HMS Ariel vs the Brig Brie, Quiberon Bay

HMS Ariel patrols the Côte Savage, on the north western entrance to Quiberon Bay.  She sights the Brig Brie.  Captain Christmas Quilp RN commands the Ariel, Capitaine Figuin the Brie.

Ariel is a 20 gun 6th rate of 12pdr guns, with two guns moved forward as chasers.  Brie is a slower ship rigged Brig with 16 x 8 pdr guns and a smaller crew.  Both are regular crew and Captain.  Both are on passage and encounter each other head o  since I did not dice for positioning.  Brie has the Weather gauge but runs down to challenge Ariel.

They pass at 7 and 8knt respectively.  Ariel's bow chasers knock sone rigging down.

Brie's ship card as she loads to starboard with the port battery loaded.   She has taken more rigging damage.

Brie turns and delivers another broadside as Ariel wears ship around near the rocks!

Brie follows her round in a large turn.  No bow chasers on the Frenchman though!

Brie turns in on the Ariel, trying to force her onto the rocks, but risking a collision.  The Marine marksmen in Ariel kill Brie's marines and I lose a crew party.

Dr Bogenbroom and the French casualties on the Orlop. 

Brie has three crew parties remaining.  Two guns put out of action.

A point blank broadside from Ariel kills more crew and breaks the ships wheel on Brie.

It's Dr Boggenbroom's birthday!

The wheel marked off.   Brie is stuck on course for the rocks!

She runs into Ariel and a boarding action is fought.  More of Bries crew are killed.  Ariel's Captain cuts free, but Brie has had enough and strikes.

A Glorious day for Captain Quilp.  A sad end for Capitaine Figuin.  I can console myself that Brie probably went aground anyway and she had hull damage liable to sink her.
A good game, and yet more Post Captain Learning curve  Note to self, Gun repair boxes needed on the ship card!

Peaky Durham Blokes

Farmer Johnson and his boys have been thrown out of the Shoes Public House after last orders.  In a furious mood he has armed up his crew and gone to settle scores with his great enemy, Constable Clarence Wigamore, the Constabulary Kosher, the Beast of Belmont, the Syrup of Stanley.
Police Sergeant Finnigan, that weighty icon of law and order has armed his watch and brought them to the town: Whistles sound!  "'Ere, I wants a word with you my lad!"

Sergeant Finnigan appears and valiantly attempts to hide behind a signpost. PC Wigamore hides behind the big boss and readies his shiny truncheon.

The Police advance into the square and Farmer Johnson and his Peaky blokes come on.

PC Clarence Wigamore behind the statue plinth.

My first look at Fistful of Lead!

Clarence vaults the fence into the public toilet and truncheons Mr Weedy Cove, knocking him back into the toilet bowls...

A PC falls shot by Dodgy Geezer.  The Law is losing...

Sergeant F runs out of ammo.

PC McGrirk runs out of ammo, charges in and beats a villain to death with his fists.   Farmer Johnson fires both barrels at zero range and misses.   He hit nothing all game!   He is shot downby the police as he rages on about the price of stout in the Shoes.

Our brave Police Sergeant presents a huge target and is felled by a pistol shot from the toilets. 

Farmer Johnson recovers, still in a murderous rage.  With only two men left the Police withdraw.   A Writ is sworn out for the arrest of this murderous crew.

A Fistful of Pirates

A Festive Diversion

Recently I was introduced to the skirmish rules 'A Fistful of Lead'. I'd seen several battle reports on the internet, which looked fun, but a multi-player-game with border reivers was my first game. My first thought was that these would work well with my pirates and I was impressed enough to buy the rules. Having received my hard copy yesterday I was keen to give them a go.
The author claims that they will work with virtually any figure scale so, in the spirit of Christmas, I thought I'd stretch the boundaries a bit. Now, for some unknown reason, I have pirates in several scales (come off it I'm a gamer - that's reason enough!). I have been running a solo Blood and Plunder campaign with my 15 mm collection as a stop gap until I paint up my 28 mm miniatures. I also have a handful of unpainted 54 mm plastic pirates that I had earmarked for an 'En Garde' game. However, for this game I decided to raid the boy's toy-box and use 90 mm plastic toy soldiers.
Typically, 'teams' consist of about five figures and the toy-box yielded enough for two teams of four.

