"Question on Sharp Practice v.2" Topic

How do I get Leaders for groups I buy from the Forces List? From my Support Points?

I.E. I buy a ACW Union Force, 1863-1865 but I have points left over and buy some Cavalry and Artillery, but no Leaders are listed, but I need some to activate the groups.

HELP! Oh Mighty Lords of Lard Island…or anyone else who knows!

Look at page 80, the Generic Support List.

This is not covered in the book. There is no detailed description on how to "build" your own force list (though there are several pages on making your commanders unique).

Do as Jim says. Use the pre-designed force lists as a template determining how many men to use in a unit then add any officers costing them according to the Generic Support List.

I had a question as well. The latest WSS issue article indicated that unit sizes were 8-12. Is that correct? Richard's latest Friekorps project appeared to feature units of 8.

Thinking about American Revolutionary War in a future year.

The rulebook has force lists for the AWI.

Regulars have 8 figures.
Militia 10.
Rangers/Light skirmishers 6.
Cavalry 8.
British Indian allies 12.

I see, thank you. I suppose i'll pick up the book before I add to the lead pile.

You may find the Sharp Practice Calculator to be helpful. It can be found here:
toofatlardies.co.uk/blog/?p=5789

To calculate the points for a leader merely multiply the status level by 3. This can be inferred from the list on p. 80 of the rules and the calculator.

Greetings

Page 79-80 do in fact tell you how to build a force but I agree there is no worked example.

Take your Union force say from 1863. Base is 65. Assume you want to match a CSA force of 90. You have 25 points to spend between the generic support lists on p.80 and the Union unit lists on p.111.

You select a cavalry group (7 points), light gun (6 points) and another group of 8 infantry with rifle musket (6 points). The infantry group can be added to one of the existing commands but the cavalry and gun need their own leaders, so you select two level I leaders from the generic table on p.80 – at 3 each this comes to another 6 points = 25 points. Alternatively you could have foregone the infantry group and added a level II leader instead.

Does this help?

Edward

Um, it is quite clear in the generic support option list, which all force use, that leaders are purchased there. The specific army lists cover unit types.

So everyone can buy a Status I leader for 3 points, a Status II Leader for 6 points etc., but only a French force can buy Old Guard Grenadiers.

This is my major complaint (minor quibble) with the rules.

From the number of people asking about it it is obviously NOT CLEAR how to create your own force lists and assign leaders.

There is ONE PARAGRAPH on creating your own force list (not including adding support options) and TWO PAGES on developing characters when playing campaign games.

As far as creating force lists goes there isn't a requirement for opposing forces to be balanced.
It is perfectly fine to create groups based on what you think would work and have a game.
The characters are central to the leadership aspect of the game, Sharp Practice is not attempting to recreate the many versions of codexes that exist in many games to parse out minutia of points for force creation.

David

+1 on it not being clear. It's implied at best. It says that you can increase a leaders status, not specifically that you can buy new leaders from scratch. (Agreed that if it was so clear the same question would not be cropping up repeatedly.)

It's not even specifically stated anywhere that you can spend your support points on anything other than the generic support list so far as I can tell, but I am assuming that you can, although there may be situations where having unlimited access to the roster allows choices that make no historical sense. A possible solution for this would be dedicated support lists a la Chain of Command…

Okay,chaps. This is VERY simple indeed.

When you look at the various Army Rosters, say for example, France in the Peninsular, you get all of the units you can select with a points value for that unit. So, for example, you may wish to select several Line units and two Skirmish units from the roster. You add up their points value.

You then want to add leader. Everyone can add Leaders, so they are on the generic support list; i.e. the one that everyone can use. You select the Leaders there according to how many points you wish to spend on them.

That's it.

Units points value, plus leader points value, plus any other support option points value gives the total value of your force.

There is no worked example as I honestly didn't think one was needed. It really is very, very simple.

units + support = value.

The question is not cropping up repeatedly. Of the 2000 plus people who have bought the rules to date we have been asked less then ten times. What is more the generic support list DOES give points values for leaders and also points cost for upgrading leaders further. That is not a case of being implied, it is simply there as a point cost on the support list.

The rules provide a broad range of units which were present in the theatres covered. Where we develop the campaign supplements further forward to cover very particular events there will be very specific support lists, as we have seen in the Pint Sized Campaigns for Chain of Command.

Rich

Okay, I am 63 years old and have only been wargaming for 40 years. I was very confused by this. The lists and costs at the beginning of each section, i.e. the French Regulars up to 1812 in the French forces section, that DOES include the points for leaders, does it not?

Next, Force Support. Page 79 seems to suggest that all force support points are selected from the lists in that section. Can you, if you have enough points, select more units and more leaders? If this is clearly spelled out in the rules I have not found it. I am planning on playing my first game of Sharp Practice II on Monday, and I am responsible for setting it up. Any help, sarcastic or otherwise, would be appreciated.

