More Sharp Practice

The stars aligned, the fates were auspicious and somehow or another the Sherwood Hucknall and Ilkeston Team managed to get together for a game at the Ilko Gaming hut.
I wanted to play Sharp Practice and no-one else had a better idea (AoS is definitively NOT a better idea). Originally I had plans for starting a campaign, but ran out of time and inclination and so we just played another standard game using the basic first scenario.
Each side took standard forces and with a high roll on the support chart General B and I added an extra unit of skirmishing infantry, a level 1 leader and a deployment point. The French added a bunch more men and another deployment point.
I forget the exact details of much of what happened (I’ve had a sleep since then. And been to a wedding where ale was taken) so you’ll have to make do with some pictures.

 The Redcoats arrive

 And more...

 Skirmish screen in place

 Voltigeurs open fire

 Cavalry make a first appearance in our games

 Bang!

 Thin red line (with added shock)

 More firing occurs

 A surfeit of voltigeurs

 Hussars charge home

 Firing drives back the redocats

More bang!

The game stagnated into a long range firefight and a late charge home by the hussars didn't meet with the expected success.
Eventually the British were badly mauled and withdrew.

I fear the Sherwood Hucknall and Ilko Team are not feeling the love for Sharp Practice. The general feeling (well, the General Ballroom feeling) is that it seems quite complicated to achieve quite a simple result. I see what he means, but I think that’s probably our fault rather than the rules being to blame. Each time we play we’ve forgotten/not looked up what happens, so the first half and more of the game is spent frantically looking stuff up, disagreeing and forgetting about the cards. So we’re not really seeing the rules in their full light.
I like the system and think it’s got plenty of depth and possibilities, but it needs one of us to actually properly learn the rules and lead the other through it, rather than our current “wing it and refer to charts” approach. If Steve is the one to do this it’ll just mean he wins games even more easily that he currently does and Gen B. and I will feel sad. The good General can’t be expected to do it as he’s hopeless at rules and is recovering from a stroke. So I guess it’s down to me. So I’m planning on taking the rules on holiday with me in the hope that when I come back I’ll be a proper ninja master of SP and we can have some fun.