First game of Sharp Practice

By Owen_lbws, AKA Olaf the Hairy     

I played my first game of Sharp Practice at my local club at Lincombe Barn in Bristol. I found the rules enjoyable and quick to pick up. The turn sequence meant both players were constantly making decisions. The period was the American Civil War, I was the Confederates and Kev the Union. I’m not sure about the points but the forces were identical except that Union had a unit of cavalry and the Confederates, a gun. We kept it simple for my first game by not spending odd points on upgrades or using traits for the leaders.

The battle field had a single building with surrounding hedges, sitting on a T junction. There were woods to one side of it. There were small hills down either side, flat bad going in the centre and more woods at the far end.  The armies are deployed from a spawning point placed randomly, with mine being behind the house and Kev’s diagonally across the table, this meant we were playing from short edge to short edge.

Actions are driven by cards, one for each leader, 4 flag cards for each player which can be used in various ways and the Tiffin card, which means the turn is over.  I had few cards to activate leaders and bring on my units early on so the enemy were already advancing before I got all of them on. 

The Union cavalry advanced straight up the centre and found themselves in the open in front of 3 of my units. They then didn’t get a chance to activate for another turn or two while taking a lot of fire.  With a huge amount of Shock counters, they withdrew and spent most of the rest of the game in a quiet spot removing them.

On my left Kev’s skirmishers crested a hill and exchanged fire with my skirmishers behind the hedge. He charged them. In his favour he had one more man, a level 2 leader,  and I was unloaded, in my favour I was behind a hedge. My unit lost half it’s men and routed. Kev then charged my other unit of skirmishers but lost. I charged the survivors with one of my formed up units, wiping them out and sending the officer fleeing.

Three flag cards in a row results in an event rolled on a table, the building caught fire and eventually burnt down, and two of my units found palls of smoke hanging in front of them. I had one unit holding the hedge at the house, and swung the other round the side, so that all our formed up units were shooting at each other. Casualties were building up, towards the end of the game I seemed to have a slight advantage.

On my right my artillery had been exchanging fire with Kev’s other skirmishers on a hill. The cavalry finally returned, racing up the flank and with the final card of the game charged my artillery, beating them decisively. With the gun captured, its crew fleeing and my deployment point right in front of them and undefended it was a win for Kev.