So meet the rival pirate crews:

Crew one
Captain Jersey Al: leader, slow,  lucky, concealed weapon, pistol and knife.
Master Foo Yung: knife thrower, fancy footwork, axe and knife
Seaman Kato: ferocious, axe
Seaman Won Hung Lo: brute, boarding pike

Captain Jersey Al

Won Hung Lo, Foo Yung and Kato

Crew two
Captain Blessed Brian: leader, slow,  impervious, swordsman, cutlass
Quarter-Master Stinky Pete: drunkard, pet, determined, hook and pistol
Seaman One-eyed Jacques: flurry of blows, knives
Seaman Inigo Montaya : lunge, cutlass

Captain Blessed Brian

Inigo Montoya, Stinky Pete, One -Eyed Jacques

To add flavour the rules allow you to assign various character traits to the figures. I didn't follow the rules too closely in this and just assigned traits based on what the figure looked like. For instance both Captains had the slow trait - seemed appropriate as they both have peg legs. Similarly, the figure for Stinky Pete wouldn't stand up easily - hence drunkard. He also has a parrot on his shoulder so the pet trait is a given  really. Unfortunately, I never got to use this in the game but I found the idea quite amusing as the pet (monkey, parrot or whatever) has the ability to distract an opponent in close combat.
I only intended to play a couple of moves; which I reckoned would be enough as with mostly hand weapons it was always going to be quick. In the spirit of Christmas games and playing with toy soldiers, I eschewed any fancy terrain (truth be told I don't have any anyway) and just put down a board on one of the chairs in the lounge. With the addition of a couple of cannon this became my quarterdeck on which the rival crews would fight a boarding action.
The game is regulated by a standard card deck which drives a clever initiative system. Figures are activated one at a time depending upon the card draw. In general the higher value cards are played first.
First off was Foo Yung who stepped forward and threw a knife at Stinky Pete. The drunken Pete was obviously swaying about as the knife missed. Next Stinky Pete activated, with a one-eyed Jack which gave him a bonus in shooting. Firing off his pistol at Foo Yung he completely missed his would be assailant.

Rival crews face off on the quarterdeck

The initiative was still with Al's crew as Won Hung Low stepped forward, with his boarding pike, to poke at One-Eyed Jacques from a distance. Most tests use a D10 but Hung Low had the 'brute' trait which allowed him to use a D12. Some good rolling on his part saw One-Eyed Jacques put out of action.

One Eyed Jacques meets his end

Initiative would normally have passed to Blessed Brian's crew, on a three, but with a man down one card would go unused. Wanting to keep the better cards Brian passed on the three.
Next up were twos. Brian had the 2 of diamonds and the 2 of spades. However, Al still had an ace which is a wild card. Al declared it would be the two of spades but as Brian had the real two of spades he would go first.
Stepping forward Blessed Brian attacked Foo Yung with his cutlass. Activating on a two allows 2 dice to be rolled and the highest selected. With this advantage, Blessed Brian easily put Foo Young out of action.

With a step and a hop, Blessed Brian smites Foo Yung

Now it was Al's turn to activate on his two (Ace) and shoot his pistol at Brian. Again two dice were thrown and Blessed Brian was down and wounded.

Blessed Brian shot by rival captain

 Last to activate was Inigo Montoya who used his lunge ability to strike at Kato who was driven back a shaken.

Turn two and Kato activated first on a Queen of Spades, which removes shock, stepping back in and attacking Inigo. This time it was a draw and both were locked in combat.

Not now Kato

Next to activate was Blessed Brian whose only option was to try and recover from his wound and stand up. However, a roll of one is never good and Brian was out of action.

Won Hung Lo now attacked precipitating the first multiple combat of the game. For this combat each protagonist would roll a die - and in this case everyone rolled a 10!

How likely was that?

However, once I recovered from the surprise, I realised that Hung Lo should have been rolling a D12 due to his 'brute'trait. On the re-roll he only rolled 6 which resulted in Hung Lo out of action and Kato pushed back shaken.
Now Stinky Pete activated on a 6, which allows an automatic reload, and stepped forward firing his pistol at Al - and missing.
To end turn two Inigo Montoya used his lunge trait to attack Kato and also missed.

A bloody quarterdeck

I ended the game there after a very bloody fight. Both crews down to 2 men but with his rival Captain out of action the day obviously went to Jersey Al.

All in all great fun with some pretty simple mechanisms - I'm impressed.
I think this will be replacing En Garde as my game of choice for this level action. I now want to test it with my Samurai and see if it will also supplant Ronin.

