A bit of Sharp Practice in Japan

Officer, command and tiffin chits for Sharp Practice in Boshin War era Japan (hand painted by my son, not me)

 After a series of Men Who Would Be Kings games while I have been away, my son set up a small Sharp Practice game for our regular Tuesday evening slot.  The encounter game pitted a smaller but better quality Imperial detachment against a larger, less well armed, Shogunate force, entering from opposite sides of a square table criss-crossed by roads with a village in the centre and a scattering of isolated buildings, fields and groves of bamboo and pines.

Looking down the main road towards the village.  The Shogun's men would enter to the left, the Imperials to the right 

In Sharp Practice, units are activated by drawing chits.  When an officer's chit is drawn, he can command his men to take actions - the first time his chit comes up, the only action is to enter the table.  The command chits - the ones with circular patterns - allow various extra effects.  If three are drawn consecutively, a random event affecting the last unit to act takes place.

A blue (Shogunate) command chit was drawn first - no effect - followed by the chit for the officer leading the second Imperial rifle formation and three more command chits.  The Tiffin chit was then drawn, ending the turn. So, all that happened in the first turn was that an Imperial formation of two bases of 8 figures with an officer advanced towards a crossroad that could allow it to turn towards the village but took a penalty for its next movement action (the random event).

The Imperials start out down the road to death or glory.  The drummer behind them simply marks the deployment point for the Imperial troops.  The red tokens beside it indicate starting morale - 9 points.

The remaining Imperial troops remain off table waiting to enter.  To the right is a single unit of rifle armed skirmishing sharpshooters, to the left a three unit formation of riflemen.

The Shogun's men kick their heels for the first turn.  Top right are their skirmishers, top left a two unit formation of musketeers.  Bottom left are a three unit formation of rifles and the gentlemen in light blue in the bottom right are a unit of Shinsengumi armed with katanas.

The second turn saw a lot more movement, ending with all but one of the Shogun's units on the table.

First to arrive were the Shogun's main rifle formation, which deployed in line on the opposite side of the village to the Imperial's who marched in on the previous turn.

Next up were their supporting musketeers, who drew up in column at the left of the rifle's line

The Imperials then drew a couple of leader chits, first for their skirmishers, then for the rifles already on the table.  On drawing the skirmishers chit, their commander wavered between placing them ahead of the rifle unit, keeping his men concentrated, or moving elsewhere.  Misreading the rules and thinking that the skirmishers might have blocked the riflemen, he decided to move on the other road from the deployment point away from the rifles and towards view of the enemy riflemen.  When his own rifles drew the next chit, he discovered that they could have moved through the skirmishers, leading to much regret.  This was somewhat assuaged by then drawing officer chits for his remaining rifle unit, allowing him to get all of his men onto the field.

Imperial skirmishers move out on the left of their side

The leading Imperial rifles move slowly round the far side of the village from the Shogun's troops concealed behind it.

The large Imperial rifle formation enters in open column - which allows easy wheeling into line.  The Imperial skirmishers are at the top left of the picture.

The turn ended with the Shinsengumi leader chit being drawn, allowing them to come on to the right of their rifle line, followed by tiffin.  Only the Shogun's skirmish troops remain off table.

Then followed a series of very short turns in which only one or two officer chits were drawn before tiffin was taken again - clearly the troops on both sides were more interested in refreshment than slaughter - and mostly only affected the Imperial's small rifle unit and the Shogun's musketeers.

The Imperial rifles reach one end of the village and can now see the Shogun's musketeers beyond.

They deploy to line.  The large Shogunate rifle formation advances into view at the end of the road through the village, but is facing away, so not a threat at the moment - fire is always directly to the front of a formation.

The Shogun's musketeers deploy into line in time to receive a first volley from the Imperial riflemen. The effect is underwhelming, two killed and only one point of shock

Return fire from the musketeers knocks down one Imperial rifleman and inflicts a point of shock.  Both formations have now used up their first volleys without major advantage, so it looks likely that there will be a slow slugging match, with advantage to the Imperial's with their rifles. 

