Sharp Practice Colonial?

[Traveler Man]

I've recently bought the Sharp Practice rules off those nice chaps at Too Fat Lardies, with an idea of using them for Colonial skirmish circa 1880's. A search of this forum hasn't turned up any info on other gamers doing so. 

Not wishing to reinvent the wheel, I thought I'd ask if anyone here has done the same. Does anyone have any thoughts, ideas or suggestions for adaptations? 

[Malamute]

Fsultana is using them for early C18th colonials in a fictional India style country. Check his threads here for links to his blog.

[Aaron]

No reason why you couldn't. The ACW supplement might have some ideas for slightly more modern weapons, but you can probably do that easily enough on your own. It is a highly enjoyable (and flexible) rules set.

[axabrax]

Traveler man,

I've been thinking the same thoughts for the Second Afghan War.  Really the most rudimentary difference is that breechloading rifles can fire every turn.  I think you could probably get away with that change alone and use the rules as written otherwise.

You also could really get creative and write up a whole variant of SP for the late colonial era. If you haven't seen it yet, there's SP summer (?) special for The Indian Mutiny that shows the kind of creativity and tweaks you could make. Some possible twists:

• Theater specific events and cards
• "Army lists" for different types of combatants
• Rules for new formations and/or different kinds of volley fire
• Rules for new weapons and arty

What you're really looking for is something in between SP and "Through The Mud and The Blood" (WW1 Variant). Haven't seen them yet, but there might also be something interesting in the ACW variant?

Which conflicts are you interested in? If you are feeling motivated, I might be willing to collaborate with you on some kind of an unofficial variant--although I am by no means an expert on the colonial era.

Steve

[Furt]

I have recently changed names, so as Malamute kindly suggested, finding the threads may prove difficult, so here they are:

http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=23832.msg290290#msg290290

http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=23305.msg284573#msg284573

We adore Sharp Practice and I believe it can be easily adapted to any Black Powder era, but as mentioned there are other products that cover more modern rules. I think the 1800's is well within it's scope.

Funnily enough I suggested a Colonial supplement to the Too Fat Lardies myself recently, when they interviewed me about our campaign.

As Aaron mentioned the Terrible Sharp Sword supplement certainly does contain useful information for you. For example there is now included a "Repeater" card for those types of weapons that allow a Group to fire for one less action (basically firing twice) than normal and they have some new Formations as well.

Axabrax suggestions sound very sensible.

[sepoy1857]

Well they do have an Indian Mutiny supplement, but it doesn't have the more modern weapons you are likely after.

[Traveler Man]

Thanks for the response, folks. I'm really thinking in terms of games along the lines of Major General Tremorden-Rederring's, rather than hard-and-fast historical gaming.

http://www.zeitcom.com/majgen/

In other words, something that allows me to have the period flavor of Africa in the 1880's-90's, to get creative in scenario generation, and to include an element of role-playing. From what I've read of SP and posts on the 'Lardies' forum, their rules will be ideal for the job.

Axabrax, your suggestions are great, and I'm interested in ideas for African theater-specific cards, rules etc. One of these days I may extend my gaming into the Sudan 1883-5 again, my first and favorite period of the Colonial era.

Furt, I really admire everything you've done in your Indostan gaming. If I could achieve half as much in my own Daftest Africa setting, I'll be happy indeed!

I'll look into introducing repeater weapon and breechloader mods.