A Fighting Retreat - A Napoleonic Sharp Practice AAR

Yesterday, Brian and I played out a variation of one of the scenarios in the Sharp Practice rule book. The one we chose was Scenario Three: Defence In Depth. The map below is from the rules.

The Anglo-Portuguese force was defending the two red zones with the French attacking from the blue end of the table. Here is the view from behind the French entry points.

And here is the view from the Anglo-Portuguese end.

Neither side was able to take the full number of support points because of a lack of suitable models, but both of us chose to raise the Status of one of our leaders to Status IV. Brian took a water cart and I took an extra Secondary Deployment Point and a Marksman.

The French force was mainly Line troops, rated as Conscripts and Volunteers, supported by Voltigeur skirmishers. The Anglo-Portuguese was a small force of Light troops; 95th Rifles and Portuguese Atiradores from the 3rd Caçadores, all equipped with Baker rifles.

I quickly deployed a group of Atiradores in the orchard. I hoped that these would be able to slow the French down before moving back in good order.

French skirmishers were soon on the table.

Followed by a lot of French line troops.

I managed to deploy the rest of my Atiradores around the inn in the middle of the table. Yes, the fences are wrong, but maybe the innkeeper had spent some time in the Americas and liked the simple construction of snake fences? Anyway, these brave Portuguese sharpshooters were soon in action, inflicting shock and casualties on the hated French.

In the orchard, the other group of Atiradores were busily reloading before the French got too close.

Unhappily, the French managed to kill half of this group, who decided that they needed to move, reload and fire, before pulling back.

This they did, but were unable to stop the French advance, losing another comrade in the process.

On my centre right, the rest of the Atiradores continued to fire at the French, whose shock levels were mounting.

Before long the 95th were also in action. I wanted to keep at least one group back, to cover the withdrawal of the rest of the rearguard force. I knew that they would suffer if they were caught up in a fight with the main body of French troops.

My fears were confirmed as the rest of the Atiradores in the orchard were wiped out. The leader would have to move and join up with the rest of the troops.

The French now had a real problem as their line infantry continued to fire uncontrolled volleys, with their leaders unable to get them to stop and obey orders. This would enable me to pull my troops back towards their Primary Deployment Point, once I'd caused as many casualties as I could.

I split the main body of Atiradores into two, and they continued to plug away at whittling the French numbers down.

Eventually, though, they would start getting hit, and at this point, I started to pull back.

The 95th were also now in action, slowing down a flank attack by the Voltigeurs. Unfortunately, a random shooting event meant that one group were low on ammunition and could only fire at close range. I pushed these up as far as I dared, and they responded by giving the leading French troops a bloody nose. Elsewhere, the battered remains of the Atiradores were pulling back towards safety.

I ended the game with all my troops in cover around the farm where my Primary Deployment Point was situated, where they were ready to cause maximum damage to the advancing French.

At this point, we called time, because it was getting late. The French had the numbers, but hadn't made enough ground to threaten my DP. Therefore, the battle ended in an Anglo-Portuguese victory. In many respects it was a classic scenario for Light Infantry to fight, harrying the advance of a numerically-superior enemy to buy time for their main force to retreat to a position of safety.