Gaming Sharpe: Sharpe’s Battle
Summary
It’s the spring of 1811 and Wellington is moving towards a decisive battle with Marshall Masséna at Fuentes de Oñoro. Sharpe has his own problems though, as he has earned the enmity of maverick French officer Brigadier Guy Loupe, and he has been given the thoroughly useless Real Compañia Irlandesa to look after, in the midst of a propaganda war trying to ferment an Irish rebellion within the British ranks. Add in some Anglo-Spanish politics, the weirdly alluring figure of the Dona Juanita de Elia, and the hilarious rotund buffoon that is Wagon Master-General Colonel Claude Runciman and it is a proper hodge-podge of a story.
Sharpe prevails, naturally, as the diverse story threads come together in a pleasing conclusion. The battle scenes at the end are some of my favourites as they have just about every flavour of Napoleonic trope crammed in, as well as some really interesting vignettes.
What’s in the Game?
Who are the Characters?
This is another book where the story very much centres around Sharpe and Harper, with a few of the other Chosen Men getting some bit parts (Perkins has to look after Miranda, Hagman does some sharpshooter, and Harris and Cooper make an appearance too). The cast of allied NPCs is fascinating in ‘Battle’. Runciman is just an excellent NPC – a wagonmaster who insists he’s a General but is ultimately useless in battle. Lord Kiely is a cookie cutter arrogant aristocrat, and his chaplain, Father Sarsfield, is the typical pragmatic Irish cleric.
And then there’s Dona Juanita de Elia, a Spanish noble woman who works both sides of the conflict, collecting the tunics of the men she sleeps with and is thus the most obvious turncoat villain you could imagine. And on the other side of the Spanish coin, there is El Castrador – ‘The Castrator’ – a partisan who mutilates his victims. An utterly pointless character who could be taken out of the story and not one thing would change.
Brigadier Loup is a great villain, however, as a highly competent and utterly ruthless French officer who is loyal to his men and dismissive of his enemy. There is no grey areas when it comes to Loup – ironic, considering his grey wolves adornments – he is an absolute bastard and in many ways his death comes too quickly at the end of the book.
What are the Missions?
There are four missions I would draw from this book. The first is a longer term one which challenges Sharpe to ‘Train and Command the Real Compañia Irlandesa’. This deals with poor morale, propaganda wars, poor equipment and worse training. Sharpe wins this mission by the end of the book, as the Real Compañia Irlandesa leave for Cadiz with their honour intact. The second is ‘Hold the Fort of San Isidro’ which Sharpe absolutely fails. He reinforces the wrong part of the fort (Command failure?), fails to get support from the Real Compañia Irlandesa as Keily hides, fails to discover who is the spy in their midst until it is too late, and sustains massive casualties including the loss of his old friend Tom Garrard and a whole company of Portuguese caçadores. Sharpe clearly takes some massive reputational damage here as he faces a court of enquiry and ends up as political collateral between the British and the Spanish. Next, we have the simple matter of ‘Guarding the Ammunition during the Battle of Fuentes de Oñoro’ which in trusted Sharpe fashion means getting into the heat of the battle!
The fourth mission is a personal mission which links all of these previous Missions – ‘Deal with the Hatred of Brigadier Loup’ – this is a great example of a personal mission being woven into multiple military missions. Sharpe has a tense confrontation with Loup, he deals with the propaganda war, he is soundly beaten at San Isidro, he unveils Juanita and Sarsfield as spies and he defeats Loup in single combat. Indeed, Loup’s brigade being deployed in direct opposition to Sharpe is as clear an example of a Mission bringing multiple parts together in the right place for the needs of the story as you’re going to get!
The ‘Boring’ Military Mission
‘Guarding the Ammunition during the Battle of Fuentes de Oñoro’ is a great example of an apparently ‘boring’ mission, which becomes a nail-biting battle of attrition. Sharpe is put on administrative duty with Runciman and the ammunition. However, he still manages to meet Black Bob Crauford, get drafted into the Light Division, ask Wellington directly if Runciman can lead the Real Compañia Irlandesa into battle, and then saves the day in heart of the fray. While still keeping the ammunition train intact. There’s no such thing as a boring mission!
The Need for Safety Tools
Safety tools weren’t a thing when I first wrote Duty & Honour, and this book in particular made me think about their use. The opening scenes are a war crime. An atrocity of murder, mutilation and sexual assault of women and children. The Chosen Men walk into a charnel house and it’s quite jarring given the usual tone of Sharpe books. Similarly, having a character whose entire schtick is that he castrates his enemies is weird. As I was reading, I started to think it was like ‘Chekov’s Castration’ – now that you’ve mentioned he castrates people, you need him to castrate someone, right? But you don’t want him to because well, ewww!
Both of these themes are so far beyond the Sharpe norms that I would consider them topics I would probably mention to my players before a game. War is hell, even in the boy’s own adventure world of Sharpe, but having explicit sexual assault and mutilation of children really isn’t in that framing.
The Use of Vignettes
There are two scenes in the book which stand out for me. In one, Harper finds a redcoat doll, talks to it and then puts it in a nook to protect it from the oncoming artillery barrage. Later, a soldier finds it and tries to staunch a wound with it. There is also an ‘armistice’ scene, where during an evening between engagements, the French and the British soldiers drink, smoke and play together – two officers sharing a game of chess with a makeshift board. Later, Sharpe finds the corpse of this officer and disregards the chess set as worthless, when in fact it had been the catalyst for a moment of humanity between two enemies.
These scenes are, to my eye, quite clumsy in the book, but in a game they are perfect examples of reincorporation. If players included this sort of narration, I would absolutely be giving them bonus cards for the flavour they had added.
Echoes of the Past, and Nods to the Future.
The book calls back to scenes in Sharpe’s past – his time in Indian prison with Tom Garrard and his rescue of Wellington – and it also references his interactions of Jane Gibbons (his future wife) and his past with Sergeant Hakeswill, which will very much become his present in the next book, Sharpe’s Company. The use of these looks forwards and back give some connection to the stories which can be read easily in isolation. In your game, there is always value in bringing back NPCs, and laying the ground for others to become more important. This can be done through the story or mechanically through the use of Reputations and, in the new edition, Favours.
NPC Tourism or Grounding in Reality
Speaking of reputations, Sharpe clearly has quite a few. He has earned the right to speak with Wellington, and his history with the Light Division makes him known to Crauford. He is a favoured pawn of Hogan, and by the end of the book he has at least developed a new reputation with Runciman which might be of use if he ever visits Hampshire. Having a handful of real world characters in your game can be a bit much for some people, but it is very much in the tone of the books themselves. Knowing you are matching wits with André Masséna rather than some random NPC should be a high point in the game, but if it happens too much, it can feel like you’re playing through history, rather than a game of your own. Everything in moderation.
