Over the years I've used the Land of Counterpane blog to publish a few articles that I thought would be useful to members of the Sharp Practice community. To make them easier to access I'm adding a page here with handy links.
Scenario Design
I've come across more than one set of players who play the game by lining up two "armies" against each other and playing until one side runs out of Force Morale. While I'm reluctant to say that any particular way of enjoying your favourite rules is wrong, in my view if there was a "wrong way to play Sharp Practice", this would be it!
These rules cry out for an engaging scenario with a strong narrative focus. The following may help:
- Designing Historical Scenarios - a guide, not exclusively SP-focussed but very relevant,
- A Scenario for Livonia - working through the principles to design an 1812 scenario, and
- 1812 Rescue Mission - playing through the scenario we designed.
Another source of scenarios is the old first edition book The Compleat Fondler. In this post I work through the process of converting first edition scenarios to the vastly superior second edition.
Rules Queries
One of the more frequently asked about aspects of the rules is the distinction between different types of skirmishing infantry. The real-world use of titles like "the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry" can cause confusion to some players when it comes to applying modifiers like "Light Infantry firing +1". This post was intended as a guide to skirmish troops in Sharp Practice.
Setting-Specific Rules
For my Siege of Puebla game for Steel Lard 2024, I designed some night fighting rules. You can see the final version of them here.
I like to include setting-specific rules amendments to add flavour to my games. One example would be this set of Russian Officer Background Tables to replace the rather British-feeling ones in the rule book.
And finally a plea or is it a rant: the name of the game is Sharp Practice! It's kind of a play on words, the phrase "sharp practice" meaning questionable behaviour designed to gain an advantage. Although there's clearly a harking back to Bernard Cornwell's literary hero, it's not "Sharpe Practice" still less "Sharpe's Practice", both of which I frequently see online. Grrrr!
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