War Galley Tauris 1

Previous:
Next:
Tags

Historial details are pretty thin for The Battle of Tauris - part of Caesar's civil war - in March, 47 BC. Apparentlt it was a meeting engagement in bad weather. Fortunately, recreating this battle in cardboard requires only suspension of disbelief, and a plausible facsimile of the situation as conveniently provided by GMT's 1999 title War Galley.

Caesar's faction, here represented by Publius Vatinius carried the day despite a smaller force. Crew quality mattered then, and it mattered in our game as well. However, the much larger marine force resulted in many of Vatinius ships being captured, hence the tie.

We played maybe 5 or 6 turns with a lot of ramming and capture, and declared a draw. Really hard to say which way it would have gone had we played it out. Lots of lucky rolls on both sides, with not too many unlucky rolls for either.

Here's the situation at the end of the game:

End of Tauris, tie at 28 points

Previous:
Next:
Tags

What to play next?

Deciding what to play next is always a tough call when faced with a closet full of games, all of which were purchased with intent to play. Here's one I'm dealing with the decision.

  • Something New: this means both something new to me and a game which has been published recently, within the last two or three years.
  • Something Classic: I've acquired a number of games properly considered "classic" which haven't yet been played. The current example would be PanzerGruppe Guderian.
  • Something Again: mastery requires constant practice, which means playing games many, many times to allow nuance to appear.
  • Something Vietnam: as I'm on a Vietnam binge. I don't have all the Vietnam games ever published, but I can say that I have a lot of them, and probably more than most people.
  • Something Obscure: as it's fun to poke around in the dustier corners of game design.
  • Something Different: break away from the same old publishers and try a game from one of the new kids on the block. Or, conversely, dip into legacy with a classic tried and true.
  • Something Light: once in a while it's nice to actually finish a game all the way through in one sitting, in an hour or two.
  • Something Heavy: if possible, it's nice to set up something big and complicated which can be left out for days or weeks or even months, for a leisurely stroll through a very large or long game.

There are surely many more ways to choose, but the above method keeps me busy enough, helps me get both breadth and depth into my play, and provides me with a sense of progress.

The odd man out

When there is an odd man out:

  • Have a solo game ready to play.
  • Keep score or advise on a game in progress.
  • Referee a game in progress.