Sharp Practice Britcon 2018

"Most Cleverly Fought" Campaign Event

I recently posted some reminiscences about a French Indian War event I took part in last year. This was arranged and organised by a very nice chap I know  Mr David Hunter, who used to be a regular fixture on the Downorder podcast, chatting' discussing and sometimes ranting about all things Bolt Action. 

More recently Dave has been focussing on Sharp Practice and it appears that Dave has caught the event bug  and now runs regular Sharp Practice events (or as he likes to call them extravaganzas) across England. These extravaganzas campaigns are predominantly set in Peninsular War Spain (a theatre I have yet to game in) and are very popular  with the more discerning gamer. 

Dave has organised an event for Britcon 2018 in Manchester on the weekend of the 9th-11th August and in complete contradiction to my statement about discerning gamers, I ain't no discerning gamer but I do like Sharp Practice, I do like a campiagn and I do have that weekend off so I have signed up for Dave's event at Britcon this being entitled "The Most Cleverly Fought" campaign.  The campaign will consist of three games on Saturday and two Sunday with a variety of scenarios annd opponents.

As Dave pretty much organises these things off his own back he does rely on participants to help out with terrain so to that end I, along with a few others, have offered to put together a tables worth of terrain.  

To start with I have some vaguely Mediterranean buildings that I intend to use. These buildings are from Warbases modular buildings range that I picked up a couple of years back and I got them as they are pretty cheap, give you the chance to make something unique and they're fairly easy to put together.

However, whilst I thought they were fine a few years ago I am less happy with them now so my plan is to upgrade them and improve them; we can't have shabby buildings at the extravaganza, so these two are getting a make over...though not in 60 minutes ...

And this one is going to be the fairest of them all.

Dave has also supplied a  campaign event pack with all the info, naturally, including the force lists for various belligerents. As there were no Russians or Austrians in the  Peninsular War i have chosen to play the French.

Amongst the choices in the list was an option that I hadn't encountered before; Pionniers Volontaires Etrangers or sappers. A wee bit of digging about in the General JimBob Military Memorial Library uncovered this picture of a nice, pristine sapper in all his glory. The only 28mm sapper figures I have  found online were a set by Warlord which has them, similar to this chap, all in their aprons, marching as if on parade and one by Front Rank which is the same pose (though it's a much nicer sculpt IMHO :D ). I wanted mine to look like they had seen some hard campaigning so I decided to kitbash them

Beardies galore!! Sappers WIP, using Victrix French Line Infantry I attached the grenadier heads then scraped away the detail on the front of their bearskins, green stuff-ed some fur where the plates had been and gave them all beards

arms and weapons added. The axes are
spares from Fireforge's foot sergeant set

Sapper sergeant

The rest of my French force is already built and painted so I only need to put these chaps together to finish it off.....well, these chaps and some 8" of breastworks and 12" of barricades, a wee extra you get when you select these fellows for your force.

I'll update on these separately over the next few weeks so prepare yourselves for exciting times ahead!

pip pip

General Jim bob