Galleys Guns and Glory! Venetian and Turkish Galleys

Galleys off the slips

I built and painted these galleys, one Turkish and one Venetian, as display pieces for Dave Ryan of Caliver Books in the UK. 

Each nation or city state viewed their ships as a tool to be used in the way that best reflected the
ideal of their world view. With my ship model kits you get extra parts, flags bulwarks and awnings to deck your ships out (see what I did there) to reflect not only the national traits but individualize each ship.

Examples of Turkish and corsair flag sets- because I don't want to paint all those stripes!

Venetian Galley

To the Venetian the galley was a vast and maneuverable vessel used to make money. They invested
well into the designs and quality of their ships, knowing the investment would boost
profits. They had a large ship and munitions yard called the Arsenal, where ,building ships in an assembly line process, could produce a galley a day! 

Venetian ships were well known as having the best guns and gunners (they could afford them!) and had  Their gunnery skills are reflected in my GGG! rules.

I like using the open Arumbada "forecastle" on my Venetian galleys
to show off the cool big guns they have.

It's up to you how much rigging you want to add to your ships. 

The Turkish Galley

The Turks and Barbary corsairs preferred fast maneuverable ships and crewed them with the
finest archers in the Mediterranean, being able to fill the skies with arrows while boarding. A favorite tactic was to keep near the shore hiding in the shoals, and row swiftly out to catch unsuspecting galleys and merchant ships in the flanks and rear.

 Many of the corsairs who fought for the Sultan, such as the Barbarosa  brothers, were as famous pirates, but who's strategies, bravery and loyalty led them to become admirals of the Sultan's fleet. 

This ship uses flags, bulwark trim and awnings from two different sets
to show how mixing and matching can create unique looks.

To see how to paint multi colored oars, check out my previous post

I chose more flags on these ships in lieu of lanterns, which I save for command ships.

Galleys Guns and Glory! Rules now for Sale on the Skull and Crown Web Store

Rules Release!
Skull and Crown is happy to announce that our new Galleys Guns and Glory! full-color rules are up for sale on our webstore in both hard copy and PDF form. Just click the link in this line or go to the webstore tab at the top of my blog page.

Galleys Guns and Glory! is designed to play tabletop naval battles with fleets of cannon packing oared galleys, in a time frame from roughly 1500-1650. The rules are designed to work at "convention level," which means you can learn the rules in less than five minutes, get jump in and start playing – making a couple of n00b moves, (or spectacular advances) and come away with a story or two to tell at the bar.

Management of each ship and its crew are visual, making it easy to account for as the crew and damage to the ship are represented on the models – leaving little to no paperwork!

Illustrations in the book help teach the rules. Yay visual learners!

A Maltese galley and gaming bits

Games can be played ranging in scale from small corsair raids of a few ships, to "epic" grand battle refights such as Lepanto – with over 100 ships! With an emphasis on maneuvering, the brutality of gun fire, sky darkening fusillades of small arms and intense melee boarding actions that would ebb and flow across ships, GGG! has something for everyone!

Special Blogger Love Deal! 
When you order a hard copy of the rules, or any ships by the end of the year- mention that you saw this on my skull and Crown blog and I'll toss in some cool extra bits! 

Cheers!

Batttle of Lepanto Game

A Knights of Malta Prize crew Marker holds a Turkish galley

 

Galleys Guns and Glory! Moawr Lepanto

“They sail in badly made vessels poorly furnished with artillery, but they fight with desperation.” 

                                              ~ Venetian characterization of the Turks, Mattheo Cigogna, 1567

The Turkish Left flank crushes and envelopes the Spanish ships.

Battle of Lepanto:

I finally got the chance to go through the rest of my pictures from the battle of Lepanto at Pacifcon Game convention this year. Here, in semi order of the action is , erm- moawr Action! 

Fancy shot of the full game, ready for a magazine cover! 

Holy league left flank, mostly Venetian ships

Turkish right flank

The Battle begins

looking over my blog as well as others, I realized that in my non wooden wars games, I don't show enough of the players actually playing the games. I'm always too zoomed into the "action" when really the action is in the facial expressions and body language of the players. In my "younger" games I always show this- it is just as relavent and telling in the "big kid" games as well.

Confidant Turks and Corsairs

Both Fleets activating

Venetian Galleys mass fire onto the Galleass eventually sinking it

Venetian Galleass sinks a galley in one brutal volley!

The Scrum. note activation marker on right and "in action" die roll on left

Turks Center and left battles working towards the flank

Mighty Galleass  fires it's side guns

Ending moves

After many contested locations, gaps started opening up on the Turkish side which led to some effective flanking fire from the Holy league. Making a desperate attempt to capture the center and force a morale check the Turkish Flagship Sultana headed towards the Galleass in hopes to board and capture it. Alas the initiative went to the Holy league, wherein the Galleass moved in and fired all of it's guns at point blank range scoring 6 hull and 2 crew hits! The flagship already had 4 hull hits so was effectively cut in two from the gunfire. 
Morale checks all around for the Turks shown very clearly that it was time to cut and run. Game over!

