Early Peloponnesian War - two test games

[paulr]

This week we played a couple of test games of the ancient naval rules I'm working on. We used a skilled and nimble Athenian fleet and a marine heavy Spartan fleet from the early Peloponnesian War.

In the pictures the Athenians have blue labels and are furthest from the camera. The Spartans have green labels.

The first game was a Fleet Engagement scenario with no stratagems or weather. The positioning terrain rules generated an interesting and plausible table. I let the others drive the game and that generated some useful suggestions on improving the wording of the positioning terrain rules.



The skilled Athenians managed to out manoeuvre the Spartans and pulled off a number of successful diekplus (break through) attacks which had the Spartans in disarray.



This combined with the Spartans uncanny ability to pull high activation chits as well as low to-hit and save chits led to a comprehensive Athenian victory.

Despite this everyone, including the Spartan players, enjoyed the game.

The second game used the Aegean Isles scenario with stratagems but no weather.

The positioning terrain rules again worked really well, they flowed smoothly now the players were familiar with them. It was interesting watching the amount of thought that went into the terrain placement. Both sides were trying to get whatever advantage they could.

Bizarrely both sides drew the Subterfuge stratagem. The Athenian centre and the Spartan left were delayed. The impact was noticeable but not overly dramatic which felt right.



The Athenian right tried to do a periplus (flanking manoeuvre) around the island on that flank and only pinned the Spartan left. Fighting in the centre and on the Athenian left had been much more intense with five units and a Spartan admiral lost in total. This included one unfortunate small unit that failed both rout tests when the friendly unit of triremes to its front was lost.



As the end of the battle approached the Athenians were down to one Victory medal and the Spartans two. The combination of wrecks and shoals on the Athenian left was significantly impacting tactical options. Both sides had several units disordered and were reluctant to commit them to attacks but were unwilling to risk withdrawing them to try and rally.

Finally, the Spartan admiral's unit on the right launched a boarding attack against the Athenian admiral's unit. The Athenian admiral failed his save and was seriously wounded giving the Spartans a narrow victory.



Post game we discussed what we were going to play next week. I was pleasantly surprised when the guys suggested another Navarch test game. I'm certainly enjoying the games, and they seem to be as well. 

[Steve J]

Very nice looking games there Paul and great to see the chaps fancy giving the rules another go   !

[Ithoriel]

Lovely looking game and clearly much fun was had if they are up for another go!

Are the hex land shapes single hexagons or solid shapes?

[pierre the shy]

Lovely looking game and clearly much fun was had if they are up for another go!

Are the hex land shapes single hexagons or solid shapes?

It was all going to plan till my Athenian admiral drew a 1 chit...foiled again!

The rules are quite intuative once you start playing them and the authors have done a good job with them.

The land shapes are individual hexagons. If Paul's are the same as mine they are 40mm wide 2mm thick MDF from Pendraken.     

[paulr]

Definitely rewarding when they are up for a third game in a row     

The hexes are the same as Peter's and have done service as coasts in the Pacific, China Sea, Mediterranean, Black Sea and others