Jerry White is one of our favorite designers. He focuses on mostly solitaire wargames but he is very good at what he does and has a real talent for making a playable game out of any historical situation. Over the past couple of years, titles likes Atlantic Chase, Storm Above the Reich and Skies Over Britain have been released by GMT and are simply fantastic games that tell a great narrative. About a year ago, his newest title was announced that covers the development of submarine warfare during the American Civil War and is in partnership with Ed Ostermeyer called Infernal Machine: Dawn of Submarine Warfare. We reached out to them to see if they could shed some light on their design and they were happy to speak with us.

Grant: First off Jerry and Ed please tell us a little about yourselves. What are your hobbies? What’s your day job?

Ed: I’ve been a board game player since I was five years old, and a conflict simula- (oh, all right) a war-gamer since 1965 when I got a copy of Avalon Hill’s Stalingrad as a birthday gift.

My hobbies are gaming of all kinds, and also researching for the various projects of mine that are ongoing. The local libraries LOVE me. I am a voracious reader and enjoy dining out. My day job is food critic for my city’s newspaper.

Jerry: Besides gaming and game design, I suppose architectural touring is another hobby. I used to lead tours for the Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara for many years, and when I travel I always seek out interesting spaces. I teach architecture history, so maybe it’s too close to work to call it a hobby?

Grant: How did you come to team up on this design?

Ed: I’d just purchased the first volume of Jerry’s Enemy Coast Ahead Series, The Dambuster Raid, and was struck with the simulation’s depth of knowledge and adherence to historical fact. In learning to play The Dambuster Raid you started literally at the game’s climax, at the controls of your own Avro Lancaster heavy bomber on its bomb run, aiming your aircraft at a massive German hydroelectric dam that is the target of your 4,000 lb. cylindrical bomb, codenamed “Upkeep.”

Jerry’s second outing in the series was based on the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo and used the same “Learn the Game in Reverse” teaching method that added increasing levels of complexity and enjoyment the same way that The Dambusters game did. This got me thinking about what other conflict situations could be gamed based on the same teaching system as the Enemy Coast Ahead Series.

I sent Jerry a couple of emails on the subject, specifically wondering if some other well-known commando-style raids could serve as subject matter for the series.

For me, one raid in particular stood out from the others: During the American Civil War, the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley became the first successful submersible craft to sink an enemy Union Navy sloop, the USS Housatonic outside the harbor at Charleston, South Carolina. 

I’d been reading about the Hunley” eagerly learning its history, construction, the missions it was suited for and, most important of all, what kind of men would volunteer for duty and agree to be sealed inside a metal tube that, at the time was derisively called a “fishboat”?

Jerry: I see Ed gave you the official story, but lemme tell you what really happened. Every once in a while I receive a PM on BGG from somebody with a game idea. That’s how Ed approached me, only his message was over 2,000 words long. That was a bit crazy and set-off an alarm bell, but he was pretty thorough in his take on Enemy Coast Ahead. It was clear he knew the system, and, well, who doesn’t like a modicum of flattery every now and again? But let me do justice to the scene. I had just sat down to check messages after dinner, and my wife and I were to reconvene in a few minutes to watch an old movie. My wife is not a gamer, but she likes war-themed movies, and over dinner she had just suggested we re-watch The Guns of Navarone. I said “sure, why not?,” and then got up to clear and wash the dishes. So there I was, chardonnay in my barely dry hands reading this incredibly long PM from some enthusiast who writes 2,000 word private messages. A bit of amusement before the feature film, right? But then I do what used to be called a double-take. It stopped me in my tracks. You see, Ed’s idea for a new Enemy Coast Ahead game was…[you’re gonna think I’m making this up]…The Guns of Navarone. Yes, spooky and creepy and funny all at the same time. It was a surprise I didn’t spill my glass. For a moment I thought it was a gag perpetrated by my wife, but the message was too thorough, too long, and my wife doesn’t even know what BGG is.

Well, turns out it was just a wacky coincidence. Ed was sincere and not crazy. Not the bad kind of crazy, anyway. Crazy enough to move from game idea to game idea until we settled on what very well may be the most obscure war-game topic ever, submarines in the American Civil War. Actually, I don’t know who’s the craziest here: us for designing this game or GMT for agreeing to publish it.

