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!