Friday, 17 August 2018

Dahlgren and Columbiad 1864


The couple of games that I've had with Broadside and Ram have been really good fun but they are definitely a fleet level set of rules for re-enacting large battles with numerous ships. I knew this when I decided to use them for more tactical level actions, so was prepared to make a few adjustments to reflect the smaller number of ships involved in a trade of for simplicity and fast play. This has paid off in many respects but, for the Second Schleswig War project I really think a tactical level set of rules would be more appropriate and effective.

As a result, I've decided to switch my rules for the Battle of Jasmund to Dahlgren and Columbiad, which I think would be a better fit, especially as there were only three warships involved on either side if you discount the Prussian gunboats and the Tordenskojd, neither of which actually turned up. It does mean that I have some work to do to devise the record sheets and statistics for each of the Danish and Prussian warships involved, not to mention the Austrians for Heligoland, but I don't think this will be too much bother. I'll get cracking on the number crunching over the weekend.

3 comments:

  1. I think these might be next on my list of ruleset to try out for ACW games. My next project (if I can stay focused for 2 minutes) is working my Peter Pig Ironclads.

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  2. I'm going to do the same but will also use them for the smaller scale Baltic project too.

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  3. Hi, thread's a bit aged but I thought I'd post here to see if anyone can help me decipher a rules question for Dahlgren and Columbiad (around ramming attacks). I'll see replies to this query so please let me know best way to discuss. Thanks!

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