Twix House Rules - Can I get feedback?

[Ucross]

I’ve played a lot of axis and allies with my local play group and we’ve decided on these house rules.  I was wondering if some of the vets around here could comment on what they thought of them.  A lot of the ideas were drawn from suggestions on these forums.  We play mostly 1940 Europe.

Twix AA Rules - b1.0

• Turn order change (Slight boost to the allies, allows 2 players to have more consistent action)
      Germany goes after America (Russia -> US -> Germany -> UK -> Italy -> France) on Europe 1940

• The person rolling chooses which units take hits (stops infantry hordes from protecting units)
    The roller can assign multiple hits to a single target (which may trigger multiple dodge rolls)
    Units can dodge by rolling 3 or less when
        Fighters are hitting any non-aircraft
        Bombers are hitting any aircraft or defending infantry
        Land units (except AA) are hitting aircraft
        Infantry/m.infantry are hitting tanks
    Ground units cannot target artillery until there are no other ground units remaining
    Sea units cannot target aircraft carriers until there are no other surface ships remaining

• Air interception round (mimics air superiority, let�s fighters shoot down bombers)
    If both sides of battle contain aircraft, all aircraft engage opposing aircraft for two rounds before the battle commences
    First round contains only fighters
    Second round contains all aircraft
    Occurs before bombardments
    Strategic bombers roll at 1 in the air interception round

• AA guns (makes em useful)
    Fire before each round (like surprise strike from subs)
    The air battle during bombing raids may include AA guns (at a value of 1)

• Naval spotting (let�s em survive)
    Before general combat occurs in a sea zone, attackers must roll to spot the defenders in order for a battle to occur
    A roll of 4 or less to spot a defending navy of 5+ surface ships
    A roll of 3 or less to spot a defending navy of 2-4 surface ships
    A roll of 2 or less to spot a defending navy 0-1 surface ships
    Defending navies can always choose to engage the attacking force if they were not spotted
    If the defending navy is not spotted and declines to engage, amphibious assaults still occur

• Battleships and cruisers (the big guns)
    Battleships and cruisers bombard before sea combat (just like amphibious assaults)
    Occurs after air interception rounds
    ALL bombardments only target surface ships or land units

• Research (makes it simple and easy and interesting)
    Each country rolls 1 die at the beginning of each turn.  If they roll a 1 they pick 3 techs.  They then roll to see which they get.
    Each country can only receive 1 research max, and France cannot receive any
    You cannot choose a research that another country already has (for variety)
    You cannot pay for extra research anymore

• Defender Retreating (Gives them an option � albeit a punishing one)
    Defenders can retreat after a round of combat into any adjacent friendly zone
    When defenders are retreating attackers get one full round of attacks without retaliation

[Der Kuenstler]

Its a long list but we use the same Defender retreat rules in our group.

Your AA rules look way overpowered. Statistically in WWII 1/10 planes were shot down by flak. In standard rules its 1/6 so its already too overpowered. Now AA can fire every round? I don’t think I’d buy planes anymore - they are too expensive to lose like that.

[baron Münchhausen]

@Der:

Its a long list but we use the same Defender retreat rules in our group.

Your AA rules look way overpowered. Statistically in WWII 1/10 planes were shot down by flak. In standard rules its 1/6 so its already too overpowered. Now AA can fire every round? I don’t think I’d buy planes anymore - they are too expensive to lose like that.

You would have to put Fighter around 6 or 7 IPCs with an attack and defense value @2 in SBR and regular combat to make it workable with AAA firing every round.
This would imply many changes again on other aircrafts and Carriers.

A simpler and less drastic way to work with AAA is to put them at 3 IPCs and working as OOB.
Each single unit will not be different, and buying more cannot result in AAA spamming because it will become non-optimized choice compared to Infantry as fodder.

The person rolling chooses which units take hits (stops infantry hordes from protecting units)
      The roller can assign multiple hits to a single target (which may trigger multiple dodge rolls)
      Units can dodge by rolling 3 or less when
        Fighters are hitting any non-aircraft
        Bombers are hitting any aircraft or defending infantry
        Land units (except AA) are hitting aircraft
        Infantry/m.infantry are hitting tanks
      Ground units cannot target artillery until there are no other ground units remaining
      Sea units cannot target aircraft carriers until there are no other surface ships remaining

Seems complex and will probably slow down a lot the combat process.
In addition, not targeting Carrier first is exactly the contrary of Air Naval tactics.

Why not try something like Risk Star Wars mechanics so each unit get a specific number to be taken as casualty?
I know that someone else suggested something along this line of thinking.
It is in the last 6 months HR Opening Posts, I’m pretty sure.

[barney]

Hi Ucross

Naval spotting looks pretty cool. have you played many games with it ?

[General 6 Stars]

The naval spotting is pretty long list. I like to just roll a 3 or less to find navy ships using sea planes (recons). Then after turn 4 figs can find ships. I see Though we’re 1 or 2 ships should be maybe harder to find.