Trying 'Poseidon's Warriors'

 Over the last few weeks Ian and I have been painting up our 1/1200 ancient fleets. Our models are from Navwar (who are happily still in business) and are mainly from the Hellenistic era. These are super little models that paint up very well. For rules we opted to give 'Poseidon's Warriors' from Osprey a try. 

For our first test game we chose a couple of matching squadrons and set to. One side had to try and destroy a small galley carrying a messenger trying to get into the estuary the other side had to try and protect the messenger. 

Visually we were very pleased with how the game looked. The sea coloured gaming mat we bought on the bring and buy for just £20 from the Phalanx show at St Helens. I have made a couple of sandbanks and some semi-submerged rocks as hazards but do intend to make some more themed terrain pieces. 

Initially the rules seemed to work well. Players alternate moving a squadron at a time which certainly made us think about our moves. 

However, once we got into melee the game suddenly seemed over simplified to us. As these two squadrons ram each other, all hits are automatic and none of the ships have a save so, only having one point of hull damage each, all 6 ships were sunk! 

To be fair to the rules, as one looks at some of the larger ships with their varying points of hull damage and number of rams, marines and artillery etc...the rules seemed like they would be more entertaining. Sadly for us, our Hellenistic Battle packs that we bought from Navwar contain mainly smaller ships. Also, as our main interest lies in the Greek, Persian and early Macedonian era we need rules to suit the smaller ships. 

Some of my Quinquiremes sail off in search of bigger ships or new rules. 

So for a quick second game, we upped the number of ships and both took a larger flagship. This was just a simple attack each other scenario to further test the rules.  We enjoyed the greater capabilities of our larger ships but the morale rules seemed very simple and both fleets fled the battle upon losing a quarter of their number. 

Overall, although we enjoyed our afternoon of gaming we decided that there were two ways forward. We could work with the basics of 'Poseidon's Warrior's' and develop them to suit our needs, perhaps writing our own armylists and upping the abilities of the smaller ships of our chosen era, or, we could try another set of rules. We shall give it some thought.