"Anglo Dutch War Naval gaming" Topic

I have a few fleet packs of Tumbling Dice's that have been sitting in a drawer for a few years now; JocknRoll's beautifully painted ships and AARs have rekindled my interest.

The major hurdle is finding a suitable ruleset. I have Ganesha Game's Galleys and Galleons and Langton's Tiller and Whipstaff. My question is, what would make a naval game feel like the Anglo Dutch Wars?

As I understand it, the English developed the line of battle in the first. The Dutch typically had faster, more maneuverable vessels with shallow draft. The English had bigger, sturdier vessels with more firepower (and crew). The Dutch would try to use their advantages to isolate a portion of the English line and make it a scrum. To further complicate things, there were formalists and meleeists within the English naval command…

Am I missing anything?

It can be argued that the smaller Dutch guns had a slightly higher rate of fire, which may have gone some way to compensate their smaller calibre

By the time of the third war the Dutch could maintain a higher rate of fire than their opponents.

THe superior skill of the Dutch commanders and the skill of their seamen also made up for the defiencies of the smaller Dutch ships

Thanks for name check PAR, appreciated. I am using Neil Fox's simple Anglo Dutch rules which I have already added to. Neil produced them for a large re fight of Solebay a couple of years ago. He was very helpful when I started picking them up. They are basic and written for a large, multi player, non navel target audience however that said, They crack along and I have had tremedous fun with them.You can download them free from Simon McDowall's blog or website I think.

Thanks JocknRoll, I'd be curious to see what you've tweaked in them. I'm trying to decide if I just adapt one of my rulesets I use for later 18th century naval combat or I use one written specifically for the ADW.

If you have Tiller and Whipstaff and Galleys and Galleons I would try them first before hunting for new rules.

I have several sets for this period. I think Tiller and Whipstaff are a good start. Galleys and Galleons is fun in terms of mechanics, but it is more for small ship actions. It does not model the larger fleet action warships.

I also have General at Sea, and David Manley's set ‘Great Ships' which is free on request. All have their selling points in what they are meant to do. However, based on my experience, jump in with Tiller and Whipstaff first.

I would be *extremely* pleased to read reviews or rules-focused AARs for T&W, G&G, or G at S. There is little info available on them and I don't want to buy all three.

So if you have fleets, and opponents, and those two rules sets you would be doing us all a big favor if you tried them both and, since you clearly know the period, let us know how they stack up.

My current choice for smaller battles like Leghorn 1653, or multi-player actions of about a dozen ship per player, would probably be either Tiller & Whipstaff or David Manley's "Form Line of Battle". Both cover the period already.

I've tried Tiller & Whipstaff and found there are enough per-ship mechanical operations to impose a practical limit of about a squadron per player (e.g. a dozen-ish ships apiece). I also think the rules need much better rosters and a much slower pace of damage, but I never got around to writing house rules to do either of those things.

David Manley's "Form Line of Battle" moves at about the same pace as Tiller & Whipstaff, but would probably play faster with some streamlining. The randomized-length movement mechanics are really neat, but tend to be a bit slow to execute with large fleets, and the rostering system seems a bit overwrought for the simplicity of the game. I made a spreadsheet for automatically generating rosters which you're free to download from my FLOB page if you want to try the game. The current spreadsheet is for the Napoleonic period, so you'll have to adjust the math in some of the formulas for the ADW period.

I had a look at the Neil Fox rules – they are much better geared toward huge fleet battles. The individual ship mechanics are kept to an absolute minimum. Individual ships will end up feeling very generic and characterless (possibly even disposable), but this is going to be a common aspect of any game enabling huge numbers of miniature ships on the table.

I've also looked at General at Sea, and I think those rules are probably the best approach to gaming real ADW battles of around 200 ships. I'm personally disinterested in playing naval games with bases representing multiple ships, but it really is the best way to get such massive fleet battles onto the table in miniature within reasonable bounds of space and time.

- Ix

PAR:

Yellow Admiral brings up some valid points. It begs the question what are you looking for?

Large fleet actions are LARGE in this period, as well as LONG. It requires quite a bit of streamlining. Do you want big battles?

Do you want a few ships per side?

How many players?

What are the play specifications? Do you want a weekend game? An evening game? How long is the play time?

A game called Oak & Iron is about to be released this year. You can search it on the web. It is meant for the 17th century with the focus on small squadron actions in the Caribbean at first. It will be card driven and prioritize game, though With a clear 17th century feel. When it comes out we will see. It will be demo'd in the vendor area at Historicon.

YELLOW ADMIRAL, as a side note, Manley's game ‘Great Ships' is meant to be a quicker play set specific for the 17th century and a simpler alternate for his FLOB. I got them but honestly have not played them yet. They don't have random movement like FLOB for one. It may have done some of the simplifications you want.

Dantheman: Good question, I am looking for around half a dozen to a dozen ships per side to be played over 2-4 hours with 2-4 players. I'd prefer something less granular and more quickplay.

Right now, Galleys and Galleons looks like a front runner but I'm not sure if the "Song of" game mechanics give the feel I'm looking for (even tho I'm a huge fan of the author Nic Wright). Most G&G games look about 2-3 ships per side that I've seen. As far as Oak & Iron, I am actually a heavy pledger on the kickstarter and can't wait for its release.

I might order up some digital sets on the Wargames Vault, I'm beginning to think I might craft my own or bastardize someone else's with a card driven system.

Take a look at Firelock's Oak and Iron naval games:

link

link

I got into the KS and it looks amazing.

I just ran an Anglo-Dutch scenario with Tiller and Whipstaff at Historicon, and we had a final result in @ 3 hours with 12 English and 15 Dutch ships

This is a write-up with pics from OnTableTop

link

Leopold:

Saw your game listed and wanted so much to play. Unfortunately couldn't make Historicon because of family commitments. When would you run again? Historicon or one of the other smaller conventions like Fall-In?

I love the Anglo Dutch wars for their equal parity compared to other periods except maybe early AWI. Have large Valiant fleets for AWI and Napoleonics all painted and rigged. But if I did it again I would go ADW.

Dan I'll be doing this again next Historicon for certain. I may be able to start hitting Fall-In in another year or two