Sharp Practice in Mexico!

Mikey has been beavering away on Maximilian in Mexico stuff for yonks. He'd been talking about using Black Powder but from listening to him describe different characters and having peasants leading French astray, I think what he really wanted was something more skirmishy. Also even though he'd done a lot, his 'brigades' would've been on the small side.

So I suggested Sharp Practice as the perfect sized game for his collection and downloaded the Maximilian in Mexico lists from the Lard Island News blog. http://toofatlardies.co.uk/blog/?cat=5

I set up a table with some rocky arid hills and an arroyo running past a small village. Naturally when we diced for things our Deployment Points ended up opposite each other on the rocky end of he table!

9 feet of table, all the action at the end with the worst terrain! 

A random draw gave me the French. 3 formations of regular infantry. One had three groups and the others had 2 groups each. Mikey had a bit more variety: two formations of regular infantry, each with 2 groups, two groups of skirmishers and a formation of sombrero wearing state militia consisting of 2 groups.

Mikey got his level 3 commander with a formation of regulars on a hill. Next turn he used 4 command chits to 'Present!' and then fire with his first fire, hitting my lead formation at long range on 4+ with 18 dice! First blood to the Republicans.

"Present! Fire!"

After that his musketry was less effective and I tried to engage in a long range fire fight. Except he got more opportunities to shoot and I ended  up using any activations to keep the shock down instead of firing controlled vollies.

On my left his skirmishers were taking their time and I had thrust a column along the base of the big hill. I used some command chits to form left and scramble up the rocky slope, just beating his skirmishers to the top. He fired at me, hurting one group but I charged in with another before he could reload, routing the skirmish group back down the hill.

Race for the top!

This caused Mike to turn his line on the hill to fire at my hill, taking some heat off my troops by the arroyo. Although by this time they had more Mexican minie balls whizzing through the ranks from the state militia and second unit of regulars!

Under fire 

Had an amazing string of Command Chits too, causing two random events.

The first event was a pall of smoke in front of the Mexicans giving a -1 to hit, but the second event was a wound on one of my Big Men!

Another random event had one of my formations slowed by thirst.

"Alons mes enfants! Forward to the cantina!"

My cunning plan was to push on to the cantina to quench their thirst and threaten the Mexican flank while my big formation on the large hill sorted itself out and then used the dominating position to shoot up the Mexican line.

But it was late and Mikey's energy was running down.

End of play. Black caps are marking shock.

So good learning session. I like the tactical grit of deciding between faster vollies or slower, more effective controlled vollies. Or you may not get a choice and just have to do what you can. Much better than the usual " these guys just shoot better so always get a +1".

You'll notice I've done my chits in a generic red and blue. I've seen some gamers have done their chits with the flags painted to match the armies, but I'd need 4 or 5 sets for all the potential wars I'm going to use these rules for if I was to do that.