A Game from the Depths of Simon's Shed

Last night our travel-stained reporter journeyed to the Southern States of the USA to witness some American Civil War riverine action. There had been gasps of amazement when Simon unveiled his 47 strong fleet of 1/600 gunboats, plus wrecks and shore forts including a wildly impractical Fort Sumter. All unused for nearly twenty years, and now including a pristine Peter Pig hex mat specifically for the period.

The game was a simple ship vs ship duel to test the rules and used a scenario from the Peter Pig website. Tony commanded the small CSS Planter

whilst Dave took the mighty and rather menacing CSS Virginia. Chris and Greg commanded Yankee ironclads, with Phil taking the more unconventional USS Tyler, a converted commercial steamer. The scenario set-up meant that the ships were positioned on the board in random hexes. This saw Tony’s Planter virtually prow-to-prow with the Tyler. Phil’s initial move saw the Tyler move alongside Planter which was soon sinking.

It was decided that rather than let Tony sit idle all night the Planter would be resurrected and enter from the Rebel table edge. His problem was that the Virginia was at the other end of the table, and he was facing the whole Federal fleet alone. A second Planter wreck model was soon gracing the table.

The rest of the game saw the three Federal ships trying to hunt down the Virginia. Greg found the designs of his Ironclad baffling, with only front and rear-firing guns. The Federals managed to land multiple hits on the Virginia and even jammed the rudder for a few moves, but with 50 hit points it had only ten less than the whole Federal flotilla. Phil’s Tyler sank first, and then the Yanks made tactical blunder in manoeuvring the Tuscumbia down the Arkansas’ port side to allow Chris’ side battery to join the fray. Both Greg and Chris had forgotten the rules that didn’t permit such an engagement. Soon Greg’s Tuscumbia was blown to pieces.

With only the Cairo and its remaining 13 hit points facing the Arkansas with double that remaining it was decided to call it a night, and a Rebel victory.

Post-game feedback indicated a positive view of the rules. As with most Peter Pig games enough historical accuracy blended with some fun and novel systems. I sense we will be playing again.

Interestingly post game research has revealed that the USS Tyler did face the Arkansas on the Yazoo River during the 1862 Vicksburg campaign. It was actually patrolling with two other ships. The Arkansas simply charged past them and then through the whole Federal River fleet to the safety of Vicksburg. A mighty ship indeed. It was rather ignominiously scuttled a few months later suffering from engine trouble and a lack of engineering support!

Simon