1870 Opening Shots in the Saar

 Paul has repeatedly harangued me to post game reports here... be careful what one asks for! 

After the French declaration of war on Prussia on 2^nd August 1870, Prussian patrols crept through the thinning early morning mists seeking to find the advancing French forces. 

In Saarbrücken the 40^th Regiment frantically prepared defensive positions desperate to delay the anticipated French thrust.

This Sharp Practice game saw an engagement between French and Prussian platoon strength patrols confronting each other.

French fielded 2 Line, 1 Zouave and 2 skirmishers with a Level 3, 2 Level 2s and a Level 1 Leader.

Prussians fielded 4 Line and a Jäger quad with a Level 3, 2 Level 2s and 2 Level 1 Leaders.

As the sun rises the skirmisher squads from both sides let fly the first shots. Prussian Jagers led by a Level 2 Leader lose a casualty and the squad leader is knocked out, but down a French skirmisher caught in the open. A squad of French Zouaves (with a Level 2 Leader) rush to support their skirmishers and a half platoon of Prussian line (with a Level 2 and a Level 1 Leader) move to support the Jagers.

                           

 The Prussian line led by a Level 2 and a Level 1 add their weight of fire to take down two more skirmishers and inflict serious shock on one squad. The Zouves in their rush to join the fray and are now “blown” needing water before being able to move at full speed (Spitting Feathers).

        

While the Jager squad leader still lies senseless the French skirmishers poor more fire on inflicting further casualties and shock.

                                 

The rest of the French patrol now arrives and emboldened the skirmishers start to move forward.

                                  

Ther Prussians still waiting for the rest of the patrol including their leader move forward to deal with the French skirmishers who are getting too close while the Chassepot continue to poor fire on from a distance!

                                         

At last the Prussian commander arrives with the rest of the platoon! Just in time to take some pressure off however they are congested and unable to manouvre! The Jagers have taken too many casualties and although the Squad Leader is now back on his feet he must move them behind the line of Regulars to avoid the effective French fire!

                                  

The fighting is joined in earnest now and both patrols start to advance. The French Zouaves are keen to get to hand to hand with the Prussians and start to move out of the wheat fields followed closely by the French Line. Unfortunately the Prussians have now moved into effective range of the Dreyse negating the Chassepot’s advantage and the telling fire does away with one of the French Skirmisher squads. The Jagers tart to move to a flank where their fire might be more effective without drawing return fire and the Prussian Commander wheels his half platoon to try to flank the French advance.

                               

The Zouaves more to close range and start inflicting serious casualties on the Prussians but lose more of their own in turn! The Prussian Platoon staff are working hard to rally shock off the men as this engagement hangs in the balance!

               

Finally the Prussian commander has been able to swing his second line to the flank and breaking them down into two squads to allow more flexibility starts to advance to outflank the French. While the French commander still has his main line in good hand seeing the last of the skirmishers break and the Zouaves reduced to an ineffective unit determines he has met his orders and gauged the strength and disposition of the Prussians in this sector. His report will be well received but tainted with the loss of his skirmishers and too many Zouaves.

For the Prussians it is a Pyhhric victory as they have too few many to lose so early!

                                 

By Paul:

Hey buddy, GREAT to see your post here. Sharpe's Practice was a favourite of our group in Sydney and with the exception of our FIW campaign back in 2017 or so, very much focused on Napoleonic. Not that thats a bad thing! But the game has lots more potential as you have shown here.

Game looks great and the natty little labels really look good too! Keeping things at a sensible level allows you to enjoy the narrative aspects (like the Dreyse vs Chassepot). Our games to expand to rather astounding levels, in which such things are lost.

As you know, FPW is a big interest of mine but has never gotten to the tabletop. The other period I think the SP would work very well for would be the Crimea. And it just so happens that I may already have an army ready for it...

https://tasmancave.blogspot.com/2024/01/ahpc-14-french-grenadiers.html

Maybe a just a small investment in some Russians then... bugger - you've done it again!!!! 

:-)

Part 2 - Echoes in the Stone

 Captain 'Ace' McGuire returns in...

The Galacteers pressed into the corridor, boots ringing on alien stone, shadows pressing close as if the darkness itself yearned to smother them. At the vanguard strode Astro-Angel Peggie, steel-nerved and eagle-eyed, her scanner crackling like a divining rod of the void. Jane slipped in beside her, pistols loose in her hands, every muscle wound tight as a drawn bow.

Then, the earth exploded!

The stone floor heaved up like the skin of some great beast and from its bowels erupted a nightmare of scale and fang. A colossal worm, its hide glittering like shards of amethyst, reared upward with a roar of shattering stone. Its maw, ringed with grinding teeth, gaped wide enough to swallow an atomik tank!

“The Amethyst Terror!” Jane cried, vaulting back as its slavering jaws thundered toward her.

But the Angel did not falter. Resolutely she stood her ground and her twin pistols blazed, their beams striking fire against the worm’s armoured hide. One shot rang off like a bell tolling doom, but others seared deep, carving sizzling wounds. The beast reeled, howling its hatred into the cavern air.

