Leader House Rules

[General 6 Stars]

Some simple good ideas. I have a certain numbers of leaders start the game. ( can’t build any ) They all have a value. What ever the value is, gives troops or ships +1 on attack and defense.
You get to use for first round of combat only.

[Macaoidh]

Thanks all for the input. I’m new to “house ruling” but I’ve enjoyed thinking about and experimenting with different ideas that add some depth to the game. Definitely like the concept that some leaders reduce hits taken, while others increase damage inflicted. In my mind, it reflects the huge battles on the Eastern Front, where the Soviets ultimately won the day, but incurred massive casualties by comparison. It seems with this effort though, I’ve violated the KISS principle, which is such a big part of A&A. Play-ability should not get lost in the process. I’m intrigued by your ideas and I’ll go back to the drawing board and try out some of your suggestions. I do like the simplicity of re-rolls or “free hits.”

CWO Marc, what rules do you prefer to use for leaders?

SS, just so I understand your rule, if a leader has a value of 4 for instance, 4 of his units would receive a +1 to attack and defense?

[General 6 Stars]

Yes

[Narvik]

@Macaoidh:

I do like the simplicity of re-rolls or “free hits.”

The beauty of House Rules is that in your basement, you are the King. If you like this rule, use it, if you don’t like it, trash it. Your basement is like a free country, man.

But, when that is said, the idea of Free Hits sound to me like a Blockhouse, Pillbox, the Tank from A&A 1914 that absorb one hit when attacking, or the Battleship that takes two hits to kill. Now, is your Leader a Fortress ? An even worse idea is the +1 modifier. Techs will boost your unit +1, and Combined Arms will boost your unit +1, and if you play with terrain I guess mountains will boost your defenders +1. Is your Leader a Tech ? And the abilities, that looks like its lifted from the National Advantages option rules from A&A Revised 2004 edition. Is Patton the only Leader in the world that was able to retreat ? When I read history book, I figure he was not. Retreating is pretty common, you just cant do it in this A&A game because it will ruin the game.

The only Leader rule that is absolute unique is the rerolling of dice. A units combat value is its firepower. A Tank or Infantry unit will have just so much firepower, no matter who is the Commander. But a skilled and cunning Leader will find a better way to use that firepower, and a better way to roll that dice. So I guess rerolling of misses is the most elegant Leader rule. IMHO.

And to honor the traditional Keep it simple stupid KISS rule that is a trademark of A&A, I think the Leader unit should be a generic plastic piece, because Rommel could do nothing that Patton could not do too. A Leader is a Leader. The only difference is that Germany and USA should have more Leader units than the others, because they had the best leaders. Russia should have maybe one because Stalin had just purged most of his officers and generals just before the war started. But then, we are talking balance and playability. Remember its your basement.

[Narvik]

@CWO:

, a bad A&A player could win games simply by purchasing a “brilliant supreme commander” piece.Â

When I play Germany then I am being Hitler, and purchasing brilliant supreme commanders to win battles in the Operational level were exactly what he did in the real war when he let Manstein take care of France and Rommel of Africa. Now that is exactly how a Leader unit will work. Being Hitler I purchase 5 Tanks, 10 Infantry and 2 aircrafts, and combat move them into Ukraine. My job is to take care of the grand strategy. But since I am a poor dice roller and get lots of misses, I purchase this Leader piece to reroll my misses. Lets name it Mission Tactics, or Auftragstactic in German. I send my men into Ukraine, but let my General, Field Marshall von Manstein take care of the Operation level dice rolling. Its kind of like I am the player, but I let my little sister do the dice rolling since she is more lucky than me. The tactical level being each unit types combat value, representing its firepower.

Now, the other way is a rigid Commando Tactic, like the traditional French system, where the Nations President himself will order every single man, down to the platoon level, how to eat and when to sh!t. In this case you only roll dice once and live with the misses.

Historically correct, Hitler would start the game with lots of Leaders that rerolled his misses and won lots of battles the first years, then he fired his Leaders and did all the dice rolling himself. That did not go very well. Stalin did it the other way, he started the game with no Leader units because he had purged them all before the game started, but after the first battles went bad, Stalin would purchase brilliant Leaders like Zhukov that rerolled his misses and won lots of battles.

See my point ?

[Der Kuenstler]

@Narvik:

The only Leader rule that is absolute unique is the rerolling of dice.

I don’t necessarily see this as a positive. In a game where simplicity is a trademark, having to remember a totally unique thing to do needlessly adds complication. The “hit chip” idea is pretty much like you said, soaking hits like a blockhouse, which is familiar to people. Adding “1” to units’ abilities is also familiar, as it is used in arms research.

@Narvik:

So I guess rerolling of misses is the most elegant Leader rule. IMHO.

Rerolling misses does three distasteful things IMO. First, it lengthens an already long game. Second, it reduces the suspense of seeing dice results if the results are not necessarily final. On our game table, the dice trays are sacred - if the dice fall outside the tray, they must be re-rolled, but once they land on the felt in the tray, the result is always final. Third - there is a big chance this rule would cause animosity towards the player using the leader. You see his units miss at a key moment, then your glee turns to bitterness as he picks up the dice again and says “I can reroll these misses.”

