Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Galleys and Galleys

Yesterday Mark Woods came round to try out his galleys with the Galleys and Galleons rules.

Game One


We kept things very simple.  Q3 C3 galleys with yare that meant they could make up to two 45 degree turns.

True to form Mark fails his first activation role.

My plan to get around his left is looking...

Not good at all.

However I am able to get in the first kill with a crippling broadside ram on an already damaged ship.

Some short range shooting ensues.

Jockeying for position.

Closing in.

Crunch

A close up of one of Mark's excellent galleys.

Two down and one to go (I'm the red fleet)

Watch out!

The remaining blue ship smashes through the opposition and heads for home.

Fair enough.

Game Two

The sign of a good game is wanting to play again.  This time we upped the number of galleys and added a bit of variety.  Each side now consisted of:
  • One Hexeres Q3 C4 Flagship and armed with forward firing catapults.
  • Three Quinqueremes Q3 C3
  • One Trihemoilae Q2 C2


All had the same turn ability as before.  The Trihemoilae probably should have been Q3 (actually no, our rating was right).,

Positioning photo of tools required.

One of my galleys rushed off ahead of the fleet (the simple activation system allows such things to happen, things that often occurred in real life)

The rash captain (or was he a traitor?) was boarded and captured.

I brought up my flagship and sank the traitor.  
I hoped it would act as encouragement for the other captains in my fleet 

I'm feeling surrounded.

Ramming sure gets results.  

Another ship has sunk as the two flagships face each other.

One of my quinqueremes is repeatedly rammed and it's not looking good.

My flagship is engaged successfully by the enemy Trihemolia.

The enemy Quinquereme had an epic activation fail after it wrecked my ship.

It deserved a second photo.
We are using counters from Sails of Glory to denote damage.  
The one with the wheel indicates oar damage.

The flagships are battling it out as are the two Trihemoilae.

My flagship is in trouble.  
My Trihemoilae is trying to get round to line up for a ram on the enemy flagship.  
Can it make it?

No.  

The remaining enemy quinquereme positions itself to protect its flagship.
My flagship is sunk.

My Trihemoila tries to escape, getting rammed in the process.

The chase is on.

Though heavily damaged my ship might still make it...

No.
The one on the blue dice means a roll on the All At Sea table and the white dice is the result.
Surrender.

Lots of fun and laughs.  Game played really well.  Simple, but gave plenty of thoughtful play.  

The other thing I would say about these rules is that they are incredibly flexible and very easy to tailor to ship types and scale.  Brilliant.

Post Script


Having gone back and looked at my rules folder I see I have a Galleys and Galleons: Ancient Mariners supplement that I should have used for ship profiles.  Doh!



6 comments:

  1. Glad you gents are enjoying the rules. The forthcoming expansion (Fayre Winds & Foul Tides) will introduce things like the Roman corvus and revise the ancient rosters in line with the the newly available abilities.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks. I will keep an eye out for the expansion.

      Delete
  2. Looks like a good game.

    Cheers,
    Aaron

    ReplyDelete
  3. Fun.

    Wish my generalship was as successful. Maybe I was a salty sea dog in a previous life.

    ReplyDelete