Sharp Practice 2 - a very small amount of progress and some competition

Not a great deal to report on the SP front - partly because I had run out of primer, and partly because work keeps intervening.

I have however managed to resupply with white primer and so this afternoon the first group of the Trunptonshires have been undercoated.

Meanwhile news has reached HQ that the opposition are pulling ahead in the race to get the toys on table first. That Dastardly Frog Paul has sent his test shots of his first group

Clearly these are before tidying up and matting down but already the damned French are winning the race.

And to make matters worse Steve Irvin has decided to throw his hat in the ring with some Westphalians to support the Corsican Ogre  - again first test but the sign of things to come

Sharp Practice 2 - Some more progress

Deciding to mix metaphors and strike while the iron was hot I grabbed my trusty cutters, X-Acto and glue. I perused the instruction sheet and decided to start on Sergeant Grout with his half pike of office. At that point the wheels came off the plan. The box does not contain the arm holding the pike! I double checked both sprues and here simply isn't one. Bit of an own goal for Victrix. Slightly deterred I ploughed on, with the aim of completing one group of eight infantry. Now I was getting a close look and feel it is clear the plastic is slightly different to the stuff Perrys use - possibly a little brittler? There were also some areas of flash that had to be removed with a knife, and lastly some sink holes in the side of some shakos. On the plus side there are some really nice details - lots of mutton chop sideburns and some battered shakos, and the packs have some great touches such as a spare pair of boots. Actual assembly was not too bad - once you worked out which pair of arms produced which general pose. As I mentioned earlier you have to put the packs on, but that is't a hardship. There is some flexibility - you can manage a marching pose for instance, but you only get 4 walking rankers on the sprue so you cannot make the whole unit marching. In the end I decided on a rear rank marching and front rank advancing. Pic below. I don't think these look bad at all, and were not too painful to assemble. The details seem a little "soft" but most acceptable overall. Here's the first assembled group of 8

  

Sharpe Practice 2 - Dramatic Personae

My Sharp Practice force is based around the second British list - A Light Column. I thought I would run my Leaders through the character generation section of Sharp Practice. Here's what I got:

Captain The Honourable William Fortesque Snort - Commander of the Light Company, Trumptonshire Foot and a Level 3 leader in Sharpe Practice.
William is from an old military family with wealth and influence. He is an honourable man, competent, good looking if a little short, but quite charming to speak to. Unfortunately under his wing is the youngest son of Lord Belborough of Winkstead Hall, and co-incidentally the Colonel of the Regiment. The Colonel has asked Snort to show his son the war and help make a man of him, but in reality young Roger is only really interested in engineering and mechanics and other such nonsense.

Under his Command are the Light Company, consisting of three groups of Light Infantry each 8 figures strong. He is assisted by Sergeant Grout - a no nonsense NCO (level 1 Leader)

Supporting the Trumptonshires is a section of The Rifles consisting of two groups of six rifle armed skirmishers and their officer and sergeant.

The Rifles are commanded by Lieutenant Richard (Dick) "Chippy" Minton (level 2 Leader). Minton's family are "new money" - in this case his father was a very successful furniture and cabinet maker, and he is rather well off as a result. Richard himself is thought of as a "Bit of a Bounder" by his fellow officers - not really a Gentleman and too forward with the ladies. He is a good looking and affable chap of average height and with an athletic physique which has come in rather handy when he has been forced to leave through the window of a ladies' boudoir on more than one occasion!

He is assisted by Sergeant Paddy Murphy, a very reliably Irish NCO (level 1 leader)

In all the force comes to 66 points, which is not good. They are likely to be the higher rated force in any game against the French and will probably get little in the way of support. On the other hand both the Light Infantry and the Rifles are excellent troops and have good leaders, so they should do well.

Only time will tell

Sharpe Practice 2 - Dramatic Personae

My Sharp Practice force is based around the second British list - A Light Column. I thought I would run my Leaders through the character generation section of Sharp Practice. Here's what I got:

Captain The Honourable William Fortesque Snort - Commander of the Light Company, Trumptonshire Foot and a Level 3 leader in Sharpe Practice.
William is from an old military family with wealth and influence. He is an honourable man, competent, good looking if a little short, but quite charming to speak to. Unfortunately under his wing is the youngest son of Lord Belborough of Winkstead Hall, and co-incidentally the Colonel of the Regiment. The Colonel has asked Snort to show his son the war and help make a man of him, but in reality young Roger is only really interested in engineering and mechanics and other such nonsense.