“Gods, what a monster!”” Jane gasped, her heeled space-boots sliding across grit.

Ace’s blade was out in a heartbeat, gleaming like a comet’s tail. He charged forward with Dr. Zahn close at his side, making room as Stacey and Jen swept past. The Angels’ rifles cracked with fire, bolts hammering into the worm’s flesh and opening fresh rents. Still the thing lunged at Jane, maw gnashing, slime flying.

“Hold fast, Jane!” Ace roared. “We’ll send this nightmare back to the pit that spawned it!”

Rocky, ever the sentinel, dropped into the shadows of the pit below. His blaster was raised but he held his fire—too many comrades, too little space. “Steady!” he growled to himself. “One slip, and my shot burns one of us instead!”

Far beneath their feet, in the labyrinthine dark, the Maker-Bot stirred. Its claws retracted with a hiss of pneumatics, and in its place a winged silhouette detached from its moorings. A drone of steel and shadow banked down a corridor, eyes glowing like embers, angling toward the heroes who dared trespass.

On the surface, the worm reared once more. Stacey’s rifle tracked its bulk. “Hold your lines!” she barked. “If this brute breaks through, we’re done for!”

But with a sudden thunder of dust and shattered rock, the beast dove back underground. The cavern shook with its retreat, the ground trembling like the heartbeat of some titanic god.

“Where - where did it go?!” Stacey shouted, choking on the cloud of stone grit.

Jane allowed herself a grim chuckle. “I’d run too, if I were that ugly!”

The Galacteers pressed forward. Stacey’s sharp eyes caught a gleam ahead: two strange cylinders standing on circular pads, humming faintly. Alien computer consoles stood nearby, their glyphs pulsing like malignant stars.

“Dr. Zahn!” she cried over the comm. “I’ve found your Shlar-Tak resonators!”

Zahn advanced like a scholar approaching a dragon’s hoard, awe and dread mingling in his eyes. His hands hovered above the keys. 

“By the old chronicles…” he whispered. “A resonator indeed, but altered! Galacteer circuits grafted like scars upon alien flesh. This is part of the Shadow Circuit! If Scar activates this network…” His jaw tightened, and his hand clenched into a fist. “I must disable it, though every key I touch might unleash our doom!”

Jane circled the second terminal, eyes narrowing. “I thought I saw something scuttle just now…” 

In the gloom, a tiny seeker drone, no larger than a child’s toy, snapped a glimmering picture of the squad. Its lenses blinked once—and then it flitted away into the maze like a wasp carrying poison back to its hive.

The squad split: two Angels stood guard over Zahn while the others tightened their cordon around Jane. Ace joined Stacey and Jen, his jaw set like iron, eyes burning in the glow of the alien display.

Dr Zahn’s fingers danced, trembling but resolute. “If this glyph combines with that one… ah! A success! One step cracked; one victory against the alien logic! But I need more time!”

“Roger that, Doc!” Jane barked. She spun, twin pistols at the ready, and unleashed a volley into the second resonator. The machine screamed in a shower of sparks, plates warping, ozone biting the air. “This one won’t sing Scar’s song!”

The Angels joined her, firing disciplined volleys. One weapon spat hollow—laser cell empty. “Damn it, dry!” the trooper cursed, slamming a fresh cell into place. The rest of the bolts ricocheted harmlessly from the alien plating.

Far away, the seeker drone’s intelligence reached the Maker-Bot. Its claws tightened, finishing the assembly of a new hover-drone. The machine whirred alive, lenses chevron-bright, waiting for the order to kill.

Ace’s pistol cracked, his shot gouging only a shallow scar across the resonator. He spat. “Not enough. Zahn, wring every secret you can. We’ll burn these abominations to ash!”

Rocky’s voice echoed from the cavern rim, grim and low. “That hum again. Louder now. Like a motor. Steady. Low. Mechanical.”

Dr Zahn’s voice came sharp, every syllable a battle. “Two sequences cracked. More to go. One wrong press and the Shadow Circuit blooms to life!”

Ace raised his sword, its edge catching the glow of alien glyphs. His voice was iron:

“We’ve found two. Scar thinks his shadow grows. But we’ll rip it out by the roots. Three more to go. Hold the line, Galacteers—hold the line for the galaxy itself!”

And in the corridors beyond, the catacombs answered with the murmur of machines waking—hover-drones stirring, shadow wings unfurling, the unseen hand of Scar tightening its grip.

TO BE CONTINUED...

the resonators Live, 

the Maker-Bots stir, 

and the Legion’s net tightens!

Part 1 - The Catacombs Stir

Captain 'Ace' McGuire stars in...

In the bowels of Delta-4, the shadowed halls of the Carapace Catacombs lay in eerie silence—once alive with the bustle of archaeologists and science crews, now cold and still as a tomb.

Doctor Zahn, lantern-jawed and hawk-eyed, pressed boldly into the outpost’s comm-shack. Dust veiled the consoles, relics of work abruptly abandoned. Only a single relay blinked weakly in defiance. Zahn’s gaze lifted—and froze. The Satcom rig had been ripped apart, its dish missing, its arrays twisted like the carcass of a dead bird.