Festive Tilting

This week's club night, once again, saw a great Christmas game. More over on our Steel and Steed blog:

https://steelandsteed.blogspot.com/

Christmas at the club

All at Sea - Salamis ad Actium play test

The next rule set up in our play test is 'Salamis ad Actium' by David Manley, published in 2003 by A & A Game Engineering. An inspection of the A & A website reveals that there is a version 1.1 (2015) but this just appears to tidy up a few things, presentation wise, and doesn't make any significant changes to the rules.
Before the play test, it is worth mentioning that the rules are rather dense, in both style and formatting, with many tables which are often repeated in different places. Also there is no play sheet. Despite this, the rules are actually fairly straight forward and worth persevering with.
Once again, the rules are designed with 1/1200th ship models in mind but suggests using inches instead of centimetres as the measurement units if using 1/600th or similar models.
The scale of the game seems a bit confused with one model representing one ship. However, the rules do go on to say that because of the ground scale this is more like 5 ships and for larger battles may need to be bigger still.
The expected game size is a bit vague and no table size is given. However, fleets are divided into squadrons of up to 10 vessels.

For consistency, I used the same scenario as the previous Naumachiae test. I attempted to classify the ships as close as possible to those of the original scenario but in this version it works out that the Carthaginians have a points advantage.
The deployment area uses the same 15cm deep area as the Naumachiae rules and squadron formations are similar; line abreast, astern or echelon. Off table forces are also catered for.
This time around I used a smaller 30 inch square playing area (the kitchen table) so the fleets started a bit closer together. Also, unlike the Naumachiae game, which took 5 turns for the fleets to come close, Salamis ad Actium uses a faster movement rate to speed up the initial stages of the game. Hence the opposing fleets closed within the first two turns.
Both squadrons approached in line abreast but the Carthaginians switched to echelon in an attempt to outflank the Romans. However, a good run of initiative cards meant the Romans were able to gain several consecutive moves, striking the Carthaginians in the flank.

Carthaginians begin flanking manoeuvre

Romans surge forward

Romans execute ram attack

In the following moves the Romans deployed the corvus and attempted to board. As boarding actions are carried out in the intermediate phase (one of the seven cards), the Carthaginians were able to use their archers to fend of the Roman marines before the boarding action was adjudicated. In the end the Roman boarders were repulsed and  the Carthaginian ships managed to break free.

Carthage breaks free

I stopped the game at this point as I had tested most of the aspects I needed.

So how do they fit my criteria?


1) Small scale actions involving a handful of ships.
Although, not as mechanistic and slightly more abstract than Naumachiae I think these may be a good set for solo games of just a couple of ships per side. The level of detail is similar to Naumachiae but handled more abstractly. I think these would give a quicker game but the former have more character. In terms of solo play the card system of Salamis ad Actium is definitely a winner.

2) Small fleets of several squadrons, each of a handful of ships (multi-player club gaming)
These are certainly a possibility but I'm not sure why I was dissatisfied the last time around. I seem to recall that there was too much shooting for my taste but that may be down to the personalities of the players. Appropriate scenario design should fix that so I think this is definitely worth another go.

3) Large fleet actions of hundreds of ships (solo gaming)
Large fleets are certainly possible, as seen by my campaign reports, but is this representative of the hundreds of vessels seen in historic encounters? I don't think so. The problem here is that a base of models, representing 10 or so vessels, shouldn't act the same as a single ship. I have trouble imagining that all ships of a squadron are rammed or raked a the same time etc.

All at Sea - Salamis ad Actium background

The next rule set that I want to examine is 'Salamis ad Actium' and once again I found an old battle report from my solo campaign.

1st Illyrian War – second year

Encouraged by the success of the previous year’s reconnaissance in strength, Gaius Quilpius Aquaticus planned a second invasion of Illyria. Having experienced, at first hand, not only the strengths of the Illyrian pirates but also the weaknesses of the Roman fleet, Quilpius planned well. The Socii Navales were pressed to provide more ships to replace those lost the previous year and an intensive training schedule implemented. The fleet was also equipped with ballistae and towers for all the quinqueremes. Thus strengthened Quilpius felt confidant enough to face the Illyrian fleet once again.

After an uneventful crossing Quilpius took care to land the fleet’s sails and other unnecessary equipment before offering battle. Fearing the Illyrians superiority in numbers, Quilpius took shelter amongst a number of small islands, deploying in 2 squadrons in line ahead. The approaching Illyrians stood out to sea, where they hoped to use their greater numbers to outmanoeuvre the Roman fleet They deployed in 3 squadrons, each in line abreast, with a central squadron of quadriremes and triremes flanked by 2 lighter squadrons of mixed biremes and liburnians.