Grant: What strengths do each of you bring to the design process?

Ed: I have a passion for historical research that grew out of my parents teaching me to read with comprehension at the age of three. I was educated in a superb public school system and then had the good fortune to access the knowledge of some of the smartest people in university and in industry. As a “war” gamer, I grew up during the “Warring Clubs” phase of the hobby, designing “Arnhem and Operation Market-Garden” for Spartan International’s bi-monthly magazine way back in 1971. Historical accuracy is a ”must” in the games I enjoy, and I like to think it shows up in the games I design.

Jerry: Partnerships are tricky. You have to find the right fit, complimenting each other’s capabilities or amplifying them. I have experience designing mechanisms and systems, while Ed dives deep into research. Seriously deep. I’ve learned more doing this game, and more from Ed, than I’ve learned doing all the other games combined.

Grant: What historical period does Infernal Machine cover?

Ed: The “Infernal Machine” era is the mid-19th Century between 1850 and 1880, the peak of the worldwide Industrial Revolution. The Crimean War (1853 – 56) saw steam-power propulsion begin to replace sails in the warships of the globe’s navies and also in its merchant fleets, Also, iron was replacing the wood in their hulls. 

It was during the American Civil War that the world of the 19th Century had its first terrifying glimpse of war as it would be fought in the 20th Century.

No longer were campaigns shackled to the seasons or the harvest.

This was “Total War,” fought year-round in all weathers, involving the belligerents’ entire population either in the home, the factory or on the battlefield.

During the Civil War, both portions of the former “United” States operated in much the same manner, each country’s military muscles and sinews being formed in and poured out of factories along arteries of steel rails, guided by a mechanical/electric nervous system called the telegraph; a telegraph that also served as a conduit (one of many) for intelligence gathering, orders and command transmittal and distribution, all of it happening electrically, and at the speed of light. Where the difference between making war as Union or Confederate shows up is in the level of regional industrialization that each side started with, and how they were able to bend their regional industrial prowess to the task at hand.

Jerry: I can add that this is definitely an American Civil War game, but not your usual one. It affords an opportunity to expand the scope of what the game covers. It’s not just about battles and technology, it’s also about the arc of the war as seen through the eyes of machinist-entrepreneurs.

Grant: What was the inspiration for the title?

Ed: In the mid-19th Century, any device or weapon of war that stalked its prey and then eliminated it through the use of mechanical or scientific devices or skills was termed an “Infernal Machine.” During the American Civil War, the term was initially given to a crude mechanical device called a “torpedo.” The device contained an explosive charge that could be triggered either by an internal contact, a clockwork fuse or by an electrical current sent through an insulated wire. Because a “fishboat” was designed to approach its target by stealth, delivering its killing blow without giving the target a chance to hit back, it too was termed an “Infernal Machine,” with its crew members scorned as cowards, pirates and worse because they “would not fight honorably.” 

Jerry: Personally, I find the anthro-technological aspects of this subject matter rather interesting. Human bodies not just operating machinery, but climbing inside the machine to operate it, at their own peril. The words “machine” and “infernal” strike the right chord.

Grant: Who was Lieutenant George E. Dixon?

Ed: Let me tell you a story from history.

George E. Dixon was a lieutenant in the Confederate  21st Alabama Regulars regiment. The 21st was raised among the docks and wharves of Mobile, Alabama. Because of this, many members of this regiment possessed knowledge of mechanical and material engineering, especially involving devices of a nautical nature.

The 21st Alabama received its “blooding” at the battle of Shiloh, as part of Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston’s Army of Mississippi. The 21st lost six color bearers and over 200 men fighting in a blood-soaked thicket known as “The Hornet’s Nest.”

During the battle, Dixon was shot, taking a minie ball to his left thigh. However, the ball struck a $20 gold piece in his trouser pocket that Dixon had received from Queenie, his sweetheart.

Queenie’s gold piece not only saved Dixon’s leg; it probably saved his life.

