Games With John and James: Or, What I Did Over My Summer Holidays

Hello friends:

In my last post, I mentioned that I’d been fortunate enough to spend the month of August off, and besides some overnight trips with the lovely Joy, including taking her to Paris and too many wineries.  Besides Brantford County’s city of light on the Grand River, we headed east to Prince Edward County, near Kingston.   On the way we stopped in the river town of Belleville with its stone buildings along the river, hoping against hope that the Museum of the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment was open, but alas it has been shuttered since Covid.

The “Hasty Ps” as they are still fondly known are an active regiment in the Canadian Army Reserve.  They were the subject of Canadian author Farley Mowat’s memoir The Regiment, describing his service with the regiment in Italy.  I hope to get back here to see the museum post-Covid.

 

After a pleasant lunch in Belleville, onwards to nearby Picton, our base camp while we visited several excellent wineries.   The Niagara Peninsula is best known as Ontario’s wine country, but there are some stellar vintage to be found in PEC.  Our favourite was Karlo Estates, where we found some delicious reds in their charming barn/store.

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Also found some delicious whites and serenity at Closson Chase.

Our hotel in Kingston offered a stunning view of Royal Military College, our equivalent to Sandhurst, West Point, and ADFA, as well as Fort Henry in the background.

Early morning walk allowed me to visit one of the Martello Tower fortifications surrounding Kingston’s harbour.  This is the Murney Redoubt, built in 1846.

Quite a solid piece of masonry!

During the last week of August I was delighted to spend a week with my son John, who I hadn’t seen since before Covid.  Despite a forest fire that had temporarily closed his local airport on Vancouver Island, and a long night camping in the terminal in Vancouver, John’s flight arrived.

One of the highlights of our visit was a weekend at my friend and podcast partner James Manto, keeper of the Rabbits in My Basement blog.  We got in two days of gaming, starting with Bag the Hun on James’ nifty custom-designed mat.  John and I flew some snazzy Spitfires, but our lack of coordination had us flying all over SW England.

 John did manage to knock down an ME 110, saving his dad from it hail of cannon fire.  I think we decided that the match was a draw.

Then a game of Sharp Practice using James’ stunningly good new Napoleonic figures.  James and John teamed up as a Bavarian (James) and French (John) force, while our friend Scott supplied the Austrians and French figures from his innumerable collection.  Here James shows John the fine art of stacking the deck.

 Scott’s Kaiserlicks advance steadily towards John, who doesn’t appear the slightest bit alarmed.  My Russian jaegers loiter calmly on the hill, keeping an eye on James’ lights in the building top right.

Russian light cavalry pile into James’ newly painted Bavarian cheveux legeres, who sadly suffer the fate of most newly painted units in their debut battle.

Things are heating up between Scott and John.  Both sides’ line infantry battered their oppos into a pulp, without much of a clear result until the end, when John’s French began to fold after their Level 3 leader caught one in the head.

Meanwhile, after trading away our light cavalry for little gain in return, James and I were content to spar at long range.  Russian gun trades shots with the Bavarians, spreading some shock but not adding much except smoke and decibels. 

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James was content to skulk in his nice stone buildings, and my Russians weren’t eager to die trying to evict the sausage munchers. 

In the last moments of the battle, Scott elected to throw his light cavalry into the fight.  As I’ve witnessed with a lot of new players of Sharp Practice, he quite overestimated their chances of success.  SP is a relentlessly tactical game.  When the numbers are mostly equal, foot with loaded muskets/rifles charged by cavalry to their front, can usually see the horse off.   Save your cavalry for picking off the groups with lots of shock, or work your horse around to the flanks or rear. 

 So a grand weekend of games and kind hospitality offered by James, thanks mate.  We also got in our usual Lord of the Rings themed game using the Dragon Rampant rules, which I’ll save for my Friday Fantasy feature.

Otherwise John and I had an all too brief time in which we did a few days of paddling and another day of cycling.   John pushed the old man hard and I didn’t admit my weakness, secretly chugging handfuls of Advil at night.

