It was American Civil War Naval Action on tap for the group as the Rebels were headed out to sea and relief supplies in this late war scenario. Greg did a wonderful job explaining these simple to play rules on our first outing. Mark J, Bill & Pat took on the roles of the Rebels while Steve T, Mark & Kevin represented the Union forces.
Above: Greg goes over the rules for the players prior to the start.
The Rebels goal was to break out and sail downstream, the Union of course was to foil that attempt. The CSA sent some of their best ironclads, supported by spar torpedo boats. The Union had a smaller fleet, but was assisted by a line of obstacles in the river and floating mines along with two shore batteries.
The system combines similar guns into light, medium and heavy with hits determined mostly by target size and range brackets. Once a hit is scored the range, weight of weapons and class of vessel will lead to the number required by the target to “save”. Failing to save adds a damage card of differing types to the target. Collect more damage cards than your vessel’s number and you are dead in the water hoping for a good dice roll in the repair phase at turn’s end. Get too many and you are rechristened a “hazard to navigation.”
We had one collision as Mark in self preservation mode ran over a Confederate spar torpedo boat (as seen below). The Rebels managed two successful spar torpedo attacks in one turn reducing the Union Navy by half.
The game ended with two CSA Ironclads breaking free of their entanglements on the river obstacles and a likely Rebel victory as one, perhaps two ironclads would eventually break out.
All in all a very interesting set of rules that will certainly play more quickly as the group becomes more familiar with them.
