Lots Of Galleys

I realise that I hadn't done the obligatory 'I finished painting another batch of galleys' post, but before we went away for the weekend that's exactly what I did. Yesterday I had a chance to get a few of them on the table for a game.

Basically I have rounded out my forces with more quadremes and quinqueremes, as well as adding a number of biremes as well. I've also made a couple of hexaremes, which will act as flaghips.

I set up the traditional Syracuse vs Carthage game, with equal forces. Each force consisted of twelve ships - a hexareme flagship, three quiniqueremes, three quadremes, three triremes and two biremes. I randomised the terrain and semi-randomised the deployments.

Here's the setup-up, with Carthage (red) in the foreground and Syracuse (white/yellow) on the other side of the table.

The action developed slowly with both sides sending biremes and triremes to the eastern side of one of the islands in order to outflank the opposition.

Syracuse took the first casualty with one of their triremes being rammed and boarded by the Carthaginians.

Eventually the two sides got into action in the centre. Syracuse led with its quinqueremes, looking to move their quadremes round to support the flanks. Carthage pushed forward with their quadremes, whilst their quinqueremes lagged behind. Both of these classes of ships have artillery, so ramming would be preceded by some shooting.

Carthage took their first casualty as one of their quadremes was rammed amidships and sunk.

More action in the centre.

To be honest I got so wrapped up in the game that I didn't really keep notes on what was happening. Beyond the island the triremes and biremes had inflicted casualties on each other, but Carthage had managed to work a couple of ships onto the Syracusan left flank. In the centre both sides exchanged artillery fire, but as you can see here a couple of Carthaginian biremes were on the attack.

The end of a bad turn for Carthage, with three of their ships sunk. As I normally do I set 50% casualties as the breakpoint, and was surprised to find that both sides were one ship away from it; it was proving to be a close action.

But it was Carthage that inflicted the winning blow, with one of their quinqueremes rowing through some wreckage to ram a Syracusan quinquereme and sink it.

The losses. Syracuse had lost one quinqueremes sunk and two others struck, as well as a quadreme, triremes and biremes struck. Carthage lost a trireme and quinquereme struck, and had two quadremes and a bireme sunk. So in a way by being in control of the field they made a net gain in ships.

The new models looked great and it was interesting to see the different capabilities in action.