"The Battle of the Wine Dark Sea" Topic

As a play test of my new rules – 'The Brazen Sea'- I ran a solo battle between 4 NKE boats & 2 Sea Peoples ships. This is still all a bit rough so apologies.

The rules are simple so the game took about an hour: not bad. The rules worked surprisingly well. I will have to tweak movement (too slow) and manoeuvre (not complex enough) but otherwise, acceptable. I could do with a few more Sea Peoples & a lot more Egyptains (3 figures a boat!) but that's all I have, individually mounted.

theminiaturespage.com‌

‌"TMP link

theminiaturespage.com‌

‌"TMP link

theminiaturespage.com‌

‌"TMP link
A simple scenario, the Sea Peoples approached & attacked the Egyptians. a raid.

theminiaturespage.com‌

‌"TMP link

theminiaturespage.com‌

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The NKE stupidly split their forces to sail either flank & the centre, around the islands. The Sea Peoples advanced down the centre.

theminiaturespage.com‌

‌"TMP link

The Sea Peoples' ships, with their heavy crew, picked off the Egyptians, then boarded (there's a dice roll for each figure to see if he will) & took 2 Egyptian boats.

theminiaturespage.com‌

‌"TMP link
The remaining two NKE boats fled.

I have a bit of work ahead, working on my boats, painting more crew & further play testing but it looks a winner.

For those who have gamed Ancient naval actions, what do you think is the hardest thing to represent: movement, missile fire, boarding? I have no command and control: is this a flaw? Any criticisms, ideas or comments are warmly welcome.

More figures! That's not a criticism, just repeating the obvious.

C3 is unnecessary as long as you have multiple players. Gamers produce all the command friction you need, especially if there's a bit of on-board crew management going on (e.g. multiple figures conducting multiple tasks).

If you end up giving multiple boats to each player and you want to inhibit perfect naval coreography, consider making movement distances somewhat variable.

The hardest part of ancient naval is missing from this era – fancy oared warship tactics. This era is all about crash-and-board, with some handheld missile shooting along the way. Artillery and rams haven't been invented yet, oar rakes and diekplus and periplus aren't even possible with the the period technology.

You're fighting a skirmish game between moving platforms. Ideally, that shouldn't be hard to play, or write, or learn.

Hopefully, your rules will include some directions on making the ships. Even just a paper deck plan we could photocopy would allow us to fight a trial battle to see how we like the rules without investing a lot of time and effort in building model ships.

Grelber

@ Grelber. You aren't confusing me for someone who's attempting a commercial enterprise?

I'd be glad to send you a copy of the rules – gratis – & if you want boats:
link

YA. The boats can only hold so many figures. I have sailors, archers & warriors. The poor Egyptians get one of each, three total crew, so there's room for more there. The SP.s had 8 figures a boat & I could squeeze in a couple more, tops. An order to Newline Designs is a distinct possibility.

I take your C and C opinion gratefully. I do need to work out manoeuvre. I'm presuming all craft have actually lowered their sales & are using oars. This means they can go back & forward equally well? And pivot on a centre point to turn? Anything else? I did some rowing back at Uni but that probably doesn't help much.

This is where there would be a big difference between cargo ships (or fishing boats) pressed into war, and long ships built for raiding and piracy.

A longship will have a lot more oars and a fit crew used to working together. They'll be able to row harder (more speed, better acceleration), row longer, pivot the ship, back oars on command (row backwards), stop the ship quickly, maneuver confidently around obstacles like reefs, islets, sandbars, and flotsam, etc. All the crew will also be trained warriors – and probably also pirates, used to grappling other ships and clambering aboard to fight without falling overboard.

A converted civilian vessel will probably have just a few oars, and be slower and less nimble. Stopping would involve more coasting, aiming the ship would be less precise, rowing backwards would be slower, pivoting might be possible but probably also slow. The crew would be the civilians who know how to work the ship, but the fighting would be done by the landlubber warriors crowding the deck, who are likely somewhat clumsy at sea and brave but comically bad at boarding.

You could also get some smaller boats to go with your ships. A thing done in multiple unrelated eras was to enter battle with some extra boats filled with warriors to row around and reinforce boarding actions under way. They weren't fast, but they were nimble. They couldn't win a boarding fight alone, but could probably make a sort of "flanking maneuver" in a boarding fight by coming aboard a side or stern where the enemy crew wasn't watching (because they were busy fighting for their lives against another ship from a different quarter). In the Hellenistic period these were small galleys, in the Renaissance galley fights they were bergantinas and fustas, in the 17th C. galleon era they were ships' boats, in the 18th C. Baltic they were just the smaller oared warships. There's not necessarily evidence of this phenomenon in the Bronze Age, but I'd argue that a people going out on the water to fight is going to use every craft that can be used as a fighting platform, and small boats assisting ship combat is a repeating motif across eras, cultures, nations, and conflicts.

Very useful post, YA.

I have tried to differentiate between the Sea Peoples (professional!) as sailors & fighters & the NKE who were arguably Nile River Guard Boats. This through rules & numbers of figures.

I really don't need anymore long boats – they fill up my space as it is but a few smaller craft is a – dare I say it? – crafty idea.