I failed to find the time to play a wargame last weekend, but the kiddo and I did sit down to paint more ironclads! We completed another five vessels this weekend, which made for a great small project and left us with a set of vessels to hopefully actually learn a game this upcoming weekend. Note that I accidentally printed two General Sumter bases. The ship on the left is the CSS Sterling Price.

These are, again, ships to fill out the roster for the Battle of Plum Point Bend. Here’s the Wikipedia Order of Battle we’re aiming for:

What’s really interesting here is the Confederate River Defense Fleet was composed of retrofitted civilian vessels, given a few guns each, and then given reinforced rams. They’re a smattering of different designs and vary wildly.

Meanwhile, the Union? They found a good thing and stuck to it. The Cairo is the lead ship of the City Class ironclad. I did not designate either of these two as the Cairo, but honestly it looks the same. I just didn’t print off the base labeled “Cairo” yet.

I really like the city class design and it’s obviously a better vessel than any of the Confederate ships.

But I’m sorry to say the Confederate designs were a lot more fun. The variety of the ships makes them a lot more interesting to paint and as much as I’m anti-Confederate, I have to give it to them that it’s hard not to want to root for the underdog if all you’re doing is looking at these two sets of ship in a vacuum.

Again–another fun round of painting. I can’t put the game off any longer, so the kiddo and I will be playing it this upcoming weekend with at least a ship each for a learning game. I have not put much thought into terrain the like but I’ll deal with that if he’s actually into it. For now, he’s super happy with the ships we pumped out here and just wants to roll some ship-on-ship dice.

I’ll be happy to oblige.