After the battle, Dixon had the badly dented gold piece engraved:

Shiloh

April 6th 1862

My life Preserver GED

Returning home for convalescence, Dixon became involved in the “fishboat” project being constructed at Mobile’s Park & Lyon Machine Shop. Because of his nautical engineering skills, Dixon was given leave from the Confederate Army to join the team working at Park & Lyon.

Dixon stayed put in Mobile at Park & Lyon when the team and their fishboat were ordered to Charleston, SC to help lift the Union Navy’s blockade of that fair city. He’d made several trips back and forth between the two cities, assisting in the resolution of design, construction and personnel issues. Dixon was in Mobile when the Hunley suffered its first mishap, sinking during a training mission with the loss of five out of eight crewmen. He was also away from Charleston when the second training mishap occurred, this time taking all seven lives of crew and that of their commander, Horace L. Hunley.

After the second sinking, the commander of the Charleston defenses, Confederate General Pierre Beauregard stated flatly that he would refuse to allow any more crewmen to serve in that “coffin.” This brought George E. Dixon from Mobile to plead the Hunley’s case with Beauregard who, like himself, was a fellow veteran of Shiloh. Under Dixon’s persuasion, Beauregard acquiesced, even allowing Dixon to call for volunteers from among the sailors and soldiers of Charleston to crew the Hunley. After training these volunteers into a crack crew, Dixon took them and the Hunley out several times beyond the safety of the Charleston harbor defenses, stalking a blockading enemy vessel.

On the night of February 17th, 1864, the Hunley, Dixon and his stalwarts accomplished their mission, sinking the new Union sloop of war, USS Housatonic.

After the Housatonic sank, Dixon and the Hunley were to return to their base.

They never made it back home.

Upon the recovery of the Hunley itself in August, 2000, the remains of Dixon and his crew were returned home to Charleston after 138 years on the submariners’ tradition of “Eternal Patrol.”

Transferred to Charleston’s Lasch Conservation Center, the Hunley’s hull was carefully opened. Commander Dixon and his crew were discovered to be still at their posts. It was forensic anthropologist Dr. Maria Jacobsen who uncovered Dixon’s remains, still at the helm of the Hunley beneath its forward hatch.

As she reverently removed Commander Dixon’s skeletal remains, half-buried in sand and concretions, Jacobsen felt a round metal object resting on top of Dixon’s left thigh bone.

It was Dixon’s dented $20 gold piece.

Hardly believing what she held in her hand, Jacobsen cleaned all the underwater debris from the coin, and checked for the inscription:

Shiloh

April 6th 1862

My life Preserver GED

In a quiet voice, Jacobsen announced her find to her colleagues.

Lieutenant George E. Dixon had, finally, come home.

Jerry: I see you triggered Ed’s pen. That’s precisely the sort of question he relishes. There are a number of interesting and pathetic (or pathetique?) stories touched by this subject matter.

Grant: With the game being set during the American Civil War what do we need to know about the time period and its connection to the Infernal Machine?

Ed: The American Civil War was one of the first three wars (the other two being the Crimean War, 1853 – 56, and the Austrian War of 1866) that were fought in the mid-19th Century Industrial Age. The engines of destruction forged during this period were fearsomely more deadly and destructive than those of previous conflicts, and not just to the combatants themselves; damage from these engines of destruction could now be visited, not just upon the opposing armies and navies, but upon the manufacturing and supply network that fed and armed them. For the first time, the civilian infrastructure of a nation (people, cities, railroads, shipping, etc.) found itself deliberately targeted for its role as the means of manufacturing and transporting the materiel of war that the enemy didn’t want aimed at them.

Industrial Age warfare found its apotheosis in the 100 million-plus casualties and worldwide devastation of the 20th Century’s two world wars, both of which were fought with what is now ironically termed “conventional weapons.” 

Jerry: Besides the 1866 war there were others fought in that same vicinity that gave birth to the German nation-state. Britain and France were both keen to get the jump on competitors, and they both watched the American Civil War with interest, with an eye for technological innovation. The key for us and the game is that this nascent submarine tech was also germinating on the drawing boards and workshops and naval yards of all the imperial and colonial powers. Both north and south developed this tech, but it was the Confederacy that felt the urgency to use it immediately, given its naval inferiority. The game includes both sides, so you can build and run a northern fishboat or a Confederate one. The mission types are quite different, north from south; this asymmetry really comes through in the campaign. There, the downward spiral of the Confederate economy is felt by the player, though the southern government’s hands-off attitude comes through as well.

