Dawn of Iron: The American Civil War at Sea – 1861-1865

Great game! Captures the spirit of naval warfare in the American civil War.

A "modern" game design style rule set for Ironclads that has good depth to it but isn't mired in the 80's game design mindset of "more complex = better" nor a chart referencing morass. Players alternate activating their ships, with provisions for when one side is outnumbered, so it's not the standard you-go-I-go nor is activation subject to the randomness of a token/counter draw. It is not a hex based system. The rules seam meant to handle smaller games (2-5 ships per side) and since most of the ironclad and river actions in the ACW were relatively small, this isn't really a problem. While there are considerably more ships in some of the full scenarios, I wouldn't want to try controlling a dozen ships (best to leave those to games with multiple players per side, each handling only a few ships). While by this period most ships could move under steam power, it does have adequate rules for wind and sailing. The main drawback of the game is that it is designed to be published as an expansion system and the designer seams to be focusing on specific battles*. There are no ship stats included in the main rules and there is no list of ship stats available outside of the expansions nor any guidelines for creating ships. The print-and-play counter set (a MUST HAVE) does include a simple version of the Hampton Roads scenario, but that's it.

*Edited: There is a Facebook group for this game and the author has posted test stats for many ships, which are free to download. The various expansions so far have been of excellent quality, showing in-depth research and including expansive lists of all vessels that were in or around the various battles (even if they didn't directly participate).

Digital PDF Copy