Galley Warfare at ScrumCon 2024

The Naval Battle of Alalia 535 BC

Sometime in the decade between 540 and 530 BC, a combined Etruscan Punic fleet of one hundred and twenty warships faced off against a Greek fleet of only sixty ships from the Greco Corsican colony of Alalia . The battle, called the Battle of Alalia, was fought just off of the North Eastern coast of Corsica. Despite the numerical advantage, the Etruscan Punic fleet lost the battle, losing half their fleet. However, as Herodotus puts it, the Greek victory was a “Cadmean victory”. What that implies is that, in winning the battle, they lost their raison du guerre objective of sea dominance due to high ship casualties.

This is the second running of the Alalia battle for a convention game using entirely 3D printed ship models and Brian Dewitt’s GREEKS AT SEA rules.

The logistics werent’ behind me on this one. I was initially scheduled for Friday afternoon shift, and had zero takers online. There ended up being an opening on Friday in the same afternoon slot and I decided to take it– although the program books were already printed. Now I had plenty of takers (5 out of 6) but not much chance of walkups (we need to post changes like this next year, lessons learned). Still, i was blessed with some excellent players.

Starting positions: Etruscans Left, Greeks Right

As per usual we started this battle six hexes from the sea edge. The Etruscans had special retreat rules from their edge of the map (Left above) where they weren’t penalized nearly as badly as the Greeks, but they never used them. The Greeks all used mostly Pentakonters (with fighting decks) and a Bireme as a sort of “Squadron boat” to organize with. They were scaled pretty close to Triremes unintentionally– in reality the historical penta should be a tad longer on both sides, and much narrower. The Greeks had a better quality than the Etruscan/Punic ships. As a fallback position I created a small group of Punic ships as reinforcements and didn’t end up using them.

Physical printing of the Galley models

I used some Roman Liburnians as standins for Greek Pentakonters. They looked different enough from regular Greek fighting top ships to stand out. I panted squadron designs on every three ships. The Etruscans were more problematic. I had a decent Pentakonter based on a Phoenician design but it is open topped– replete with little rower figures. Since I designed this game to use little 6mm figures to represent marines and archers to represent the fighting men on the ship (not the rowers), the Etruscan pentakonters wouldn’t support those. So I built up an (ahistorical) fighting deck on the Etruscans using plastic card. both sides had a flexible steel strip glued to the deck, and the figures had magnetic bases.

Greeks come on quick. They can handle ships better and fight ship to ship better than the Etruscans. Note the speed counters and initiative counters.

The Etruscans: not as good at sea as the Greeks, and a bit hamhanded in a fight, but they do have numbers going for them.

And the distances close. Tim isn’t impressed.

In retrospect, I probably should have started closer together than six hexes from the edge– especially in a time crunch.

Greeks attempting to flank the Etruscans (top right) at the far end of the table.

An Etruscan Right (red dot) grappled and rammed by a Greek (yellow dot) left. You can see the two crews squaring off against each other in boarding melee. Looks like the Greeks are on the back foot here, with the Etruscans leading 2-1.

Greek Trireme (yellow) smashes Etruscan (yellow) and Heavy Damage ensues (see markers) They are becalmed. (speed 0). Another Etruscan Rows in to support their shipmates by trying to ram the Greek. Another Full strength Greek (foreground: 3 Marines, 1 Archer) rows in to get into the conga line of pain.

As the game wound down a bit, the lines were entangled with each other in many places as one Penta rammed another and more rushed in to Ram and support their buddies by boarding here and there. I call this part of the battle “Crunchy time”.

Here’s an ugly fight in the center. A Greek Penta (yellow dot) smashes an Etruscan (red dot). Another Greek rows close (left) and fires arrows into the Etruscan. You can see the fierce boarding action ongoing in the center as the Greek (who already have great marines) playing a Fierce marines chit to increase their odds in the fight. Another Etruscan rows in bottom right and top right.

Summary: Etruscan/Greek fight a spirited fight with many boarding actions, ending in a draw.

This scenario can usually play to victory in 3 hours, but we were still even up score wise with only 15 minutes left in the saturday session. So we called it a draw. The Etruscans did far better than I anticipated, and the game might have ended if we started the lines closer to each other. The players did seem to have enjoyed themselves and I enjoyed running it. I have noted some places to improve the game.