Sharp Practice Game - Prelude 2

Another, non-gaming project is taking longer to complete than expected, but I'm on course to play the Sharp Practice game tomorrow. In the meantime, on this stormy coffee-fueled morning, I should add another few thoughts about the rules. 

Under the system, infantry can be Line or Light, with different tactics pertaining to both. This is fine for the more rigid maneuvers of the Napoleonic era, but by Colonial times tactics had evolved somewhat. I decided to rate all British infantry as Light to reflect the greater flexibility.

Firearms are rated on the firing range table as Musket, Baker Rifle, and Minié Rifle (running from shortest to longest range). I see little point in interfering with these. All things being equal, they serve quite well for the ancient smoothbore and rifled muskets used by natives, and the modern Martini-Henry et al used by British troops. In any case, there'll be plenty in the way of vegetation and so on to act as line-of-sight blocks, so no British force can sit at one end of the table and pick-off poorly armed natives at the other.

The native tribes will use a mix of Native American and Wallah rules. They get the extra pip per dice for movement through their home terrain. Bonus cards include Shadow ('Vamose') under the rules, meaning a native group that is out of the line of sight from an opponent may revert to Blind. Bad Medicine remains the same, i.e a native group that has lost the most dead can be forced to withdraw. I've added Good Medicine which gives a native group a Big Man bonus move. Tzeee! is a Zulu war cry. When this card is played the native group loses 1d6 Shock points. Talking Drums causes all native guides and bearers working for the British to take fright and run away. They can only be stopped by a Big Man.

Since SP doesn't have stats for spear combat, for Fisticuffs, natives rate as Wallahs with Big Choppers (stop sniggering at the back there!), gaining an additional dice per three men fighting.