Roman Deployment

Illyrian Deployment

Quilpius planned to offer battle close to the islands and draw the Illyrians into the restricted waters, where he hoped the heavier Roman ships would be at an advantage. However, the inexperienced crews had some difficulty negotiating the shallow waters and the Illyrian Admiral chose this moment to strike. Hoping to catch the Romans as they debouched from the straits the Illyrians struck fast.

The Roman Fleet Struggles Through the Straits

The Illyrians advanced at full speed on the wings, whilst holding the centre squadron back, in an attempt to envelop the Roman fleet. The Roman right flank failed to clear the straits before the Illyrians were among them with many of the quinqueremes being rammed by the more manoeuvrable Illyrian vessels.

The Illyrian Attack

The Roman left fared better and fought off the Illyrians on 2 fronts. Half the squadron faced off the Illyrian centre whilst the remaining vessels attempted to form a flank guard. The battle in the centre went well with the Illyrians suffering badly from the massed ballistae fire of the Roman ships, although they did inflict some casualties in return as their quadriremes were similarly equipped. The Illyrian centre, realising they could not make any headway against the massed ballistae shot, decided to back water and draw the Romans into the open. Meanwhile, on the flank the Romans were struggling to prevent the Illyrian periplous. Initial attempts to stop the outflanking move were successful but Quilpius soon discovered the shallow draught of the Illyrian vessels allowed them to outflank his own ships by passing through the shallows.

General Action

The Illyrians Pass Through the Shallows

Whilst the Roman left was struggling to fend off the Illyrian attack the Romans began to gain the upper hand on the right flank. Although the right flank squadron initially suffered, as the smaller enemy ships infiltrated their line, the battle began to turn in favour of the heavier ships. The stoutly built quinquremes were able to absorb more damage than the lighter enemy ships. Once the enemy vessels had rammed the Roman ships the Roman marines were often able to board their attacker’s vessel before the ram could be extricated. Many Illyrian vessels were captured in this manner. Eventually the Illyrian’s morale broke and their right flank squadron fled. Shortly after the Roman centre once again attacked, clearing the Illyrian decks with their ballistae fire. This was too much for the beleaguered Illyrians and they broke off the action and fled.

The Illyrian Right Flank Breaks

So it does look like I managed a relatively large solo battle using these rules, but how easy was this to play and how was the experience? Luckily,it seems that, at the time, I did make some notes.

This game was fought using Salamis ad Actium and was generally more successful than the previous attempt using Naumachiae. The fleets were identical, in terms of both number and type, to the fleets used in the previous battle. This time, however, the heavier ships (quadriremes and quinqueremes) were all armed with ballistae. No ships carried a mainsail and consequently none were overburdened. The Romans defended their vessels with heavy marines whilst I chose to use one third archers and two thirds normal marines for the Illyrians.


The fleets were designed as equal points forces, without taking into account crew quality etc. The rules have a table for randomly generating these attributes which works quite well. Hence, the fleets may differ slightly in points value due to the affect of the crew and command qualities. Generating the crew and command qualities in this way can give rise to some interesting combinations. In this battle the best crew (veteran) were in the Illyrian centre squadron but were led by the fleet Admiral who was inept!

The rules use a card activation system, which is excellent for solo games. There are 7 cards in the deck – 6 action phase cards (3 per side) and 1 intermediate phase card. Ships move, carry out ram attacks and rakes and archers shoot during the action phase. Ships also attempt to separate after rams during the action phases. Ballistae fire and boarding actions are carried out, for both sides, during the intermediate phase.

This can lead to some exciting action as for instance a ship ramming in its side’s first action phase then has 2 possible action phases left to attempt to extricate its ram and separate the vessels. However, the intermediate phase may occur first in which case the enemy can attempt to board. Similarly, ballistae fire is potentially quite powerful and a draw giving 2 consecutive intermediate phases can make ballistae fire truly devastating.

There is some bookkeeping involved, as record is kept of the ship’s current damage levels (light, medium, heavy, severe, sinking). Damage / casualties can also occur in a variety of ways and record must be kept of the ships maximum speed, oar factors, marines, archers and equipment. Nevertheless, a ship’s data can be kept to a single line and I was able to keep record of 47 ships using only 2 A4 sheets of paper.

All in all these are an excellent set of rules and work well for solo play.

