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Hey guys.

Im working on a game at the moment that I intend to do something with in time. However I need an area to:

Bounce ideas off to people who are happy to say no.
People with experience (even experience playing games) to offer their view/ideas.
People to play test and give feedback.
Gather interest.

So with that in mind let me give you an over view:


The World:

This is an Archipelago style world with huge amounts of ocean. The nations are beginning an era of Discovery with inventions and ideas being created and spread like never before. The main Empires rule over large territories with many cultures and races are under their control. Trading companies have grown huge in profitability, piracy has reached its golden age and many areas fight bitterly for their independence from over reaching powers. The seas have become a deadly place for all. Undead ships prowl the seas for flesh, sea monsters wreck ships, pirates raid near freely and empires clash over unclaimed territories.


The Game:

The game is a Fantasy Naval Skirmish game. Players will choose a faction (there are Empires, Pirates, Companies and Misc factions to choose from) which will dictate how their soldiers fight. In this wargame you fight with late era Galleys. What does this mean? Well galley warfare is incredibly interesting with boarding being the primary offensive tactic. Because it is late era galley you are using you do not have rams but you do have cannon.

When the game begins the galleys use rowing power (as masts got taken down for fights) to get themselves into a favorable position to initiate a boarding action. While this happens ranged units will try harass the enemy soldiers. In order to board your soldiers can leap, swing or if you manage to maneuver well enough... use your boarding ramp. Your soldiers can do all 3 of these in order to get onto the enemy ship and all 3 of these methods contain their own dangers. Players also have a mage at their disposal to change currents, use gusts of wind or waves to disrupt the enemy galley in an attempt to gain the advantage.

The player who holds both galleys at the end of the game wins.

That is not all though, the missions change things up. You may be landing on an island to claim a small fort. You may have to assault a port. The missions will change up how you play this game along with the terrain you set up.

Work being done so far:

A lot being done. Will have teaser updates here and there.

And there is an ever growing list of things to get done.

Rules is the big push right now
Factions and fluff




So what do you think? Would this be something that interests you? Any questions or bits of advice?

I will add to this in time. It is still in the early stages. Right now the biggest hurdle is getting the basic rules draft complete.

Cheers

Certainly sounds quite interesting. Seems like you would really need ship models to make this work. If you're not already familiar with them, you may want to contact Mousemuffins and CNC Workshop Miniature Scenery out of Australia. They've already made one ship, so might be able to help you (especially as they're more local to you than other continents).

In January we have planned to get MDF ship designs and tests. This means the ships can cost a lot less than sculpted ones but they can still look great.

For example here is a 28mm Viking ship (can hold up to 22 models on bases) made from MDF that only costs 20USD. We hope to do something similar but suited more for our game and theme.



Looking at reviews for the ship I think a fantasy galley with some more height and a little extra length could easily make a cost effective ship for this game.

Right now my tests use cardboard cutouts until the rules are solid.


The ship you linked is very cool by the way.

Hey guys, working on these rules I have settled on a 15mm scale for the models. Not only does this make the whole game a lot better in terms of space it also allows for really cheap terrain and the scenarios can be a bit more elaborate too.

Would the scale alone put people off? 15mm has a lot of huge and awesome ranges to buy from so conversions and stand ins are still an option. It also means I myself can have a larger range.

Now I shouldn't be doing this so soon... but here is the first image for the game.

A Perillian Explorer:


Hopefully by the end of this month I have some rules for people to try out. It all depends how the play tests with people who do not play wargames goes. If they can use the rules to play a basic game without hickups then I will put up a draft for people to try out if they wish.

Thoughts? Ideas? Criticism?

Cheers

For a game to be easily played by non wargamers, it will have to be "idiot" proof. I used to play 40k at a Games-workshop in a mall, which had huge amounts of foot traffic. The workers would have the people play test with the basic Battleforce box set which was Orks Vs Marines. People, to me, seemed overwhelmed by the rules or maybe the cost. You could see peoples eye glazing over after the first turn, I didnt see one person finish the game which was 500ish points. Food for thought.

I'm making a couple of games too, and the more I wanted to expand on the rules I had to keep telling myself to step back in order to reduce confusion or risk slowing the game pace down.
I made my own Car game, with boarding and road hazards. Pretty basic rules scribbled on a notepad, everything settled with a D6, it was similar to 40k but easy. (made the rules undisputed to prevent rule arguing and fairness) It was fun for how simple it was but never really caught on.

Things that might relate that I had issues with. Boarding and Capturing or destroying the enemy's vessel, I had it to where you did a melee to all occupants minus the driver, with different skilled enemies (rookie, moderate, best) the best units could kill a car full of 5 rookies if rolling fairly good and take over the car. Which I'm worried that your Mage will almost be a end all be all.

A game I get most of my inspiration from is Chess you want your Queen to be one of the tougher pieces but can be taken out and your Pawn can win the game if need be.

I like your concept and the Teaser Art work looks interesting!

Boarding sounds difficult, easily disrupted or halted by ranged combat or the Mage.

Ideas:
Is there gonna be Islands? Maybe room for surface combat.

couple mission ideas: capture the merchant/ supply boats
destroy opponents leader's ship
destroy opponents base (island or floating city)

Thanks for the feedback!

Yes this is why im testing it on people who don't wargame at all. I wont be there with them and said I understand if they don't finish the game. They agreed so when it's ready I hope to get some pretty telling feedback.

In this game you either capture the ship or the captain or the island or the harbour depending on the scenario. How the mage aids in this? Usually through the use of fog spells, wind and current spells and so on. They are less destructive and more buffers. Ranged is interesting, since cannons can only fire once (this is accurate to galley warfare) you have to be in optimum position to make best use of this cannon. Ranged weapons in this time had a tough time having to deal with not only being shot at but also trying to hit enemies who had to expose themselves. The game reflects this (in theory) which means ranged weapons have more of a harassing effect. Like in true galley warfare the real fighting is done by marines on board.

Yes there will most definitely be islands and some scenarios have beach landings and port assaults etc.

The part I think requires the most work is the ships at the beginning having the maneuver to get an advantage. I wan't to avoid situations where a standoff happens because it's obvious which moves need to be made.

How many ships do you plan on having per game?

One Tactic that I could see is using light ships as "Pawns" to draw out that 1 shot cannon fire and use the bigger ship to board the enemy. Basically a blitz. Could a blitz be prevented by Mage abilities or Out Maneuvering? What if I ram your ship?

Is the playing surface Hexagonal? What Size table 4' x 4'?

Right now it's one Galley only with the option to expand that to smaller craft. These will be added when the Galleys work as intended.

Ramming ships is what galleys did in the ancient era, however as time progressed Galleys lost their ram (likely due to ship construction improving) so in this time period, like it's historical inspiration, you can only eliminate ships through boarding and capture.

Playing size right now is a standard 6X4 (as that's the mat size most people have) but to come up with an official size depends how the testers feel about the space available.