Gameday Report

   Played a new game today: American Civil War naval. Ironclads. In 1/600 scale.

   And to the everlasting shame of my great-great-grandaddy, I played the Union side. I think the outcome would make him feel better. That is, the Confederates won, and totally wrecked the Union fleet in the process.

   The scenario was that on a river, the Union forces needed to take out three Confederate shore batteries. To do so, they were given four mortar rafts, two mortar schooners, and four other ships (three ironclads, and one 'tinclad'). The Confederates had four ships as well (three ironclads and one steamram). One of those was CSS Arkansas, which could (and did) ignore all the gunfire from the Union ships.

   I did get a couple of the Reb boats. But the mortars were ineffective and our ships were not deployed to the best advantage (our admiral forgot which direction the current was flowing). I lost USS Cairo, but the most spectacular moment was when one of the Union ships rammed a Rebel boat dead amidships while doing 10 knots. Cut the Reb in half, pretty nearly.

   So it was a fun game, even though my side lost (as usual). Plus, it went pretty fast.. 3 1/2 hours start to finish, and three of the players had never played before.