Sharp Practice AWI Defence in Depth Game

As the last of our AWI Sharp Practice games, for now at least, my Tuesday night gaming friend Dale and I decided to give the Defence in Depth scenario a run. 

The idea is that the attacker has to traverse the length of the table to overrun an objective point on the defender's baseline, which in this case was to be positioned behind the walls of a redoubt that Dale had purchased with his support points. 

We diced for sides; I ended up with the British in the attacking role and Dale the defending Continentals. Both sides were allotted the same number of points with no additional weighting for the attacker, something which we were both a little sceptical about and I had been hoping to be the British but on defence.

Here is the initial table layout with the British arriving from the right:

The Continentals deployed first and took up a formidable position with some good quality line adopting a defensive position behind a fence line, an artillery piece covering the redoubt objective, and a unit of militia guarding their flank:

While two groups of State Militia and a unit of skirmishers including a marksman took up a forward position on top of the sole hill. First on for the British were some Indians who attempt to scout their way around this position using a 'moveable' deployment point:

They however take a blast from the artillery at effective range and decide to retire behind a fence. Meanwhile the remaining British in the form of three groups each of grenadiers and loyalist infantry plus a group of dragoons make their entry in the background, just in front of another lovely piece of terrain created by Mark of '1066 and All That' https://stracmark.blogspot.com/:

The Indians take another salvo from the artillery:

While the grenadiers get the better of their firefight with the State Line and skirmishers, reducing the latter from six to two figures. Both American groups decide therefore to withdraw although the Continental Line advances to challenge the grenadiers:

The artillery meanwhile continues mauling the Indians who now decide to withdraw to the safety of the barn, another of Mark's beautiful creations, now carrying a large amount of shock and leaving their leader unconscious on the fence line:

The grenadiers advance and engage the Continental line and eventually force it to withdraw as well, while the dragoons reach the crest of the hill and prepare to charge over it and into the militia protecting the flank of redoubt:

The charge is successful and the militia are routed from the table. The dragoons are now however reduced to two figures and their leader and will soon vacate the battlefield. The grenadiers also advance over the crest of the hill and engage the artillery in the redoubt, destroying it and leaving the redoubt unoccupied. However they have suffered so much shock in doing so that they are unable to advance and secure the now vacant objective to win the game, instead retiring behind the hill to rally while the loyalists cover their flank:

 

This provides enough of a pause for the State line to turn 90 degrees and march behind the dragoons to resecure the redoubt:

The loyalist regiment meanwhile loses the firefight with the Continental line and is forced to withdraw to rally off shock, but at least the grenadiers are now ready to resume their advance. 

The Indian leader too has regained consciousness and rallied off the shock of his followers, ordering the advance to take over the position of the loyalists in an attempt to keep the Continental line occupied:

As the loyalists are now forced to withdraw:

Army morale on both sides is precarious with only five points from eleven left for the Continentals and six for the British. The grenadiers must now risk a frontal charge before all is lost:

They make contact and melee the defenders with twelve dice to the defenders' six, with 5s or 6s causing a casualty:

In spite of these odds the defenders manage to inflict three casualties to the grenadiers' two, forcing the latter to withdraw. The grenadiers manage to rally and surprisingly charge again, and this time the dice are even at six a piece, but again they fail to beat the State line suffering two casualties to the latter's one. The grenadier leader is also killed and British morale now crumbles to zero.

This was a much closer game than either of us anticipated and could have gone either way, on a knife edge to the last. We enjoyed our three games of Sharp Practice and I was especially pleased as it finally gave me a chance to get some of my Perry AWI figures on the table.

Four More 18mm ECW Royalist Horse Regiments

These four recently completed regiments represent the last of the Royalist harquebusiers, making six units in total. The figures are again all Eureka with standards by Wargames Designs:

The first is the Queen's Regiment of Horse:

I did these in predominantly blue coats to contrast with the red of the King's Lifeguard. As most would know there is a lot of uncertainty over Civil War coat colours and saddlecloths etc., but I found a source which suggested blue so that was good enough for me:

The 10/12mm standards fit these figures nicely, even though they are a scale down:

The second regiment is the red-coated Lord Moylneux's horse:

The next two regiments are comprised of slightly more dynamic charging figures and mounts, with the first being Prince Rupert's Horse:

