Māori and British do battle at ‘Call To Arms’

I played my first game of Sharp Practice 2 today at the ‘Call To Arms’ show in Wellington, NZ. It was a colonial New Zealand Wars game.

We had loads of scenery, but the game itself was a simple encounter battle that we played on the clearer half of the table. The left-hand side of the board, dominated by a massive Māori pa, was just decoration.

Three groups of the British 58th regiment, along with one group of Royal Navy sailors faced three groups of Māori warriors. Unfortunately the British diced to deploy straight into a forest, which meant they couldn’t get their groups into formation (see bottom left of the photo below).

The three Māori groups flitted easily across the plain whilst the soldiers were still struggling through the clinging supplejack in the bush.

The sailors managed to push clear of the treeline. But they were immediately dealt several volleys of withering fire from the three groups of Māori warriors, which almost annihilated them. The surviving tars fell back in disarray, passing though two groups of infantry and and disrupting them as well.

In a last ditch effort, the only remaining steady British group charged a Māori group that had entered the bush, but were dealt a smashing defeat by the doughty warriors. This was the final blow, and the game resulted in a stunning loss for the British … um …er … I mean, for me!

As it was our first game of Sharp Practice 2, it’s fair to say that we got lots wrong and were quite confused at times. But overall we enjoyed it.

The table and New Zealand setting received lots of really positive comments, too. As did the fabulous 3D printed Māori pa by printablescenery.com It was really nice to be able to present a game that reflected our own history for a change, rather than a setting in Europe or America.

Besides the pa, we had a few other decorative vignettes on the board that didn’t play any part in the game, such as a colonial farmhouse, a military camp, a Māori carronade, and a huge naval cannon.

Finally, here a few pictures of the other games at Call To Arms that caught my eye. Firstly, a very attractive Napoleonic game that was also fought with the Sharp Practice 2 rules – though probably more competently than we did!.

This fantasy game included some marvellous 3D printed buildings from our friends at printablescenery.com.

Finally, I was rather taken with this Dystopian Legions game between steampunk British and Prussians.