Give me time for second breakfast!
The local supply chain emerges to meet the advancing Mexican army:
which emerges from behind the Mission, to complaints from the Mexican player that he can’t possibly cover all that ground and survive:
The Texans wake up and immediately abandon the hard cover river bank, but decide to hold fire until the Mexicans get closer because using their massive range advantage would be so unfair
The artillery bangs away to no effect (so far, so historical) and the Mexican player suddenly discovers how the movement system works in Sharp Practice, what the Command Cards allow him to do and how formations work. Consequently one formation advances rapidly down the right flank and delivers a couple of critical volleys:
This breaks one Texan unit that never manages to work out how to pull the trigger and wounds Fannin, who lies on the ground moaning for the rest of the game. However another Texan unit gets suddenly inspired by a Random Event (Drunk by God! Advance 3xD6 and engage with Aggression) and duffs up the formation despite it being three times bigger. An engagement so exciting God forgot to take pictures!
Their left flank may be saved but the Texan right flank collapses as another Mexican formation breaks one unit and kills Briscoe. Frantically, the Texan player wheels a volunteer unit to face the Mexican formation and orders Fire! Apparently forgetting that Coleman (now 50% of the Texan command) is standing in front of them.
God rules that Coleman must take the first hit scored but fortunately the volunteers aim is as poor as their fire discipline and they entirely miss. Mr Coleman’s comments, fortunately for the sensibilities of innocent bystanders, are not recorded for posterity.
Both flanks collapsing, the Texan centre is then assaulted by the last Mexican formation, which breaks one Texan unit and wounds Bowie:
Apparently he is a screamer.
In near perfect timing the game ended (allowing for frequent pauses to talk to those innocent bystanders) close to the end of the show with Bowie’s command dead, wounded or running into the river, Stephen Austin’s relief column now redundant and the revolution beginning to collapse.
Post mortem:
I thought it looked ok, first time I’d actually put it all together was Sunday morning of the show, It’s a very flat and featureless landscape, perhaps not spectacular enough for a demo game?
Sharp Practice worked well. We need more practice to get fluent in it and like all the Lardies rules, it might be simple but there’s a lot of complex tactics players need to think about. The Mexican player had a sudden ‘eureka’ moment that definitely proved the value of thinking about what you are doing.
Is the scenario unbalanced, ie can the Texans actually win? In both playtests and on the day, the Texans lost quite convincingly. I think the Texan tactics on the day were wrong but I may strengthen their force a little - I also may have penalised them a little too much in Fisticuffs and need to have a think about the army list. On the other hand, the Mexicans got lucky both in the cards and the die rolls, such is life in this harsh environment. I suspect I need to play this a little more before it’s next outing at SELWG.
Overall though, great fun.Looking forward to playing through a few more scenarios from the Texan Kefuffle.
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April 25, 2024, 11:18:49 AM
May 10, 2010, 09:33:04 AM