The man and his dog aren't included here. I have three Prince Rupert and Boye figures which I will be completing separately along with the other command figures I have n the queue, with one based for DBR and the other two for the For King and Parliament rulesets:

The last regiment is Sir Richard Astley's Horse:

I chose Sir Richard Astley's regiment partly because it has a distinctive standard, but mainly because it amused to paint one commanded by an 80's pop synth star:

I have three Royalist regiments left in the queue comprised of two dragoon units and a small contingent of cuirassiers. While the latter is quite conjectural I'll paint them up as the King's Gentlemen Pensioners who may have been so armoured. The dragoons will be a big task as I'll have to do both mounted and dismounted figures along with horseholders, so my plan is to defer them for the time being while I complete my planned six units of Parliamentary harquebusiers. 

Blogger Comments Not Working

I have just seen Michal's post about being unable to comment on other people's posts, which was a relief as I wasted a good 40 minutes yesterday trying to figure out if it was me after trying unsuccessfully to comment on Jonathan and Ray's latest posts:

https://dwarfcrypt.blogspot.com/2026/09/troubles-with-comments.html

Nothing on the internet/AI about it yet. Strangely this doesn't appear to be affecting everyone so I tried two different browsers to no effect, and cleared out my cache and cookies which is always a nuisance.

Just the latest in a long line of Blogger inconveniences.

Hopefully the team at Google will jump on it with their usual alacrity and have it sorted within the next couple of months.

That aside, Jonathan's Moors look great:

https://palousewargamingjournal.blogspot.com/2026/09/a-few-more-moors.html

As do Ray's latest batch of wagons:

https://onelover-ray.blogspot.com/2026/09/retreat-from-moscow-still-more-wagons.html

First Two 18mm ECW Royalist Horse Regiments

With the recent completion of my Dark Ages Welsh I was keen to get stuck back into my 18mm English Civil War project. Having completed all the foot and artillery for the Royalists, Parliamentarians and Scottish Covenanters I put it on hold for a couple of years while I delved into the American War of Independence. With the three armies so close to completion though it makes sense to get stuck back into them and see whether I can complete the horse and command elements in a final burst.

First off the queue then are two regiments of Royalist horse, the King's Lifeguard and behind them Sir Thomas Tyldesley's Regiment:

While there is much uncertainty over coat colours, portraying the King's Lifeguard in red coats seemed a fairly safe bet:

Although I deviated from this for the command figures:

And threw in a few buff coats for the troopers:

Sir Thomas Tyldesley's Regiment was apparently a mix of coat colours, so I varied these between buff, rawhide and dark brown:

As with the foot and artillery, the figures are all Eureka which are terrific to paint and I think come up nicely:

I struck a small problem with the Wargames Design cavalry standards in that the 15mm version is far too large for the cornet's pole. The foot flags fit those figures perfectly so this is an issue with the pole rather than the flags. 

Instead of replacing the poles with wire I decided therefore to order the 10/12mm version of these standards which fit the pole vertically perfectly. They do perhaps look a little on the small side from the horizontal perspective, but I am generally happy with the result:

A quick count reveals I have another twenty regiments across the three armies to complete, along with fifteen command elements and around the same number of dismounted dragoon elements. Much more than I thought I had, but I'm going to give it a real push between now and Christmas to see how far I can get.

15mm Welsh Army Completed

The recent completion of Viking allies means the Welsh army is now complete. I thought therefore I'd assemble them together as a group and take a few pictures:

The entire army took just over three months and totals 505 figures excluding the 78 Vikings, comprised of 36 horses and 469 foot and medium and heavy cavalry:

The core of the base army are the warband figures but the South Welsh option allows these to be substituted in favour of superior bow, which is what first attracted me to the army:

They have actually had their first game against some Feudal English which ended up being quite a balanced affair with the Welsh prevailing. Unfortunately I again forgot to take any photos:

I have included the Vikings allies here although I have since decided to commence work on their own army as a separate project:

All the figures are from Forged in Battle with shield transfers by Little Big Men Studios:

Next up however I am planning to complete the three English Civil War armies I have had on hold. I have essentially finished nearly all of the foot and artillery but still have twenty-five or so regiments of Royalist, Parliamentarian and Scottish Covenanter cavalry to complete. I'm hoping to get through them all before Christmas, by which time I'm sure I'll be keen to get stuck into some Vikings.