Dawn of Iron Battle of Punta Pichalo Playtest

 

This was my second War of the Pacific game using Dawn of Iron, this time featuring the rebel crewed turret ironclad Huascar against no fewer than four government warships, which seemed like a non-starter for the Huascar from the get-go. The game was set to last ten turns, but I expected it to end far sooner, given the relative strength of the two factions and the fact that the government forces had a monitor and a broadside ironclad, not to mention a gunboat and a screw sloop. 

However, despite a wobbly start, the Huascar's crew pulled a blinder, outmaneuvering the Independencia, which steamed off the table by mistake, and La Union, which managed to ram herself into the eponymous Punta Pichalo after running out of sea room. This was largely down to my mishandling of the order tokens, which you need to use in a predictive way thinking one or two turns ahead, as well as some over-enthusiastic use of steam power to ramp up their speed. 

The Huascar also blew the gunboat Pilcomayo to matchwood with one blast from her guns, which just goes to show how deadly gunnery can be even with some negative dice roll modifiers imposed by the scenario. The Huascar did take a pounding, however, mainly from the anchored monitor Atahualpa, which had very heavy firepower and good armour to boot. The game ended on Turn Nine, when the Huascar steamed off the table nursing four critical damage cards, while the Atahualpa was out of range and La Union stuck firmly aground with two critical and one cumulative damage cards. 

The scenario victory conditions gave this to the government forces but I can't help but think that the rebel Huascar was the real winner, having dispatched the Pilcomayo and heavily damaged the now grounded La Union, not to mention seeing off the Independencia. I probably mucked up a few things along the way and I didn't understand how the Poor Shooting rule worked, so just fudged it with a -1 DRM, but otherwise it seemed to go quite smoothly. It's definitely a fast system and the movement rules mean that the ships whizz about the table covering quite a distance each turn, although that's enhanced by the use of 1/2400th scale models. 

Good fun!