"Thoughts on the Iron and Oak boardgame " Topic

This weekend I had the opportunity to play Iron and Oak with TMP member Dances with Clydesdales. It was a learning experience for the both of us, so we tried two small games to test out the mechanics.

First battle was the classic duel of USS Kearsarge and CSS Alabama. Kearsarge (DWC) attempted to stand off and blast the Alabama with his heavy cannon. This forced me to close in to short range and give him a broadside of double charged shot. The dice were extremely favorable, resulting in heavy damage and a boiler critical hit that destroyed Kearsarge (really bad damage roll for damage from the boiler explosion. Game time = 5 turns. (The boiler explosion brought the game to a premature conclusion).

Second game was to try out the armor rules. Another small game – Monitor and CSS Virginia. This gave us a chance to practice with the armor and ramming rules. The game was a slugfest as the two ironclads closed to short range and pounded each other to scrap. The Monitor used her speed advantage to get on the stern of the Virginia and stay there, but the gunners on Virginia knew their business – they poured shot after shot into the aft turret aspect, reducing it splinters and destroying the Monitor. It was a close run game as Virginia only had a single hit point remaining. Game time = 14 game turns.

Tough day for the Union Navy!

An interesting game. the mechanics are very different from a conventional tabletop miniatures game. Much of movement is abstracted into area movement and 'maneuver' checks. But it worked. You got the feel of closing to short range and making decisions to influence the outcome of the game. The gunnery model was relatively clean with a minimal number of die rolls being required.

Iron and Oak is designed to support battles with multiple ships (up to 8 on each side). There is a reasonably deep list of ships, but it's not exhaustive. I would have liked to see some design tables for rating other ships (some of it can be extrapolated based on the ships stats that are presented.) There are some interesting ideas in here that I'd like to translate a more conventional tabletop game.

I have only played the prototype for this game,so perhaps the rules have been refined. I found the game to be rather fiddly. Our first game, also Alabama vs Kearsarge was bizarre in that both of wanted to close but the die rolls wouldn't let us for four turns, if I recall. In the ironclad scenario, I felt that there was too much detail on specific types of "special" damage for a game of this weight (particularly given the very abstract movement system). Anyway, sounds like you had fun. Maybe the final product was significantly improved.

Tom, the movement system still has some of those oddities that you describe. In both games the early turns saw each side struggle to maneuver. By the middle of the second game, I grasped that part of the problem was our efforts to move two areas each turn – which is difficult based on the response dice. Limiting the moves to one area actual speed up movement by making it easier to achieve the more limited goal.

The critical hit table did give a range of results. Coming from a background heavy in Smoke on the Water, I didn't find it excessive. But there are a diverse range of results.

We did have fun – in both games we rapidly burned through our action cards in an effort to finish the other off. That worked in the first game, but the second game slowed down into a grind.

You'll probably find more comments at boardgamegeek.com.

I like Ironclad war so picked the game up recently. I have not had a chance to play but I found the above comments interesting.

Although I am a big fan of most things GMT, there has been a trend recently of quite a few games where there isn't much "game" there. Iron & Oak is one of those, along with Nightfighter, Wing Leader, Red Winter, and others. Great components, plenty of scenarios, good online support, etc., but each scenario plays just like all the others and after a few games the interest wanes quickly.

I didn't like it either. You wanted it to be simplified miniatures rules with cardboard counters, but instead you get a fiddly, strangely abstract board game.

I have tried hard to like this game, but it didn't work. The gunnery system is fine and I am trying to adopt it to miniatures with a regular movement system. Problem is figuring out ranges as all the guns on a ship are combined into various dice types and everything sort of morphs together. I still may come up with something, but that isn't the big problem. The whole maneuver/card system is absolutely ridiculous. Why, o, why could Jame Day not have done something along the lines of Ironclads only with his innovative and simplified gunnery system?

Update: Ranges
Point Blank 4 inches or less
Short 4 to 12 inches
Medium 12 to 24 inches
Long 24 to 36 inches

I realize this combines rifle and smoothbore ranges but considering the single die factors for combined guns it works.

Movement – I use the movement speed on the cards for regular movement distances in inches. Turn radii I've adapted from Smoke On The Water. Th eopposed rolls are used against a D10 for such things as obstructions, fouling, and the like. I use the roll for ramming and spar torpedos, allowing the target vessel to roll also – should the target fail, the ram/spar torpedo goes in; should the target succeed, it evades the ram/spar torpedo.

Overall, this seems to work pretty well.

I do cringe everytime I read the Shield result in the Fire Results. Why they couldn't just say Armor, I have no idea. Beam me up from the Ironclad, Scotty.