 

 

John’s home now and he is about to be the proud owner of a Warlord Games French and British Penninsular War starter sets and some nice fresh TFL Sharp Practice rules as a birthday present.  I’m excited that this young chap was impressed enough by his gaming holiday that he wants to make the jump from the GW world.  A few days after our weekend with James, I took John to my FLGS for another game of Sharp Practice, and he had totally mastered the rules.  In another Napeolonic game, with us as the French, we handily defeated an Anglican-Spanish force of better quality.  John skillfully used his two groups of voltiguers to harass and paralyze a cautious British player, and then brought up his formation of conscript infantry to deliver a Crashing Volley that broke the redcoats and earned us a handy win of 4-0 in Force Morale.  I hope it’s not another two years before I see him again.

I hope your summer holidays were as pleasant.

 

Trouble On The Border: A Sharpe Practice Skirmish

Having laid out this table to see what my Barrage Miniatures Kickstarter modular terrain looked like, it seemed a shame not to use it, and the obvious candidates were the Perry Brothers figures I’ve just finished for my alt-ACW project.  So, inspired by the battles of Ross McFarlane’s Red on Blue battles (Oberhilse … boo!), I decided to lay out a generic solo fight as a force of Republican troops crossed the border to test the Dominion’s defences and try to seize a key crossroads.

I don’t have photos to illustrate the entire action, but hopefully can convey a sense of what happened.  Here’s the table.  I allowed the Red forces to set up first.  The Blue forces enter from a deployment point on their table edge.

 

First Republican skirmishers appear on the table, led by Sergeant Quigley.   I thought it would be a nice aesthetic to use my ACW Iron Brigade figures in their Hardee hats for this skirmish.  The Republican jump off point is in the background.

Overview of the table showing the Dominion’s positions.  The Republican infantry, in slightly larger numbers, are now all deployed on the table.   The Dominion forces, all militia infantry, are supported by a Royal Artillery gun with a Regular crew.

The largest group of militia squander their first volley on the skirmishers facing them, to little effect.

Republican gun and limber enter the table.

A group of Dominion militia cavalry, led by Sergeant Boscombe, probes the right flank.   Since the Republican cavalry is otherwise engaged and not at this fight, these eight riders will tie up the largest group of enemy foot for most of the game.

 

The Royal Artillery opens up on the advancing enemy limber team.

As the Sharpe Practice rules are vague on hits to limbered artillery, I rule that the two kills apply to the lead horses.  I add 2 extra actions per casualty to clear the dead horses from the traces and unlimber the gun - it will thus take four extra actions to bring the Republican gun into action.

“Well done, lads!”  says Bombardier Boyle.  “Now load up and ‘it ‘em again!”  Capt. Travers, commanding the militia colour party, holds in reserve on the right of the artillery.

 

A large group of Republican infantry now unleash a devastating volley on the militia group holding a small copse on a hill above them.   They kill Cpl. Hodges and four of his redcoats, leaving the remaining four to retreat with excess shock.  

The victorious Republican troops advance, only to be blasted with canister by Bdr. Boyle’s gun crew.  They fall back to rally, their lieutenant temporarily knocked unconscious.

Sgt. Boscombe decides that a short and glorious life is a soldier’s destiny. He uses a pile of command tokens to spur his group in a charge with extra movement, but the Republican troops are regulars and form line, with time to present and fire a first volley, which is taken into account in their extra melee dice.  The result is that the Canadian riders are all killed save for one and the wounded Sgt. Boscombe, but the bluecoats are badly hit with casualties and shock and fall back to lick their wounds.  

The Republican cannon now makes its presence felt.   With the Queen’s gunners have chosen to shoot canister at the closest enemy foot rather than the opposing gun, and thus take a bad hit, killing two of the crew.  Boyle and the surviving gunner now take part in an unequal artillery duel, but the next hit kills the remaining gunner and Bdr. Boyle retreats off the table with shock, one arm hanging uselessly at his side.  With his Militia slowly being picked off by skirmishers and no way to reply to the enemy cannon, Capt. Travers orders four of his men to haul the gun off the table, and concedes the fight.  