When playing the north, your fishboat will soon be commissioned in the US Navy.

Not so in the south: you remain a privateer looking to reap a bounty.

Grant: What is the meaning of the subtitle “Dawn of Submarine Warfare”?

Ed: Americans have used underwater craft since the Revolutionary War, David Bushnell’s barrel-shaped “Turtle,” was cobbled together with parts available from any blacksmith and cooper, all of it one-off and handmade. It took the advent of the Industrial Revolution with its advances in smelting and alloying metallurgic processes that would, in turn lead to custom manufacturing of multiple and standardized components that could now be assembled piece by piece instead of handcrafted. In turn was created, not just a single underwater weapon of war, but also duplicate vessels copied from a standardized plan. Also provided were the replacement parts to repair the Underwater Wonder, rather having to custom-build a replacement in its entirety, as Bushnell would have had to do.

Jerry: I find the beginnings of things fascinating. The engineers of the 1860’s blundered and stumbled, and many died inside their own inventions. The birth of a new technology is usually raw and imperfect, and that’s what’s so interesting here.

Grant: What research did you do to get the details correct? What one must read source would you recommend?

Ed: My column “Infernal Machine” on the GMTGames.com website has a (very) partial bibliography of more than thirty books and manuscripts that I have used in my research for the design of Infernal Machine: Dawn of Submarine Warfare.

For the best single work on the subject, I recommend:

Ragan, Mark K., “Union & Confederate Submarine Warfare in the Civil War,” Mason City, IA, 1999 Savas Publishing, ISBN-10: 1882810325

Ragan’s book has been my compass and guide through my design of Infernal Machine. His enthusiasm for his subject matter can sometimes get the best of him, but for me that just helps to elevate the work into one real page-turner of a reference source. 

I can see its well-thumbed cover grinning at me from the bookshelf over my desk. 

In addition to the number of books I’ve purchased, as well as information both online and via microfiche, I’ve been fortunate to have access to the Charles Sherrod Library at East Tennessee State University that has possibly the best, certainly the most patient and long-suffering staff and librarians it has been my good fortune to work with.

Additionally, I was granted access to the Lasch Conservation Center in North Charleston, SC where the H.L. Hunley itself is currently being catalogued and restored. Though the Lasch Center is only open to the public on weekends, Center Director Dr. Kellen Butler was kind enough to grant me sixty minutes of her time on a very busy weekday and guide me on a “hands-on” tour of the facility. As Dr. Butler and I moved from section to section, I could sense the shades crowding around us, making sure that the story be told and their sacrifice remembered. 

Jerry: Wow Grant, I’m impressed by Ed’s discipline here. He amassed a library of books and pamphlets, and even interviewed folks at the Lasch Center in Charleston where the hulk of the Hunley is housed. Trust me, he’s giving you only a hint of the reading he’s done. We will include Ed’s extensive bibliography in the published game. 

As far as Ragan goes, that probably is the best single source to read. It covers both north and south, and is written with enough spirit to get the gamer’s enthusiasm in gear. The author is an amateur sleuth and I found some of his assertions unconvincing, but he does present his evidence which allows readers to make of it what they will.

Grant: This is not a conventional wargame. But players are in charge of designing and building a submarine. What led you to choose this focus?

Ed: The more I delved into the story of the H.L. Hunley, the more I became fascinated with the individual mechanics and engineers who were the first men that actually designed and built an underwater marvel of conveyance and mayhem known in the vernacular as a “fishboat.” Next, my interest turned to the money folks: those companies and individuals that, by a mixture of patriotism and avarice, saw the newfangled fishboat as a means, not just to win the war, defeating the hated Yankee or traitorous Rebel, and also enable you yourself or your company to make a pile of money at the same time.

