My son and I finished up our fleets for the early war Western Mississippi… er… or just about. I’m missing the USS Benton, I now realize, but unless I intend to really do a club game I’m not too worried about it.

My son’s Union fleet consists of six City Class ironclads representing the Western Flotilla. It’s a great example of how far ahead the Union was in terms of industry: they were able to copy and paste a design with 13 total guns and sail it right down the river to face up against a woefully undergunned Confederate fleet.

The Confederate fleet represents the River Defense Fleet of the Confederacy, which was composed of a bunch of upgraded civilian vessels fitted to be ramming ships. At most they have three guns, but they’re all built to ram and ram hard.

My son and I had another game over the recent weekend and that allowed us to see how it plays out. We had significantly more vessels in play–three for him and five for me. The dichotomy really came out, with ramming turning into the only real viable path to victory for my Confederates. It was fun.

As for the ships themselves, the Confederacy wins out for interest. There was a lot more going on and it was more engaging to paint than just six identical City Class ironclads.

The visual variety is nice, though I suspect my son is having a lot more fun as he can fire off what feels like 8-13 guns per boat every turn. When he learns to concentrate fire it’s going to hurt.

The painting method here was very simple in both cases. We did a dry brush triad–white for Confederates and steel for Union–then painted the wood and picked out any relevant details. The bases were a simple clear gel painted over a blue base, then dry brushed white after drying. Seeing them all together now is very satisfying and my son is really proud of his little Union flotilla.

I’m unsure how long this game will keep our interest but I can genuinely say I’m glad we painted them. It was a fun father-son project and has lit a fire under my son for naval combat and a new take on history he’s really running with. Of my projects this year, it’s probably one of my favorites. I hope to follow up with some World War 2 fleets later down the line but for now I’ve planned out a series of battles for us to play, perhaps actually culminating in the full scale Battle of Plum Point Bend. For now, though, I’m calling this project done.

One down, many many more to go.