Battle of the Ionian Sea

Once again I turn to the campaigns of Pyrrhus using the Dominion series. This time on the high seas.

I used the ancient galley variant that Mark Cordone posted on the Portable Wargame Facebook group.

Background

After his defeat in Sicily, Pyrrhus embarks what remains of his army and sails back to Epirus. On the way, his fleet gets ambushed by the Macedonian navy of Antigonus Gonatas.

Set Up

I used my generic ship squadrons for this game. There are 4 types of counters - large ships (3 ships in wedge formation), medium (4 ships), small (6 ships), and transports (3 in line).

• The large ships naturally represent Large ships. Pyrrhus is the only one with Large ships, and they are rated as Marines (rely on boarding actions).
• Antigonus's medium ships are Missiles while Pyrrhus's are Rams.
• Antigonus's small ships are Ambushers while Pyrrhus's are Missiles.

Antigonus (red, top) is the attacker while Pyrrhus (green) defends.

The Battle

The Macedonian attack on the right fails. Pyrrhus, with the flagship in the center, orders a bold attack. The squadron passes through heavy missile fire, boards, and defeats the enemy squadron.

Then repeats the feat on the Macedonian reserve.

The Macedonians on the right finally break their opponent.

But get overwhelmed by Pyrrhus's reinforcement. Meanwhile, the center squadron continues to run amok.

It breaks through in the center and flanks the Macedonians on the right.

A decisive victory for Pyrrhus.

But his ire is up. He must punish this perfidious action by the King of Macedon.

"Prepare for war!" he commands his troops.

In other words, get ready for some more Pyrrhus land battles.

Game Notes

The rules worked fine; it seems like a great way to get some galley fleets in action.

My main issue will be denoting the different ship types - missile vs. ram vs. boarding. In this battle, I tried to keep each navy relatively consistent, which seemed to work fine. I'm not sure what I'll do for mixed navies.

My Naval Box

Back in December, I consolidated all my gaming materials from a bunch of small boxes into 2 large boxes. Now I'm going back the other way. Previously I put my Dominion game pieces into its own small box.

I now did the same with my Dominion naval set. I'm re-using a box from MicroBattle.

One reason I consolidated was that I could fit a bigger board in the bigger box. With Dominion, that is no longer an issue.

The other issue with de-consolidation is that I need to duplicate some supplies. I found a couple of dice but I need to get some new markers. I have some sunken ship markers to denote defeated squadrons, but they don't stand out well. I plan to make some more white flag markers. I also need markers to indicate crack troops. I could also use markers to indicate missiles, rams, or boarders. Anyway, keep an eye out for progress.