Trieres by the Isis

 

A glorious early summer morning saw me taking the train from darkest Wiltshire to the sunny suburbs of south Oxford to indulge in a couple more trials of the Aegaeon naval rules with Nick.

Since our last games I had made several changes.  Movement allowance for both fast and standard squadrons has been cut by 1 point to 5 and 4 respectively while leaving the cost of actions unchanged.  It was hoped that this would make it easier to think through the orders needed for each squadron - as the range of possible moves was lessened - while still allowing diagonal movement and giving the faster squadrons advantages to balance off against the brute force of larger ships.  Several changes were made to the combat mechanism to increase the chance of an unresolved first round - thus giving greater chance of being able to try grappling - and to reduce the chance of disorder.  A new modifier to reduce the prospects for a single squadron engaged by two or more enemies in the same turn was also introduced.  How would these changes affect play?

We played a game either side of lunch.  The first involved six squadrons a side, none of which had heavy ships.  We went head on at each other, differing only in that Nick put all his squadrons into column while I put my two slowest squadrons of penteres into line, flanked by fast squadrons in column.

First contact was made on my right, with not much damage being done but my Ptolemaic squadrons losing out in the disorder tests, both ending up in disorder while only one of Nick's Macedonian squadrons suffered the same set back.

The next turn saw engagement right across the line.  On the right I managed to pull back one of my disordered squadrons but the consequence was that this allowed Nick to gain a 2:1 advantage over my remaining squadron.  This was offset on the left where he misjudged my intentions and overshot with his end squadron, allowing mine to hit the flank of his second squadron as it had to face forward against another attack.  In the centre, my line of penteres met his columns but without the benefit of supported flanks.

This battle ended quickly.  Nick routed my squadron on the right while I failed to repay the compliment on the left, allowing him to roll up my line as my penteres failed to make headway against their opponents in the centre.

We then strolled off to find some lunch - a longer stroll than expected as the first pub we tried was closed, as was the restaurant we then went to!

A much needed pint at our third port of call

Over cool drinks and good food we revisited the first game.  Nick said that the movement system was now clear to him and seemed to work well but the grappling and boarding mechanism still seemed rather clunky.  I agreed with him on both points and we decided to make changes to boarding combat for the second game.

For the second game we added a couple of heavy squadrons to each fleet.  I tried going deep on the right while holding back on the left, where both my heavy squadrons were placed, hoping that these would be able to hold their own against superior numbers of smaller ships while my right broke through.

First contact made on my right, with my leading squadron getting an advantage and disordering the enemy.

but on the next move Nick got the drop on me, intercepting my second line squadron with one of his heavy squadrons while another piled into the front quarter of my already engaged leading squadron.

In the next turn, the both of us managed to get in flanking attacks on the right while I managed another flanking attack in the centre as Nick's right continued to retreat away from my heavy squadrons.

The heavies finally got into action on my left but I lost two squadrons in the centre, allowing Nick to turn one of his heavy squadrons into the rear of my struggling right hand squadrons

A couple of turns of heavy fighting later and Nick's Macedonians had destroyed my right while my left had routed his right.  I was left with three squadrons to Nick's four but while both my heavy squadrons were nearly intact, only one of his survived and all his squadrons had taken some damage, so we called it a draw.

A fair amount of grappling and boarding took place in this second game and none of it could be described as clunky.  Every action was decisive on the first round as we had no balanced fights. The crews of heavier ships overwhelmed inferior opponents without any difficulty.  This made for a swift game but we both felt that the changes we had made were not quite right, offering no prospect to squadrons of lighter ships even when they had more ships available.  So, still some work to do on that side of the rules.

Movement again worked well and I think the balance of allowances for fast and standard squadrons is now right.  But, despite having reduced the chances of disordering a squadron in combat, given the number of combats taking place we were still finding that within a couple of turns of contact most squadrons were becoming disordered.  The advantage that any squadron not disordered then holds seems to be devastating, easily routing any opponent that has already been disordered.  Again, this makes for a quick game but I'm not sure that the balance is right.  Next time I will try out some ideas for a different approach that I experimented with in the early stages of game development.  The next game will have to wait until I get back to Hong Kong in June though, so for the moment I give Nick many thanks for a couple of days of enjoyable warfare over the last month and look forward to meeting again later in the year if the dice roll right.