Ironclads

Ryan Schultz hosted an Ironclads game this morning for the Tidewater Area Naval Gamers. The scenario pitted two Confederate ironclads and a fast but fragile blockade runner against the Union's four strong wooden vessels, two weak ones, and misinformation (three dummy ships). The Rebs are coming downstream, avoiding the shoals in the center of the river; the Yanks have two ships patrolling up by the shoals and four ships farther back where the river is open. It's night, with very limited visibility--any engagements will be at point blank range.
The Confederates sent their ironclads down the east channel while the runner skulked safely upriver. The Union quickly located them and responded with all four heavies and one light ship, leaving the other small vessel and a dummy in the west channel. Union fire began chewing away at the Confederate hulls, but the return fire disabled the engines of two wooden vessels. One of them made quick repairs, but the other was a sitting duck which Ryan took advantage of. His ironclad slewed around at full speed and rammed, shattering the hapless Union ship into splinters; the ironclad didn't even slow down.
Dismayed and distracted by this, one of the Union vessels ran aground, taking herself out of the action for a few minutes. The second Rebel ironclad dueled two Union ships in the middle of the east channel and set them both afire, but she succumbed to a lucky boiler hit which left her drifting downstream, although still fighting. With one of the Union ships destroyed and two hors de combat, it was obvious that the Yanks would only be able to stop the blockade runner if they had a great deal of luck; we called it a Confederate win.
We followed with two games of the card game Nuclear War. Quick and fun, unless a scheming villain (like, say, me) manages, through Secrets and Propaganda, to get someone's (Bob's) entire country to defect before the first missile makes it to the launch pad!