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Ryan Powers
United States
Marble
Minnesota
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I really wish I could show you guys the initial setup for Salamis, because compared to the other war galley stuff so far it will blow your mind (it did mine). I'm not sure it will be terribly fun to play for some reasons I'll get into later, but man comparing the Artimisium setup with this one is an eye opener. However I suddenly can't seem to upload anything. I've started a thread over in BGG bugs about it, but if anyone has any ideas I'm all ears.
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/800474/cant-upload-images
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Ryan Powers
United States
Marble
Minnesota
-
Holy cow. I just read the setup for Salamis. I had read the "The Grand Battle Scenario" before, but not the other two.
I hadn't realized that the half map for Eastern Salamis was the whole thing. I thought it was going to get added to another map. That's an awful small area to cram 42 Greek galley counters and 60 Persian galley counters.
Talk about the proverbial knife fight in a phone booth.
Time to wander over to CSW and post my ground fire question there, it's not getting any bites here.
EDIT: knife fight? How about sumo match?
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Ryan Powers
United States
Marble
Minnesota
-
I've got a rules question over in the War Galley - Salamis forum that came up while getting ready to move on to that battle.
Land-based firepower rule clarification wanted
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Ryan Powers
United States
Marble
Minnesota
-
Session: The first (and only) Battle of Artimisium
Greeks vs Persians.
This one was *huge*. And due to the already high information tracking requirements of War Galley, along with some additional overhead because the squadrons are fixed, this one was hard to play in small chunks. Big chunks of time are rare, and when I know ahead of time that I will have a big chunk of time for game playing, I try to schedule some time to play an actual opponent. So this dragged on.
The Greek player (me) made a few mistakes:
1) Forgot about the speed difference until it was too late
2) Put too much effort into scoring some hits early instead of going straight into a defensive stance
3) The leftmost squadron was under-equipped for its job.
#1 made it pretty much impossible to rectify the other two. And the Perisans flowed past the Greeks preventing any attempts to regroup/reform leading to a decisive victory.
The Greeks did some damage though, the bonuses to boarding meant they captured more than their share of Persian galleys. The problem is that a taking casualties when you fail to board cuts your future capabilities faster than when you fail to ram.
It was still fairly fun though. ON to Salamis. Another fight where there are three options:
1) Eastern Set Piece
2) Eastern including moving into position
3) The whole Enchilada (including the west)
I'm leaning towards #1 as it's small (relatively speaking) and Artimisium was huge. But if anyone has any experience or preferences, I'm all ears. That will be the end of War Galley - Salamis.
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Ryan Powers
United States
Marble
Minnesota
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The mess in the center has exhausted the resources of at least one squadron and a question came up.
http://boardgamegeek.com/article/8391322
Just linking the question I just asked here in case someone can comment on it.
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Ryan Powers
United States
Marble
Minnesota
-
I'm about a third of the way through at this point. The going is slow, but steady.
In case anyone is just itching for updates of any sort though... I am getting some images uploaded in preparation for a session report in the future. I'm a few turns behind in terms of image uploads, but there are a few up now, and I'll add them as I get a chance.
You can find them by looking for the images tagged artimisium_i in my gallery. The following link might work too:
http://boardgamegeek.com/tag/artimisium_i/user/keethrax
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Ryan Powers
United States
Marble
Minnesota
-
Artemisium I from War Galley - Salamis ready to go. Note that those islands in the middle do not exist. Every galley on a map edge, or on the peninsula are currently beached.
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Ryan Powers
United States
Marble
Minnesota
-
After the quick detour, we're back on track chronologically. This time it was the Battle of Lade in 494 BCE.
If you want balance in War Galley, this isn't it. The Ionians are in big trouble in this one. I'll let you wander over to the session report for the details. Or at least for the details of the early playing.