Other issues to think of are not related to dice rolling. The danger is if you have multiple leaders, you could use those leaders every time in each battle in different parts of the map, to the point where it is not “special” any more. And how does Patton, for example, get around? He is just one man, so travel shouldn’t be a problem. Does he have a personal plane where he can fly to whatever battle is important that round? Should he be “stuck” to a certain formation like the third army and only be allowed to transfer a limited number of times? Lots of issues to sort out.

[General 6 Stars]

You start with so many Leaders. You either place them where you want or they have to leave from a capital and ground leaders can only move 1 space and naval leaders start move with the ships from a capital.

Each leader has a value and boost attack or defense +1.

So if Patton is worth a 4, and you have 6 inf in a battle, only 4 inf get the boost. You have to start giving boost to the lowest piece first. If the values of leaders are that low, then you can have the boosted pieces fight every round.
If the leaders have higher values, then they get the boost only first round of combat.
Leaders also A 3  D 5 on there own. (D12)
Leaders also A 2  D 3 on  (D6).

My leaders have values of 9 to 5. Every country gets leaders except China.

Iv’e only seen where the smaller battles help troops with leaders.

[CWO Marc]

@Macaoidh:

CWO Marc, what rules do you prefer to use for leaders?

I’ve never used any kind of Leader house rules, so I don’t have any favourite ones which I can recommend.  Just from a theoretical gaming perspective, however, and from the perspective of reasonable historical accuracy, here are some general thoughts on what I think would need to be considered when designing a leader unit for A&A games.

• The leader unit should have a clear function.  It seems to me that there’s actually an unstated assumption that the term “leader unit” specifically means a “good leader unit” who confers a bonus of some sort.  After all, in real war there are often plenty of bad leaders who end up harming their own side rather than helping it… and who’d want to purchase a “bad leader unit” for a wargame?  Theoretically, it might be an interesting exercise for a wargame to allocate each team a combination of good leader units and bad leader units, to present each player with the challenge of managing the kinds of headaches that supreme commanders face in real life when they realize that some of their senior officers are poorly suited for command – but I doubt that many recreational wargamers would like to play a game that saddles them with these kinds of liabilities.  (Some wargame systems apparently include “idiocy rules” which force players to do the dumb things that actually happened in the historical war the games replicate.)

• Another thing to consider is the issue of scale which I mentioned in my previous post.  The A&A global-level or theatre-level games (basically, all of them except D-Day, Bulge and Guadalcanal) operate at such a large scale that the effects of good leadership by anyone lower than a flag officer would probably be invisible… so in my opinion, the leader units should not represent anyone below the level of a general or an admiral.  At the same time, I’d argue that the supreme leadership of each combatant nation is represented by the players themselves, and therefore that it doesn’t make sense for a leader unit to represent this supreme leadership.  (This was the point I was driving at earlier when I said that if it were otherwise, a bad A&A player could win games simply by purchasing a “brilliant supreme commander” piece, but which I think I may not have explained clearly enough.  My point was that unit purchases can’t make someone play better.  A special unit could, in principle, be used to rationalize a system that allows a bad player to take back a stupid move and try something else, but personally I’d have no interest in a game system in which players are free to keep their good moves and discard their bad moves, or – as a variant of the same idea – are free to re-roll bad dice results.  In such a system, nobody would have any incentive to learn to play better.)

• If we go with the principle that a leader unit represents flag officers (since the officers below them don’t show up on the A&A game scale, and since the national leaders above them are represented by the players themselves), then the bonus conferred by the leader unit (assumed to mean a “good leader unit”) should reflect accurately the effect that a good leader of flag rank can have on the conduct of military operations.  This is tricky because a lot of the strategic and operational decisions made by flag officers which affect the course of a war – things like where to launch major offensives, when to attack, what balance of forces to use, how many units to allocate to the offensive and so forth – are decisions that the players themselves make in the A&A gaming system.  So to expand on my previous point, the players don’t just represent the civilian leadership of the countries they play, they represent in a more general sense the “national command authorities” of those countries and of their armed forces.  Frankly, the only “good leadership bonus” that I can think of which is realistic, which fits the required command level, which is universally applicable in all service branches, and which is sufficiently abstract that it doesn’t involve any of the player’s actual playing decisions would be the morale factor.  Great leaders can boost significantly the motivation of their men, even if most of these men never meet them directly.

[Macaoidh]

I agree with everything concerning the strategic scale and historical realism perspective. Most tactical and operational bonuses described here would be realistically conducted at the division or corps level, with army and army group commanders synonymous to actions by the player.

However, I would argue that A&A itself is mostly notional. What I mean by that is it is not meant to be a hyper-detailed historical simulation or recreation of the war.  Industry, national production, movement, combat, casualties, and income collection are all a representation, not a simulation, of history. One example that comes immediately to mind is the idea that attacking aircraft cannot land in newly conquered territory. I understand the need for this rule for game balance, but I think we would be hard-pressed to find a historical example where advancing armies extended beyond the capability of an air force to provide some level of support (not to mention for an entire army group).

