"Force Composition - Please advise a novice" Topic

Evenin' all

I've recently picked up Sharp Practice with the intention of getting it going at my FLGS. A few chaps have already decided to join in, based purely on watching me read the book and wave a few Perry figures around. We haven't even attempted to translate the rules into an actual game yet.

Anyway, I'm thinking along these lines for a small British force, based loosely on some of the earlier Sharpe adventures, when he was still a lowly Lieutenant…

3 Groups of 10 Line Infantry
1 Group of 8 (maybe 10) Riflemen
1 Level III Big Man – Haughty Officer type – Simmerson etc.
1 Level II Big Man – Plucky Rifleman-turned-officer – Sharpe etc.
1 Level II Big Man – Penniless Drunk Junior Officer – Harry Price etc.
1 Level I Big Man – Nasty Sergeant – Hakeswill etc.

So my questions are thus:
Is this a valid force, and would it be a viable one?
Is the balance of Big Men about right for the Groups in play?
Where do I put my Colours? I can't seem to find any mention of them in the rules. Do they actually serve a function, or would I just add the colour-bearers to the one of the Groups of Line Infantry, and not have them firing?

Any help would be much appreciated. Thankee.

There is a section in the rules – I don't have my copy with me just now – which suggests the number and type of Big Men for particular sizes of forces by Group. That said, you do seem to be a bit heavy on the Big Men for only four Groups – consider having two Level I rather than two Level II.

Have you seen the scenario book which follows Fondler through his career? This is very useful for setting up games even if you don't play the exact scenarios. There are a number of resources available too if you join the Yahoo group including a breakdown of exactly what figures you need to play all the scenarios. This is available on the website as a PDF for a princely eight quid.

Hope this helps and that you enjoy the rules – they are great.

I've had a look at the "Balancing your Forces" section in the rules, and what I've got seems about right for Good quality troops, according to the table.

I haven't had chance to look through The Compleat Fondler, sadly. Is it worth the price?

I've joined the Yahoo Group but the format of the thing is pretty impenetrable. I'll persevere.

I don't think you can go wrong for eight pounds. It is a great resource.

The Yahoo Group is worth persevering with – Yahoo doesn't make it easy but it is a vibrant "community" of gamers who are always willing to chat and help. The author of the rules himself is very involved.

Squire,

If you go to the Yahoo group there is, under the "Files" tab, a folder of Sharp Practice resources. One of these is a Sharp Practice FAQ document which is incredibly useful when you're starting out.

Good luck with it.

Ooh, that sounds promising. I'll have a look.

Thanks muchly.

Definitely sign up to both the Yahoo Group and the TFL Forum – lots of useful stuff and advice to be found on both. SP has very different mechanisms to most other games, and takes a bit of getting used to, but they are well worth persisting with.

As a general rule of thumb for SP, each side should have one Big Man for every two groups present, with a combined Status equal to the number of groups. A well led/experienced force will have slightly more overall, and vice versa.

Well trained troops are better represented by larger groups (8-10 men instead of 6-8) as these will be more resilient and easier to control. Don't forget that Status is more about ability than rank, so Colonel Simmerson could still be a (pretty useless) Status I Colonel, while Sharpe could still be Status III even if only a sergeant.

Colours have only a limited use in the average SP game – they typically represent skirmishes with no more than a company per side rather than a battalion – but could form an objective in a game, and there is an optional bonus card that improves the morale of a group defending the Colours.

The scenario book referred to is well worth getting, and there are other scenarios in the various TFL specials.

Hope this helps.

It's well worth getting the Compleat Fondler if you have any interest in the Peninsula War (or indeed the Sharpe books). We are slowly working our way through these scenarios in order and they have been uniformly excellent.
They do require quite a lot of figures, but we've been downscaling them a bit and using groups of 8 instead of 10. Less figures needed and the games play quicker, too.