throw the British back down the hill.
Bad: Let the British take the hill.
Very bad: Let the British Colonel get away.
Notes
All units of both sides use 2 dice for their actions. The river has no
effect on movement but re- loading isn’t allowed if any part of the unit
is in it. All the terrain north of the river is classed as light cover.
The only exception is the objective hill which is open on the top of it.
The French deploy first using hidden markers, 4 real and 4 fake plus
blinds for the big men and must be at least 18” away from the river. The
British then deploy as they like south of the river.
Terrain
The game can be played on a 6’ x 4’ table using 28mm figures. The set up
isn’t too important but you should use the following guide. Fighting
short edge to short edge along the length of the table.
The British start the game crossing a shallow river. There should be
enough room in front of the river for the British to deploy. The main
table space should be made up of low wooded hills. One hill then needs
to be higher than the rest and clear of trees, big enough to be able to
place a couple of artillery pieces. You can place a winding road to
represent a path up the hillside to the objective. The artillery must
follow this path or get stuck.
You can place a few small buildings. These will allow cover for 5
figures but only 1 figure can fire out from each side if there are
windows and doors. You can also place some low walls. These won’t give
any extra cover points but will allow your men to lie down behind them
taking full cover (good for waiting for big men to come to the rescue).
All the terrain north of the
river is classed as light cover.
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