"Rules question: Tiller and Whipstaff (and SCA?)" Topic

Finally started reading these rules. Not clear on Defence Capabilty (DC). For example, as I read it, a 70 gun second rate has a Broadside Factor (BF) of 7. That gives a DC of 7 for each side of the ship. Each DC has a value of 130. Therefore each side has an overall strength of 910 points, or 1,820 for the whole ship. Is that correct?

If so, I would think a game takes a long time because ships last so long and the math can get tedious.

I don't have those rules, but would think that in
most of the engagements of the period, melee/morale
in boarding actions were the decisive elements,
rather than gunnery, except as a means of clearing/
reducing the enemy's crew.

How do the rules address that ?

They have rules for boarding. However, at this time boarding as the main combat was disappearing. The Dutch were masters at boarding but found limited opportunities as the ships were getting large and closing under fire difficult. They suffered tremendously in the first Anglo Duch war because of it. By the second Anglo Dutch War the line of battle was supreme.

So, in short, this is a gunnery set of rules first.

I'm interested in these rules but there are no reviews or after actions or the like. Anything you want to share about them will benefit the hobby!

Hi,

I haven't played Tiller and Whipstaff, but I have played Signal Close Action. SCA from Langtons is my favorite set of Napoleonic Naval rules. I particularly like the Fast Play version, because it just focuses on the manouver aspect of the game.

In SCA I can have a 74 3rd rate. It has a Broadside Factor (BF) of 7 and a Defence Capacity (DC) of 120.

The BF is used when firing. So you will shoot with your BF multiplied by a factor depending on range, target, etc. These factors are quite small at long range, but larger for medium and close, and also extra multipliers for rakes.

Using the BF, each side (port and starboard) gets 7 DCs and the Rigging also gets 7 DCs.

So multipling it up, Port is 840, Starboard 840 and Rigging 840.

But that is not really how it works.

As your Port and/or Starboard side and the Rigging takes damage, it accumulates. Lets say you have accumulated 134 points of damage on your Port side, 84 on the Starboard and 38 on the Rigging, that means you have lost 1 DC on the Port side (with 14 left over to accumulate for the next one) and you have not lost a DC for the Starboard or the Rigging. The damage is kept seperate for Port, Starboard and Rigging (there are expections when damage can leak over).

But the game is about the morale rolls. These are greatly effected by DCs lost, so losing 2 DCs on the Port and 1 DC on the Starboard is 3 DCs lost, or -6 on the morale roll (This is the fast play version here). This -6 could easily make you strike if you have been unlucky elsewhere (say you rolled low for the random component, and you have a poor crew, and you are being pounded by two ships larger than you, on fire, etc).

Loss of DCs also mean -1 for each on the Ability Score. As these -1's accumulate, even moderately low rolls on the Ability Chart can put you in serious trouble.

See here for a recent game.

link

Hope this helps,
John
PS: I may be slightly out with the actual values of the DFs and DCs. I'm going from memory.

John

Thanks for getting back to me with such a detailed response. I emailed Rod Langton and you confirmed what he told me.

I went over a solo play test and you are right about the morale driving the game. As you surmised, I was taken back about how much damage these ships can take. However, on going over a solo play, ships quit long before they loose their strength.

I agree that this is a great set of rules. I think Langton knows his stuff, and his game mechanics are a model for any wargame rule set, land or sea. Reducing the complexity to a few basic numbers and a single triple dice roll, while still capturing the essence of naval warfare, is brilliant.

P.S. Perry the Platypus is one of my favorite heroes.

Finally started reading these rules. Not clear on Defence Capabilty (DC). For example, as I read it, a 70 gun second rate has a Broadside Factor (BF) of 7. That gives a DC of 7 for each side of the ship. Each DC has a value of 130. Therefore each side has an overall strength of 910 points, or 1,820 for the whole ship. Is that correct?

Yes, that is kind of correct. What you calculated are indeed the total amount of damage points for one side of the hull or the whole hull….,but that is not that important for the game (T&W).

What is important is the losing of DC's.
Losing DC's affects your ability score (for the abilty card)
Every time when you lose a hull DC you also lose a BF on that side, decreasing your fire power.
After losing one or more DC's (depending on the ships size) you have to start checking the morale for that particular ship.
Keep in mind that all ships only have a maximum of 6 rigging DC's. Losing on or more of them results in a decrease of maximum movement.

After losing several DC's things mostly starting to go wrong for that ship. Eventually resulting in striking the colors, getting on fire or…
I can not recall a game were a ship lost all of its hull DC's by shooting alone.

It is a great game and the real challenge is to maneuver your fleet correctly and getting in a good position to fire. I have had dozens of collisions with own and enemy ships. But also I had games where is was nearly impossible to reach the enemy.

Also, I forgot to mention that loss of DCs also effects broadside and speed.

With my example, if my 74 with a BF of 7 has lost a DC on its Port side, the BF on that side is now 6. So it will inflict less damage. Similarly loss of DCs from the rigging will reduce the distance the ship can move as mentioned by Monash.

Also, as Monash says, once you loose enough DCs, bad things start happening more frequently. Fires in particular can have an accumulating effect if you start to have a run of bad dice on the Ability Score.

It is a very fun game. As I said before, I prefer the Langton Fast Play rules, because Napoleonic Naval isn't my primary gaming interest. The rules are simple enough to read up and re-remember before a game, easy enough to play, and historically accurate enough to be satisfing. I have played the Full version before, and it is much more detailed, which I would think would satisfy those who prefer that, but still using the same simple mechanisms.

Cheers,
JohnG