Also depending on time of day, I can maybe swing some pictures. The newly added lights didn't help much I'm afraid as the angle needed for a decent image meant there was a lot of glare off the plexiglass. This meant I had to turn them off. They are nice for playing though instead of the single lone bulb up the the attic that had been the lighting before. I've shifted where the game is setup so we'll see if it's better next time. IN any case here's the game early in the second turn:
On a logistical note, images are a bit of a pain if I want to include them in the game's gallery. As I did with this one, since there were no obvious Lade images yet. Have to wait for the image to clear geekmod, then write the session and wait for it to clear geekmod, then add to the blog. In many cases the images will likely be in my personal gallery, so it won't matter, but I do try to add setup and/or early game images for scenarios without them. particularly ones with fixed setups so people can see what they look like.
Up next is Artemisium I (August 18, 480 BCE) from War Galley - Salamis, and I have to admit that it's a bit intimidating with 75 Persian galley counters and 42 Greek galley counters covering two maps. Need to punch and clip the counters first. I just finished scanning them in. I always do this in case I need to make replacements for any missing/damaged/eaten by the dog counters in the future.
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Ryan Powers
United States
Marble
Minnesota
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With the end of Chariots of Fire the next few scenarios are naval ones. Actually even more than it would seem for two reasons:
1) Since the Aegatian Isles scenario is mentioned as a learning scenario I've skipped ahead to it first.
2) I've already played some of the Tyrant: Battles of Carthage versus Syracuse scenarios that would otherwise break up the early War Galley stuff.
With that in mind we're hitting the fast-forward button to move up the historical list until the Aegatian Isles battle (242 BC).
The session report can be found: here.
Despite being lopsided this is a pretty neat way to introduce the system. You've got equal numbers and no terrain, and yet one side is heavily (and I do mean heavily) favored. It just goes to show how important the manpower and crew ratings are.
I didn't play "properly" all the way through to the bitter end as I wanted to try out some stuff, but I waited until the outcome was certain before doing so. Well, the outcome was pretty certain from the start. I waited to see just how certain it was before trying stuff.
My explorations included some illegal anastrophe attacks where you rake the oars, swing around and ram all in one (hopefully) smooth maneuver. These would normally be the province of lighter more maneuverable warships, but since i knew they were coming up next, I figured I'd give it a shot.
I also came across a rules issue regarding squadron determination covered in this thread. I'm still not sure what I think the answer should be there.
In any case it was a good time, and now we're back to the proper chronological order with Lade currently underway to be followed by the War Galley - Salamis battles.
Mon Dec 19, 2011 10:08 pm
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Ryan Powers
United States
Marble
Minnesota
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My journey through Chariots of Fire is the beginning of a long journey. Nine battles officially down, who knows how many more to go.
It's been an interesting ride so far. I was a bit concerned that there wouldn't be enough differentiation because of a dearth of solid information covering these battles. In the end, I think that lack may have helped instead. I think it allowed some extra leeway in the design.
As is "standard" in ancients warfare many of the battles are set piece affairs over open ground. Still the varying combinations of two and three man chariots, and presence or absence of runner infantry to go with them ensured that each of the chariot based battles had a distinct feel.
I'm a bit disappointed in the first two scenarios. I think that either one of the pair would have been sufficient and allowed for another actual chariot fight. TO me they seemed like learning scenarios and there were not enough new concepts introduced to justify doubling up. The pre-publication list of scenarios had a few that didn't seem to make it, so maybe one of those could have replaced one of the first two.
Troy was also an outlier, but an interesting enough diversion. SO I'm glad it was included. I'm not sure where it would have been a better fit, so Chariots it is.
All in all it's been enjoyable so far. War Galley and War Galley - Salamis are up next. As are some scenarios from Tyrant: Battles of Carthage versus Syracuse. Some of the Tyrant ones have already been played, so they'll get entries here, but it was a while ago so I'm not sure how much new I'll be adding to them.
I've got some additional lighting to install, so hopefully pictures will become a more feasible option in the near future. It's the biggest request I get., and rest assured I'm working on it. So, other than pictures, what else do you want to see?
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