The Imperials lose another man and take another point of shock, but in return knock down a couple more musketeers. Both sides are now firing uncontrollably.

The Shogun then drew the chit for his main rifle formation and decided to ignore the fight to the south of the village but to advance round the north to command the open ground that the other Imperials still had to cross.  After he moved, three consecutive command tokens were drawn, leading to a random event that saw his troops move further but in their eagerness they ran over their own officer, leaving him bruised and unable to issue commands for a turn.

Trampled by his own men in their eagerness to get at the enemy!

The precipitate advance brings the riflemen into the sights of the Imperial skirmishers, who fire a telling volley.  As the effect has to be distributed across all three units in the formation, as a whole the rifles are left shaken but not stirred.

Even without the direction of their officer, the Shogun's rifles make a devastating response to the Imperial skirmishers.  Needing 5s and 6s to hit they get 8 hits on the seven skirmishers

After saving rolls, four of the Imperials are killed outright.  Oddly, no shock is inflicted.

Things are looking up for the Shogun's men as they have pretty much eliminated the Imperial's best single unit.  Things improve further as they finally get to bring on their own skirmishers and send them to bolster their musketeers in the firefight with the small Imperial rifle group.

Imperial riflemen taking the heat as the Shogun's skirmishers join the fight against them

Fire from the Shogunate line is so hot that it sets fire to the temple next to them - a random event from three more command tokens drawn after the skirmishers had fired.  Looks dramatic, but no effect on play.

In other movement, barely visible in the top left of the picture, the Shinsengumi make a rapid advance through the wood and are now poised to move toward the Imperial rear.  Ominously, though, the larger Imperial rifle formation has finally managed to deploy into line on the left.

With things moving away from him on the right and his skirmishers a spent force, the Imperial commander really needed his big rifle formation to deliver.  And boy did they just!  A prepared crashing volley into the Shogun's riflemen produced 13 hits, with each shock inflicted being doubled because of the crashing fire effect.

After saving throws, four more riflemen lay dead and the three units between them had taken 16 points of shock.  All units fell back, that on the right having to break formation.

Three bad things had happened to the Shogun's men.  Only low dice rolls could save them from losing a lot of morale.  My opponent's genius for rolling low came to his rescue.  Despite the damage to his men, he lost not a point of game morale!

Things now went pear shaped for the Imperials.  Their isolated riflemen on the right had to retreat under fire.  Their remaining skirmishers had limped towards the cover of the house near their deployment point but now found the Shinsengumi racing down towards them.  The riflemen who had done so well the turn before were forced to wheel back to try to present a firing line to the Shinsengumi, allowing the damaged but not destroyed Shogunate rifles to retreat into cover where they would be able to reduce the shock inflicted on them as their good quality officer was now recovered from the indignity of having been trampled by his men earlier in the affray.

The retreat of the Imperial right

The surviving Imperial skirmishers retreat to their starting point as the Shinsengumi come running down the road towards them, the hut screening them from the Imperial rifles.

By mutual consent we closed the game at that point.  So far only one point of game morale had been lost - by the Imperials - but the Imperials had only one effective formation left.  By turning to try to face the Shinsengumi it was exposing its right flank to the enemy skirmishers and musketeers that has seen off its covering force. Their commander - me - did not fancy his prospects and the night was getting late.  

It was good to have given Sharp Practice another outing after a long gap.  The game has a very different flavour to The Men Who Would Be Kings.  Both are excellent, but the tactics that work in one are unreliable in the other.  Sharp Practice has much more granularity - buildings can only be entered through doors and firing can only be from visible openings, for example, while facing for fire is crucial.  Officers do not have the characteristics of those in Men Who Would Be Kings, but their quality is important for directing fire and recovering from shock. The random events add colour to the game.  More tables need to be to hand for use during the game, but these are not onerous.  All in all, highly recommended.