An Actual In Person Miniature Game

I've been rattling on this summer catching up on my paitning production over last winter's callenge becasue paiting since summer began has bascially come to a standstill. There's just too many things to keep me buy and by the time I call it a day it's after nine pm and I don't feel like setting my stuff up. 

 

However, there has been a fair amount of gaming activity thus far in 2021, including some in person gaming at Curt's new clubhouse. Back in June I ran a 1879 War of the Pacific Ironclads game using David Manley's excellent  Dalhgren and Columbiad Rules. This was a repeat of a game first played in November 2020 just before we locked down for the pandemic again. I don't recall enough for a detailed AAR but highlights are as follows.

• The Chilean's had a blockading squadron of wooden vessels commanded by myself keeping tabs on Sylvain's Peruvian force of two ex-US Civil War monitors and two spar torpedo boats.
• Stacy took the receiving Peruvian squadron including the ironclads Huascar and Indepencia and screw sloop Union.
• Curt was coming to my rescue with the two Cochrane class ironclads.
• The Peruvians focused on my squadron aiming to take out as many wooden ships as possible. 
• I randomized the positions and headings of my blockading squadron with scatter dice, with most of them stirring north towards the oncoming Peruvian ironclads.  Scared of Sylvain's torpedo boats I made the mistake of continuing to steam North towards Stacy.
• Stacy sank all of my force, but I at least put up a decent fight.  
• Curt arrived and roughed up the monitors with his much better ironclads.  At this point the Peruvians called it a day to save the Ironclads having inflicted considerable damage while keeping Stacy's sea going squadron in good shape.  Sylvain crept back into port needing some repairs and the Chileans resumed their blockade.
• Once again D&C gave a good quick game that was fun, quick to learn and gave reasonable results.  All ships are 1/2400 from Tumbling Dice.  Good detail and nice little castings.

A typical D&C confused melee!  My Chilean Was up class, Peruvian TBs excited harbour and a Peruvian IC at the top of picture.

Spar torpedo attack.  Stylvain's comment that it was like something that Space Orks would use wasn't far off!

A hit!  A palpable hit (or two)!

Sylvain monitors slowly exiting the port and coming under fire from the Cochrane class ICs.

Another hit and a fire!

The two monitors taking it from both sides as the Cochrane twins split up.  The Chilean vessels closer inshore steered between the shoals to make it safely back out to sea, while the monitors had enough and steamed back home while they could.

 

War of the Pacific AAR pt 2

Continuing on from part one in my prior post....

Panorama view note the brightly coloured arcs of fire templates!

Jeremey's blockaders fire at my Peruvian torpedo boats and attempt evasive Hanover's

Getting down to business

Running through the QRS, the rule swerve very quick to pick up.

The tbs strike home while Curt's squadron comes near.  The near tb had a near miss with it's spar torpedo while the far one struck home for a kill!

Skipping ahead one of Jeremey's ships splits Curt's line

Things settle down to a general melee

At this point we wound things up with the following summary

• The Chileans sank one monitor, with Stacy nobly heaving too to save the crew.
• The wooden ships got bashed around with a Chilean sunk by spar torpedo and a Peruvian sunk by ramming.
• The sea going ironclads largely cancelled these serve out.  
• We reckoned that the Peruvians would sail into Iquiqui and be blockaded by the Chileans. 

Everyone had fun and enjoyed the game.  The rules worked well and were easy to pick up.  There was room for one or two tweaks but nothing major.  It was noted that the sequenced movement worked well and it was much easier to figure and execute orders than a recent GQIII game.

 

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.