Developing the Portable Ironclads Wargame: The American Civil War

The latest addition to the PORTABLE WARGAME stable of rules - DEVELOPING THE PORTABLE IRONCLADS WARGAME: THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR - has been published.

It was written by David Crook (the creator of the A WARGAMING ODYSSEY blog) and edited by me. The book builds upon the rules contained in THE PORTABLE IRONCLADS WARGAME (published in December 2022) and contains several new ideas including a selection of optional rules covering key game mechanisms, the use of squares or single grid areas as well as a greatly expanded ship specification list and a full erratum. Although primarily aimed at the American Civil War, the rules may be successfully used for any naval conflict during the 1860s and 1870s.

The book contains the following chapters:

• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Acknowledgements
• The First Rules of Wargaming and the Spirit of the Wargame
• Thoughts on Initiative and Movement
• More thoughts on Movement
• Thoughts on Firing
• More thoughts on Firing
• The Use of a Square grid
• The Use of Single Hexes or Squares
• Further Notes on the Design and Thinking Out Loud
• Final Thoughts, Further Thoughts, Errors and Omissions … Part 2
• Battle report: Endgame Along the Missenhitti: The Battle of Static Bay: Part 1
• Battle report: Endgame Along the Missenhitti: The Battle of Static Bay: Part 2
• Calculating Ship Specifications
• Expanded Ship Specifications for the American Civil War
• An Illustrated guide to the warships of the American Civil War
• Bibliography and sources of information
• Revisiting the Rules
• Thoughts on Quick Reference Sheets and Ship Specification Charts
• Appendix 1: Quick Reference Sheets

It is worth noting that a copy of THE PORTABLE IRONCLADS WARGAME is required to use the material contained in this publication.

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The book is on sale via Amazon in hardback (£25.00) and softback (£12.50) editions and in PDF format from Wargame Vault (£7.50). The latter is also available as part of a bundle with THE PORTABLE IRONCLADS WARGAME for £12.64 (and may even be discounted to a lower price!)