A Complicated Man

We went to see 'The Odyssey' this weekend, and enjoyed it. 

And who doesn't go and see a film and feel inspired to some kind of game afterwards?

Now I did think that it would be possible to run a solo Galleys & Galleons game where a hero in a ship (or with a squadron of ships) has to cross a table dotted with hazards, and the rules would certainly allow that. It might not be a very interesting game, since the hazards would be static, but it has possibilities. 

However I ended up just setting up a straight galley fight using Galleys & Galleons. 

And then I fiddled with it slightly. Why not add some heroic elements?

So here we are. 

It's the Trojan War, or at least a version of it. The Trojans have sent a squadron of ships to harass the Greek supply lines. Agamemnon send Odysseus with the ships from Ithaca to intercept them.

Both sides had a single command consisting of a trireme flagship, four triremes and four biremes. All pretty standard so far. However I gave the Ithacans Odysseus in command, so his flagship counted as Charismatic, and had Expert Rowers. On the Trojan flagship was a priest of Poseidon, who counted as a Hydromancer. 

I set the terrain randomly (after laying an obligatory coastline), and it ended up with one small offshore island. Random positioning for the squadrons saw them approaching each other diagonally, with the Trojans being inshore. 

The Ithacans (foreground, in red) sent their biremes to the left of the island and the triremes to the right. The Trojans (green) had their triremes in the centre, with a pair of biremes covering each flank. 

Here's the position a couple of turns in. In both cases the flagship is to the rear of the triremes. 

The Trojan centre split, with some triremes going after the Ithacan biremes (top of picture) and others heading for an exposed trireme and bireme on the right. The priest of Poseidon used his power to drive back an Ithacan bireme. 

At the bottom right you can see the first attack of the game - a Trojan trireme rammed an Ithacan bireme scoring light damage.  

The Ithacan response was fast and deadly. Three triremes rowed fast and hard, ramming three enemy triremes. This heavily damaged one and crippled a third. 

Out on the Ithacan left one of their biremes rammed a Trojan bireme and took it after a short boarding action. It was rammed in turn, but survived. 

The Trojans struggled with activations and seemed to be pretty much paralysed. On teh next turn their flagship, now isolated, was rammed by three enemy vessels and reduced to matchwood. 

The Ithacans now began a simple process of mopping up. As with most of my galley fights I set the breakpoint at 50%, with a flagship counting as two ships. The Trojans had already lost four vessels on that basis. 

At the bottom right two Ithacan triremes attack a couple of Trojan counterparts. And to the left an Ithacan bireme finished off a crippled Trojan trireme, ending the action. 

So the Trojans lost four vessels including their flagship, and another was crippled. The Ithacans had a couple of vessels badly damaged, but that was it. Odysseus took no direct part in the battle, although his leadership bonus allowed his ships to do that effective initial strike that effectively saw the beginning of the end for the Trojans. 

It was a quick game, but I played it in bits whilst doing other things, so it filled in some time in a pleasant manner. I need to try more games with magic.