ACW Naval Game (2)

Last Friday evening we got together at my friend George's house to play another session of the ACW Naval rules he's working on. This time the models we used were brought along by club member Peter - mostly the beautiful Thoroughbred 1:600 "Ironclads" line.

The game featured a mixed union fleet of 3 ironclads, three 'tin' clads and three wooden rams breaking a blockade of six Confederate 'tin' clad (cotton clad also couts as tin in the rules) rams and several batteries of shore guns.

New to this game were the first try at ramming rules which with some in-game changes worked quite well. There was also a refinement of the movement rules which was another good improvement.

I really think George has something with these rules. They're quite possibly the next big thing - fast play ACW naval rules. Sort of a 'DBA for the Mississippi'.

Play Testing VB&G RTG Wing Scale Napoleonics

Today Ed hosted a play test of a Napoleonic wing scale variant to Volley & Bayonet Road to Glory that a few of our club members are working on. We're going to be getting together for a large game in the future and today was the first step in steaming out the wrinkles in the rules. This was part game and part design session but 100% fun. It's always good when you can get together with your friends, talk a little history, tactics and play a game.

I've received good feedback on my short videos on my last post. I have included some additional video 'raw footage' of our test session. Obviously I'm not much of a videographer. Hopefully with practice I will improve. Until then enjoy these for what they are.

First Pirate Game

Last Saturday our club got together to play the first of what we hope will be many future pirate games. All I can say is WOW! the whole club really came together to put on a great game. Every player was responsible for their own boat and pirate crews, several players provided custom made Islands, several players got together to write and run the rules and I provided laser-cut boat kits for several of the players.

The only way to describe this game is 'epic'. It was loud, raucous, chaotic, interesting and most of all good fun all day long. The top pirate award went to Ross, but there were several pirates in the running. I was in the middle tier after peeking at first place for a short while. Tangling with the local militia on one last island left me with a short crew and I limped into port looking for more crew while my competitors were looting and stealing their way to victory.

 Here are a few short videos I took at the game. They give a flavor of the game even better than the photos above.

If you're a member of the Black Poweder New England Yahoo group (or would like to Join) you can view more photos of the game by following this link: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BlackpowderNE/photos/album/401298881/pic/list?mode=slide&order=ordinal&start=1&count=20&dir=asc

Finished Pirate Sloop

Tomorrow is our club's first pirate game. A large number of people in the club are building pirate boats that fit on rolling stands that allow us to use the whole room, without having to crawl on the floor. The stands keep the boats three feet off the floor, and with islands and ports also being the same height, the illusion of sea level being about waist high is complete.

Since the game is tomorrow of course I just finished my boat tonight. My masts and rigging are removable for storage and my sloop comfortably accommodates a full crew of ten smelly scurvy-ridden privateers. The game is shaping up to look like a lot of good beer & pretzels fun.

Another finished pirate boat

My friend Mark D. has finishes his pirate boat (made from my laser-cut parts) and crew. As a bonus his dory is also assembled. At this point he's ahead of me in preparing for the game. Nice job Mark!