Horace L. Hunley, the man who gave his life and his name for his fishboat, was one of these investor/patriots. Though employed as Assistant Collector of Customs for the port of New Orleans at the outset of the Civil War, Hunley was also a trained mechanical engineer, as well as a “Southern Gentleman” who was “Something in the City,” which meant he was a commodities speculator. It was Hunley who provided the financial wherewithal for mechanics James McClintock and Baxter Watson to move from their modest New Orleans’ machine shop to a larger and better-equipped Leeds Foundry, there to begin construction on their first submersible of war, the CSS Pioneer. Hunley’s network of investors, machinists and patriots was the financial motor that kept their “fishboat” project in the black.

I want the game player to experience what was going on in the machine shop’s back office; experience what it took to run the project as a business.

A decision by the player whether to choose a spar torpedo or a reinforced ram prow as the submersible’s primary weapon could mean a difference not only in the fishboat’s seaworthiness and cost of materials, but also the number of qualified employees required to complete its construction.

Jerry: When Ed and I first hit upon this topic, I pulled out my notes and the one book I owned on the Hunley. At that time – it seems so naive now – I really thought we were designing a Hunley game. I think Ed felt the same way, but as we expanded our sources a much larger horizon opened before us. And as we read, we found the design decisions, and dilemmas, rather interesting. My first career was in architecture, so I personally find the design of those contraptions fascinating. Why not give the player the joy of designing an infernal machine? Or put another way, why deprive the player that joy?

Ed and I started with the Enemy Coast Ahead model, where the player is presented with the challenge of modifying and training existing assets, perhaps even recruiting new assets, to accomplish a discrete military objective. Designing the fishboat is consistent with that premise.

Grant: As a solitaire game what type of experience does the game create?

Ed: “Immersive” describes the experience. As the Inventor, it takes what is in the player’s head and germinates it into the idea of what his fishboat will look like; what propulsion system it will use (there are several to choose from) and what its offensive weapon will be. The Inventor should be constantly attentive to possible pitfalls strewn across his path. Often, the player will be barreling merrily along building his fishboat, only to discover that the weight of his primary weapon makes the craft too unwieldy to handle during its attack run.

Once the fishboat is built, the player will then switch roles into that of the boat’s captain, and begin mission planning, first for training your crew, then later using your trained crew in an Attack Mission. You’ll have to deal with the weather, the roughness of the seas or the river’s current, the alertness of your enemy and whatever the Fortunes of War Cyclopedia throws at you. 

Jerry:  I can’t add to Ed’s description, except to note the asymmetry of playing north and south. When playing the campaign, it may feel like you face a different challenge as the US player compared to playing the Confederate player.

Grant: How do players go about seeking out investors for their creations? What choices are available to players in this phase?

Ed: Initially, an Investor is chosen at the start of the campaign game, the amount of the investment they bring becoming seed money going towards the initial materials inventory as well as the hiring fees for Mechanics and Journeymen who will be joining your team.

Additional Investors are not recruited as Mechanics and Journeymen are; they have their own way of joining your team. For instance, if your fishboat successfully completes a mission, and all went well, a new Investor may want a piece of the action.

Jerry: There are a variety of ways the player can garner the funds to build his machine and recruit its personnel. Contracts and investment opportunities will arise, and it is up to the player to act on them or to focus on other things. As Ed noted, performing well can have the side-benefit of attracting new Investors. There’s nothing like success to attract money.

Grant: What causes material and labor costs to fluctuate?

Ed: Primary cause of material and labor cost fluctuation is caused by events happening outside your machine shop, either locally, nationally or globally. The fluctuation is most evident when playing the Confederacy, with changes determined by a seasonal table of results in the Fortunes of War Cyclopedia.

Jerry: Though material and labor costs may initially fluctuate for the northern player, once the submarine is commissioned, the Union player doesn’t have to worry too much about funds since Uncle Sam handles all that. For the Confederate player, however, prices do fluctuate. There is a “Prices Gauge” that will slowly move in the wrong direction during the course of the campaign, and pretty soon what used to be cheap is now precious.

Grant: What options are players provided with to build their fish boat?

Ed: The player can select one of the ready-made fishboat plans provided for use in the Scenarios. Alternatively, the player can begin his campaign with a custom build, creating his underwater marvel using the boat tiles and mechanism tiles provided in the game, and letting their imagination “have at it.”

