Well, it’s taken a bit of time for me to feel happy with the playsheet I have been working on.  We have run though lots of games and I wanted to be sure of two things which very much reflect my personal preference.  Firstly, a playsheet should contain things which cannot be memorised but which are needed in in all, or at least the majority, of games.  This also means that THIS playsheet is probably not suited to the player who is looking for a learners crib sheet which contains everything possible, including the metaphorical kitchen sink.  My thoughts on this are that things like range bands are rolls to hit are learnt in the first game and thereafter their inclusion in a playsheet is not only superfluous but actually gets in the way of the stuff that cannot be learnt.  The thinking behind this is the second point I wanted to be sure of: brevity.  I don’t feel that a playsheet in excess of two sides of A4 is useful in the heat of a game.  So, that was my second goal; to get everything onto one two-sided sheet of paper.  As a result the playsheet covers random events (too many to learn, so you need to refer to them), Fisticuffs which can be learnt but it’s nice to have all the data to hand, and finally the “Bad Things Happen” table which is again key during play.  You can find the download here:  Sharp Practice Playsheet
Slightly different, but also important when learning the rules, is the ability to remember each troops type’s stats during play.  One of the key factors of Sharp Practice is the ability to really reflect the fighting abilities of individual troop types by using the Rosters.  This has proved to be really popular with gamers, as evidenced by the number of people who have been having fun just crunching units through the Sharpulator to see what comes out.  However, one chap did email me this week saying “I don’t want to have to bother remembering unit stats during play”.  And he’s right.  You can’t rely on your memory for this information, so when we play out games we provide the players with an individual unit Roster for each troop type.  This tells them just what a unit can do, how many Command Cards are needed for their different skills.  All you need to do is print this sheet out and fill it in with the troop types you are using in that particular game.   This allows the gamers to grasp much more easily some of the more nuanced parts of the rules without referring back to the rule book itself.  You can find the Game Roster here:   Game Rosters