Game night: Sharp Practice Great Northern War

Swedish commander gazes over the battlefield.

  Friday was club game night.  There were three great games;  Great Northern War, World War Two and Romans vs Gauls.  All looked great and sounded fun. Others will be reporting ion the other two games in their blog reports.

Village defended by Russians on right.

Glorious Russian line infantry.

The village which was the object of the battle.

Glorious Swedes led by cautious commanders.

My drunken Cossacks preparing to cause grief and mayham to the Swedes.

   I played in the Great Northern War.  Greg out this on and we used the rules Sharpe Practice.  His figures are outstanding and his terrain is beautiful.  He also is one of those individuals who put on great games and it was an honour to play in it.  They are usually well balanced and great fun.  And this game was great fun.

  The Russians were by a village which they had to burn to prevent the Swedes from capturing it.  there was a swamp to their right and a fashioned fortifications to their front.  Across the board was a river.  But it was July and both the river and swamp were dried up so posed little movement difficulty.  To set fire to the village the Russians had to get 18 points from rolling one D6.  Each turn that a certain chit came up they could roll the dice and accumulated points.  So it would take a while.  During that time the Swedes had to capture the village.

  Game started with the Swedes moving forward against the village with two battalions and some skirmishers.  They also sent another battalion and two skirmishes groups through the swamp.  The Russians threw there skirmishes forward to fire at the Swedes while the line infantry moved up to the gabbions.

  My group of Cossacks proved very annoying  to the Swedes.  Each time they fired they caused no casualties except to knock down the officer of the group they fired at. In game turns I believe this causes temporary  disruption.  Anyway it caused great fun for us and grief to the Swedes!

  For some reason the Swedish commanders in front of the village moved their line up to the dried up river and then stopped.  For the remainder of the game they stood there and traded shots with superior numbers of Russians.  Although the Swedes in the swamp pressed on it was hard going and soon the Russians moved two skirmishes groups to snip at them.

  In the end the cautious Swedes gave the Russians more then brought time to build a fire. Once the fire started the game was over and the Russians victorious.  A most entertaining and fun game was held by all.