Ferrocarril de Veracruz

On Monday, Jamie and I had our first proper game of Sharp Practice 2 using my developing Maximilian Adventure forces.  I designed a scenario based on Liberal guerrillas raiding a railway construction camp to steal the workers' tools and burn their tents.

The Liberal force was set up to use all of the figures I currently have available.  This gave me a group of cavalry, two of skirmishers, and one of line infantry.  All were armed with rifled muskets with exception of the cavalry who have lances.

The French/Conservative detachment had two units of Turcos (Tirailleurs Algeriens) as line infantry and one as skirmish troops, and two units of contra-guerrillas.

The table was fairly simple with a few scattered trees and a workers camp (Renedra tents and a Warbases wagon) near the middle. I included a wandering dog and a grazing horse as at least one of the possible random events involves rampaging animals (if any are nearby).  For simplicity, I treated the woods as blocking line of sight and being bad going for movement purposes.  The camp didn't affect movement of line of sight.

The round, green tent at the centre of the camp acted as a secondary deployment point for the Liberals, who are already rampaging through the camp at the start of the action.  The main deployment points for the two sides were at opposite ends of the table.
  

The action began with my contra-guerrillas deploying in line, screened by the Turco skirmishers.

Jamie's Liberals initially had one unit of skirmishers in the camp and pretty soon they had a tent alight.

Meanwhile, the French started to arrive in numbers.  An open column of Turcos arrived on the right of the Contra-Guerilla line...

But the Liberals, it emerged, had cavalry and a small group of regulars!

The cavalry moved over to the left.  They would have to move through woods to attack the French but still they posed a threat.

As more and more tents were fired, the Contra-guerillas maintained a wicked fire at the guerrilla skirmishers in the camp.  Kills and Shock were beginning to mount up on the Liberals.

Knowing that enemy cavalry had disappeared behind the trees to their front, the Turcos formed square.

By now the Liberals had fired the last of the workers' tents but Shock was beginning to build up.  One group fled leaving their wounded officer (the man known by the nom-de-guerre of El Mosquito) lying on the field.

Soon guerrillas and regulars were routed.

Jamie chose to turn his cavalry around and extract them safely with the rest of his force...

... leaving the French in control of the field.