Will you add a second ballast tank for better trim control during a dive?

Would you be better served by giving up on a crew-powered propulsion system and install a boiler engine? Yes, the boiler engine will be faster than using hand-power, but your boat will also lose the ability to submerge…and coal smoke from a steam engine’s chimney does attract the eye.

Jerry: The most fundamental decision you will make as designer has to do with propulsion. Smaller fishboats like the CSS David were equipped with boiler engines, making them smaller, faster, and very deadly. Just ask the captain of the USS New Ironsides. But the liability of that propulsion is stealth. A boiler operating at speed is loud and visible. Submerge it in the sea or the river and you extinguish the boiler. So, are you willing to trade speed for invisibility? If you say “No” to the boiler engine, you may wind up propelling your fishboat with arms and backs of your crew. (Crank baby, crank!)

Silent and submersible. I’m sure the captain of the USS Housatonic could tell you how lethal that combination can be.  

Grant: How are crew characteristics such as morale, strength and engineering expertise modeled? How can these improve?

Jerry: I’ll take this one. Good questions! Each crewman is represented by a card, and the card is printed with a variety of attributes. Strength, Iron Nerves, Expertise, and in many cases a unique ability or vulnerability. Those don’t improve, but some combinations are possible, such as a crewman imparting the Repair attribute to a fellow crewman in his space. The crew as a whole can improve, however, as measured by the Training Level. Each mission has the potential to increase that level, and each level unlocks a new perk. It can also go down if you add new men to the crew.

Grant: What is the anatomy of the Crew Cards? Can you show us a few examples?

Jerry: The cards have evolved during the design process, and may still change. The art is not final, but here are images that illustrate where we are now. The top band contains information used only during a mission, while the info below that band applies to the campaign in between missions.

Grant: What do the various tactical port maps look like? What are the key features?

Jerry: Here is a sample. We have four Mission Boards, each 11×17, two presenting coastal ports the other two presenting rivers. Very different challenges.

Grant: What types of scenarios are included? How is the campaign game setup and played?

Ed: The Scenarios are pre-packaged, designed as tutorials to help the player get started playing the game from the moment he opens the game box. As with Enemy Coast Ahead, the first scenario puts the player in charge of the fishboat H.L. Hunley beginning its final attack run on the USS Housatonic. Once the first scenario is completed, the player can move on to the second scenario, then the third and so on. Or, he can replay Scenario 1, but in command of a different fishboat; there are four Confederate submersibles provided in the game: CSS Pioneer, the American Diver and the Hunley, along with the torpedo boat CSS David. Also included is one very unique Union fishboat; the USS Alligator.

Of course, if you are planning to run a campaign you can use any one of these five boats, or build your own customized fishboat from the keel up. In this instance, you start by performing the Campaign setup. Then, following the Campaign Sequence of Play, you first gain income from your machine shop as noted on the Gauges Card, along with any income from contract(s) for that season. If the season is Winter, you may also have supplemental income from your current slate of Investors. Next, you consult the season’s Fortunes of War table, rolling a die to determine how the current season (Spring, 1861, for instance) will treat with you. Caution: you could go into debt during this phase. At this point in the Campaign sequence of play, you may perform the number of Actions listed on the Year and Season Calendar portion of the Gauges Card.

For example, you may decide to move your Machine Shop’s location.

You could perform a salvage or a repair operation if your fishboat has been damaged or worse, lost. If you decide to pay for and add boat tiles or mechanisms to your fishboat, but only what your crew’s Engineering Expertise capacity allows you. You can accept a Contract to acquire additional funds, but only if you apply a Mechanic or Journeyman with the correct about of Expertise to oversee the Contract’s completion.

The Confederate player may appeal to the War Office for a Letter of Recruitment which will allow him to access the Confederate States Navy rolls to choose Sailors, or he may make an Appeal for a Letter of Marque from the Confederate Government, which is a document needed to attack Union warships and merchantmen as a ‘legalized pirate,’ known as a “privateer.” The Union player, having met the construction and training requirements, may attempt to have his fishboat Commissioned into the US Navy.

