Cover art for War Galley: Naval Warfare in the Ancient World

War Galley: Naval Warfare in the Ancient World

1999 · BGG
Avg rating
7.10
Bayes rating
5.69
Weight
3.12 (Medium Heavy)
Players
1-2
Playtime
6 hr
Ratings count
315

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Description

(from GMT website):

War Galley is the seventh volume in the multi-award winning Great Battles of History (GBoH) series, but the first to venture entirely into the waters of the Mediterranean Sea. It is also the first historical boardgame published, in two decades, to address galley warfare. As such, GMT's War Galley is almost a complete history for this era of war at sea.

What is best about War Galley is how easy it is to play -- the rules are about half the length of the usual GBoH game -- and that means that most battles can be complete in several hours, at the most. The battles themselves, cover all aspects of galley tactics, from the line against line of big ships at Salamis (Cyprus), to the Chase, Turn and Fight of Chios, to the Line Astern vs. Line Abreast at Side, to probably the most unusual of all ancient battles, the Roman arrowhead against the Carthaginian Lines Astern at Drepanum in 249 B.C.

War Galley wars and battles covered by the scenarios are:


 Ionian Revolt- Lade, 494 BC
 Peloponnesian War- Arginusae, 406 BC
 The Silician Wars- Catana, 397 BC
 The First Successor War- Salamis, 306 BC (Cyprus)
 The First Punic War
 Ecnomus, 256 BC
 Drepanum, 249 BC
 Aegatian Islands, 242 BC 
 
 The Macedonian Wars- Chios, 201 BC
 The War with Antiochus
 Side, 190 BC
 Myonessus, 190 BC 
 
 The Civil War
 Tauris, 47 BC
 Naulochus, 36 BC
 Actium, 31 BC 
 




Mechanics

Dice Rolling Hexagon Grid Line of Sight Simulation

Themes

Ancient Nautical

Publishers

GMT Games

Designers

Mark Herman Richard H. Berg