Sharp July Practice

Despite having a number of AWI figures ready for a July 4th unveiling, I've not committed the time to finish these off in recent weeks.

Most of my free time has been spent gaming Sharp Practice by TFL with my two oldest kids (9 & 8). We've had a fun time of it, mostly focused on the ACW. As I'm behind in my painting we've been using a number of cheap soft plastic 1/72's as a substitute.

The kids really enjoy the game for a number of reasons, not the least because their dad is umpiring. They like the random events and I would like to find some new ideas for these to keep fresh elements in the game. The "spooked livestock" event has created many entertaining moments and dialogues. One time my daughter insisted that the livestock should be rather irritated chickens and on another occasion my son told his troops to look forward to the bacon. A good 50% of the time is spent laughing. At least once a game my daughter will giggle about the rules being by "toofatlardies". She, at first glance, had thought it read "toofatLADIES".

A recent small and quick game saw just 2 formations face off against each other. The Union was placed securely behind a fence and the Confederate objective was to clear the fence line of Yankees. My daughter, the union player, charged out from the fence, across the field and in a flurry of action they completely decimated the Rebels. Despite a number of events that should have hampered the Union effort, they prevailed, mostly due to great versus bad dice in three rounds of firing which sealed the Rebel fate. The first round saw a lot of shock added to the Rebel formation, followed by a round of few hits, a couple of kills, a bonus card played, and a dead rebel Big Man. From that point on it was just a matter of time. My son's well timed quip when his Big Man took a dirt nap..."at least Captain Bad Dice is gone."

In SP ACW the Tiffin card is replaced with a Sarsaparilla card. We celebrate each end of turn with a drink of Sarsaparilla or Root Beer, usually A&W.