Gaming: Sharp Practice Campaign: Scenario 5: British raid on French camp....
Background
I have been getting
into Sharp Practice recently and really enjoying it. What started off as a
quick game on a Tuesday evening to kill some time during a power cut, has descended
into a much longer campaign of which this is now battle number 5! Just to bring the campaign up
to speed this is as series of connected skirmishes focused initially around the Portuguese
commander of a small little known town in Portugal called Mon Santos. Set against
the back drop of the British involvement in the Peninsular during the Napoleonic
wars (the scenario has no real time frame set for it and as yet the fictional point
of Mon Santos has not yet been pin pointed). Captain Rodriquez and a small
Anglo-Allied force garrison the town - which sits on one of the key trade routes
through Portugal, and is of significant strategic importance and vital to the Portuguese
infrastructure. General Charmer of the Imperial French army, under orders from
Murat, moved his Brigade northwards to take the town.
Battles 1 & 2: Assault on Mon Santos
The vanguard of
Charmers force was led by the capable Captain Durrand. His first assault on the
town was repulsed. The French were able to regroup and conduct a second attack.
They had a secondary objective that sources indicated that a key British
spy was held up in the local church. While the French were unable to get to the
spy in time they forced the British to withdraw into the stronger internal defenses
of the town.
Battle 3: Attack on the Road
Rodriquez’s men were
at this point were running low on supplies including ammunition and causalities
were mounting! In a bid to secure more resources Rodriqeuz’s sent the British
officer Lieutenant Slade northward to bargain with Wellington. Wellington
agreed to send some immediate supplies with a relief force to follow. The supply train, commanded by Captain Fox, was guided back by Slade, however, it was ambushed by a Cavalry
force on route led by the young Lieutenant Vaubois. Despite heroic charges the
cavalry could not break the British squares and the baggage train made it
safely to Mon Santos.
Battle 4: The battle of Mon Santos
By this time
Wellington has been able to mobilize a brigade under the erstwhile Colonel
Jeffrey Daniel’s to relieve the town. With news of Charmers brigade approaching
Daniel’s took the decision to engage the French on route with the two forces
meeting to the south east of the town. The French were able to
effectively deploy their attack columns largely on their left flank ready to smash
the British right while the French cavalry rolled up the British other flank.
Early in the fighting the French had initial success as the British were slow to deploy, but they
could not effectively co-ordinate their attack and break the British line and they were ultimately repulsed. In
the fighting general Charmer was wounded and captured. The remaining
French fell back to link up with Durrand camped to the south of Mon Santos,
while the British also withdrew into the town to 'lick their wounds'.
While the French were leaderless Daniels, Fox and
Rodriquez felt the time was good to continue to cause as much disruption with
the French as possible. A small force led by Slade would raid the French camp
at night with the objectives of a. causing as much destruction as possible and
b. capturing any available intelligence off of the French.
Forces:
French
1. Captain Durrand (level III) 9
-
2
Groups 8 Grenadiers 12
2. Lieutenant Henry Massena (level II) 6
-
2
Groups 8 line infantry 8
3. Lieutenant Antoine de Vaubois (level
II) 6
-
1
Group 8 line infantry 4
4. Sargent Franco (level I) 3
-
1
Group 8 line infantry 4
5. Sargent Grande (level I) 3
-
1
Group 8 line infantry 4
59
British
1. Lieutenant Henry Slade (level II) 6
-
1
group 6 rifles – first fire, SP 12
2. Lieutenant Archiebald Stanton (level
II) 6
-
2
groups 8 line infantry – First fire, SP, controlled volley, thin red line 12
3. Sargent Smith (level I) 3
-
1
group 6 rifles – first fire, SP 12
4. Sargent Fitzroy (level I) 3
-
1
group 8 line infantry – First fire, SP, controlled volley, thin red line 6
60
Special house rules
The purpose of the British raid is to gain
vital intelligence as well as causing as much havoc and destruction in the
French camp. The British need to complete a number of tasks to complete their
objective at the end of the game the British must complete 1D6+1 tasks.
Deployment
The British will have 2 deployment points at
the edge of their side which represents guards overcome. The French have a
single point in the middle of their camp – this point cannot be over run as it
is effectively a mustering point in the middle of a French camp.
Searching the camp
If a group
makes contact with a tent it can use 2 actions to search it.
1 – Nothing of note
2-5 – Found something useful
6 – Prisoners (a group must assign 1
man to guard the prisoner)
A burning tent will
do a few things:
1. Create a smoke cloud – 1 inch cloud
forms – follow rules for smoke clouds in random events for firing table.
2. Sparks set fire to neighboring tent –
for each tent on fire that is within 2” of another tent. At the beginning of a
turn on a 6 sparks have set fire to its neighbor.
The attack is undertaken during the night to reflect the limited visibility. At the start of each turn each side will make a visibility roll. 2D6 + 4” is the effective visible distance for that turn – 95th Rifles are expert marksmen and get an extra 4". Outside of this range troops can fire in general direction of noise, but will suffer a -4 to hit that represents firing wildly into the darkest. Units that fire in a turn are visible (regardless of distance from the opposing unit) until the end of the turn as they are marked out by the flash from their weapons – for shooting against these usual modifiers then apply until the next turn.
Friendly Fire
Attacking at night makes it even harder to co ordinate an attack. At the end of each turn test against the force moral on 2D6. If you achieve greater than that score then you can take control of D2 of your opponents units in the next turn - when a unit is activated either via drawing a leader card or via using flags the your opponent can then exercise any friendly fire available. This may mean they fire off a blind volley, move away from the target area or even fire on friendly units! As the moral goes down the easier it is for troops to be uncoordinated in the darkness! As each roll is at the end of the turn flags can be used to adjust the dice roll.
French come to their senses
As with the sweeping scenario the French will need 12 task points before they can activated their leaders (when the primary leader is pulled out roll 2D6 and keep tabs of the accumulation) as a result the French might be leaderless for a while. However, in any raid on a camp it will soon become clear that something is a foot (particularly if you are torching the place!) – There’ll either be blind panic or they’ll sort themselves out. From turn 4 on a 4+ D3 number of groups will be, turn 5 on a 3+ and on further turns a 3+ - if the British don’t act swiftly they’ll eventually be overwhelmed. This means the French could potentially have deployed groups without leaders!
Slade’s force has managed to approach the north of Durrand’s camp undetected. Sending out a couple of his rifles they silently dispatched the French pickets. A few fires still burned slowly, there glowing embers providing crackling in the darkness. The sound of the odd snoring Frenchmen punctuated the night’s stillness. Very quietly this small force now approached the nearest tents. The attack had begun….
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