Here’s a funny thing about how characters can sometimes come to life.  To give the Dominion defenders a bit of an offset from their militia status, I gave them a Level Four Big Man officer, one of my newly painted bossy Victorians.   Incredibly, his chit only came up once, allowing him to rally the four surviving men of Cpl.Hodge’s group as they fled down their side of the hill.  After that, he did nothing, except once, when I incredibly rolled two “1”s for his movement to go somewhere and be useful.  I thus concluded that he was hopelessly drunk, and was staggering around the battlefield, being a positive nuisance and drawling nonsense in an upper class English accent.  Thus, Maj. Clive Whicker-Basquet, an incompetent but well-connected sot, is born, and will doubtless feature again in other battles.

“Have a care and hold your fire, lads, that … gentleman is in front of you!"

A pleasant bit of solitaire gaming and lovely to get some newly painted troops on the table with my new terrain.  The Republican side won on points, and while the defender’s force morale had not collapsed, clearly it was in their best interest to disengage and fight another day.   In a campaign game, I wouldn’t have thrown the cavalry group away, but I was curious to see how they fared against infantry.   It would have been smarter to keep them as a force in being, checking or at least slowing an advance by three times their number.

Skirmish at Hickory Farm: An ACW Sharpe Practice Battle Report

 Relocating my gaming table to a roomier part of the basement has given me an incentive to get out my ACW figures, revisit Too Fat Lardies’ Sharpe Practice, and throw some dice.  I especially wanted to give my small but growing cavalry some love. The descriptions were written while I tweeted the game using my @MarshalLuigi account.  The table was randomly set up by placing a random selection of Terrain Cards from Sam Mustafa’s Longstreet rules in 12 sections of the table.

Tennessee, 1862. Captain Morrison O’Harnett, commanding C Company, 15th Illinois Cavalry, is ordered to scout a farm along a road designated for a divisional advance the next day. He has four troops of cavalry rated as Dragoons in Sharpe Practice terms.

 O’Harnett orders Lt. Thaddeus (Tad) MacQuarrie to take two dismounted troops and scout the woods on either side of the road approaching the farm. Tad takes one side and orders Sgt Esau Landiss to take the other side.

 O’Harnett keeps his other two troops in the saddle, ready to move forward as required. (Tables I wrote to make it interesting).

Sgt Landiss and his men warily approach what looks like a campsite in the woods south of the road but the die roll says nobody. Just an old fire pit and some junk. There are no Rebs in the wood. Perhaps pickets went off to a neighbouring farm to beg some hot johnnie cakes, but it’s a lucky break for the Union.

 

 

Lt. MacQuarrie now has two dismounted troops in the woods with a good view of the farm. He pulls out his spyglass to have a look see. The Lt. whistles softly. He sees a troop of cavalry being watered in the stream by the field, while at the farm he sees some wagons, and comfortable looking men in nice uniforms lounging with cigars. “Confound me if that’s not a headquarters of some sort!”

Lt. MacQuarrie reports the situation to Capt. O’Harnett. “Not a lot of Johnnies, and they all seem free and easy. Reckon we could ride in and scoop them up pretty neatly.” The Captain strokes his luxuriant moustache thoughtfully for a moment.

 

 So, quick aside, you’ve probably noticed the red paint on the walls (very 1990s!) which makes the battle look like an old set from the original Star Trek.  Santa gave me some model railroad backdrops which will get set up in due course.

 

Capt. O’Harnett decides it would be a fine thing to bag a rebel HQ and orders two mounted groups forward in formation at the canter. They come into the table and move briskly down the road towards the ford.

 Sgt. Landiss and his dismounted group open a brisk fire with their cavalry carbines on the rebel troopers watering their horses, but score no hits.

At the farm, Colonel Robert Thoroughgood, 14th Mississippi Cavalry, is enjoying a cheroot when he hears the carbines and sees the Yankees hove into view. “Damn their eyes, what are my confounded pickets doing, letting them fellows so close?”

 

 Sgt Alonso Harker of the 14th MS Cav and his men were lounging about, playing cards and cooking. He starts getting his group into their saddles.

 Capt O’Harnett has four command chits and uses them to give his formation of two mounted groups a bonus move. They lose their canter bonus while crossing the ford but are in a good position to burst into the farm before the rebs can react.

