Ulster Wargames Society - Sharps Practice Game and a milestone reached

Society meeting and Jeremy D put on a Sharps Practice game using his 28mm French and Austrians for Revolutionary period in Italy.

Austrians (Jeremy, Paddy and I) nominally defenders of a village and its line of communication with French (Dave S, Dave M and Jeremy N) attackers.

Six leaders per side (2 per player) with 12-14 units under command. 

Fun game with plenty of incident including a bloody sequence of cavalry charges and my losing 7 skirmish figures in one turn (for once I rolled a ton of sixes !!) and in the end French winning as Austrian Morale expended.

Also this week I celebrated my 60th birthday (how did that happen !!) so lots of family visiting including my son and brother and family over from England.

The Barrmen (Steven, my Dad, Warren and moi)

Chomping time a favoured Barr pastime

Great time although really missed my wee dark furry pal Lucy (who passed on 16th) although her 'other half' Joy of course got spoilt rotten.

Ulster Wargames Society - Sharps Practice game

Monthly club meeting this Easter weekend and partook in a Sharps Practice 2 game run by Jeremy D with his lovely 28mm Revolution period kit and terrain.

I was playing as 'Romeo Reggio' an Italian bloke on French side along with Mike and David S. Opposing us was a Austrian force with Bryn, Simon and Billy in command.

A highlight was Bryn, acting as Austrian CinC, denying Simon opportunity to charge with couple of cavalry units using Command Cards (Flags) only for Simons leader card to appear next and a cry of "you can't stop me now !" very Hussar like.

Mike commanding our cavalry suffered early under deluge of fire (so many dice) including a potent Austrian artillery piece but was able to save one unit and support with some Light Infantry.

Simons failed attempts at fisticuffs (charges and melees) in the centre saw the Austrian gun blocked for good portion of game as cavalry withdrew in front of them.

David and I had our close order foot types on a ridge (Austrian objective) in entrenchments with David having a 8pdr gun but whose crew were initially asleep in a local hostelry so took a while to man their positions thankfully they were roused and vacated the building just before it caught fire !

I had couple of skirmishing units with a 'secondary' mission of locating (and 'dealing' with) an agent sent by command to investigate some dodgy dealings by Romeo. 

Billy opposing me also had cause to locate same gent but we failed to find him at games end.

A lot of work setting up the scenario as Jeremy was catering for six players but it all flowed well with plenty of incident with a draw (?) being end result

I only managed a couple of pics

Simons Light Cavalry gearing up for charges

Village where Billy and I searched for Agent

Also at club the two Daves played a couple of FOGR games with Ottomans facing Ethiopians

Now this is dedication to your craft !

Andy and Richard had a nice 28mm Hail Caesar game going with Romans versus some Celtic types.

Also Paddy and co were running an Afghanistan game with Brits in Helmand but don't know what rules used ? 

As an aside the caretaker was unaware we were meeting so had forgotten to put on heating in hall so whilst it was sunny and mildly warm outside (the first such day in what seems eons in NI) we were all 'foundered' (colloquial term for suffering from hypothermia) but we soldiered manfully on of course. 

Ulster Wargames Society - Sharps Practice game 'Alas poor Heidi'

Club day again (that last month surely flew in !) and I played in a game of Sharps Practice put on by Jeremy D using his very nice early Napoleonic Austrian and French 28mm troops and terrain.

Scenario was based around an Austrian lass named Heidi who was having relations with a French officer chap (appropriately named Romeo) and for whom an Austrian force was dispatched to retrieve her (as related to some Austrian General I believe) whilst French offered resistance to such a 'rescue'. 

Bryn and Billy commanded the Hapsburg 'relief' force whilst Davy S, The other Jeremy and I controlled the defenders of the Lovebirds.

Heidi and her suitor started on table in a building/love nest with a guard of some French foot, all the Austrians and the other French would appear as their Leader cards were turned.