End of the Battle-  Turkish Sultana flag ship is  sunk by the Galleass

Galleys Guns and Glory- Lepanto!

 “Wait- are those Janissaries on that galley? !”
- Soon to be captured galley captain, battle of Lepanto 

Pacificon Lepanto game! 

Pacificon was a fantastic success and a real blast this year, seeing several spectacular “Salute” level games across the weekend.  It was also the official debut of Galleys Guns and Glory!

With the help of Jay White of Flying Pig Games, we ran a large  Lepanto game featuring 68 (I think that was the count) galleys!  

Thanks to all who came out and played. 

I’m catching a plane to the Recruits Game convention in (literally) 3 hours- and just finished painting up what I need to run a game there; more on this later. Before I left I wanted to post a handful of pictures of the Lepanto game, because, who needs sleep! 

  I'll post more soon, with a full battle report-  but in the mean time you can click on over to Jay's Wargaming Madness  Blog to see some more pics as well as a great report on Pacificon

Cheers! 

Galleys Guns and Glory: Commissions

 “…As the Venetian galleys approached, black galley suddenly tore out of the harbor and escaped rapidly into the darkness, leaving everyone to speculate over it’s identity. This mysterious vessel was actually a spy ship commanded by the notorious Barbary pirate Kara Kosh…. !”
- The battle of Lepanto 1571, by R.F. Marx

a galliot inspired by Kara Kosh's ship

Box view of Christian Fleet

Box View of Turkish Fleet

Galleys Guns and Glory: Commissions

This weekend I had the pleasure of delivering a large commission of 42 painted ships, crew, &c to a local patron. About half the ships were ones I’ve already had done the others were all new pieces.  When queried about taking the commission, I learned that my patron wanted the ships to run a game at the upcoming Pacificon gaming convention in September; this is the same convention I was scheduled to run a game- so I parlayed part of the deal to be we run the game together (thus allowing me to play with my toy ships and not have to paint up an extra 42 on top of what I need). Even a Venetian doge would be happy with that deal!

Another key part of getting this commission done was to have a lot of ships available for images in my upcoming rules, and examples of painted ships for my Skull and Crown store. 

Store Sales and Rules

Thank you all who have ordered ships thus far. It is both humbling and exciting at the same time!  I’ve been getting orders from around the globe, and the feedback has been really inspiring!  Now that the commission is out dry dock, I can go back to focusing on the getting the rules finalized.  

Knights of Malta close ranks!

The lanterns on a Maltese Lanterna, thus the name.

Venetian galleys, Lanterna and Galleas

Updated version of the Galleas fully crewed and firing it's guns.

Christian Holy League Fleet

The Holy league of Christian ships part of the commission was built up with the bulk being Venetian, and then moving on to Knights of Malta and then Spanish and papal ships.  My patron wanted a decent amount of Maltese ships so he can also play smaller scenarios using them against the corsairs and Barbary pirates.  

Papal galley in all it's frippery fineness!

Spanish and Neapolitan galleys

 Color scheme and theme wise, I drew a lot of reference from historical paintings, making the Venetian ships primarily red  and yellow ochres, the Maltese ships showing a brighter red mixed with lots of whites, and the Spanish and Papal ships using more natural wood colors and a bit more blue than the others.  

Turkish Galleys with a green theme

Corsair galleys come in all colors!

Side view of Turkish Lanterna or "Sultana" galley

Turks and Corsairs Fleet

The Turkish fleet consisted of not only Turks under the command of the Sultan, but like the Holy League, a mix of peoples from across the Mediterranean. As an example, the galleys on the right wing of Lepanto were ships from Egypt, the ports from Asia Minor, and the arsenal of Constantinople. There were also ships from Gallipoli, Algiers, Syria, Greece and even Mercenary ships from Italian Calabria.  

Swarms of fast galliots ready to strike!

I love all the variety going on here! 

One of the things I enjoyed about painting up all the Turkish fleet is the amount of color you can play with, both in paint and in the flags, awnings and side bulwark trim. I made groups set up loosely by color, so that there can be a green, red and yellow(ish) wing.  The Galiot horde is another cool thing about the Turks, which should really come into play during the battle if commanded well. 

Upcoming Game Conventions

As mentioned above, I’ll be running an epic battle of Lepanto game at Pacificon Conquest this Labor Day weekend in the Bay area.  Scale wise it will be about ¼ scale with approximately 100 ships on the table. (Note-this number is subject to change when I actually figure out lists and painting schedules!)

I am making the game map based upon this Fresco in the Vatican.