Under his Command are the Light Company, consisting of three groups of Light Infantry each 8 figures strong. He is assisted by Sergeant Grout - a no nonsense NCO (level 1 Leader)

Supporting the Trumptonshires is a section of The Rifles consisting of two groups of six rifle armed skirmishers and their officer and sergeant.

The Rifles are commanded by Lieutenant Richard (Dick) "Chippy" Minton (level 2 Leader). Minton's family are "new money" - in this case his father was a very successful furniture and cabinet maker, and he is rather well off as a result. Richard himself is thought of as a "Bit of a Bounder" by his fellow officers - not really a Gentleman and too forward with the ladies. He is a good looking and affable chap of average height and with an athletic physique which has come in rather handy when he has been forced to leave through the window of a ladies' boudoir on more than one occasion!

He is assisted by Sergeant Paddy Murphy, a very reliably Irish NCO (level 1 leader)

In all the force comes to 66 points, which is not good. They are likely to be the higher rated force in any game against the French and will probably get little in the way of support. On the other hand both the Light Infantry and the Rifles are excellent troops and have good leaders, so they should do well.

Only time will tell

Sharp Practice 2 - New Project "The Trumptonshires"

I had initially decided to build a Kings German Legion force, with rifle support from the 2nd KGL Lights (the only Infantry Regiment in the British Army allowed moustaches - true that), or indeed our local Light Infantry the 68th (Durhams) whose re-enactors are known locally as "The Woodentops". Actually the "Sick Notes" would have been more appropriate as the 68th were deployed to the West Indies. Not for nothing were they called "The Fever Islands" but to make things worse they were then sent to Walcheran before joining Wellington in the Peninsula and for quite a time the Regiment was constantly under strength with the inevitable bouts of malaria.

Then it struck me - rather than try and stick to a real Regiment why not do what Bernard Cornwell did and invent one? So the Trumptonshires were born. More on them later - assuming I decide to stick to them.

Back to the figures. I cracked open the (big) box and with trepidation looked inside. I say trepidation because I had in the past tried Victrixs French infantry and they had been so complicated to put together I decided to sell them on. I was pleasantly surprised. The box contains eight sprues, four of each type. The first sprue contains a dozen bodies and packs, the second an officer and heads and arms - see the pic below. Clearly Victrix have learned from the French and planned the body sprue to be universal for both Flank and Centre Companies and the "arm" sprue with the flank coy wings and other identifying bits, which is a good idea.

I was pleasantly surprised. The figures seem reasonably detailed and unlike the French I remember seem to have only 5 parts - body, head, a matched pair of hands and a pack. That's not bad at all, same as Perrys but less than Warlord who go for head, body and pack. It should also be mentioned that there are a lot in the set - 52 in all for an rrp of £22.95 but I got mine for £18.50. That compares very favourably with Perry (40 figures inc 4 rifles for £20 rrp) and Warlord (36 for £20 rrp). Closer inspection raises a few issues - 4 of those 52 are drummers and therefore 3 are (probably) wasted. Similarly there are 8 Sergeants \ Officers which is probably too many. Added to that there are 4 kneeling figures which will be great as skirmishers but will not really work otherwise. Even so that's more than enough for me. A closer look also suggested that unlike the French set the muskets are cast with both hands and one arm on the weapon and the matched left arm with a socket - that should make them easy to assemble - something of a bonus. One thing that did cause me to ponder was the separate packs - the straps are cast to the figure so there is no way to leave them off  - but then again the same applies to the other plastic sets.  Proof of the pudding is in the eating so they say, so I'll update once I have stuck some together

Sharp Practice 2 - new project

Stupid I know on so many different levels. Firstly I still have the AWI to finish, secondly my last attempt at putting Victrix Napoleonics together nearly caused a nervous breakdown, thirdly I hate painting red.

The thing is I have been re-reading Sharpe just for nostalgia, I'm enjoying playing SP2, and Paul has took the plunge and bought French Napoleonics. So it is his fault.

Why Victrix? Well apart from the fact they are totally and frustratingly complex they do have one advantage over the other plastics out there - I can get all 32 Light Infantry I need out of one box for less than twenty quid. The rather nice Perry box set only allows you to make a dozen or so lights, and as the list I am using is based around a light infantry unit that was a non starter. I will still need a dozen Rifles but I'm sure that will not be too disastrously expensive.

So watch this space