Renaissance Naval Game Battle Report - Jan 30, 2010

As promised, here is a battle report with some more pictures of our latest Renaissance naval game.  We used my WizKids Pirates of the Barbary Coast plastic galleys and the Barbarossa gaming rules, available from www.wargames.co.uk/rules/Barbarossa.html.  We've used these rules several times and the gamers seem to like them.

As game master, I had devised a scenario where a squadron of six Spanish and three Knights of Malta galleys were escorting three merchant ships packed with troops and war materiel to resupply the Knights at Malta.  A squadron of twelve galleys from one (or several) of the Barbary Coast emirates was trying to stop and destroy the merchant ships.  [As usual, please click on the pictures to see a larger version.]

 

Here are the Christian commanders (from left) Travis Melton and Phil Young (Spanish) and Sean Pitts (Maltese)

 

The Barbary Coast galleys enter in line abreast.  They were commanded by Bill Hamilton, Clay James, and Ed Sansing.

The Barbary commanders decided that Bill's flotilla of four galleys would procede to the far side of the island, while Clay's and Ed's flotillas would attack straight on with at least one of Ed's galleys going wide to the right to try to cut off the Christian resupply fleet.

The action in the center quickly became a "fur ball" as Muslim and Christian ships jockeyed for ramming position and then slammed home into their opponents.  One of the smaller Muslim galleys is on fire as a result of a well thrown fire pot by its Spanish target.  In the distance are Bill's galleys furiously stroking to get around the island and into action.

 

Here is an overhead view of the general action.  Bill's Muslim galleys are on the upper left while the Christian galleys and supply ships are strung out across the rear of the photo.  Muslim and Christian galleys are still mixing it up in left foreground.

One of Ed's flanking galleys has made it around the intervening island  and has rammed the lead merchant ship but was rammed in turn by Sean's Maltese flotilla leader.  Needless to say, the combination of the "A" class galley firing into and then ramming the much smaller "C" class galley and the arquibus fire from the soldiers aboard the merchant ship proved too much for Ed's small galley.  In the background, another Muslim galley has rammed the second merchant ship and is also being rammed by a larger Maltese galley.

As the action closes, two of the three Christian merchant ships are escaping while the third (in the background) will probably be lost to the Muslims.  The Christians won this action although battle losses were about equal.  The escape of two of the three merchant ships to reach Malta is what tipped the scales.