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Various Ancient Naval rules I've
collected over the years! |
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| The two fleets deployed with the coast on the left |
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| Individual squadrons advance cautiously |
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My fast trireme squadron is on the left flank,
Craig's one is opposite on the right |
Last Tuesday afternoon Craig came over to my place and we played our first ancient naval game out in the shed. The rules were the Osprey set, Poseidon's Warriors by John Lambshead. We had identical Greek fleets of two slow trireme squadrons and one fast trireme squadron, each squadron with five ships. Our ships were all Langton Miniatures 1/1200 but I also have some Navwar 1/1200 ships as well. Our fast trireme squadrons were on opposite flanks. I thought I would try some oar bank strikes with my fast triremes as they're automatically sunk without a save in a straight bow to bow ram.
This tactic worked quite well as I had the initiative that turn and was lucky enough to succeed with three oar bank strikes and one of Craig's ships was totally immobilised. On the opposite flank Craig's entire fast trireme squadron was sunk but he managed to sink three of my ships as well. In the centre he was able to exact some revenge and there was a fair bit of carnage. We both failed our fleet morale tests in the same turn but Craig had lost more ships overall. We both enjoyed it, it was a fun quick game but would probably be better with bigger fleets of five or more squadrons and more variety in ship types. We're going to try the Society of Ancients rules Corvus by Richard Lee for our next game.
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My fast triremes succeed with three oar bank strikes,
one ship is totally immobilised |
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| Craig's fast trireme squadron is sunk |
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| Craig's centre squadron exacts some revenge |
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Both fleets fail their morale tests
but Craig has lost more ships |
