Monday 11 June 2018

AAR ACW Riverine (Hammerin' Iron) 10 June 2018


Ian and my diaries finally coincided and we managed to play a game at the club. This was the first opposed outing for my ‘new’ ACW Riverine fleets using the Hammerin’ Iron 2 rules from RFCM (2011).

We diced for sides and I got the Rebels. Next we diced to see who would be the attacker (the Union has more chance to be the aggressor) but it turned out to be a (rare) raid by the Confederates into Union territory! The Union fleet has to lose one random ship, and much to my relief Ian lost the formidable USS Benton. He deployed the USS Indianola on table and I started with 2 of my casement ironclads (CSS Arkansas and CSS Tuscalosa), aided by the weak CSS Planter. I planned to steam the CSS Planter down the flank to attack the Union transports, whilst my other ships would fight the USS Indianola.


Things started to go wrong for the Rebels early in the fight. A long range shot took out the forward gun on CSS Planter, meaning its attack on the transports would be ineffective. A Union torpedo boat also did major damage to CSS Tuscalosa. I had to divert a newly arrived CSS Manasas to aid the crippled CSS Planter, but another shell KO’d the only gun on the Manasas, rendering it useless as well! By now both fleets were fully on table and a major clash erupted in the main channel of the river. Both my casement ironclads were getting battered but they did manage to sink the huge USS Blackhawk. The USS Choctaw inflicted a hit which reduced CSS Tuscalosa to battered status, who then rolled ‘1’ and struck their colours. My tinclad CSS Gov Moore did manage to reduce the USS Indianola to battered status but they held on, and also destroyed a couple to Union depot buildings. At this point the game clock reached 8 and the action finished.

The Union fleet had lost 1 ship (USS Blackhawk) with another battered (USS Indianola). The Rebels had 1 ship captured (CSS Tuscalosa) and 2 battered (CSS Arkansas and CSS Planter). In the post game procedure it turned out that the CSS Arkansas sank before it could return to its base. The Rebels did little damage to the Union shore facilities, but both warehouses destroyed turned out to be valuable (max. points value possible). The final points score was +7 to the Union, giving them a ‘Narrow Victory’.

Overall I feel the game and rules played well, taking 3 hours to complete. I think I should have tasked a more powerful ship to attack the Union transports early in the game. A couple to key critical hits effectively nullified this threat and rendered 2 Rebels ships useless. We also found light guns, both on shore and aboard, to be largely ineffective. Ramming is potentially very dangerous (CSS Arkansas did significant damage to USS Blackhawk by this method). Ian’s torpedo boat worked well for him whilst I never managed to get my submarine on table. To conclude, I can see us getting these toys out of the box again fairly soon, and judging from comments from other gamers, I can see others joining us in future games.

On a side note, I would like to ‘pimp-up’ the battle mat a bit; adding some shore scenery and buying some mdf hex tiles to replace the islands and sandbars. Anyway, the next planned game will hopefully be ECW using For King and Parliament rules.

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