Lastly, you may decide to take your fishboat on a Mission, either the Training or the Attack variety. Playing either will recall to the player what he has learned from playing the scenarios; here he will play the Mission to its Completion, whether successful or not. 

Grant: How does the game differ when playing Union or Confederate?

Ed: Though the player as Inventor will frequently make choices and decisions that will affect the design, production and use of his Infernal Machine, he will do so in two very different economic, political and military systems.

At the start, each player acts on their own. You run the fishboat project as a machine shop: hiring Journeymen and Mechanics and purchasing parts. Eventually, or maybe very soon, you will have a seaworthy submarine, and by then you will select many of your recruits to serve as crewmen. At this point, the campaign’s asymmetry creeps in. The Union player can’t just take his machine out and sail around trying to blow stuff up; Navy Secretary Welles won’t allow it. After securing a Commission, Welles in his role as Father Neptune will assign player, machine and crew to a location, usually a port but more likely to one of the Blockades. Meanwhile, down South, the Confederate player must secure a Letter of Marque that will allow his fishboat to operate in hostile waters. While the Commissioned Union player no longer has to pay for modifications and maintenance to the fishboat, the Confederate player will be continually looking for opportunities to raise the funds needed for repairs and improvements to the infernal machine its crew.

Meanwhile, the Fortunes of War are in motion, affecting each side differently. Aspects and events of the larger war impinge on what the player is striving to do.

For the Confederate player, despite military and diplomatic successes, the South’s economy will inevitably wind up caught between rising inflation and lack of materials, causing prices of what’s left to increase. Confederate press gangs are ever-present. They may storm the machine shop and take some of your men away to serve in the dwindling Confederate army.

The Union side has its own problems to contend with, including a Navy bureaucracy that will send you to unusual locations, and is always late and has the necessary excuse to explain themselves.

Yep, there are big differences in what side you play in Infernal Machine.    

Grant: How are the Action Boards used? What is their layout?

Jerry: We’re now calling them Mission Boards, to distinguish them from the two Tactical Boards. I already noted what the Mission Boards are all about, although I can add that they are organized by spaces that you navigate through with your fishboat to the target. Detection by the enemy is key, but just as important is the problem of propulsion and navigation. In fact, for an arm-powered propulsion system, the sea is as lethal as the enemy.

The two Tactical Boards present the space in the immediate vicinity of the target. The fishboat must acquire the target while on the Mission Board, initiating an Attack Run. That’s when the action shifts to the Tactical Board. There its do or die.

Grant: What is the layout of the Mechanics Board? Can you show us a few examples?

Jerry: The Mechanics Board is now called the Gauges Board, used only for the campaign. It allows the player to track a number of things such as the Alert Level, Prices, the crew’s Training Level, and the money the player has on hand. It also has a space for the Location Card, which sits on the calendar. Each campaign turn the player makes a random events check on the Fortunes of War Table, and then performs actions. The calendar tells you how many actions you have, modified by some recruits and by the Location Card. The Fortunes of War Table is unique for each side, and unique for each season of each year. It provides a sense of the war’s larger progression and keeps the game’s narrative on a loosely historical track. For the Confederate player, that means they will feel the Confederacy shrinking as Union armies and naval assets remove Location Cards from play.

Grant: What is the general Sequence of Play?

Ed: The Sequence of Play depends upon whether you are playing one of the Scenarios, or running a campaign.

Jerry: Right. The Sequence of Play has evolved during this design process. Each campaign turn commences with the roll of a d10 on the Fortunes of War Table. You might enjoy a modest benefit, or maybe suffer a small challenge, but either way you will get the sense that game action is set in the context of the larger war. That’s followed by the Action Phase, where you select 1-4 actions from a menu of approximately 6-8 options, depending on which side you’re playing. One of those options, or actions, is the initiation of a mission.

Ed: Yes, and when you choose to perform that action, you setup the Mission Board. Dice are rolled to establish the nautical and atmospheric conditions, but you have the ability to alter those conditions, but at a cost. Not a cost in money. No, you pay by tempting fate.

