More on Developing the Portable Ironclads Wargame

A ‘Pell-mell’ affair as the Union attempt to force a conclusion against a mixed Confederate force. Note the monitors bombarding the fort at the top of the picture.

What’s in a name?

Work has continued, albeit rather sporadically, on Developing the Portable Ironclads Wargame. After a bit of a rethink I have reverted to the original title rather than describing it as a ‘Revised and Expanded Edition’ as I think this better reflects the contents. To be honest it is largely a moot point because in essence a ‘Revised and Expanded Edition’ is exactly what the new book will be. However, following on from the precedent set by Bob with the Portable Wargame, I reckon that calling it ‘Developing’ is more in keeping with the overall Portable naming convention. So ‘Developing the Revised and Expanded Edition of the Portable Ironclads Wargame’ it is then….Only kidding, just ‘Developing’!

There is also an important new addition to the new book. As well as including rules for using a square grid as well as the original hexagonal version I will also be including rules for using single hexes and squares rather than two. The rationale behind this is that the use of single grid areas works better for smaller scale models. For example, a single Hexon tile, measuring 4” across the flat sides, will happily take a 1:1200th scale model. For the record I am looking at 6” grid areas for my own collection but then my models are rather on the large side!

Freebie Alert!

In the meantime though, I do have some welcome news. I shall be publishing an errata for the original book which will be available as a free PDF. I will make it available on the blog and also a couple of the facebook groups I belong to - The Portable Wargame and Gridded Naval Wargames. This is by no means an onerous document - thankfully - but it will help to tidy up a few things. I will be working on this over the next couple of weeks and will advise when ready.