A very favourable result I would say. However, there is a curious postscript to this. Not too long ago (we're talking years not decades!) I recall putting on a multi-player game at the club and coming away quite dissatisfied. Maybe these work better solo? Hopefully, the next play test may shed some light on this nautical conundrum.

All at Sea – Naumachiae

First up in our playtest is ‘Naumachiae’ from Langton Miniatures, published in 1998. These are designed for use with 1/1200th models on a minimum table size of 2ft square up to 6ft by 4ft or even 8 ft by 4 ft. Each model represents a single ship but may have to represent 5 or more vessels for larger engagements. The rules state that a minimum of 10 ships per side should be used.

Despite the suggested minimum game size, the rules come with 2 starter scenarios both featuring a mere 3 vessels per side. The starter scenario featuring Rome versus Carthage was used for this playtest.As per the standard rules both sides could deploy up to 15 cm in from the table edge. Allowed squadron formations are line abreast, line astern or in echelon. If multiple squadrons are used part of the fleet can be held off table in ‘flank sailing’. For this game I chose deployment options with a random die roll; hence, the Carthaginians deployed in line astern and the Romans in echelon formation.

Carthaginian squadron approaches in line astern

The next step was to issue fleet orders; again using a random die roll for this solo playtest. Hence, the Carthaginians were ordered to Close with the Enemy and the Romans to Engage the Enemy. The difference being that Close orders are at slow or cruise speed but Engage orders are at fast or ram speed. Cruise speed incurs one fatigue point per move and fast speed two. Fatigue needs to be tracked in this game and each vessel has a fatigue limit. The overburdened Roman vessels (carrying mainsail and corvus) have a lower limit so perhaps the faster speed was not the best choice! Squadrons must comply with their Fleet Orders until they come within 20cm of the enemy. On a 4 ft deep table, using the standard deployment area, this was move five!

Opposing ships close enough to act independently

I’m not convinced I got all the rules right but the game did cover most of the required elements. There was some short range missile fire (max range 1 cm for marines), the Roman flagship was disabled by an oar rake, and the Carthaginian flagship executed a frontal ram attack on the Roman’s second ship. This caused slight damage but the Romans deployed their corvus prior to boarding. However, Carthaginian missile fire reduced the number of available marines and the Romans broke off; only to be hit in the beam by another Carthaginian ship. As it turns out beam attacks are devastating.

Roman flagship's attack falls short, whilst Carthaginian flagship executes a ram attack

Romans in trouble

As the Romans were down to one remaining ship, and I had covered most of the important aspects, I stopped the game there.

All in all, not a bad game; however, there are some caveats. There is a small amount of record keeping; mainly damage and fatigue but the current speed of each ship must be remembered. With this many ships it wasn’t a problem but it could be an issue with larger numbers. I guess the speed could be indicated by an appropriate wake marker, as used in several current naval games. In larger games I imagine the biggest problem would be issuing the ship orders. At the start of the move you’re meant to state what you intend with each ship; move, move and turn, ram etc. You then roll on the ability chart (once for the whole squadron or possibly fleet) and read off the result for each ship. That’s a lot of stuff to remember. I think these issues result in a natural limit on the number of ships used. I would say no more than a handful per player. Probably half that if playing solo – so 3 per side is probably about right. I suspect this is why I moved onto a different ruleset all those years ago.

So how do these match my original criteria?

1) Small scale actions involving a handful of ships.
Despite a few issues, I think these may be a good set for solo games of just a couple of ships per side. The level of detail adds enough character to make for an engaging game at the level of Uriah’s Post Captain games. I’ve always had a hankering to follow the blockade running exploits of Hannibal the Rhodian and these may be perfect for that.

2) Small fleets of several squadrons, each of a handful of ships (multi-player club gaming)
Certainly possible but I think there may be better alternatives available.

3) Large fleet actions of hundreds of ships (solo gaming)
I seriously doubt this one is possible

Next up – Salamis ad Actium

All at Sea - the background

Don't ask me why but, ever since I was a lad, I've been fascinated by ancient galley warfare. That said, it's actually something I've not really successfully gamed. My first attempts, way back in the 70's, used a truly dreadful set of rules that shall remain nameless. I think the main drawback of these rules was the requirement to use a cloth with a grid of offset rectangles. A lack of ship models probably didn't help either but I do recall designing and casting my own from lead. They weren't actually too bad if slightly huge.
Moving on a couple of decades, I gave it another go using 1/1200th galleys from Langton and Navwar. This was altogether more successful but the project, for one reason or another, just fizzled out. As one of the themes we are hoping to explore at the club, this year, is naval warfare (albeit largely age of sail), I thought I would give galley warfare another try. This also ties in with a solo ancients campaign that I'm hoping to revive.
So the first step in the project is to look at the available rulesets and see if anything fits the bill. I have several criteria in mind here and it's unlikely that one set will meet them all.

