"good set of rules for the Anglo-dutch wars?" Topic

Just looking for everyone's opinions?

Galleys & Galleons from Ganesha Games. We are currently using these (plus house amendments) for a 2nd Anglo Dutch War campaign and they work well.

Dear Dobber,
+1 for Galleys and Galleons.
I'm presently running a 2nd Anglo-Dutch War campaign with 30+ ships a side and having great fun.

The basic system is quick, dirty and fun and it is easy to tweak it to suit your own tastes. Here are an earlier set of the house rules that we use:
PDF link

Some of these amendments are also addressed in the designer Nick Wright "Fayre Winds and Foul Airs" supplement.

Although our amendments are directed at making the rules playable with ships based for DBA that is mainly a cosmetic thing. Most of the changes are directed at a more "historical" play and the key change is to allow ships to move and fight as squadrons, this speeds up play in large battles significantly without losing any of the fun of the RAW.

review of the rules and a battle account are here:

link

link

Nic's website is here:

link

Give them a try.
Cheers,
Bertie

Paul Hague has a set of rules for these wars in his book 'Naval Wargaming'.

I've used Langton's Tiller and Whipstaff rules

War Artisan's "Admiral's" work well for them

warartisan.com/rules

General-At-Sea by Iain Stanford specifically written for Anglo Dutch Wars

General-At-Sea by Iain Stanford specifically written for Anglo Dutch Wars

Nice set of rules, but designed for 1/3000 scale ships. Scaling to 1/1200 causes problems.

Thank you everyone!

There is a suitable set at runtus.org and it's free

Are you looking for fleet actions?

Tiller and Whipstaff is a good rule set. However not useful for fleet actions.

General at Sea is for fleets. I only played them once, but they didn't feel quite rate when matching fleets of different quality.

Form Line of Battle does have variant rules for Anglo-Dutch. Like the main rules but never tried the Anglo-Dutch variant.

Bertie,
Read your PDF. Sterling work there! Not sure how I feel on the G&G rules but if I try them, I will surely use your PDF

Already have a ton of naval rules, but based on comments here, ordered Galleys & Galleons. Always looking for simple to draw in non naval gamers.

I was hoping Osprey "Fighting Sail" would do that, but the simple mechanics were tarnished by excess die rolling and crazy results.

Dobber and Dantheman,
Rules are very much a personal thing, one man's meat can be another man's poison.

If you PM me with your email I'll send you the latest iteration of the house rules. I've toned down special effects even more. This is a "meat and poison" thing as some players like ships catching fire and blowing up all over the place. I accept that in the 17th century this was a lot more common than in the Napoleonic Wars but it still was a relatively rare occurrence. The only other changes are further simplifying collisions, (not a problem anyway if you use small bases,) and adding more and more historical admirals which I find addictive.

The things that I like about G & G are that movement does not depend upon quality test dice, (although manoeuvring does,)it happens automatically. And when it comes to limiting the player or what he wants to do -everything, every turn- and what he can do "he only has himself to blame" because the more he attempts the greater the chance of failure. If you try and do everything and get away with it that's great. If you come unstuck you may wish that you had played conservatively and settled for a little bit. Either way the player is responsible for his own decisions, so it is not like many command systems where a good throw means that you are "off to the races" and a bad throw means that you are stymied.

To me I want a an Anglo-Dutch naval wargame to play out something like a chapter or two from Frank Fox's "The Four Day's Battle" or from one of J.D.Davies' novels. You should be able to have several large squadrons pummelling each other, have hard fought boarding actions, and have a fireship or two to add period flavour and a little bit of terror. G & G with rules for squadrons does this for me, but I appreciate that other people's mileage may vary.

Cheers,
Bertie

Sent a note. Hope to get rules soon. Like your analogy about a game feeling like a Davies/Fox book. I think we are on the same page regarding what we like.