All at sea again

Easter Monday saw a happy day of gaming as Nick drove over from Oxford to try his hand at my slowly evolving ancient naval rules.  In the course of late morning and afternoon sessions either side of lunching on a fine ham, chicken and apricot pie from Tony Haynes we ran through a quick trial to introduce him to the movement and combat rules and then had a large battle with 10 squadrons on each side.  After tea we finished off with a few turns using just a few squadrons each to test out some ideas for revising the movement system.

The games were set up on a small sea - a 10 by10 grid, minus corner squares - placed on my father's old card table.  The playing pieces were my traveling set of mdf tiles with squadrons printed in column on one side, line the other. 

The opening game had just four squadrons on each side, with plenty of room for manoeuvre.  The ash trays at each corner came in handy to hold dice and stop marker pens rolling away!

After chasing each other around the table for a while we had a complicated chain of collisions.  One of my squadrons of penteres faired badly in the opening clash.  The marker on the squadron indicates that it is now disordered while the record card shows it has lost two of the ships it started with.

For the main game, each side deployed 10 squadrons, four of fast trieres and tetreres, four mixed squadrons of heavy ships escorted by tetreres and penteres and two of just penteres.

For the main game I started with my Ptolemaic fleet deployed in two lines, the four mixed squadrons with the heavies being in the rear line, but with all arrayed in column to make manoeuvre easier in the opening stages.  Nick deployed in a single line of columns.

As the fleets approached each other, Nick's Macedonians switched from column into line, clearly aiming to use the advantage that lines are given over columns if they have secure flanks.   

I turned my centre into line. My two squadrons of penteres were right in the centre, flanked on each side by two heavy squadrons (I made an error in the orders for one of these squadrons, allowing it to move ahead of the main line.  Fortunately, with the enemy already in line they shouldn't be able to exploit this mistake).  As all the Macedonian heavy squadrons were in the centre of their line, this meant that my penteres were facing up to the likelihood of being forced back quickly but I would have advantage out on the flanks where I had also kept my fast squadrons in column and was planning some cunning manoeuvres to break up the integrity of the Macedonian line.  The plan was to win on the flanks and close in on the enemy centre in best Hannibalic style.

General engagement was joined along the entire length of the line.  The unintended effect of my penteres moving forward too quickly was to break up the fighting line in the middle but the disruptions on each flank were exactly as I had intended.  On each side, one squadron moved directly forwards to engagement while the other performed an anastrophe - moving in reverse.  This drew their opponents forward so that when my squadrons then launched their attack the enemy squadrons were no longer in alignment so had lost the benefit of having secure flanks.

Aided by a good first die roll, the stratagem worked well on the left where my best squadron (A) secured an immediate major win over the Macedonian D squadron, pushing it back in disorder with the loss of a ship.  Next to it, my squadron B was also to gain a win over Macedonian C but not as decisively.  Taking the edge off these victories, both my squadrons ended up being disordered as well as the enemy after failing their tests. The numbers on the clash markers indicate the sequence in which combats are resolved.

The position after all combats had been dealt with.  On the left, my heavy squadron closest to the two fast squadrons in column had also won its fight and pushed back its lighter opponent but had also become disordered in the process.  The two heavy squadrons next in line had inflicted a bit of damage on each other and remained locked in close combat, giving prospect of grappling and boarding in the next turn.  In the centre, as expected my two penteres squadrons had been pushed back and disordered.  Unfortunately, my heavy squadron to the right of the penteres had also been pushed back.  However, my next two squadrons had had great success, winning their fights and managing to keep in good order themselves.  The fly in the ointment was on the extreme right - largely out of the photograph - where my squadron had found itself up against the most agile of the enemy and had lost its fight badly.

The boarding action in the following turn went badly for me.  I managed to grapple 3 enemy ships but when we rolled for support, only one more of my ships managed to get into the fight while 6 more Macedonians piled in giving them overwhelming numbers.  This meant I lost all three fights outright, only managing to rescue the one supporting ship on my side. (The numbers on the boarding action record card come from the size of ship engaged, 4 for a Tetreres, 5 for a Penteres, 6 for a Hexeres.  I am using these as a proxy for marines carried but am not altogether happy with this)

In the wider fight things were moving swiftly.  On the left my squadrons had routed two opponents, only the squadron facing my B squadron managing to avoid a major defeat.  In the centre, two of my disordered squadrons had been routed but this was offset by the rout of two more enemy squadrons on the right.  My squadron on the extreme right had retreated to the edge of the table while its opponent had paused to redeploy from line to column so as to gain greater freedom of action.

The battle ended with the Macedonians completely breaking through my centre but failing to catch and finish off my remaining squadrons there as the bulk of my fleet cleaned up the remains of the Macedonian flanks and manoeuvred to threaten the rear of the enemy.

Over a cup of tea we discussed Nick's thoughts on encountering the rules for the first time.  He liked the combat mechanism on the whole, though was surprised that so few opportunities for grappling and boarding arose - this has been a persistent bug despite the tweaks I have made so far and for the moment I remain insure how to address this.  As for the movement, while he managed to work out the mechanics in the end, his struggles with them were instructive.  The 'code' cards that have worked well for Gareth and I clearly do so because we have been through the earlier iterations together.  For a newcomer they are not obvious.  Back to the drawing board on that.  Furthermore, he felt that too many moves and actions were allowed in each turn, making planning for each move too complex and running the risk that squadrons could race off in different directions rather than reacting to how the enemy was moving.  

This last point has been niggling me as well and I suggested that after tea we try out a few moves with reduced move allowances each turn.

Trying out manoeuvres with five squadrons per side

We didn't get far with the testing.  Reducing the movement allowance certainly made it easier to plan and execute moves but as we came into contact lots of questions about the details arose that we had not thought through.   So, another thing to work on.  With a bit of luck we will be able to meet again next month to see how well further revisions work out in action.