Forming up for Sharp Practice 2: Pas de Charge!

In preparation for Sharp Practice 2 I dug out some old bases I had lying around and made some new ones for my Russian regiments. These are meant to move the 10 men squads while maintaining the basing method I use for Black Powder, thus keeping the miniatures compatible with both games.

On the painting bench I have some innocent bystanders for the Napoleonic era, which hopefully will make some nice characters for SP2. 

Allons mes enfants!

Kingdom Holland Grenadiers

In anticipation of the upcoming Sharp Practice 2 rules I've started painting some of my skirmish based Napoleonics. Here are three Dutch grenadiers; "Leve de keizer!".
I hope the rules have been streamlined along the lines of Chain of Command, doing away with the long list of shooting modifiers for one thing, and clarifying the actual chain of command.

Sharp Practice

In anticipation of picking up Sharp Practice again in a few weeks I tried a scenario in solo-play. Searching the internet for inspiration I found the excellent blog of World2Dave and borrowed this scenario from him (for details see: http://themedetianwars.blogspot.nl/2014/11/the-attack-on-griffon-inn-sharp.html).

The French have settled down in the manor with some more troops dispatched to the barn. After a wild night plundering the wine cellar the French are now vast asleep with one lonely sentry dispatched on the road. The Russians are close upon them though, approaching through the woods at daybreak. 

Two of the Russians attack groups are spotted!

The sentry rushes towards the house to raise the alarm.

And beats the Russians to it.

First to deploy is the French light gun, opening up on the Russians approaching the door.

Grenadiers follow.

The third Russian blind deploys a unit of Jaeger and line infantry 

The assault on the mansion commences.

French infantry deployed nearby are drawn to the sound of the guns.

Charge!

Counter charge!

Jaegers sneak through the rocks, and take aim at the French line.

The Russians rally two battered units in line.

At this moment the large Russian unit went in for a new counter attack on the now exposed French and that is where I ended the game.

The scenario is quite nice and seems to have a good balance of forces.

 I'm not sure the French made the best decision by leaving the house as they were in quite a strong defensive position, but I wanted to bring the game to an end.