1)  Small scale actions involving a handful of ships - essentially skirmish scale (solo gaming)
2) Small fleets of several squadrons, each of a handful of ships (multi-player club gaming)
3) Large fleet actions of hundreds of ships (solo gaming)

First up for evaluation are Langton Miniatures 'Naumachiae' rules. As luck would have it, I have found an after action report from a solo campaign I ran about 20 years ago. I'll copy the report here and see if my thoughts have changed over the intervening years.

1^st Illyrian War

.............On hearing of the approach of the Illyrian fleet, Quilpius took up station between the mainland and a small island. The Romans were aware of the numerical superiority of the Illyrian fleet and took up this position to deny the Illyrians room to use their smaller and more manoeuvrable ships effectively. Quilpius had previously landed a shore party on the island but as the Illyrian fleet approached he became aware that the landing party had been overcome and the island was in the hands of the Illyrians. Denied any opportunity to land the ship’s sails and excess equipment the Romans faced the prospect of engaging with the fleet dangerously overburdened. [Recognition of the importance of shorelines, and a simple abstract mechanism to account for this, is a nice feature of these rules.]

Quilpius planned to place his least trained ships in the front line, to absorb the Illyrian attack, and counter with his best ships which were placed in a second line.

Roman deployment in double line

The Illyrians advanced in 3 squadrons. The two wings were made up of light ships in a single line abreast, whilst the heavier ships were placed in the centre in line ahead. The Illyrians evidently planned to pierce the Roman centre with their heavy squadron.

The Illyrian fleet

The Roman advance was slow, the rowers evidently suffering from the effects of the overburdened vessels and fatigue soon set in. [Fatigue plays an important part in the rules.] The Illyrians held back the light flanking squadrons but quickly advanced the heavy centre squadron. There was some confusion in the Illyrian fleet when they encountered an unknown current and the squadrons were swept closer together. [Presumably an effect of the patent Langton Ability Chart - which I quite like.]

Illyrian centre squadron takes evasive action as squadrons collide.

The Illyrians soon recovered and the heavy centre squadron attacked the centre of the Roman line. The Romans were in a bad position having been thrown off course, when leaving the lee of the island, with many of their vessels exposing their flanks to the approaching Illyrians. The lead Illyrian quadrireme took advantage of this and attempted an oar rake. However, it misjudged the approach and crashed into the nearest Roman vessel. The intended target happened to be the quinquereme carrying the Roman Vice Admiral, which avoided the rake but nevertheless suffered badly in the collision.

First Blood to the Illyrians

The Roman Vice Admiral quickly gathered together his marines and legionaries and led them onboard the Illyrian quadrireme. Unfortunately, the shock of the collision had thrown the Romans into confusion and they were heavily repulsed. The Illyrians counterattacked and took the squadron flagship. On seeing this the nearby quinqueremes faltered but the line held. Although the lead Illyrian Quadrireme was caught up with the its prize and drifting the rest of the squadron followed closely behind and began to pass through the Roman line. This was the signal for the rest of the Illyrian fleet to advance and the light squadrons on the wings began to close in. At this critical juncture the Roman lead squadron was nearing exhaustion and was forced to halt to allow the rowers to recover from their fatigue. They then came under heavy attack from the triremes of the Illyrian centre squadron but could not manoeuvre because of the threat posed by the Illyrian flank squadrons.

General mayhem ensues

Although, the few Illyrian ships which passed through the Roman line were successfully countered by the Roman second line the battle was going badly for Quilpius.

The Roman second line counter attacks

At this point another front line quinquereme was captured and another completely sunk. This was enough for the poorly trained Roman crews and the nearby vessels, including many from the second line, began to withdraw from the action. [A morale system is probably essential to prevent battles being fought to the last ship.] Quilpius made his escape back to Italy where the senate awarded him the cognomen Aquaticus.

So there we have it - a 20 year old battle report. My first impression was it's huge! I can't imagine running that many ships, for both sides, solo. I'm not sure how easy it was at the time; although the outcome seems fine I think it is rather telling that the next battle in the campaign used different rules. That said, I think there is a lot to like about these rules but perhaps not at this scale.

It remains to be seen whether I can still play a game successfully with Naumachiae - so next up the play-test (certainly not on this scale though).