TFL Summer Special 2016 Released

Just a quick note to let you know that biannual TooFatLardies Special (Summer edition) is out and full of gooddies for Sharp Practice and Chain of Command aficionados. It includes (unshame publicity) the full Corunna Retreat campaign designed and played by Club Dragón members of Madrid. As usual, incredible value for money at GBP 6.0 price.

Full content follows:

More Sharp Practice Coming Soon

As mentioned in a previous email, the activity of the blog was likely to fall substantially as a result of the club's flooding and the difficulties now to gather to play a game. Nonetheless, we've been evereything but idle, and I have a couple of announcements to make:

The first is that I played a small game last Friday at a friend's house and I'm planning to publish the scenario sometime this week. The game is in the aftermath of the Salamanca Battle (1812), when the rearguard of the routing French decided to take a stand against the pursuing British cavalry near the village of García Hernández.

The second is that the full Corunna Retreat campaign will soon be published, this time in the TooFatLardies 2016 Summer Special to be released in a few days from now. There you'll find all the details and special rules to play the campaign whose AARs I've been posting over the last two months.

So no dead but alive despite my low presence here. Stay tunned.

Changing colours

NOTICE:

Some of you may have noticed that I have changed the design of the blog.
I used to have darker colours on the back (greys and blacks) and light colours for the text.

Well, juts to inform you that this was not  my intention and actually I DO NOT LIKE at all the new design. But the bloody blogger suddenly change automatically the colour of the post titles to blue and the colour of the links to a kind of scarlet and I haven't found the way to revert to my original palette.

For this reason, I was forced to change the background colours to lighter tones, because in my original (and long-time) used layout it was impossible to read some of the texts. I'm still trying to figure out what the hell happened with the blog and looking to revert to my previous design. In the meantime, please bear with it.

Club Dragon Closed! (...temporarely)

If you follow my Twitter account, you probably know by now.

Yesterday disaster struck at our beloved club premises: a pipe of the Madrid water utility broke, flooded the underground property next to ours, and the wall dividing both premises busted as a result of the water pressure and the tons of building materials stored there.

Literally a tsunami swept all our club and the water height reached over 30cm, flooding the lockers where many of us store our gaming toys. I have come out of the disaster with very light casualties as I use to keep my models in plastic boxes, only loosing some self-made scenery I used in my games.

But some of my club mates here were collectors of tabletop games and literally I saw then shedding tears when they open the lockers and all that was left were a mass of wet board. Some have lost several hundred euros in games and many are irreplaceable, belonging to the collectors category (old Avalon Hill, Victory Games, etc from the 70s and 80s... I did a quick search in Ebay and found one of the games being sold for US$300).

The level of destruction is such that we are unlikely to return to normal before October or November. Which on the other hand it's going to have an impact here too, as most of my blog posts deal with the games I usually play on Sundays.

Therefore, if you see a drop of activity it's not as a result of me losing interest in blogging, but because of what I just explained. As said, you can still follow my activities in my Twitter account and I'll keep posting and updating with any news as they come out.

Sad Day today

It is a democratic decision. I do not share but must respect.
Fear that this is just the beginning

Sharp Practice: The River Neira Crossing

The final game of the Corunna Retreat campaign for Sharp Practice was put to test today. In this scenario, we saw the British crossing a major obstacle (the Nerea river at Constantin) with the French in hot pursue. The full campaign will be published in the cinoming TFL Summer Special 2016.

To achieve a victory, the British had to cross the only passable point (a bridge) with at least a 75% of its forces (equal to 48 models with the OBs used). The British forces started the game fully deployed on the south bank of the river.

The initial French forces were off table, but only the cavalry contingent was available in the first few, reflecting the scattered situation of the French column. After each Tiffin card, the French player rolls a D6 dice and if the result is equal or less than the turn number, the infantry command cards are then added to the deck. 

Sharp Practice: A Belated Xmas Gift

Today we playtested the third scenario of the Corunna campaign for Sharp Practice. That we expect to publish in the incoming Summer Special 2016 In this case, it was inspired on the events of January 6th 1809 (Epiphany Day) when, having lagged the main army column, the paymaster's cart bullocks died and the army's silver was in danger of falling in French hands. General Paget had to retrace back all the way to where the carts were stranded and ordered the money chests to be thrown over the nearby cliff.

The game is played across the longest edge of the table. The table is actually a straight road with several terrain features offering light cover to the units, the number of items randomly calculated and placed. The British stranded cart at a certain distance of its tactical edge based on a die throw; and its deployment point at 12” from the cart. The French enter through their tactical edge, the deployment point located on the road.

The British must empty the cart and throw the money over the cliff. This is accomplished as a task with 16 points (see chapter 10 of the Sharp Practice book) undertaken by a brigade of men under the command  of a level I leader. They can start moving the money from the cart after the 3^rd Tiffin card is out.