Empires at Sea

Rules for Nautical Wargaming in Antiquity.

It would be impossible within any reasonably brief set of rules to give stats for every variation of vessel which saw action during this time period. What these rules are designed to do is give a sense of naval combat in the age of antiquity, while being streamlined enough to have games played in a reasonable amount of time. Empires at Sea, will classify vessels into one of three types: triremes, quadriremes (including quinqueremes) and heavies (which include the above mentioned hexaremes and other poly-remes).

Empires at Sea is designed to by played with 1/1200th scale ships on an approximately 6’ x 4’ hex-grid playing surface. Typical mats, such as those available from Hotz (Sea Blue felt mat) with 2 inch hexes generally work very well. Alternately, players could utilize 1/600th scale ships (such as Xyston Miniatures) on an 8’ x 6’ mat with 3 or 4 inch hexes if they choose to do so. Both scales work equally well.