Somewhere near Camden, 1780

Last night I went over to new mate Chris’s house to play a game of Sharp Practice.  As a new wargamer, Chris has done a lovely job of equipping himself with toys and terrain. A very pretty table and some lovely 28mm American War of Independence figures were awaiting us. At least I think they were; I’d managed to forget my glasses so I was largely commanding by braille.  I took a few photos on my phone but the lighting wasn't really suitable.

We played a simple scenario in which yours truly played the rebellious colonials. Washington's lads had their backs to a river and had to hold off a similarly sized force of British regulars. My troops were a mixture of State Line troops, some of them classed as Continentals. Not bad as far as quality goes but out-classed by the British who also started off with higher Force Morale.

The battlefield had an impassable river at one end. A road ran down the length of the table to a T-junction where it met another road along the river bank.  To the right of the road the British would have to traverse a wood and then a ploughed field before reaching a fence-line that would undoubtedly be held by the rebels. On the left was another field, this one surrounded by stout and high stone walls.    

Chris’s friend Stoof, playing his first ever wargame, commanded the British. He started by pushing forward a group of skirmishers on his left. I responded with a similar group on my right.  These two would later exchange shots before wiping each other out in a singularly bloody bout of fisticuffs.

The battle then settled down into an exchange of shots between the line infantry of the two sides. This should probably have comfortably gone the way of the British except that I had suddenly discovered a hitherto-unknown ability to roll copious quantities of sixes!

Unfortunately, the melee had cost me the maximum amount of Force Morale points. Thanks to yet more rolling of five and six I lost four points! If we hadn’t run out of time I’m sure Stoof would eventually have prevailed.  I had an excellent time though.