Wednesday, December 2, 2020

AAR War of the Pacific Pt 1

  A few weeks back, before we had more COVID restrictions in place, I GMed an actual naval game.  I took me a while to get my AAR together so I don't remember the turn by turn details but the basic situation is as follows.

  • Ships are 1/2400 from Tumbling Dice painted by me during last year's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge X.
  • Rule were Dahlgren and Columbiad a fast play set by noted nail game David Manley available from Wargames Vault.  These were a new set to all of us.
  • Curt hosted, so it's his sea mat (looks very spiffy), arid hills representing the coast of the Atacampa desert and a Spanish town masquerading as Iquiqui.
  • Instead of a historical scenario I put everything on table but in a historical setting.  Basically I wanted to test the various ship types and the rules, and figure that this might be a one shot game using the toys.
  • Jeremey had a squadron of Chilean cruising (unarmored) ships and was blockading the Peruvian port.  I took the local Peruvian forces, two ex-ACW monitors and two spar torpedo boats.
  • Curt had a Peruvian relief force of two sea going Ironclads and a well armed but unarmoured corvette.  Stacy had a Chilean force also of two sea going ironclads and a well armed but unarmoured corvette.

Game set up.

The Peruvian relief force, Huascar, Indepencia and Union

Jeremy's blockaders, the sacrificial offerings.

Close up of Jeremy's ships.

I pretend to know what I'm doing.  Actually after a couple turns everyone had the rule mechanics down pat.

Long range shot.  Curt's ships in foreground.  My ships are attacking Jeremy in the middle distance and Stacy approaches in the distance.

15 comments:

  1. I am interested in what an unaroused corvette is!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's an autocorrect typo (blogger doesn't seem to like the correct "ou" spellings) and it's fixed now!

      Delete
    2. Ah, I thought perhaps the crew were still in a drunken stupor and needed to be aroused by sounding action stations.

      Anyway, looks good!

      Delete
    3. That's a much better explanation!
      Thanks

      Delete
  2. Looks splendid, god to get the occasional in-person game played in these times.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Paul. We’ve gone back to Zoom gaming for the next while.

      Delete
  3. Most excellent. Good to see the old Lakeview crew in action. I can't wait to reunion with you guys again... call me when you need someone to be ridden down by an impetuous cavalry charge.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Nice to see the ships in action, having watched them being painted in the last challenge!
    Best Iain

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cheers Iain. I was glad to get them on table. Lockdown hit as I was wrapping up my work on these so it was a longer delay than intended.

      Delete
  5. Lovely looking game, I hope you enjoyed the rules :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks David. I’ll have more to say in a future post, but they were well received by my group. The full campaign may be in the future.

      Delete
  6. Looks good. In person gaming, sigh!... not much of that this year!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Gonsalvo. Yeah our group went the Zoom route for the Spring and Summer, and we got a few weeks of socially distant face to face gaming in the fall. We are now back in Zoom mode.

      Delete