Gas Attacks

[Imperious Leader]

The game has no gas attack rules, so what would they be?

Remember this is Axis and Allies, not World in Flames, so everyone should have access to this attack and no extra set of pieces or diplomatic modifiers needed.

[Dylan the Canadian]

If there is tech in the game, it could just be tech for regular infantry, that just increases their attacking power.

[DarthShizNit]

At the beginning of the combat, the attacker rolls a die, 2 or bellow and it’s effective and the defender defends on a 1, 3-5 it’s not effective, 6 it blows back into your own troops and something bad happens.

[Imperious Leader]

But how? they attack at 1

[DarthShizNit]

@Imperious:

But how? they attack at 1

Yeah that’s where I got stuck lol.

[Flashman]

I’ve been thinking of making artillery shells an actual unit, which you must transport/supply to your armies before the artillery can fire.

One type of shell would indeed be poison gas.

I don’t like techs that don’t have a physical unit, but gas as a tech would add a “yellow” shell type to the standard “red” HE shells and the “black” smoke units. So you choose which type of shell your Heavy Artillery fires in a combat round.

An entirely different approach is to have tactical event cards: the decks will have a certain number of gas attack cards, and a number of gas masks cards to counter these.

So what effects do the various shells have?

HE/SHRAPNEL is used principally to physically destroy defences, particularly barbed wire. It will also of course destroy units, though less effective against entrenched positions.

SMOKE will cancel out defensive advantages such as trenches; essentially it allows the attackers to reach enemy positions before they’re seen. Same effect as FOG (q.v. Weather).

Effects of GAS are more difficult to determine, I would say more to do with disabling infantry units rather than killing them, especially if the target units have gas masks. Effected units would be unable to fire in the battle, but would most likely recover afterwards, with say a 1/6 chance of dying from the effects.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poison_gas_in_World_War_I

Too complex? This is Axis and Allies, not Risk.

[Clyde85]

The easiest way to implement a gas attack system would be to have the player buy tokens to represent gas canisters(after possibly researching it), and allow them to assign them to what ever artillery units are on the map. Then if that unit of artillery is allowed to bombard it can choose to launch a gas attack. One token would allow for the following (the number of attacks you can launch is equal to the number of tokens you have)

The gas attack would consist of rolling to hit and if successful then rolling a further D6 to see how many enemy units are effected by it. If successful, units hit by this are reduced to a defensive roll of 1 or removed as casualties depending on the system being used(if a system of higher and lower quality of infantry is in place, then lower quality units are out right removed as casualties without getting to roll to counter while higher quality units are reduced to 1). IF the roll to hit misses, roll the same as above but against yourself.

[Imperious Leader]

Adding another unit is not KISS.

Perhaps:

Gas were deployed by infantry and artillery, so count up these attacking units divide by 6.

The result = number of additional rolls hitting at 2 or less.

Loses are taken before the first round of combat.

Example: Germany attack France with 18 infantry, and 6 artillery, getting 4 extra gas rolls.

they roll out 6,2,1,4 getting two hits.

two french infantry are removed before combat begins.

If we go the technology route, then just 6 techs with the gas canister idea as one. For this game we only need 6, not 32 ( remember this is not flames of war)

[Flashman]

See this on gas:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItsfvJyymjw&feature=endscreen&NR=1

Note also from this prog:

Importance of observation balloons.

Tanks were useless in defence.

Really, we need at least 10 tech units (remember this isn’t Risk):

Gas (as a 3rd type of shell)
Anti-Aircraft battery
Armoured trains

Light tanks (FT17)
Medium tanks (Whippet)
Heavy tanks (M series)

Pursuit aircraft (3-3) (Eindekker, Nieuport, DH2)
Fighter aircraft (4-4) (Albatross, Sopwith, Spad)
Medium bombers (Breugeot)
Heavy bombers (H-P O series, Gotha)

Aircraft carrier (Furious)

[Imperious Leader]

Really, we need at least 10 tech units (remember this isn’t Risk):

It is Axis and Allies so we have 6, not ten. What Axis and Allies game has 10?

Also, no aircraft carriers. They didn’t exist. They were called seaplane tenders.

Tech:

1. GAS
2. Railway Artillery
3. Tanks
4. Forts
   5)?
   6)?

[Clyde85]

@Imperious:

Adding another unit is not KISS.

MY idea may not have been that simple but asking the player to do simple math is not KISS either.  It’s much eaiser to just have them make an extra roll to represent the number to tokens equal to the size of the gas attack they are doing the have them add and subtract and then divide while the moon is in the second house of Jupiter or whatever. It would be much simpler to have them simply say “I am using 3 gas attack tokens, so I’ll make a roll for each token and check the results”

[Imperious Leader]

What would Larry do? =  WWLD

These rules have to look like something that would be in the game, not in another game

People dont want the chrome, but simple solutions that are easy.

