Beyond Triremes

Yesterday morning I finished painting and basing some additions to my ancient galley forces, so that  afternoon I gave them their first outing. Once again Syracuse faced the Carthaginians, but this time both sides had some new ships. Syracuse fielded five triremes and five new quiniqueremes (including a flagship), whilst Carthage had nine triremes and a quadreme flagship. Quinqueremes and quadremes differ from the triremes in having proper ranged armament. The full stats are:

Triremes - Q3 C3 - Galley, Ramming, Unarmed, Shallow Draft, Yare

Quadrireme - Q3 C3 - Galley, Ramming, Reinforced Hull, Veteran NCOs

Quinquereme - Q4 C4 - Galley, Ramming, Expert Oarsmen

I randomised the terrain and setup again, and the battle took place in fairly dense terrain. This presented some minor issues, especially for the Syracusans, since the new larger vessels don't have the shallow draft trait and are therefore in danger if they stray too close to land.

The Syracusans are on the left, with their quinqueremes in the foreground, and a flanking force beyond them. The Carthaginians (right) formed up in two lines, with their quadreme flagship in the centre of teh second line.

The Carthaginians. The quadreme is in the centre of the second line, distinguished by having a full deck.

The Syracusans. The quinqueremes also have a full deck, and are a little longer than the triremes.

Opening moves. The lower quality of the quinqueremes meant that their advance was slower, and the ships from Carthage were soon bearing down on the straights where the action was inevitably going to take place. Carthage detached four ships to deal with the Syracusan flanking force.

The first ram - A Carthaginian trireme rams one of its Syracusan opposite numbers.

A quinquereme rams a Carthaginian trireme, smashing its oars.

But the 'fives' also have artillery on their upper deck, and a close-range shot damages and holes the Carthaginian vessel.

To the north of the main engagement, the first rams had already taken place, but luck wasn't with the Carthaginians who inflicted no damage.

The two sides lined up - the Syracusans were content to sit back and use firepower at this stage, although to little effect.

North of the action the Syracusans suffered their first casualty - outnumbered two to one in a boarding action, of their triremes surrendered.

In the main battle the two lines were now engaged. The Carthaginians' ramming was reduced in effect by striking larger ships, and the Syracusans had inflicted a little damage with their artillery. Ships were now grappled and boarding actions were taking place along the line.

In the centre, the Carthaginian flag had been rammed and crippled.

An overview of the confused action.

Syracusan catapults sunk the Carthaginian flag. This would seriously hinder their command and control for the rest of the game.

Both sides now had struck or sunk ships in the line, which made it hard for either side to move past the battle and exploit any advantages they had. Without a shallow draft the quinqueremes can't risk crossing wrecks (which count as shallows), so couldn't easily break through the gap in the Carthaginian line. And the island and edge of the board prevented a flanking move. So the quinqueremes backed off, looking to go the long way around the island.

As they did so, one remained in action, taking out another Carthaginian ship. But a quinquereme had come off worse in a boarding action and had struck.

To the north the action hadn't gone well for Syracuse. Both forces had been out of their flagship's command radius, so action had been sporadic, but the Carthaginians, with four triremes to the Syracusans' three, had exploited their advantage and forced all three enemy ships to surrender.

That was sufficient to, once again, take the Syracusans to over 50% losses, so they withdrew.

The losses. Five Syracusan ships surrendered, and one was sunk. They lost all of their triremes, but only one 'five'. Three Carthaginian ships surrendered, and their flagship was sunk.

The new ship types did make for an interesting game, although the close terrain probably didn't allow them to shine as much as they could. The next stage is to make some more quadremes. They are an interesting ship in that in terms of game stats they are very similar to the quinqueremes, but have a higher quality, so actually have a slight edge over them. Both are good against the lighter triremes, but the quinqueremes have a slight edge in the weight of their artillery when it comes to shooting at them. In addition the next batch should include one or two sexaremes, which, in game terms, are a quinquereme with some extras, especially with regard to boarding.