Friday Night Sharpe Practice

Our first game at Julians for 2026 saw Chris and I as the Brits take on Julian and John. A small action set in Spain - the game started with Mr Sharpe and his small command retiring rapidly, having stumbled upon a larger French force while scouting ahead of the main army. The French had three units of dragoons in hot pursuit and had the potential to catch the scouting party before they made it back to the larger supporting unit of British infantry. Chris took Sharpe, I had the other Brits, John led the dragoons and Julian had the main French infantry forces

The initial layout below- Sharpe in the middle, Brits on a hill at the far end. The French infantry were off table at this point, the dragoons behind the wood to the bottom left were on table and in pursuit!

Fortunately, Sharpes card came out early in the first turn and he made a decent move. I advanced the main British force slightly to close the distance

I had one small unit of Light Dragoons - not much to counter three units of dragoons!

And speaking of French Dragoons......

The French infantry advanced in column, supported by two units of voltigeurs

Sharpe and his men sprinting across the hot, dry Spanish plain....

With those bloody dragoons right behind them!

With great skill (or luck!) Sharpes command made it back to the British lines and managed to turn just as the leading dragoon unit caught up with them - a crashing volley rang out across the field

The charge was stopped dead, with half the dragoons tumbling lifeless from their saddles. A second round followed shortly thereafter .........

And the dragoons departed for the safety of the nearby woods!

One the other flank a good dice roll enabled me to send in a line unit supported by a light infantry unit to clear out some cheeky voltigeurs 

And my small unit of Light Dragoons also rolled well for movement

Allowing them to catch the retreating French heavies in the rear!

The second unit of voltigeurs tried their luck, charging the superior British numbers - and came out with a win, pushing my boys back whence they came!

The French dragoon unit was wiped out and their colonel captured- huzzah!

But the British cavalry, with traditional impetuosity, took their charge one step too far; attempting to catch the French infantry column in the flank, they overlooked the fact the French had three "command" cards sitting unused, which allowed Julian to interrupt the charge and change formation into a square - I think it ended up 3 dice to 15 or something like that - bye, bye, Light Dragoons!

After suffering several minutes of galling fire from the voltigeurs in the woods, the Brits finally got annoyed enough to put in a decent volley and wiped the Froggies out!

With the dragoons all dead or fled, and the voltigeurs severely depleted, only the main French infantry column remained (the French command was also now dangerously low at 4, having started at 11)

The Brits advanced, with Sharpes command pouring fire into the massed ranks of the column

As it was after 1030pm, we decided it was time for the French to pull back - all we needed was an attractive female character to interact with Richard Sharpe, and we could have the basis for another best-selling book!

The lone survivor of the British Light Dragoon unit - he escorted the French colonel as a prisoner from the field and so avoided the denouement of his colleagues!

A fun game - well for Chris and me, anyway - but it was strange how easy it was for Sharpes infantry to see of the initial dragoon charge - with the Brits being lights, supported and having first fire bonus, it ended up being something like 12 dice for the infantry v 10 for the cavalry. John was incensed and didn't stop moaning about it for the rest of the night - I did think it seemed a bit odd the cavalry was not at some kind of advantage but thems the rules!

My latest Temu purchase below

It is quite narrow, vehicles added for scale

And I wonder how long it will be before I try purchasing one of these....

Not a huge choice available so far but perhaps only a matter of time.....?

ACW Extravaganza

 This was apparently the battle of Williamsburg, organized by gaming buddy Mark and documented in full on his blog here 1866 and all that: The Battle of Williamsburg

I played on the Union side, commanding the left wing as we advanced of the scurvy rebels.

Ironically, given the subject matter of the recent tour de force on Jon's PWJ blog, I have found it quite hard to motivate myself to do this AAR and it's really only a slight feeling of "obligation" that has finally forced me to create the post - albeit, I am not going to put an enormous effort into recounting the battle blow by blow - it's going to be mostly images with a few captions!

A couple of views of the table lengthways

The "redoubt" before the Rebs reoccupied it

Marks guidance to the Union side

My Blue Bellies start their advance

The Rebs opposite - 5 or 6 regiments of cavalry led by Rick

John commanded the Rebs in the redoubt/fort

Nicks Confederates moving to the Reb left flank to oppose Paul

Andrews command advances to my right - Julian was the fourth Union commander, between Andrews right and Pauls left.

Julians force moving forward cautiously

Pauls Union force on our extreme right flank

Nicks boys with their LARGE flags!

My first Brigade (of three) deployed - the markers indicate "raw" troops - I managed to get ALL my guns on raw - although it wasn't too big a deal as it really only affected activation and melees.

After several moves pussy footing around, Rick threw in a regiment of cavalry - if this was Napoleonic, I would have been worried - but in 1862......not so much! Predictably, the Union line held firm and drove the donkey wallopers off.

To my right, the Union advance continued

A view from my end of the table, my brigades and Andrews are in the bottom right quarter of the image

From the other end, behind the Reb left flank

Julians command emerges from the tree line to advance, Picket-like, against the Reb lines

More Reb reinforcements continued to arrive - they were hampered by only being allowed to arrive on a single road.

Julian and Andrew v John in the redoubt

Julian and Paul v Nick on the Reb left flank

Massed Union brigades at my end of the table

Barry and Rick between them formed a thin grey line as my three brigades ground forwards towards them. The Reb cavalry pulled back and formed column to head off to the other end of the battlefield. They never arrived and played no further part in the battle.

The action at the other end of the table.

My boys driving the Rebs out of their defensive positions 

That Reb gun by the stockade is not long for this world!

Andrews troops moving up to engage Barrys Rebs to my right

Paul and Julian have Nick in their sights at the other end of the table

Julian and Andrew both sent a brigade each against John in the redoubt

A view from behind the Reb right flank, showing how my brigades had bottled them up and were slowly clearing them out of the defensive position on the high ground

Andrew and I combined to put huge pressure on Barrys Rebs, pushing them back but not breaking them

The one piece of bad luck I had with dice (I did do freakishly well with most of my rolls in this game!). I had 7 to2 advantage over Barry and managed to get a draw - after the first round, my advantage dropped to only 1 die

This melee continued for several turns until Barry managed to beat me 2-0 and three or four Union battalions routed! They did recover next turn and my force was stabilised, but if I had won the initial combat when I had a 7-2 advantage, I would probably have rolled up Barrys entire flank....

Meanwhile, Paul and Julian bounced off Nicks defensive lines, and the Union advance in that half of the table stalled

Andrew and I continued to put pressure on Barry

And I had Rick bottled up in the corner

The Union failed to make any impression on the redoubt in the centre, however.

In the end, we had a points win, (the Rebs had lost about 20-30 points) but it wasn't enough for an actual win, so as Marks sheet said "any other result is a draw"

Personally, I had a good game, for once I hardly put a foot wrong tactically and my dice rolling was well above average - the only regret was the failure of the 7-2 charge/melee, I should have won that and it might well have collapsed the entire Reb flank and allowed us to get units behind the fort to gain an actual victory.

I am off to Julians after work tomorrow for a bit of Sharpes Practice I believe, so hopefully you don't have to wait another four days for me to do an AAR on that game!