[Clyde85]

In this instance I am prepared to say that, WWLD can be easily answered with the statement “making a shameless cash in at the opportune moment”. I hate to sound bitter, but it is clear that Larry neither understands nor respects the subject matter he is dealing with. WOTC would like him to make a big sack of money form them and saw an opportunity. Us historians and students of the period are noting but a bunch of insignificant gnats buzzing in the ear of a giant who can drown us out by stuffing more of the money it’s going to make of this title in its ear.

:cry: :cry: :cry:

[vonLettowVorbeck1914]

@Clyde85:

In this instance I am prepared to say that, WWLD can be easily answered with the statement “making a shameless cash in at the opportune moment”. I hate to sound bitter, but it is clear that Larry neither understands nor respects the subject matter he is dealing with. WOTC would like him to make a big sack of money form them and saw an opportunity. Us historians and students of the period are noting but a bunch of insignificant gnats buzzing in the ear of a giant who can drown us out by stuffing more of the money it’s going to make of this title in its ear.Â

:cry: :cry: :cry:

I think a year or two ago I would have really disagreed with you, since Larry wasn’t making a dime (as far as I could tell) from the work he was doing on all the Alpha’s and the immense amount of time he was spending (wasting?) listening to dozens of people who had each “proven” problems that needed to be fixed and happened to have the perfect solutions to those “problems,” but then 2nd ed. came out and he made lots of dimes lol.

[Yavid]

Gas attacks might be (or should be) something like roll a die for each unit in the gas attacked area each time you roll a one the unit is destroyed. Something akin to how aircraft worked in D-Day. But you’re rollling for your own units also.

[Yavid]

@Flashman:

See this on gas:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItsfvJyymjw&feature=endscreen&NR=1

Note also from this prog:

Importance of observation balloons.

Tanks were useless in defence.

Really, we need at least 10 tech units (remember this isn’t Risk):

Gas (as a 3rd type of shell)
Anti-Aircraft battery
Armoured trains

Light tanks (FT17)
Medium tanks (Whippet)
Heavy tanks (M series)

Pursuit aircraft (3-3) (Eindekker, Nieuport, DH2)
Fighter aircraft (4-4) (Albatross, Sopwith, Spad)
Medium bombers (Breugeot)
Heavy bombers (H-P O series, Gotha)

Aircraft carrier (Furious)

3 different kinds of tanks? 2 different kinds of fighters? 2 different kinds of bombers? You do know this is Axis and Allies the board game. Not Axis and Allies minis.

[Imperious Leader]

In this instance I am prepared to say that, WWLD can be easily answered with the statement “making a shameless cash in at the opportune moment”. I hate to sound bitter, but it is clear that Larry neither understands nor respects the subject matter he is dealing with. WOTC would like him to make a big sack of money form them and saw an opportunity. Us historians and students of the period are noting but a bunch of insignificant gnats buzzing in the ear of a giant who can drown us out by stuffing more of the money it’s going to make of this title in its ear.

But people play these games, like you.

So to gain maximum ascendancy of these ideas, they have to bear the look of something that would already be in the game. People don’t want frigidity rules and will not play them if offered. Whatever the solution is it must “look” like a Larry rule.

WOTC is truly a joke business and they will go under eventually, but in the meantime that’s all we can deal with.

[Yavid]

@Yavid:

Gas attacks might be (or should be) something like roll a die for each unit in the gas attacked area each time you roll a one the unit is destroyed. Something akin to how aircraft worked in D-Day. But you’re rollling for your own units also.

this is of course if there is a stack limit in the game

[vonLettowVorbeck1914]

Looking at statistics from gas attacks, it seems that as killing agents they were ineffective, but as demoralizing tools they were more effective. Thus to me it makes more sense to have gas reduce defense of infantry than it does to kill them. Even though both happened of course, the latter was much less common.

[Flashman]

3 different kinds of tanks? 2 different kinds of fighters? 2 different kinds of bombers? You do know this is Axis and Allies the board game. Not Axis and Allies minis.

British heavy and French light tanks were completely different vehicles with different roles.

There was a constant arms race in the air, with supremacy changing several times as opposing sides introduced new and better aircraft designs.

How can you have no bombers in the game? This is the perfect definition of a tech - an effective new type of unit introduced about halfway through the conflict.

OK, I was going a little too far (I want loads of cool aircraft minis). To cut it down to 6 (why is 6 such a sacred number - is it the number of The Lord Larry?)

1. Gas shells

2. Tanks (in this case it would have to be the British and German heavies, ignoring the French FT17 light model that was produced in greater numbers than all the other types put together)

3. Anti-Aircraft guns

4. Bombers

5. At least one more type of aircraft. This depends on which is represented initially; but there should be a “reconnaissance” type (2 seater, long-range, poorly armed) and a fighter type (1 seater, short-range, armed with ffsmgs). The Rec planes should be the starting units, the first effective fighters introduced in 1915 (Fokker Scourge) being the tech.

6. Rail Guns

I don’t see that forts are techs - there were plenty around in 1914. I’m assuming that places like Galicia, Belgium and Eastern France would have them at setup.