"Anyone played Tiller and Whipstaff?" Topic

Those are the Langton naval rules for the Anglo-Dutch wars. Always loved that stuff, but never went so far as to get the rules.

Any reviews or comments appreciated. Thanks.

(I'm crossposting to 18th century and Napoleonic naval boards because of possible carryover appeal to 18th C.. and Napoleonic naval gamers -- I think of the ADW as more "Wooden Ships and Iron Men" than Lepanto or Armada.)

atb,
khurasanminiatures.tripod.com

Hi Mr K,

Haven't played T&W, but have played the "Fast Play" version of Signal Close Action.

I've got a couple of shots of me and a mate playing FP-SCA on my Flikr site.

link

A basic analysis of the Napoleonic rules is;

1) IGO-UGO turn sequence.
2) Dice roll (3D6) at the beginning determines outcomes for whole turn.
3) Maneuver has been stripped down to the simplest possible rules.
4) Mechanistic combat system (ie: a ship will always do the same damage at a specified range).
5) Morale is simple and also mechanistic.

With these rules, Rod Langton as produced a set where all you really have to do is determine what sail setting to have (there are only 3), where to point the ship, and when to go "bang". Everything else is determined by what you read off the Ability Chart at the start of your turn (that 3D6 roll I mentioned).

I really like these rules. If you want a club game in 3 hours with a dozen ships a side, with or more 1st to 3rd rates, these rules give you a fast game that will come to a conclusion. You can do a game with a couple of frigates in an hour. All you focus on is the important stuff.

I wouldn't use these rules with just un-rated vessels. Though very quick (we did 2 games in an hour and a half using brigs), it doen't differentiate the different types of unrated vessels much. I thing the GW-H game Trafalgar is would be better at that. I wouldn't do a large game with Trafalgar though, unless it was multi-player.

Rod Langton really does know his stuff, so you can be comfortable that the rules have some solid knowledge behind them. I would expect Tiller and Whipstaff to be well researched. And if it plays like the Napoleonic rules, good fun.

I've also wanted to do the Anglo-Dutch wars, the ships look amazing. But I have to finish all the Napoleonic stuff I have. The Pledge you know…..

G^is,
JohnG

John, is HMS Golden Perch classed as a 1st rate or a 2nd rate?
;)

At 50cm, he was 1st rate for sure!

G^is,
JohnG

I have played Tiller & Whipstaff games multiple times at Historicon. They are primarily intended for depicting FLEET actions between the Dutch and English and serve perfectly well for that period. The difference to Napoleonic warfare (mostly in terms of control and command but also in terms of the lethality of the weapons) soon becomes apparent. Because, happily, we were playing with expertly rendered Langton miniatures the gaming table resembled a Dutch painting when the fleets were joined. The games were taut, a lot of fun to play and delivered a result after about 5 hours of play, give or take. If you're interested in playing large actions, I'd enthusiastically recommend them but the level of detail in ship handling is not high.

6pounder

As some of the fleet actions of the 17th century are large, and you said the rules represent fleet actions, I assume one ship does not necessarily mean one ship, or does it? Or do the rules break up actions into selected scenarios?

I haven't played T&W (yet), but I own a copy and 1 model = 1 ship. Essentially the format looks the very similar to that outlined by JohnG above for SCA. They look a lot of fun, with very little book-keeping, and now I just need to figure out how to tweak them to game the Cretan Wars…