Help with rules

Haaahaha! I feel your pain, FMG. The second I bought Guadalcanal, I was so psyched to make my opponent’s IPC’s deteriorate via bombing raids, and swarm em with fighters. And then I opened up the box and went “WTF!?”.

I, too, am a bit unappealed by the rules. What we did was put a certain amount of chips on each island, gave it an IPC value, and put a production factory on our “base islands”. This made for an exciting naval minimap. I haven’t gotten to play a lot of navy-heavy games, usually my 1942 games just end up with British bombardment and amphibious assault on Berlin, and the US navy buildup with the subsequent bulldozing of the Japanese.

So, theres my suggestion for you, FMG. I look forward to your custom A&A molds. I’m DEFINITELY buying an italy set once I get my paycheck, and of course, once it’s released =D

@Krieghund:

No, it’s not specifically in the rules.  It’s just implied by the fact that the damaged area is on the back side of the card, away from the main sea zone area.  This is more pronounced on the Japanese card than on the American one.  Do you think this needs to be added to the FAQ?  This is the first time it’s ever come up.

A specific update for this is probably not necessary but as part of a bigger FAQ update it probably wouldn’t hurt.

@frimmel:

I’m not much for House Rules. If I had wanted to make my own game I would not have bought one.  :-)

House rules aren’t for everybody.  Nothing wrong with playing the game as written.  I just can’t resist meddling.

@frimmel:

Also your fourth version point on VPs seems sort of silly. Why add a complex rule when you could just increase the points required for Victory or add a Win by X rule? This and your first point of not scoring the airfields on round 1 are essentially the same thing. Again add points required for victory or must win by X rule (to simulate your dominance of the air)

Simply increasing the points would only serve to extend the length of the game, while this proposed rule ensures that one side must clearly dominate for a period of time in order to win.  Consider this example:  The two teams score the same number of points for ten rounds, and then one team manages to score one more point than the other.  That team has then won under the original rules.  Under this proposed rule, that team would still have to score five more victory points (or whatever number you use) in order to win.  This rule would produce a clearer winner, in my opinion.  I suppose a “win by X” rule would produce the same effect, but it would be hard to keep track of it using the point markers on the board.

@Imperious:

OMFG. This is bogus. Cruisers were the most potent Anti-Aircraft platforms of the war. As a protector of escorted ships from aerial attack they were the best defenders on average. The destroyer concentrated its defense on ASW because it was faster, while the cruisers could bulk up on lots of smaller guns because they had the deck space.

It’s not completely bogus if you consider that many U.S. cruisers had no AA capabilities except for some .50 machine guns when they were constructed.  Not a perfect rule to be sure, especially on the Japanese side, but I just threw it out there for consideration.

@legion3:

The CAP in this game is really to powerful, CAP at this point in the war, did not stop any determined air attack before they reached the ships, heck even at the “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot” a few Japanese planes got through and attacked the ships, causing no damage. This game has airbattles where all the planes are shot down on both sides in the air phase. WOW!

Having played some more games, I heartily agree.  I’m not sure the best way to fix it though.  I’ve thought about reducing the air attack of planes by 1, but if you do, it seems like you could produce a huge fighter swarm with nothing that could destroy it fast enough to protect your fleets.  Since fighters are so cheap, you can build a lot of them easily.  I guess I’ll just have to experiment and find out.

additional note.  Here’s an example to print out.  This helped me alot.

Example: I have 2 destroyers and a cruiser in the space, and you are rolling 6 dice.

Slot         1         2         3         4                   5             6
Type  Destroyer Cruiser Battleship Aircraft Carrier Transport Submarine
Result Hit Roll  1    Hit Roll 2    Miss Roll 5 Miss Roll 3         Hit Roll 1 Hit Roll 2

* The first hit destroys a Destroyer because it’s a hit with a result of 1.
    * The second hit will damage the cruiser because it’s a hit with a roll of 2.
    * The next two shots miss.
    * The hit of 1 on the transport will go back to the start of the line and destroy another destroyer, since I have no transports in the space.
    * The hit of 2 on the sub will also go back to the start of the line, but there are no more destroyers left to kill (both have already been counted as destroyed from the 1’s). This will put a second damage on the Cruiser, destroying it.

Obviously destroyers, fighters, and infantry are “cannon fodder”.  The only way to get a sure hit is to get one on that spot of the ship such as a “Roll of 1” in the 5 location if there was an aircraft carrier.  During the war, there were no countermeasures for ships, smaller ones including PT boats would get in the way of the torpedo instead of the larger ship and take the hit.

I thought there might have been a kamikaze in this one, but Japan didn’t start doing that until later in the war.  Your choice for another house rule Token, but balance it out with something on the allied side.

The token must be on the island.

Thanks for that. Appreciate the reply.

Thanks.  I’m glad to be here!