Hammerin’ Iron Revisited

The Peter Pig Hammerin’ Iron cloth. Personally I think it is not ideal but will suffice for my immediate needs. Note the strategically placed Kiwi Fruit holding down the corners whilst Hovis the Hedgehog - our doorstop - looks on impassively.

Actually the title of this post should really read ‘Peter Pig 1/600th scale ACW Revisited’ as I am more concerned with the components rather than the rules of the same name! I mentioned a while ago that my collection of the aforementioned 1/600th models was now safely back at Maison Crook - including ships, terrain and troop blocks - but only yesterday did I take (re)delivery of the Peter Pig playing cloth designed to accompany their rules.

Hammerin’ Iron is party of the RFCM (Rules For the Common Man) stable and so are fun, easy to use and give a great game. They are not super detailed or realistic but have more than sufficient period flavour to make then a very popular set. I have fought a couple of games with these and they are hugely entertaining. I own the latest version of the rules and a copy of the land expansion for the earlier edition. For some reason Peter Pig did not include the land rules in the revised version - I am unsure why but it is in my opinion a great shame as they are also great fun and use the 1/600th scale troop blocks from their range of ships and terrain.

Now here is the thing. My plan for the models is very simple as I shall be focussing on the river battles leading up to the fall of Vicksburg and later. I shall be using a version of the rules that Bob Cordery has written in his latest book - Gridded Naval Wargames. I say version as the redoubtable Mr Fox has tweaked them very slightly to add some extra depth. I have a few ideas around this myself so will probably tweak the tweaks to bring them into line with my own ideas on the subject - primarily around ship classifications.

The cloth that Peter Pig sells to support their rules is hexed and covers a playing area of 7 x 13 hexes. As you can see there is a shoreline along both sides  meaning that the blue of the water represents a river. The hexes themselves are 12cms across the flat hex sides. There is sufficient room onshore to deploy the odd fort or field works but the land is not hexed as such, only where it is contact with the water.

In my opinion this is probably not the best way to have done this as I believe it may have been better to have had just one side representing the shore so that their would be a little more ‘sea room’ so to speak. Having said that it does make for a potentially cramped playing area which probably captures the essence of river fighting better. The purist may be offended by the inland waterways of the US being blue in colour but at least there can be no doubt where the wet stuff is!

Once I have some ships ready to use with this (when the WW2 models are finished) I will iron the cloth to flatten out the creases and can then store it flat.

As I say, it is not perfect but will serve for the immediate future or at least until I can come up with something a little more tailored.