“Sabotage!” he barked, his voice cutting the silence. “This station has been struck dumb—by deliberate hands!”

Meanwhile, Captain Ace McGuire, fearless and unflinching, strode the cracked walkway toward the cavern’s yawning maw. At his shoulder loomed Rocky, steady as a fortress wall, jaw set like stone. Behind, Sergeant Stacey’s voice cracked like a whip.

“Spread out, Angels! Steel yourselves—whatever waits inside won’t find us wanting!”

The Astro-Angels fanned out in gleaming precision, weapons ready, like Valkyries sweeping to war.

Then—movement!

From the shadows erupted a nightmare—chittering insectoids, claws glistening, mandibles snapping, ichor dripping! Their shrieks split the cavern air like banshee sirens. From a jagged pit at their backs, more horrors clawed upward.

“A dirty bug hole!” Stacey spat, levelling her rifle. “They’ve tunnelled into the ruins!”

Jane, swift as a falling star, vaulted to the flank. Her twin lasers blazed, ricocheting harmlessly until one beam struck true. The beast shrieked and staggered.

“They’re armoured!” she shouted. “Straight through the shell, or we’re finished!”

Ace roared like a lion and met the charge head-on. His sword flashed silver, cleaving one monster in twain, while another toppled stunned from the walkway.

“The only good bug is a dead bug!” he thundered grimly.

Stacey and her second, Jen, advanced shoulder-to-shoulder, rifles spitting incandescent fury. One bug reeled back, smoking, but the others pressed on with infernal speed. A mandible snapped inches from Jane’s throat. Another slammed into Stacey, pinning her to the wall with savage force.

On the walkway, the stunned beast leapt upon Ace from behind! Sparks flew as steel clashed against armored chitin. Jane wheeled, steady as a sniper’s eye, and felled the attacker with a crisp shot. Smoke curled from her raised barrel.

“Got a bug problem, sir?” she quipped with a sly grin.

Ace grinned back, bloodied but unbowed.

The Astro-Angels fired in disciplined unison, beams scorching insect hides.
“Well done, ladies!” Stacey cried above the din. “Take that, you stinking bugs!”

Far below, in the labyrinthine dark, another presence stirred. Cold circuits hummed with alien thought.

The crawly things are active, mused the machine. Perhaps they gather materials. The work must continue.

A clawed hand—more iron than flesh—hovered over a glowing console. Across the shadows, two screens lit up like the eyes of demons.

Back in the cavern, Dr. Zahn steadied his trembling hand and fired. His ray pistol struck the creature menacing Jen—but the blast ricocheted uselessly from its carapace.

Then Rocky leapt boldly into the pit. His heavy blaster thundered—but the shots ricocheted wildly as four more horrors scuttled into view!

Above him, Stacey fought like a warrior queen. She and her Angels smashed back the wave, hurling the last attackers into the dark. Jen covered her flank, eyes sharp, as the bugs hissed and clicked before vanishing down a narrow stone corridor.

The Galacteers regrouped, chests heaving, wounds bound, weapons checked. The first clash was won. But in the echoing stillness, the Catacombs themselves seemed to tremble.

From below, Rocky’s voice echoed, grim as a death knell:

“There’s something else down here… a hum. Steady. Low. Mechanical. Like the heartbeat of a machine.”

The sound grew, vibrating in their very bones. A warning. A summons.

The heroes of the Galacteers had beaten back the first wave—but ahead, in the depths, the true foe waited… the shadow of the Robot Legion.

Ace looked his team of Galacteers in the eye:

"Lets move out"

---

TO BE CONTINUED… in the next thrilling instalment of ECHOES OF THE SHADOW CIRCUIT!

Shadow Circuit: Episode 1 "The Carapace Catacombs"

Scenario 1- Setting and Galacteer forces per last post

Table layout - The Carapace Catacombs, Entomon Archeological Site, Planet Delta-4

Use this tabletop battlemat: the brown roads represent the tunnels through the chambers and pits of the archeological site. The Green areas are solid rock and block all LOS.

Place Five mechanical devices in the tunnels, spread out evenly. These are the Robot Legion's Shadow Circuit devices, and the Galacteer's primary mission!

They can be destroyed through fire and melee damage (3 wounds) for 1 VP each

OR

Dr Zahn can inspect them (as long as at least 1 wound remains) to ascertain the scale and scope of the threat.  He must spend a turn to inspect them, with success on a 6. For each additional turn he spends inspecting that device he gets a +1.  Each device can produce only a single clue, worth 3 VPs.

Robot Legion 

Robot Legion force disposition will be sent separately via sonic wireless.

If and when the unit NXS-6 "Scar" is revealed, open and read secret envelope number one (and not before!)

Can Ace McGuire and his team disable the Shadow Circuit devices?

What secret technologies can Dr Zahn unlock?

And what makes Centurion NXS-6 "Scar" Tick?

.....Tune in for the next exciting episode!