From: Markus Stumptner Subject: Re: Chicken of the Sea The title is a Bergian joke on the fact that the Roman admiral threw the sacred chickens into the sea the day before the battle when the augurs told him the chickens would not eat. "If they don't want to eat, let them drink". (He lost, btw.) The game deals with the battle of Drepanum in the Punic Wars (ironically, it is not mentioned in the accompanying article, which deals with Ecnomus instead). The Romans under Clodius Pulcher tried to surprise the Carthaginians on the beach, but failed. Counters represent six ships, movement is I-go-you-go, with ships that are out of command rolling to see whether they can be controlled or (mostly) just move ahead. Ships can accelerate slowly, brake somewhat quicker. Command is based on being near the admiral or either in line ahead or column formation with the flagship or a squadron leader in the formation. Works ok, though I'm not sure these squadrons really represent the way things worked (at least the maximum controllable squadron sizes correspond somewhat to squadrons in the historical record, though that may be accidental). All ships have the same maximum speed, the Carthaginians are more maneuverable (they choose whether to spend MPs for turning or not). Ships are rated individually for crew quality. Combat is by ramming, shearing or boarding. Ramming: add your speed and crew quality, subtract the enemy's, roll lower than the difference to sink the enemy. Successful ramming brings you to a dead stop (making you a prime target in the next phase). Carthaginians get a bonus, attacks at a shallow angle a malus. Shearing: Move alongside an enemy, perform a computation similar to ramming, he may end up crippled. Boarding: Roll up to crew quality for successful grappling, both sides roll a die, high roller wins (i.e., ship captured if it's the attacker, attack repulsed if it's the defender). Here the Romans get a bonus. Summary, in case this paragraph is completely unintelligible: All three kinds of combat are quick and bloody. Overall: Moves along OK, except for the speed assignment phase at the beginning of each turn (major marker shuffling). The sequence of play makes the pre-battle maneuvering somewhat weird, since it is advantageous to be the player making contact (there's no concept of both sides charging each other and trying to ram or board). Pretty bloody once it gets going. No real feel that the counters represent squadrons of ships instead of individual ships (might be due to the graphics, though). Chrome is about comparable to the Fleet Game of AH's Trireme, but no distinction between ship types. Good for multiple plays, might be interesting to see it applied to other battles (since it can be used for playing a full engagement unlike Trireme or Ram Speed). Played it twice so far (both times as Carthaginian), the first time I had some trouble as the Carthaginian to sort out my deployment. The Romans were moving faster when we met, which did not help my ramming performance one bit. :-) In the second game, I first evaded and then closed in at full speed and in multiple waves against a Roman who huddled on the map edge, preferring to wait for chances to board afterwards. Whee! There was not much of an afterwards (although we aren't finished with the game yet :-). Markus