Another Quick Update

Sharp Practice 2 game in progress (Diary of a Wargames Butterfly)

Just another quickie post because I ran across a cache of blogging on the new version of Sharp Practice forthcoming soon from the Too Fat Lardies.

Diary of a Wargames Butterfly has a number of articles on the new edition. The author, Mike Hobbs, is working on a campaign book abou the War of 1812 to go with the new edition of SP. He also got to play and watch a couple of games with Rich "Fondler" Clarke himelf and the crew at TFL headquarters.

Mike is also the co-host of Meeples and Miniatures, the gaming podcast, and he and his co-hosts Mike Whitaker and Neil Shuck recently interviewed Mr Clarke on M&M about Sharp Practice 2.

Filling in the Corners

Much of my gaming lately has been Euro gaming, rather than miniature or board wargames of a military sort, but I did get to attend a portion of Cold Wars this year, so I have some photos of that and a game report to share. Plus I have some fruits of my research labours that have almost ripened that I should be posting soon, as we begin the Philadelphia Campaign of 1777.

But I need to download some photos to go with the game report, and pull together the threads of research to ready the 1777 posts, so this is more by way of a filler until I can put those devices before you, gentle readers.

Hessian grenadiers crossing a stream with jaegers covering them. (Too Fat Lardies)

I thought I should mention that the Too Fat Lardies are e'en now readying the second edition of everyone's favourite horse & musket skirmish game, Sharp Practice. We've been given a look at the cover and a peek inside at the layout. They've introduced us to the new force-building system, and shown us a sample learning scenario set in the American Revolution. But most interestingly, they've posted twoplay-throughs of (semi) historical scenarios, one of the attack on the fenceline at Bunker Hill and, most aptly for my coming 1777 campaign, a scenario based on the skirmish at Bound Brook (to which they add a superfluous S). Overall, it looks as if the game has been evolving in a wobbly but steady path from its roots in IABSM to the first edition of SP to Through the Mud and the Blood to Chain of Command and now on to the second edition of Sharp, dropping some elements (blinds have been banished, cards have been replaced--optionally--with chits, and the rather clumsy special event system replaced with something a little more streamlined) and adding new ones (Deployment Points, a cousin of COC's Jump-Off Points).

The geography of Bounds Brook is not quite the same as that of the historic Bound Brook, and while the Lardies have added Americans ( as I do in my hypothetical treatment of the action) to bring the sides a little more in alignment, they've also hugely chopped down the British forces, so the two sides end up being more or less equal (that "balanced" battle so beloved of wargamers that appears so rarely in actual military history).

American Revolution militia (Tarleton's Quarter)

They have some photos of very nicely painted troops, but of course the past master of handsomely painted Rev War soldiers is Giles Allison of the Tarleton's Quarter blog. And since a LOT of the troops we'll be seeing in the 1777 campaign are American militia, here's a link to Giles's past posts on those American volunteer infantry (ten posts in all, with some handsome work done).

And for good measure, here are his posts on artillery: French, British, and American guns and gun crews as well as some carts and wagons. Beautiful work, and well worth a look!