Kaboom!

[larry marak]

I kinda think they're copyrighted right now. They exist to make the river hexes a flowing sinuous carpet across two maps. The ships are battling the river as much as each other. To depict this accurately the riverine movement system actually reminds me of Task Force Games' Star Fleet Battles. The ship drawings are Avalanche naval architecture at its best. The smaller single counter boats benefit from a good illuminated magnifier to drink in all the detail, but the double length counters display the turrets and tertiary guns magnificently. Looks to me like the Rumanian flotilla has commitment issues. Lots of life rafts (to be known as splinters after the first volleys of an engagement). The ships are well armed, but unarmored. They are very buoyant however, to it takes 4 hits to turn them into driftwood. There is ramming and assault combat, shore bombardment, minelaying, drifting into minefields, getting grounded. Anything that happened in American Civil War combat can happen here. And these ships are armed customs cruisers fighting in the first weeks of what will prove to be a long war. Wait till purpose-built warships take to the brown waters in the coming years of the conflict!