I am a pretty huge ACW naval fan... after all, who doesn't like tales of the Monitor & Merrimack? Unfortunately.... I was quick to learn that most battles were all lopsided.... meaning there wasn't a huge amount of ironclad on ironclad action... most of it was ironclad vs wooden ship or something else.. tinclad, cotton clad... etc.... Well, it still makes for great gaming no matter how you slice it!
I went with the Atlantic fleets for my target gaming... this is going to allow for a lot of "what-if" games as a lot of CSS ironclads never got built or got scrapped before they were finished to prevent them from falling into the USS hands. Anyway you slice it.. they are going to be tough games... not all out slug fests, but rather games with objectives.... I am especially looking forward to land batteries, blockades and blockade runners!
I can admit my knowledge is pretty weak here on naval actions, so I recruited one man I know that knows it all... my brother-in-law.... he came up with a list of ships I should get, well.. really in minutes.... I would have taken days or weeks to decide what to get or even what I should get to effectively play the East coast Atlantic action during the US Civil War.....
List now in hand.... I decided to stick with the same scale our group is currently already using... 1:1200. They are big enough to be pretty and very manageable on the table top.... any smaller and too much detail is lost.. any large and the although the ship are absolutely beautiful.... any large scale games become hard to play due to size.... I really do like the 1:600 ships..... I just don't have a gymnasium at my access to play any time I want.
That said... I started shopping... there are now a few companies that do 1:1200.... I went with Langton Miniatures because that is what everyone else has.... Next up was finding a place in the US that carries them. I found a few, but the prices were quite steep.... I took a chance on going direct to the source in England.... It was actually CHEAPER to buy direct because of the strength of the US dollar now... Even with shipping.... I saved almost $85USD!!!!
Needless to say, I wasn't in any kind of hurry to get the order... I have plenty to keep me busy, we all do. To my surprise they came very quickly.... USPS is kind of funny.... the package went to a import mail facility only a few hours from my house only to be sorted and then sent even further away to a distribution center.. then to be sent to me.... Opening the box was a pleasant surprise.... I was smiling like a kid on Christmas! As the endorphins surged... I unpacked my addiction....
I know what a lot of you are thinking... why so few CSS ships? Well... the south had so few designs that got built and since most ships were of the same design and didn't all show up at the same battle.... it is easy to use the same CSS ironclad class to represent many different ships.... so fewer models are needed in the long haul. For the USS though.... there were lots of different classes and manufacturers... thus requiring a heck of a lot more models to effectively play out anything in the US Eastern seaboard.... at least that is how I understand it and what I was told....
Anyway, I am very much looking forward to working on these.... currently, our group is getting a lot of play time in and unfortunately (for me)... both of my kids are involved in sports right now.. so if I don't have practice, I have a game.... and it isn't a miniatures game.... I wouldn't give it up.. the time to play will happen.
I will post updates on these as I set to work.... you can probably guess... the ironclads will see attention first.... they will be based on balsa squares with magnets on the bottoms... I will forego the epoxy wave effects unless I can find something that doesn't yellow over time... maybe painted epoxy? We'll cross that road when it comes up.
You might be thinking.. what rules am I going to use.... Not sure of their exact name, but I'll post them when I get it. It really is great, a lot like playing the original Ironclads board game....
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