Just wrapped up an ACW skirmish game using Warpaint at my buddy's place down the road. Had a great time, but as I mentioned in the earlier post, I have no real interest in the period. This lack of interest may be due to being of Japanese decent (third generation), and growing up in Hawaii, and having no direct relations involved in it. Also, we were taught more about whaling in Hawaii, missionaries, and sugar barons than ACW history, from what I recall. Anyway, as far as the game whent, we probably played about 50 percent of the game correctly. As the rules were a first for all of the players, and the owner of the sole copy of the rules had only read through it a few times before and never played it himself, this might explain our lack of familiarity of it. The scenario had the Union troops trying to locate more horses for ones they had lost in a previous engagment. The Confederate troops, of which I commanded several mounted units, were to scout around and gather intel from civilians at homesteads. The game devolved into several smaller battles of attrition before we called it and evaluated the game - and how much we might have deviated from the rules-proper. It was all in all a fun game, but we plan to use Sharp Practice 2 the next time for ACW. I'm looking forward to that game, although the last time I played Sharp Practice was with the first version many years ago. Here are some pictures from today's game.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMCwFd_p3n3GxESwFTN_RQ4-ljp9BlrMERnmzlSDx53DrmNRxllKp3NNwcXTqm2tTHyQsGPuAQYcYaCV4XDMRBtyPOioQx_bklQxJQEn9qUjY5n507pNd1oKwSvLD5IrnuYMafLyY-w0dIsyRvNogUW4En5GOX9kcV8Gls91AyGdNhRyLZO8lBTN3gq6k7/w400-h221/20240615_122236.jpg)
The Confederate side looking towards the advancing Union forces.
My cavalry units gathering intel at homesteads. This became a moot point once all the Union forces came onto board.
Union cavalry dismounting and advancing on my units.
Other Confederate troops moving into the woodline after dismounting their horses.
Union and Confederate forces exchanging fire in the middle of the battlefield.
My troops charging into the Union skirmishers. Here's where we likely got a lot of stuff wrong. After successfully testing to charge, movement distance determined by die rolls, the enemy was allowed to fire as a reaction to the charge. They didn't score any hits, and my guys made several hits, but only caused one wounded casualty. One of the results for a hit on a Union soldier ended up having my figure losing his attacking weapon (a revolver), and also not causing any wound to the enemy! Again, we might've got this wrong.
Action on the opposite side of the table. The horses at the barn was the prize for the Union troops, but they never were able to make it across the road due to strong resistance by the Confederates there.
Again, it was a fun game with great company, but not likely getting more into this period other than joining in games my buddies put on.