Hapsburgs sent a  force of several units with scaling ladders straight in the courtyard of the love nest which after a brief firefight saw Heidi and co leave by back door and a pursuit ensued thereafter (more on this later)

Rest of opposing forces deployed in due course on the open ground around the buildings and proceeded to slaughter each other with multiple rounds of volleying and fisticuffs.

However the Austrians (ie Bryn) decided to interpret order to rescue Heidi to be of the 'dead or alive' variety and fired on the group running off with her several times, this of course resulted in Heidi being put at risk and lo and behold the poor wench duly succumbed to wounds inflicted by Hapsburg musket balls !! "Bryn the misogynist !!" was the cry heard throughout the hall. 

Her demise led to Hapsburg objective being 'amended' to trying to capture her suitor no doubt in order to blame her death on the poor sod, but instead their continued shooting saw him rout of table thereby thwarting this further Hapsburg objective.

All that remained was for both sides to try to break enemy Force Morale and both dwindled to a mere 3 points before Austrians were able to inflict (due to getting Leader cards first) sufficient damage to cause 'Bad Things Happen' events that broke the French force so a draw was declared. However the Austrian General will be looking an explanation for his muse being a corpse instead of rescued, so one can only hope the story told, full of lies as it may be, is at least consistent.

This was an excellent game with some lovely kit and the scenario generated a super narrative and plenty of action. 

Austrians use scaling ladders as they try to retrieve Heidi from clutches of Romeo

French start deploying in 'plain' as Hapsburgs do same.

More Austrians appear 

My contingent form Line Formation behind a skirmish screen

The village 

More French arrive in column (note Shock accumulating and my Skirmishers mullered)

Heidi and co just visible behind building on right as chase begins

Also at club was a game based around Chinese Farm engagement in 1973 Yom Kippur war run by Paddy (with some very nice 20mm vehicles) and involving several players. No idea of rules (possibly grid based ?) but believe narrow Egyptian victory.

'The Two Daves' had a couple of 15mm FOGR games with Ottoman Turk versus Cossack (both very nice armies). Turks won second game not sure who won first encounter shown ?

 

Ulster Wargames Society August meeting

UWS meeting on Saturday at which I played in an excellent game of Sharp Practice (2nd edition I think) umpired by Jeremy D which was set in 1796 in Italy with Austrians (yours truly) facing French (David S and the ‘other Jeremy’). 

Only played Sharp Practice couple of times but fairly easy to pick up with umpires help. 

Scenario had a wagon load of leather boots that Austrians had to protect and get off table and a French spy hiding in village that both sides were tasked with rescuing or capturing.

Believe this would be classed as a largeish game of Sharp practice with 9 Austrian leaders and 8 French but was manageable for a club outing. 

Austrian morale took numerous hits especially from a charge and melee by a French attack column formation and were soon in trouble (ie losing command cards) whilst French mostly unscathed and subsequently fled the field.

Standard Lardy ‘buckets of dice’ system which can give some narrative building results.

I fired 3 units of Line troops yielding some 28 dice which inflicted 20 hits but French column target managed to roll saves that resulted in only 2 kills and 5 shock (spread across 4 units) which was rather underwhelming from Austrian viewpoint but elicited much celebration in French ranks.

Similarly I had a unit of 8 Hussars that suffered a canister salvo from a French medium gun and other firing which generated a whooping 15 shock but no deaths !

Really fun stuff with very nice troops, ancillary items and terrain (all 28mm but no idea of manufacturers)

Also at club the ‘two Davids’ had a couple of FOGR games first was Milanese vs Florentines then Milanese vs French (no idea how these turned out)

Phil had another of his excellent 20mm games this time a WW2 Eastern Front late war bash with lots of T34s, JSIIs, PzIVs, Panthers, Tigers and lots of infantry and other kit. Again saw very little of what happened but did note that his rules for armour combat was firmly based on old 1973 WRG rules.