Bill,

As this is your first game I would STRONGLY suggest you pick one of pre-designed Core Force Lists for each side just to keep things simple. Then…

1) Pick a scenario. Each scenario provides a method for adding Support Points via a 1d6 die roll. For Scenario One roll 1d6: 1,2=4 pts; 3,4=8pts; 5,6=12pts.

2) Next, if the two core forces have a different point value, subtract the smaller from the larger and add the remainder to the Support Points for side with the smaller point value. For example, a force of British Regulars (56pts) vs French Regulars to 1812 (54pts) would result in the French gaining an additional 2 Support Points.

3) Each side then consults the Generic Force List (pg 80) and adds any of those Options they want using the Support Points determined above.

4) With any remaining Support Points they can then go to their respective Force Lists and buy additional support units. Note that the British can buy from their list and from the Spanish or Portuguese (but not both) lists.

Can you, if you have enough points, select more units and more leaders?

YES. Cost for leaders is:
Level I = 3 pts.
Level II = 6 pts.
Level III = 9 pts.

Determining Support Points available based on force strengths. Page 70, paragraph 4.

..the French Regulars up to 1812 in the French forces section, that DOES include the points for leaders, does it not?

If you are referring to the Core Force List on page 105 that cost 54 points, then YES.

The costs for the French Unit Lists starting on page 106 do NOT include leaders.

I'm sort of with Bill on this. It's a little confusing, but once you try it out, it makes more sense. The Core Lists are a good start, but not everyone has those exact number of figures so you end up having to adjust for what you have. I ran a scenario which you can look at here: westsoundwarriors.blogspot.com and see its pretty simple. You probably don't have to be exact starting off and could just ignore points costs if you have similar opposing forces. Leader cost is 3 x Level which wasn't readily apparent to me at first until someone pointed out the "Upgrade Leader by on Status Level" on the Generic Support List. Also no where does it say that the List # on that table is the Points Cost, but I put that down as an idiosyncrasy of the "King's English" vs common American vernacular.

Also no where does it say that the List # on that table is the Points Cost…

Page 79, right column, 2nd paragraph: "Each List has a numerical value. List One options cost one point, List Two options, two points and so on."

Okay chaps. If people are finding this confusing in any way I will do a piece on Lard Island News with illustrations to show how you can put your bespoke Army together. That may take a day or two, so to get you started here are some tips.

1. The rules are designed to use a core force lists to which you then add support option. However, the rules do say that if you want to make up your own lists then you can simply use the point system to do so or, of course, just play with whatever forces you have.

Let's look at using the points within the rules to create your own force.

Firstly, you'll want to decide on what Army you want to use. The Army Rosters in the main rules are a starting point and we are now starting to roll out the free to download lists on the TooFatLardies forum in the Sharp Practice section.

Let's assume that you want to use an AWI force for Lexington and Concord in 1775. Look at the AWI list and select the Groups you want to use for that year. Each Group has a Points Value shown on its roster.

So, for example, if you decided to select three Groups of Minutemen each valued at 2 Points, and two Groups of Militia values at 4 points each, backed up by two Groups of Militia skirmishers at 5 points each that would result in a force cost of 6 + 8 + 10 = 24 points.

Of course you are going to need Leaders to control this force. Leaders, because they are generic to all forces, are listed in he Generic support options on Page 80. As tberry correctly points out, each list has a numerical value. List One options cost one point, List Two options cost two points and so on.

Looking at the List we can see that Status I Leaders are on List Three (3 points). Status II Leaders are on List Six (6 points) and upgrading Leaders further is 3 points per Status Level. So a Status III Leader would be 9 points.

Let's assume you want one Status II Leader for your Minutemen, one Status II Leader for your Militia and two Status I Leaders for your Skirmishers, this will cost 6 + 6 + 3 + 3 = 18 points.

As a result, your total force points value is 42 points.

You may then say to your opponent "Hey, why don't we both field a 50 point force" and then select a further 8 points of support, either generic items available to everyone or force specific units from the Rosters.

Does that make sense? If there is anything else you'd like covered please do shout and I will attempt to cover that in the piece on Lard Island News. In fact, I will hold off on producing that for 24 hours to allow time for that feedback.

Hope that helps.

Rich

Sounds good to me. Finally wrapped my old guy brain around it.

Wow! I didn't expect that much in responses! Anyway, THANK YOU one and all for your advice and a big THANK YOU to Rich for his "Straight from the Lardies Mouth" response with an example that answers my question and got my "old guy brain" wrapped around it.

Doing an example on Lard Island News(IMHO) is a great idea. Now all I have to do is paint all those ACW figures…..

Thanks.