Galleys Guns and Glory: Knights of Malta Galley

 “Mustapha then had some of the bodies of the knights and a Maltese priest—“some mutilated, some without heads, some with their bellies ripped open”—dressed in their distinctive red-and-white surcoats and nailed to wooden crosses in parody of the crucifixion. The bodies were launched into the water off Saint Elmo’s point, where the current washed them across to Birgu.”
- Roger Crowley, the Siege of Malta

 

Side view of a Maltese Galley showing the Bulwarks and yard arm pennon.

Malta!

It’s been a very busy few weeks since my last post- all (mostly) exciting stuff.  but first, a ship!

This Galley is set up for the Knights of Malta. In Galleys Guns and Glory! the knights have a great armor save (due to all that armor)  and a bonus to  boarding. They however, do not swim well.

The Business end.

 Closer and Closer

The store is now been set up with my ships and other accessories, and will be turned on on the 6^th. I wanted to wait till after the holiday, to be able to give eating watermelon and BBQ (while patriotically saluting my beloved flag) my full attention. 

 

Maltese Galley with boarding crew and galiot escort hunt for Corsairs

Beta Tester links! 

 I sent out a call to arms for playtestesters about a month ago and the response was really remarkable! Thank you to all of you who first off just plain asked for a set of the rules- and for the great feedback, questions, suggestions and full on playtests with AARs!  Ultimatley I write rules for you to play, so letting me know how you want to play has influenced the rules quite a bit- and all for the better! 

Special shout out to the Edinburgh Wargames club for their support and encouragement. Here's a couple of links to their club and club member's blogs 

Pioneer painting has a couple of great battle reports from the Edinburgh Game club. He’s also the fellow who painted all the ships! Great work 

http://pioneerpainting.blogspot.com/

Angus Konstam’s Edinburgh Wargames club blog has another good write up on the ships and the rules! Thanks Angus! (and I can't believe you thought of Oars du Combat first!)

http://www.edinburghwargames.com/Renaissance%20Galleys.htm

Galleys Guns and Glory! The Venetian Galleass

 “All princes of Italy are tyrants, except for the Doge of Venice!”
- Attributed to the patrician Bernardo Bembo

The mighty Galleas, secret weapon of the Venetians

And the nekkid version

Venetian Galleas! 

A Venetian invention, indeed a secret weapon-  the Galleass with its 150 foot beam and 25-32 banks of oars per side and 3-4 masts helped change the face of battle at Lepanto. Built out of older merchant gallea grossa, the galleass was fitted a round forecastle on the front that held 6- 9 large cannon, and raised and fortified the sides and stern castle, pierced with prodigious amounts of cannon all around. The Galleass was slow and not very maneuverable (They were towed into place at the battle of Lepanto) but more than made up for this by having 360 degree fire power and high defensive capabilities. In a sense, the galleass was a floating fortress. 

Galleass in Guns and Glory rules!

Like in history, the Galleass in Galleys Guns and Glory!  is a sluggish vessel, but that’s okay because it’s really more of a floating fort.  It’s great height and bulwarks provide defenses against small arms and boarding actions, while its massive amount of fire power firing from all directions is a bane to any ship in range.  In the 20 or more games that we’ve played not one galleass was captured, and only two were sunk- but at great loss to the Turks.  

Galleas and galley head towards glory!

 

A galleas fires into the Turkish line scattering them

Galleas- she's got girth!

The mighty Lanterna Gallea Grossa

Size matters!

As I get ready to (finally) put my ships up on my skullncrown web store, I’ve been getting pics ready. Here’s a couple that show the size of my 1/300^th scale ships. They are prodigious!