Civs Foray into Sharp Practice

So i took the prussians to the field in my first game of Sharp Practice. There are a few people in my area looking to start and have armies built so last night we finally had a game.

28 points of Prussians vs French 1814 period so there werent too many compliacted rules. A small battle to start with and to learn the rules. Neither of us had actually managed to read through the whole ruleset due to life in general getting in the way but armed with a rough quick reference sheet i pulled together and some videos on BOW being watched we started a game.

I brought 2 groups of 8 musketeers accompanied by a level 2 leader. These were backed up by a group of 6 musket armed skirmish fusiliers and a level 1 leader with them. When packing i had assumed i could afford some riflemen hence the very green looking rifle armed troops in all the photos but we played them as being armed with muskets.

We set up in a cobbled hamlet somewhere in northern France. My opponent brought two groups of 8 French line troops with a level 2 leader and a group of Cuirassiers with a level 1 leader.

The french started with a morale of 11 whilst the Prussians where not so confident with a force morale of 10. We shuffled the cards and the battle commenced.

My skirmishers are first to take to the field and deploy on the right behind a hedge ready to harass the approaching French line troop.

The French then come out in force in the middle of the board, hiding the calvary behind the line troops looking for an opening.

My line troops start heading for the brick wall on the left and take about 4 turns to get near but never quite make it (very poor movement rolling hampered my troops throughout the game).

My light infantry open up on the line infantry piling up the shock but not actually killing anyone. The French got fed up with this and soon started firing back, causing lots of shock but thankfully not killing anyone. I soon backed the light infantry off to try and recover some shock before they started effecting my force morale.

My prussians finally got to the wall after about 5 turns and the French impact calvary unleash their charge.

Despite being in line the prussians fend off the charge (just!). 5 calvary go down whilst i lose 4 musketeers. My leader survives unscathed whilst the French leader takes a minor wound.

Things are looking up for the prussians!

Things went decididly downhill from there. The calvary escaped and found my skirmishers in the open. I fired at the calvary needing one shock to push them back and miss with all my shots. *facepalm*

The calvary charge and kill all but one of my skirmishers in the ensuing melee and the remaining guy breaks and runs off the board.

My line infantry form square but the calvary hide behind the building so i dont get any shots off. Meanwhile the French line troops have been working their way to the fight and removing shock as they went.

My prussians form back into line and get the first two shots off on the French. Their aim was definitely off though and inflict some shock but no damage.

The French fire was much more effective and they kill 4 of my musketeers. My return fire was awful and it continued to get worse.

The calvary finally finished my line with a flank charge.

It was a great game and we learnt a lot. We played a lot of rules wrong but didnt let that stop us. Next time we will up the points and i might even get to read the rules properly.

Better get to naming my leaders and training my troops so they perform better next time.

Thanks for reading!

So attempts at the basing where made today. I flocked the individual models first but used the wrong length flock so it all fell flat and looked a bit naff.

Second attempt using shorter flock was more succesful, this i used on the group bases. It looks better as it stands up but a bit too uniform, ill need to find a way of making look a bit more natural.

I added a few tufts i made but again some lessons learnt as they were a real pain.

More troops to paint next and hopefully the basing will be miles easier.

So attempts at the basing where made today. I flocked the individual models first but used the wrong length flock so it all fell flat and looked a bit naff.

Second attempt using shorter flock was more succesful, this i used on the group bases. It looks better as it stands up but a bit too uniform, ill need to find a way of making look a bit more natural.

I added a few tufts i made but again some lessons learnt as they were a real pain.

More troops to paint next and hopefully the basing will be miles easier.

So i finally managed to finish the force. I have finally painted all 60 models and am able to field 4 groups of line troop and 2 groups of skirmishers, both rifles and muskets.

This includes 2 level 1 leaders, 2 level 2 leaders and a level 3 leader. The higher the level, the bigger the base (saves me remembering who is the most important in the heat of battle)

Enjoy the pics!

So the Jaegers have some more colour and the leaders get some more detail too.

Pretty close to finishing these now. Just need to highlight the black and faces. Then its on to the dreaded bases. They could probably so with some tidying up as well but ill do that once ive finished the main bits.

My officer is going to have grey hair so ill have to tidy that up when i have finished there faces and ive got to work out how im going to bronze up the trumpeters horn…that sounds worse than i meant it!

Ill add a pic of all the models ive done so far once they are based.

So after painting the 16 line troops making my 1st detachment i wanted to get my first leaders going.

I have based the leaders according to their level, so small bases are level ones, medium are level two’s and the bigger ones are level three.

I block coloured the leaders (and the Jaegers) and applied some army painter dip to get the shading. They look awful at this stage but once highlighted come together much more (i promise they do). In the photo i have a level one leader (a very enthusiastic model from foundry) and a level two officer with a trumpeter (in case no one listens to him the first time).

I then made a start on the first unit of 8 Jaegers as well, a mismatch of perry british riflemen and actual jaeger models from the prussian box set. They annoyingly have only 6 jaegers in the box and sharp practice requires 8, so with a few head swaps and varying the colour scheme a little, the british troops can pass as prussian Jaegers.

Once i’ve finished these guys i am going to decide on a basing scheme, i have seen some nice ones on this site and James Wappel seems to have some good ideas so we shall see what i can find. I aslo need to use the static flock box i have some more so here is the perfect excuse.