"Ad Mare Bellum: Playtested" Topic

I tried some games with these concise but very useable rules by David Manley.
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Very helpful. Thanks very much!

I have done several more battles and some queries keep coming up with the rules. I suggest some solutions/amendments here.

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Ad Mare Bellum is a much more satisfying representation of a galley battle than Poseidon's Warriors, in my opinion, because it is not so much for sudden death/abstraction.

No one else used them yet ?

I can't get past the cat-astrophic ending. LOL!

Thanks for the review, and your thoughts about the weak points.

- Ix

Thanks – I'm not sure what advantages these rules offer over "Corvus". They seem to be at a similar level of detail to those rules.

You are right, Dexter, that the approach of Ad Mare Bellum does not offer much new and is out of the same stable as Corvus, which itself harks back to the type of rules available B.I.(Before Internet). Corvus is extremely simplified – though has a curiously, comparativley complex moving system and requires measuring precision of 1/8" ! AMB pads things out with more ship types, more detailed rules for combat and units/command. Anyone could in principle take Corvus as a starting point and work-up a more comprehensive set. Corvus is free here.
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It is a feature of galley warfare rules that there is a tendency to super-simplification at small scales due to a perceived aversion to charts and record-keeping. Johncock/Langton's Naumachia is the obvious exception. Also free, here..
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The goal, as I see it, is to allow a player to control dozens of ships with enough historical detail but avoiding a nervous breakdown. I am still writing, tweaking testing , on the eternal quest…

Rules listed on wargamevault as "AD Mari Bellum"