Jerry: Yes! There is a Fate Pool of cubes that grows and shrinks during a mission. Red cubes are bad, black cubes are good (this accountant’s scheme was developed in the US during the mid-19th century, so we continue its use here as depicting  “Good”, (black) and “Bad (Red). Crucial moments of the mission are decided by the draw of one or more cubes, such as the drift of the fishboat in a rough sea, or the detonation and subsequent concussion of the torpedo against the target. Cubes start entering the Fate Pool during the campaign; some rare recruits add them, as do some mechanisms. Most cubes populate the Fate Pool during the mission as events transpire, giving you the general sense that things are going well, or maybe not very well at all. Morale, malfunctions, and the vagaries of the water shape the Fate Pool, and often you are asked to make a decision involving that process.

Ed: After the mission, repairs are made, while panicked crewmen are either kept or “let go” (just try to stop them!). Should you complete the mission successfully, your Training Level may increase or a new Investor may want to back your project.      

Grant: What are you most pleased about with the design?

Ed: What I enjoy most is the variety in the “layers” of possible actions and their outcomes that affect each and every game turn.

In December 2021, when Jerry and I first offered Infernal Machine to GMT Games’ P500, a YouTube video from a game reviewer named Zilla Blitz said that Infernal Machine would be a game that you’d have as much fun losing as you would winning. I was gratified by that, because it touches on what we’re after.

Jerry: That’s a tough one. Game design is like wrestling a greased havelina. It’s unpleasant in so many ways but just try letting go! And holding on is no easy task. You have a glimpse of the finished game, a game you really want to play, but it slips this way and that way the harder you squeeze.

We’ve gone from things falling effortlessly into place to things just not working, and now we’re back with things falling into place (there was effort!). Ed shares my patience, thank goodness, so we let the design take shape at its own pace and right now I am liking this game quite a lot. It satisfies three goals: 1. It immerses the player in the Civil War. Civil War games may be many and varied but they all feel like you’re pushing little squares across a map of Gettysburg. In this game you’ll feel like there’s a war going on. 2. You will come to appreciate why no one in their right mind or less than desperate would climb into a fishboat and then propel that ridiculous machine into the water. 3. There are many submarine wargames out there, but if we let the war-game market tell us the history of the military submarine we’d think that history started in 1914. This game pulls the threshold of that history into the mid-nineteenth century.

Grant: What has been the response of play testers?

Ed: I have two local board game enthusiasts who’ve been kind enough to act as play testers. Both are veteran strategy gamers. One in particular is a Civil War enthusiast, a Civil War re-enactor who is very picky about how historically accurate any game that deals with the Civil War is. My choice of these two play testers was made so that I could get a different take on how the game played, what the game was attempting to prove, how historically accurate it was, whether it “jived” with their interpretation of the game as history and lastly, whether it was fun to play.

So far, the news has been good.

Jerry: Now that the campaign system has been resolved, we asked GMT to get us VASSAL and Tabletop Simulator modules. That will allow for testing at a hearty scale. Volunteers have stepped up and we’re cranking!

Grant: What other designs are you working on?

Ed: Though Infernal Machine occupies the majority of my interest and attention at present, I’ve two additional concepts for games that have varying levels of complexity and player involvement.

One of them deals with choo-choo trains, and the other doesn’t.

Jerry: Ed’s being coy, but I’ll tell you that his choo-choo game is also a Civil War game. Huzzah!

As for me, I’m working on volume two in the Intercept Series, Pacific Chase. And I’m collaborating on two other projects in the Skies Above Series. Geez, when Mark Aasted and I did Skies Above the Reich, we really thought of it as a one-off. It was so specific to the combat box we ruled out applying the system to other settings and situations. But then came Gina Willis and now Terry Simo and Ken Tee.

Thank you for your time in answering our questions Jerry and Ed. I enjoyed each of your contributions to the interview and really can feel your comradery and teamwork on this project. That makes me want to play it even more than before.

If you are interested in Infernal Machine: Dawn of Submarine Warfare, you can pre-order a copy for $55.00 from the GMT Games website at the following link: https://www.gmtgames.com/p-963-infernal-machine-dawn-of-submarine-warfare.aspx

-Grant