"SP Campaign - The Expeditionary Force" Topic

I thought I'd start some Sharp Practice as, although I played Napoleonics some 30 years ago, it is one of the periods I play the least and know the least about.

Having buried myself in some Osprey books, and done much reading (including puzzling out the differences of French and Prussian drill), I decided to have a go at a mini campaign.

Using one from Charles Grant's Programmed Wargames Scenario, you can see my map, my ideas and my simple campaign rules here – link – as well as my plan for winning.

I'll be playing it solo. Should be interesting.

WA,

I agree; it looks interesting. I have Grant's book and have thought about playing something similar. Looks like fun!

Joe

Nicely done! like your setup ideas and with your permision would use some of it for my own. Hope your expedition is successful. cheers

Thanks for the comments – and please take anything that goes on the blog and use/modify for your own games. The blog is there to help me share ideas that bubble around my wargaming brain – so if anything inspires then its doing its job.

I've put up the moves of the first day at: link

And the first scenario is sketched out too.

This looks great, you've already put a lot of work into it and I'm looking forward to the next update already – and it's an inspired and unusual setting as well.

Only one observation, based on my (quite limited) knowledge of the SP rules – you have rather a lot of Big Men in each 'unit' for the number of men involved. It certainly won't spoil the scenario, but will make the units more resilient (able to get rid of Shock more easily).

From the stuff I've seen on the TFL/SP forums, the guideline is usually 1 Big Man for every 2 Groups, with a combined Status equal to the number of Groups (adjusted upwards or downwards for the quality of the force.

Hi sjwalker38

In fact what I did was use the "Balancing Your Forces" chart at the back of the rulebook to assign big men. The chart lets you cross reference number of groups and quality to get number of big men and grasp the nettle cards.

I worked on those guidelines. Actually, I was worrying there would be a fair number that wont get activated as, with a large deck the Tiffin card will leave some unable to activate.

But my experience is limited with SP – and I'm learning as I go. Have you played with small and large numbers of big men? I'd be curious to know how the differences work out.

First part of the game here: link

The British row to the shore under fire from a 12 pounder.

Next, the battle for the beach and village.

"Learning as I go" – you and me the same! :-)

I based my comments on the guidelines in the TSS and other supplements, which are, I find, a bit clearer than those in the original SP rules.

One thing well worth considering is to have 2 Tiffin cards in the action deck, it really makes a difference and forces players to make some difficult decisions when to use GTN cards while removing the frustration that a single Tiffin card can cause if the cards do not run the way of one particular player

(OK, maybe not such an issue if you're playing solo!) :-)

You bring up a good point actually – while reading I could see that TSS and some of the others had some add-ons that made things a bit clearer and was wondering whether to buy them.

Will put them on the shopping list.

After Bag The Hun…

I might give it a go with a single Tiffin card and lots of leaders – and see how that goes – and then switch to the double Tiffin card after if it doesn't "feel" right.

I've liked the idea of the double Tiffin.

I thought that GTN cards stay in play until used? Should they be shuffled back when the Tiffin is revealed?

Ah – found the FAQ!. Yep that explains it!