So I do not think it is betraying the spirit of the game to introduce a “leader unit.” Also, this concept should not be limited only to the leadership bonuses an individual leader would provide. An argument could be made that the +1/reroll bonus provided by a “leader unit” represents not only that army group leader, but the summation of all the divisional and corps commanders and all of their collective military philosophy, culture, morale, and previously mentioned doctrine. Those and countless other effects historically influenced the combat effectiveness of armies and would have an impact on the outcome of battle. In fact, the sum of those influences were decisive (the Battle of France for example). The “leader unit” seems to be the simplest and most efficient way to represent these effects. By the way, that is a good point about bad leaders. I have not considered that concept before and I would even say bad leaders were just as impactful (Frendendall, Gamelin, Popov, Graziani, and even Hitler to name a few).

[CWO Marc]

@Macaoidh:

However, I would argue that A&A itself is mostly notional. What I mean by that is it is not meant to be a hyper-detailed historical simulation or recreation of the war.

Fair enough.  And I’ve just remembered a reference I once made to an American WWII general who significantly increased the operational effectiveness of the troops under his command: John S. Wood, about whom you can read more in my post of September 22, 2012 in this thread:

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=28501.msg1013994#msg1013994

[Narvik]

OK, Marc make some valid points. It is kind of redundant to boost your units +1 or reroll misses.

What if we were clever and exploited the Turn order system ? Lets say this Leader unit represent a Joint Operations Staff that let allied units from two or more players combat move and do combat together. There have been a House Rule from the day of MB 1984 edition that let UK and US attack together one time only during a game, modelling the Normandy landings. Lets say this Leader unit let allied units under his command attack together all the time.

When a Leader unit is mobilized in a seazone or territory, he control all naval, air and land units from his own and his allies that are currently in his space and the adjacent space too.
Both the Leaders owner and his allies commit forces to this Joint Operation Leader during non combat move. At the Leaders players turn he combat move all units, from both own and allies, into where ever he likes, in a big Joint Operation.

In a Global game I figure USA start with 2 Leaders, UK with 1, Germany with 3 or 4, and the rest with none.

[CWO Marc]

I think that one of the difficulties with the “leader = re-roll bad dice” mechanism is that, conceptually, it would mean that a good leader is only useful to have when things go wrong, and that he brings an army no advantages when things go right.  To my mind, this is closer to a Monopoly “Get out of jail free” card than a leader unit.  Realistically, a “good leader unit” should be beneficial in all circumstances, not just when things go wrong.  Or perhaps I should say “potentially beneficial” in the sense that it could allow a player to try things (albeit with no guarantee of success) that would not be possible to try (or that would have a much greater chance of failure) if the country he plays does not have good leadership.  The Normandy invasion was a case in point: it took all of Eisenhower’s powers of persuasion and all his organizational abilities to get the Americans and the British (who had a fractious relationship, different strategic priorities, and high-profile competing prima donnas like Patton and Montgomery) to cooperate sufficiently for the D-Day landings to function.  So the kind of joint-operations model that Narvik proposes would be one example of how this sort of thing could be replicated in A&A.  Perhaps the “leader unit” (representing a single individual) should actually be thought of as a “leadership unit” (representing the command structure of a country in a more broader sense, or more narrowly a body like the Joint Chiefs of Staff).

[General 6 Stars]

Already have the 1 time only  US, UK joint attack in game. I still think generals should be in the game. I’m still going to play with the values and also maybe put in where a general rolls 1 D6 and on a roll of 2 or less he can only use half his value on attack or defend because he made a bad tactical move.

I’ll  play around with it more.

[Narvik]

Maybe the Leader unit belong in the Facility class, among with IC, Ports and Airbases ? Maybe even add a Fortress unit that soaks hits to make the list complete ?

Of course the Leader unit will be mobile, even if representing the command structure of a country.

His abilities would probably be better control and command of the other units. Maybe better Combined Arms modifiers between land, air and naval units ? Or a possible Joint Strike ability to add allied units in attack when they start from his space.

An Airbase can scramble fighters into adjacent seazones being attacked. Maybe a Leader can scramble fighters into adjacent territory when attacked ? Or let fighters land in a newly captured territory if the Leader is there too ?

If the Leader act as an Admiral, maybe let Shore bombardment boost up any matching infantry, like the Arty does ?

Or let the Leader implement some of the new rules from A&A 1914, like Artillery get a preemptive shot at landing units, and Tanks absorb one hit when attacking etc. I would even let a Leader combat move Tanks and Mechs through a newly captured territory to do combat in the second territory, to represent Breakthrough. Or let Tanks non combat move out of a newly captured territory, so they are not stuck there, this would be a supreme Strafing tactic.

Maybe even let a defending Leader retreat after first round of combat when being attacked ?

[Narvik]

Come to think about it, there is already an A&A Expansion named Honor and Infamy Commanders that you can buy. Just google the name, and see attached pic

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