Rules tweak tested: new weapon class and rifled cannons

[Commander Klank]

Played a test game with a few weapons tweaks yesterday and they worked out quit well with a positive reception from the gaming group. They did not add that much more complexity to the game while adding a bit more "historic realism". And yes some research is required to get true gun data for the ships you want to use; I found it easy enough to do on the internet for our game.

• Very Heavy Cannons: +4D6, Ironclad save only (use Heavy save)

14 inch plus smooth bore cannons, 100 pounder+ cannons and 9 inch plus rifled cannons.

• Rifled Cannons:Range:7 hexes, +1D6, 2 Hex point blank range, shown on ship data with a "r" next to size.

Examples: a 9.5 rifled pivot cannon mounted on the CSS Wilmington ( VHr(p) on ship data chart) would fire 7 hexes with a base attack dice count of 9 dice... 4 dice base, +4 dice VH, +1 dice rifled. Only ironclads can attempt to deflect a hit as Heavy hit; God help everyone else.

A 32-pdr rifled pivot cannon mounded on the front of a Confederate ram ( Lr(p) on the ship data chart) would fire 7 hexes with a base attack dice count of 3 dice... 4 dice base, -2 dice L, +1 dice rifled.

Attached is a sample of the ship data sheets we used with VH and rifled cannons used. The Confederates where small on gun but big on rifles...

This is the conversion chart I used from the game "River Wars" to determine which ships could possibly have VH guns.

Smooth Bore Cannons
Pounds
to 30-pdr Light (L)
to 64-pdr Medium (M)
64.1-pdr to 99.9-pdr Heavy (H)
100-pdr+ Very Heavy (VH)
Inches
up to 10 inches Medium
10.1 inches 14 inches Heavy
14 inches+ Very Heavy

Howitzers
Less than 12-pdr Light
12-pdr to 24-pdr Medium
24.1-pdr+ Heavy

Rifled guns
Pounds
to 32-pdr Light
32.1-pdr to 63.9-pdr Medium
64-pdr to 99-pdr Heavy
100-pdr+ Very Heavy
Inches
to 3.9 inches Light
4 inches to 6.9 inches Medium
7 inches to 8.9 inches Heavy
9 to 13+ inches Very Heavy

[Smiley Miley 66]

These are very interesting tweaks.
Miles