Since Historicon moved to Virginia, On Military Matters has been running a "Not Going to Historicon" gaming weekend. I got the chance to play a couple games at this year's weekend, one of which was an modified Ancients version of the normally Renaissance based Galleys, Guns and Glory rules, run by Troy.
The scenario was a pretty simple demolition derby between two Greek navies - the Reds and Yellows. Both had two quinqueremes (one of which held the fleet admiral), five quadrireme, and two triremes.
For the first couple of turns, both fleets moved forward at maximum speed.
Just before the ships impacted, some lowered their oars, slowing down and jockeying for position.
And then, both sides surged forwards, colliding into each other. Wood crunched and groaned as sailors roared and screamed. Both sides lost a ship from the impacts, while one entanglement resulted in both ships catching fire. This turn highlighted one of Troy's changes - ships that moved at full speed in the previous turn kept a "Momentum" token, indicating how quickly they were moving. A ship ramming an enemy from the front was in turned rammed itself, giving the other player a chance to do damage.
The quinquereme under my control managed to clear an enemy quadrireme, but left it empty instead of taking it as a prize. At the same time, the two flagships of the fleets engaged.
The melee continued, with the two burning quadriremes taking enough damage to eventually break apart and sink. Unfortunately, my bid to hold off the green quinquereme in the middle failed, and I lost most of the ship's crew. The two flagships kept fighting, but it seemed like the Yellow's crew had the upper hand.
I managed to clear another of the enemy's triremes, but between my quadrireme and quinquereme, maneuvering became difficult. The crews of the flagships continued their fight.
And then, the Red admiral fell, his ship's crew slaughtered. The sight of the Red's leader falling into the sea was enough to break the fleet, with half the ships beginning to reverse away from the fight, while the other half simply surrendered.
Troy's modifications to the rules made for a great game, and I'm hoping to get more games in some time in the future.
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