Galley assault! G&G playtesting continues

The playtesting of Galleys & Galleons for Ganesha Games continues apace. Scenarios and a campaign system are now written and being steadily put through their paces. This week we have been trying out galleys again (my circle haven't used galleys since the earliest days of testing) and have found that several rules need to be revised for their proper use.

Our first game was a simple pursuit, with a fleet of Barbary galleys hunting a Dutch merchant convoy. Without going into too many details (I failed to take any photos), it all went fairly badly for the galleys. They managed t capture the Dutch East Indiaman (the biggest ship on the board) but them lost all of their own ships... and the Indiaman. The second game was the new Treasure Islands scenario which saw the Barbary corsairs racing a fleet of pirates to get to possible treasure. While the corsairs not only found the treasure, but managed to keep hold of it, the pirates found a rum stash (which rather messed up their plans) and struggled with difficult wind conditions throughout. 

Over in the States, scurvy playtester Larry ran a much larger game than what we have been a attempting. While our games have ranged between 50 and 200 points a side, Larry's was closer to 350 points per side. I'm delighted that he reports that the game mechanisms handled it well without any problems.

Below is Larry's After Action Report together with a few photos of the game.

Capt. Larry

"My #1 younger brother John was in town for the Battle of New Orleans reenactment and I was able to press-gang him into a game of Galleys & Galleons. Even though he had never heard of Ganesha, let along SoBH, he picked up the system within the first two turns and proceeded to play a game very differently from what we have been doing. 

Admirals Justin (L) and John (R)

"The scenario pitted a squadron of 5 Turkish galleys and 1 galliot against a Venetian convoy of 2 carracks escorted by 1 galleass and 4 galleys. Even for 16th century battle we have been depending on firepower but he went straight to ramming. 

Deep in thought

"The result was a mass of boarding actions (the scrum) which his Turkish squadron won, but only because he had one damage point left to put a prize crew aboard the last Venetian ship he captured while all but one of the ships captured by the Venetians were drifting hulks.  

The scrum

"One of the Venetian galleys and one captured Turkish galley escaped. The Turks sank the galleass and captured both carracks. The black damage mark the Turks and the blue are the Venetians."

End of game