 

 

Sgt Landiss’ Yank troopers get to shoot again. I realize that with their breech loading carbines, in #SharpePractice they don’t spend an action reloading, so they get two shots each. Two pts shock on the Rev troopers who are frantically looking for saddles, tack and weapons.

On the receiving end of this fire, Sgt Lucius Biggs is a man with a plan. He uses the two rebel command chits in play to boost his Initiative to three, rallying away the shock, getting the horses back, and shoving his men into a firing line at the fence.

 

 O’Harnett’s column rides like thunder and turns into the farmyard while the rebel headquarters staff are highly confused. Finally the reb Colonel gets his chit and does the only sensible thing, ordering his men into the farmhouse and barn.

 Sgt Alonso Harker urges his men forward at the canter. “C’mon boys, let’s go pull the Colonel’s bacon out of the fire and maybe he’ll share some of his corn liquor!”

 Captain O’Harnett decides that it would foolish to ride around the buildings as targets. He spends his turn ordering the lead group to dismount and detaches his second group to face the one group of rebel cavalry that pose a threat.

Lt. MacQuarrie’s dismounted troopers fire at Sgt. Harker’s advancing horsemen, causing too points of shock. “Cmon boys, they can’t shoot! At the gallop!” Harker’s Mississippians crash into the group of Illinois cavalry, who surprisingly hold firm.

 In two rounds of Fisticuffs, they hold their own. Both groups lose four figures, but the rebs fall back when their Shock goes to 5.

 Col. Thoroughgood and three of his staff officers fire ineffectually at longer range with their revolvers. It was probably a bad plan that all four officers ran into the house and a group of leaderless troopers ran into the barn. A random event (3 command chits drawn in a row) mean that the reb troopers in the barn panic their mounts when they start shooting with their carbines. The horses spook and run around the barn, causing chaos.

Capt O’Halloran’s six troopers pepper the farmhouse with their Sharps carbines, killing Major Wood, the 14th Mississippi’s adjutant, as he peers out the window 

Chaplain Windman and Quartermaster Murray trade shots with the dismounted US troopers. Their revolvers vs Sharp breachloading carbines aren’t a fair fight, but they distract enough that Col. Thoroughgood can sprint across the farmyard. Thoroughgood runs like the wind (double 6es on his movement roll) and dives through the barn door in a hail of bullets, which kill two of the rebel troopers covering him. The Yankee fire on the farm is viciously effective. 

Captain O’Harnett dismounts his remaining four troopers and has them join his firing line. The surviving Mississippi horse are retiring and no immediate threat. Lt MacQuarrie is bringing his group up to provide flank cover for the assault on the farm.

In the barn, Thoroughgood watches as another fusillade of Yankee gunfire shreds the farmhouse. The remaining two defenders, Chaplain Windman and QM Murray, both go down in the hail of carbine fire. “Boys, if we stay here, we die. Mount up and get ready to ride like hell”.

Thoroughgood and his six surviving troopers catch the Yanks off guard and are mostly able to escape. Sharps carbines bring down the rear two troopers, but Thoroughgood and his men leap the fence and escape into the woods.

 Meanwhile, in the meadow by the stream, Sgt Biggs is trading shots with the Yanks in the woods. Unfortunately a random effect means that an eager trooper discharged his carbine into the Sergeant’s left buttock. Cursing, he is hauled away by his troopers as they break contact.

This concludes the fight for Hickory Farm. Inside the bloody farmhouse, Captain O’Harnett finds papers and maps giving rebel dispositions in the region. His colonel will be pleased. The Illinoisian troopers are equally happy to have captured Col. Thoroughgood’s liquor and cigars.

 It was fun to get out Sharpe Practice and reacquaint myself with the rules. A randomly generated table and some chance dispositions at the start made an interesting game for my available cavalry figures. The US were lucky to gain surprise and exploited it well, while the rebels never really got off their back foot. One lesson is that breechloading weapons are a huge advantage in a firefight as, unlike muzzleloaders, it doesn’t take an action to reload them. US cavalry can thus be quite fearsome when dismounted, and this advantage could be reasonably offset by giving the CSA superior numbers.

Maybe we will see some of these characters in another skirmish. Cheers and thanks for reading.

Blessings to your die rolls!

MP+