A naval battle not to last long in menories

[Lluis of Minairons]

Some days ago, my gaming mates and I played a naval battle related to a long-term campaign we're currently running in Mediterranean waters, loosely based on the 7^th Ottoman-Venetian War (1714-1718) with some what-if touches. Campaign itself enjoys a blog of its own; despite written in catalan language only, it supports a translating tool that from time to time gives a decent enough translation: https://defiant-principality.blogspot.com/

The thing is about both Luso-venetian and Ottoman navies clashing in the Ionian Sea, some miles northwest from Kefalonia. Those fleets were quite large, way too large for an afternoon game: 9 ships of the line each side, plus 10 Ottoman galleons and numerous Allied medium-sized ships (frigates and polacres mainly) besides of about a dozen galleys per side that we decided to spare. Therefore, we decided to downscale the engagement, bathtubing it by 1 to 4 approximately. This way, the Ottoman side would deploy 2 ships of the line, 3 large galleons and a xebec; while Luso-Venetians would have 2 ships of the line, one frigate and 2 polacres.



We also agreed that the result of this limited confrontation would entail the outcome of the entire battle - albeit restricting total battle losses to only what could actually be lost on tabletop.



Battle was marked by serious communication errors among Ottoman captains (that even caused a fortuitous collision at the very start), as well as by the extreme caution of the Venetian admiral. With their maneuverability limited by those initial errors and only aggravated by their sluggish, outdated galleons, the Ottoman fleet enjoyed only a small window of opportunity to engage the Venetians, who had already decided to evade. Brief artillery exchanges between both flagships and a repelled boarding action were all what the Ottomans were able to achieve.



(Here below you can see admiral Canim Hoca Kapudan Pasha [i.e. me] deeply disappointed and thoughtful about his vanishing chances, under close watch of the referee/cameraman/host, who coincidentally uses to respond here to the nickname of Acronim)



With their heavy galleons unable to regain the wind and turn around, besides of one of their ships of the line damaged by the forementioned fortuitous collision, the Ottomans gave up continuing the fight. It resulted to be a quite undecisive battle, after all: a Venetian frigate sunk vs. an Ottoman xebec surrendered to the Luso-venetians. After that, both fleets returned to port, claiming without much conviction the victory for themselves. The battle of Paxos would not last long in memories.

Lluís

[Lluis of Minairons]

Oh, just one aside note: ships used in this scenario are from various sources such as Peter Pig, Minairons, Imperial-modellbau, scratch and 3d-printed

[Colonel Kilgore]

Thanks for sharing, Lluis.

They are lovely models - that's quite a battle (even if nothing much happened  )

Simon

[martin goddard]

Nice to see some people.

Good game. Good cloth table too


martin

[Stewart 46A]

Looks a good game Lluis, what rules are you using?


Stewart

[Lluis of Minairons]

We're currently using Galleys & Galleons by Ganesha Games (apologies for the heresy!)

However, such kind of large engagement --with eight or more ships per side--  is on the verge of G&G playability. Next monday we're going to play a similar scenario with 7 ships vs. 8 and possibly shall see if more drastical bathtubing (or alternatively another ruleset) is needed.

[Stewart 46A]

Lluis for Battle of Trafalgar  I used
Follow the Admirals Wake by Brian Dewitt
Very good and easy set I thought


Stewart

[Colonel Kilgore]

Stewart - you weren't supposed to mention "Trafalgar"... 

Simon

[Lluis of Minairons]

Stewart - you weren't supposed to mention "Trafalgar"...   

No worries, those who lost there deserved to lose 

[Stewart 46A]

its ok Simon , i think i got away with it, my French isn't very good.

Stewart