Sharp Practice: A bridge at Cacabelos

We are currently working on a small campaign based on the retreat to Corunna by Moore forces for Sharp Practice. The campaign rules are not ready yet and Richard Clarke already warned that we should dump away the Chain of Command mentality, as in this period battles are less important than outmanoeuvring your foes in the field. For this reason, the plan is to play four interlinked scenarios instead of a full campaign with the same forces. Eventually (...this is our intention..) the campaign will be published in the Summer Special 2016.

The game today was the action taking place on 3 January 1809, a rearguard defensive battle of the British at the town of Cacabelos in El Bierzo (Leon) area. It is a well known action because the French commander General Colbert was killed by a British rifle marksman called Thomas Plunkett killed at an uncertain distance. There is some confusion about this event, but likely a known impatient Colbert risked too much when reconnoitring the advanced outpost and rifleman Plunkett took his chances... and hit bang on target.

Dashing French Dragoons

The Peninsular War: A New History by Charles Esdaile

As many other wargamers, history is an integral part of my hobby activities. Believe or not, I have neglected the Napoleonic period for a long time and even more the so called (more on this later)  “Peninsular Wars” in the English speaking world, about which I’m a total ignorant despite being Spanish.

The recent publication of Sharp Practice by TooFatLardies is marking an end to this period of ignorance, as my gaming mates have embraced the rules with our renowned Spanish passion… and of course with a view to fight games against the invader of our sacred soil.

The fact is that part of my lack of interest in the Napoleonic period in Spain is the result of my school education. Being a child of the 60s, with Franco still alive and kicking, history was taught always in the key of the Spanish Civil War.

I’ll try to clarify. Script:

·      Spain had always been Spain since the prehistoric ages.

·      The Romans were invaders, The Visigoths, the Moors… all were invaders alien to our immortal soul and culture and all were defeated in due time.

·      The French of course were also invaders and actually a bunch of pre-communist revolutioners and atheists that wanted to destroy our culture.

·      The last attempt to destroy our Spanish soul was the unholy alliance of Marxist-Leninists, Jews and Masons in 1936… thank God, Franco was there and we were free to live as true Spanish since then.

Sharp Practice: The Storm of Cascajales de Alba

The French and British forces in the Iberian Peninsula fought today for the control of Cascajales de Alba, a small poor village in the border with Portugal, but key to the French defensive line in the Tagus valley.

This was Scenario 5 of the Sharp Practice book. The French were on the defensive this time and to win, the British must capture the house with the blue line on the map below. The French had a Regular core force plus 10 support points, invested in a gun with leader level I.

Sharp Practice: Attack on Cerro Medellin (July 1809)

Today I played my second Sharp Practice game (third for my gaming pals as I missed the one organized the last weekend). We used Scenario 3 “Defence in Depth" of the book, in the context of the Talavera Battle (July 1809), the French attack on Cerro Medellín.

French attack and British defend in this scenario. I played on the French side and chose the French Regulars as core force, adding an artillery piece, a Dragoon group  and a Big Man level I as supports.

The terrain was basically featureless, with a hill (Cerro Medellin) dominating the British deployment area and small stream (minor obstacle) marking the limit of its defensive line. The British had a primary and a secondary deployment points located within the first 12 and 36 inches of its table edge.

The French also had two deployment points to be located in the two halves of their table side and with 6 inches of the edge.

The French had to capture the British primary deployment point or force their withdrawal from the battlefield to win.

Sharp Practice: First Shots

As many readers of this blog and the whole Lard fan community knows, Sharp Practice 2 was released on St George´s day. I received the pdf copy of the rules at 7.30AM sharp (sigh) on Saturday and my hardcopy, cards and tokens will hit home hopefully some day next week.

It was too tempting to lose this Sunday without at least giving a try to the rules; despite having just skipped the book on Saturday (… while busy preparing a major dinner at home to celebrate our 25^th wedding anniversary), my club’s pals were of the same opinion and this morning we exchanged the first shot in a small skirmish encounter game.

I played the French side with four line infantry groups, two skirmish group and one Dragoons cavalry group vs the a British army with a similar lay-out. I’m not looking to describe the battle in detail as it was a game frequently interrupted to clarify aspects of the rules and in search of the right tables in the tablet to fire and to move.

The most remarkable action was the charge of the French cavalry downhill against a group of KGL hussars that dare to get to close to the French. In the melee the Germans were massacred, losing 6 out of the 8 troopers and the group commander being seriously wounded.

Sharp Practice 2 - Preorder period open

A little late to the party (I was out of Spain in a business trip the wople week), but I have just pre-ordered Sharp Practice, the incoming new rules by TooFatLardies covering the black powder period that is, from 1700 to mid XIX century.

  

The rules will be available on the 23^rd of April, Saint Georges (but also the day our own national Cervantes died, that was instituted as the Book’s Day in Spain). In the meantime, TFL offers a number of bundles with the hardcopy of the book, cards and tokens needed to play at a significant discount… and in addition you get the pdf electronic version of the rules for free.  Detailed explanation can be found in Lard Island (the official blog) and the website.

Note that these are NOT Napoleonic period rules, but cover a substantial wider period including The Seven Years Wars, FIW, AWI, Napoleonic and ACW among other. And also that these rules are designed to play skirmish oriented battles, therefore do not expect to move large masses of models on the table; actually with 40-50 minis per side you can have a game, making them suitable to play with the larger scales (25mm or 28mm).

The initial release will include army lists for FIW, AWI, Peninsular Campaign,  ACW and the Indian Mutinity. However TFL is already working on a series of complementary lists that will available for free download and some of their popular Pint-Sized Campaign books (called because the price is the pint of beer in the author's favourite  pub at Saint Albans).

Currently I have put my sight in the Napoleonic period with a twist to the Peninsular Campaign period. But if the rules root firmly among my gaming pals, I cannot discard at all a Carlist project or a painting project covering the FIW and the AWI period.

So wallet is lighter and only rests now to wait patiently to April 23^rd.

II World War French Vehicles Kickstarter

A good catch by our fellow Nordic blogger Joakim aka The Miniatures Man: a very interesting new Kickstarter of French Vehciles of the Second World War. The project incude several rarities but personally the most interesting part is the inclusion of the vehicles modified by the German engineer Alfred Becker and put to good use by the (reconstitued) 21st Panzer Division in Normandy as part of the strecht goals.

One has been already unlocked (the Reihenwerfer)

And having broken the GBP5,000 goal, the 7.5cm pak 40 Somua must also be available by now.

Next in the list is the Geschutzwagen 39H (f) but will only be released when reachin the GBP7,500 level, unlikely considering that the campaign has already collected GBP5,500 with only a few days to run.

The Kickstarter covers both the 28mm and 20mm scale and will close in 5 days from now. I'm not a big fan of crowfunding campaigns (so far I have only participated in one), but this one deserves at least a seriousconsideration on my part.