Questions About Scenarios For Short Games

[Vorenus]

My buddy and I played our first game of Hammerin' Iron using Scenario 6 "Ironclads at Hampton Roads."  I expected to see a battle with both ships blazing away rather ineffectually at each other.  Instead, the Monitor ran rings around the Virginia and used its turret-based 360 degree arc of fire to inflict hit after hit on the Virginia before using its superior speed to avoid the Virginia's more limited arc of fire.  Even with twice the hit points of the Monitor, the Virginia was badly damaged and surrendered quickly.  Did my buddy and me miss something in the rules that might have made for a better chance for the Virginia (we wondered about ramming, but the Monitor easily stayed outside of ramming distance the entire game)?

Also, we plan to move on to the "Scenarios For Short Games" and are wondering if the intent for these scenarios is to use the full panoply of rules in HI, e.g., the usual amount of islands & sandbars, a fort, and Assets.  Or is the intent just to throw the designated ships out and let them have at each other? 

Thanks,
Van

[martin goddard]

Hello Van

Thanks for getting a talk going.

Various things to help your games out:-

1. https://www.peterpig.co.uk/infohammeriniron.html  This is the current selection of short games (2023). 
2. The order cards should make sure that the monitor cannot both move and fire constantly. If the Monitor is using the fire/gun ports cards it won't be moving very much.
3. One on one, the Monitor is far better than the Virginia. At Hampton roads the monitor was using reduced charges as there were fears about the guns shattering if full charges were used. This had happened to some other Union big gun ships. Hence the caution. This being said, any critical hit on the Monitor could cause it's demise. One on one games can quickly flip if one boat suffers a boat critical. This is probably true of such endeavors in 1v1 tanks, 1v1 fighters etc too.


3. Short games are there to get players used to the rule system. They do not use scenery and the extra bits. You are right to work through the short games to get used to the game.


Let us know if there are more chat items Van.

martin