Poseidon's Postcard

This is a game of galley warfare that is a quick freebie giveaway. Poseidon's Postcard is very simple game of a small naval battle set in the age of Greek and Roman naval warfare. Players can construct a force consisting of TRIREMES or QUADRIREMES, depending on how you build you force structure. Players can customize their fleet with 30 build points. Larger (quadrireme) ships cost more than smaller (trireme) ships. Players may customize each ship by adding corvus, more sailors to stave off fatigue, more marines to help the ship fight well in boarding actions, and a Ballistae to add to the ranged combat. You may also pay for an Admiral (although it's expensive) to seize the initiative and assist with ramming.

Poseidon's Postcard is constructable board game of galley combat where all the pertinent bits to play the game are printed on a large sized postcard.

It will be available for download in PDF format eventually. Right now I exported it from Publisher and the only format I found acceptable to Blogger.com was JPG. There's nothing all that complicated about this project; just an idea I got from a fellow named Mike DeSanto on BOARDGAMEGEEK who created something similar called "Postcard from the Revolution" with the battle of Brandywine on one side and the rules on the other. Putting everything you need to play a game on one (slightly large) postcard-- that's a challenge!

Other design notes:

• You may need a pencil and paper to keep track of what the ship layout is like, there was not any room on the card for for a ship status sheet.


• The Skorpion adds a +3 modifier (I think... I'll check) to ranged fire combat.


• I didn't put starting positions on the postcard-- assume you may cluster your fleets around the top right and bottom left corner hexes at start, pointing in the direction of your choice.


• It's not explicitly stated, but since you have to cut up the front of the postcard to make counters and markers, you may wish to photocopy the rules before you do.

Change: Swap out the term "Skorpion" with "Ballistae". I had the terminology incorrect. Here's the IMAGE of what I was trying to describe.


The final game will be released as an Open license game that you may freely share with anyone (when it's ready).

I believe these JPGS will print out well on card stock at 1:1 scale. I'm working on better resolution; I realize these are a bit grainy, but they are not final.

Enjoy, and make such comments as you will in the comments column if you feel so inclined. I'd actually like to track them here on the TOY SOLDIERS FORUM, Design thread.

NOTE THIS ITEM IS IN TESTING. IT IS A DRAFT. DO NOT DISTRIBUTE.