Friday Night Game - A Large-Scale Napoleonic Skirmish with Sharpe's Practice

 It was just Julian and me at his place on Friday, so we took the opportunity to reacquaint ourselves with the TFL ruleset Sharpe's Practice, using Julian's specifically created individually based collection of Perry plastic figures. Having done a trial run of the melee rules (called "fisticuffs" in the Lardies usual cliched style of prose!), Julian wanted to get mounted cavalry in on the action this time, so each side had some. 

As I happened to be on that side of the table, I ended up commanding the attacking French, which I expected to be a hard ask, given the table layout .......

Brits in the upper half - riflemen in the woods on the left, three units of line infantry in the BUA, cavalry reinforcements (two units of Light Dragoons) to the rear and two units of light infantry in the woods to the right. The French had three units of light infantry in the woods in the bottom right corner with the remainder - four units of line infantry and two units of dragoons - out in the open, ready to advance into withering rifle and musket fire - Zut Alors!

The French dragoons

British line infantry line the rail fences - appropriately!

The activation pack was a bit one sided to begin with!

The French line infantry coming on in the same old style

The voltigeurs joined the right flank and poured fire into their British opposite numbers 

The riflemen caused a few shock on one of the units of dragoons

As soon as they were able, the French horsemen put as much distance as possible between themselves and Sharpes boys!

One unit of French infantry not long for this world and a second teetering as casualties mount.... I knew this was going to happen.... sigh!

But wait - on the right flank, the French are taking charge, chasing both British light infantry units back into the woods with heavy losses

It is finally time to test out how cavalry works in Sharpes Practice! Luckily, the French dragoons are obligingly in position, having cantered to this gap in the previous round of movement

Tally Ho, the Kings Light Dragoons!

But first, a round of musketry from the voltigeurs empties a few British saddles - 50% of the first unit, in fact - merci beaucoups, mes braves!

The charge goes in - and as the French had conveniently been moving at a canter in their last movement phase, they effectively counter charge. Oh, and after consulting the rules for several minutes, Julian confirmed that the French cavalry was eligible to receive support from each of the infantry units on their flanks, PLUS the second line of cavalry - tres bon!

Julian was rolling 6 dice plus 2 for his grade 2 officer - I had 6 for the dragoons, 2 for the officer 3 each for the three supports and 3 because I was impact cavalry (whereas the LD were not) - so, 8 dice versus 20 - looking good for a Gallic victory.

Needing a 5 for a kill or a six for a kill and a shock, Julian rolled this - Sacre Bleu! 

I rolled my first 10 dice - and got a single 5 - MERDE!

But the second roll was much better, and I ended up with 8 dead and 2 shock on the 6 British cavalry.

Basically, we each wiped out the others primary unit, but the French still had a fresh unit of cavalry in the second line whereas the remaining Brits were at half strength

The final situation as we called the game - the French right hook through the woods had flanked the British position, and despite losing two units of line infantry and having a third at half strength, Julian felt his position would be untenable and he would have to pull back, making this a French victory, despite the fact my force morale was sitting on 5 with Julian still on 7

The Butchers Bill

Plus 6 dragoons.

Finally in this post, I came across a local NZ 3D printer who had some very nice-looking EIR figures on his website, albeit in 28 and 15mm scales. I contacted the guy (still known to me only as Potbelly Miniatures!) and asked if he could print them in 10mm. After a bit of discussion, during which he very sportingly pointed out the existence of Cromarty Forge, we agreed I would pay a nominal sum (NZ$20) for a few infantry figures and a couple of mounted officers as a test run.

The results arrived today - very nice but a tad fragile - and without any base - which is probably fine for a 28mm figure but a bit of a hassle in 10mm.

They all came with A LOT of supports and they were pretty fiddly to remove - in fact, I damaged a couple and completely lost one as it "pinged" off into the garage somewhere!

Here is one of the archer figures with all the supports removed - they came out very nicely and it was worth a try - but I don't think I will be repeating this exercise - I will stick with the Cromarty Forge figures, I think!

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