AA diceless varient, well playtested

@shadowhawk said in [Global 1940] Changing AA in the game:

Well atm they are free hps. After the pre-combat shots they dont do anything in the fight except take a hit. So as a defender unless its clear im winning the first hits go to the AA, they are dead weight at this point.

When they can return fire every round against planes ( might want to keep the @1 because they target units ) then it might give the defender a reasonable choice.

I agree. I thought when you said that you were referring to the version with your house rules, not the out of box version.

IMO they represent flak88 batteries, a bit more specialised AA guns then the divisional version but a lot weaker then the static stuff that defends ports/airfields and the likes.

Agreed.

I’m with CWO Marc here – I think at the point where you are trying to run a balanced March 1943 scenario, you’re not talking about a few minor revisions to history for game balance; you’re talking about totally re-writing history. Which is fine, if that’s what you want to do, but you’ll have to be bolder about your edits.

It’s a little hard for me to read your scenario setup from a wall of text; a graphic or illustration of some kind would be helpful. I apologize for any mistakes I may have made in interpreting your scenario. That said, the problem with your scenario, as I see it, is that there is no credible Axis path to victory. The Axis have to simply wait around and hope the Allies make a mistake. Maybe the Germans can press on to Moscow and get lucky there, but they have no time to build up additional reserves, no way to wear down the Russian economy, and no ability to threaten London, so there aren’t really any strategic choices to be made – just march every man east to Moscow, and hope you get lucky. Similarly, Japan is earning much less than the USA, is not in position to do devastating damage to the US Navy, and is not in position to capture enough of China, Siberia, or ANZAC in time to achieve parity against the US. They can fight over the Dutch East Indies but not hold them, which means that’s a losing strategy for Japan, because it will cost them more in lost transports and destroyers than they earn by holding the islands. Maybe Japan can get lucky against India, but, again, Japan has no real options in this scenario – they have to just send every man west and hope they roll well.

So, if you want a balanced March 1943 scenario, consider some or all of the following changes:

Germany controls and can hold Leningrad

German battles in Stalingrad were inconclusive; Germany still has significant forces in Rostov and Caucasus

Britain lost the Second Battle of El Alamein, resulting in Italian control of Alexandria and Cairo; British forces are defending in Sudan and Trans-Jordan

Italian navy was warned of the Taranto raid, and so more Italian navy survives, maintaining local naval superiority for now in the central Med

America was slow to recover from Kasserine Pass, and holds Morocco but not Algeria

Japan won a bloody victory at the battle of Midway, and so Japan currently has four carriers to America’s two, as well as control of Midway, Wake, and the Aleutian islands

Japan won the battle of Guadalcanal, and so Japan currently has control of the Solomon Islands and both territories in New Guinea

The goal of these changes would be to give the Axis additional (any?) strategic options so that the Axis have multiple credible long-term paths to victory and feel like they are somewhat in control of their destiny, instead of just serving as a punching bag for the incoming Allied invasions. I like the idea of a balanced 1943 scenario very much, but you’re not going to get there by starting with historical 1943 borders and tweaking the unit counts a bit. Contrary to popular belief, the war was lost for the Axis by March 1943; after the Axis failed to knock any of their opponents out of the war and the Allies secured naval lines of supply to France, Africa, and Indonesia, an Axis defeat was just a matter of time. This dynamic, unfortunately, will be well-captured by OOB A&A rules, and will result in your Axis side getting defeated 19 out of 20 games unless you make drastic edits.

@Narvik:

@Baron:

After opening round, if you keep an AAA instead of an Infantry, you are gambling a lesser chance to hit one plane, 1/6 or below 1/6 (1/8 or 1/10), against a 2/6 odds of killing an enemy unit, attacker’s choice.

Yes forgot to mention that. Also attackers planes should get to retreat at any time.

You could put a cap on shots at planes. I think the AA’s shottin every round may hurt the Axis the most.
Also have to worry about the AA dicing your planes out on 1st round.

Have a game. Using the D12. Also going to test the D12 @2 1st round then @1 rest of rounds.

For the D6 games I try D6 AA shots at planes 1st round and then the D10’s rest of round.

First of all, we never changed the setup from the OOB setup.  All we changed were the land movement rules to allow two moves into a friendly or already contested space as the second space, and the extended 3-move sea movement from friendly sea bases.  And we added in the economic and political collapse rules.

What that led to was a series of games where one side would engage in cheap moves, like dropping one Italian guy in Smyrna to help push the Ottomans into collapse.  It was making the game stupid so we altered the rules to have the effects of political collapse kick in at the end of the turn, and if out of economic collapse the country could collect money.  This in turn unbalanced the game the other way, by creating situations where Germany was in economic collapse at the beginning of every turn but out at the end of every turn, and so it kept collecting money and had something like 110 IPCs when it got lucky and started its turn able to buy about 3 rounds later.

It also led to situations where countries were in political collapse for three or four turns and then managed to turn things around by getting out before the end of that country’s turn each round of game play.

As a result, we think we hit on the right balance: (1) at the beginning of a country’s turn, before purchasing, it must check for collapse.  If it is in economic collapse, it loses all its money.  If it is also in political collapse, it may only conduct moves that are into spaces that would allow it to stop that collapse in addition to losing all its money.  Then check again at the end of the turn.  If it is still in political collapse, it is out of the game.  If it is still in economic collapse, it collects no money.  If it is out of both, it collects money.  (2) In the event that a country starts its own turn in political collapse twice in a row, it immediately, at the beginning of its turn, is out of the game.

These changes to the rules, based on our playtesting, seem to fix the crazy/“cheap” moves and balance the game better.

Hello all, I hope you enjoy my battle report

Rules used

Russian Revolution Rules ON
House rules added to help CP balance issues, Munich Factory only allowed to build 4 land/air units per turn, India factory only allowed to build 4 land/air units per turn, Added transport in SZ10, Added extra cruiser in SZ18.
Everything else is OOB.

I have attached my Battle report of the first 2 turns in a PDF
Playtest march.pdf

What if Naval Bases could provide AA cover for ships in a sea zone serviced by a NB. It would seem logical, since the base is located near the coast and would most likely be equipped with Anti Aircraft weapons. So the rule would go something like this: Naval Bases could conduct an opening fire defensive action using an AA gun that could target no more than 3 air units, this would last only one round. After the AA gun fires, normal combat proceeds.

Though if the NB being used is damaged, it cannot use this ability.

Here are some nice models that could be used for adding generals to AA games.

Go to shapeways.com/product/LKWVTVBJC/global-set?optionId=55887495

Here’s what you get with the set:

Set of 37 pieces representing the generals and admirals for each army in WWII. Scaled to be compatible with Axis & Allies board game. Includes the following pieces, broken down by army:

United States: 1 General Patton, 1 General MacArthur, 1 Admiral Halsey, 2 US Generals (Eisenhower model), 2 admirals in dress blues, 1 admiral in dress whites.

United Kingdom: 2 UK Generals (Montgomery model), 1 generic general (Eisenhower model), 2 admirals in dress whites, 1 admiral in dress blues.

Soviet Union: 2 Soviet generals, 2 Soviet generals with winter greatcoat, 1 Soviet general with winter greatcoat and fur hat, 1 admiral in dress blues.

France: 2 French generals, 1 admiral in dress blues.

China: 1 general (Japanese general model)

Germany: 2 German generals, 3 German generals with winter greatcoat, 1 admiral in dress blues.

Italy: 1 Italian general, 1 admiral in dress whites.

Japan: 2 Japanese admirals, 3 Japanese generals.

A&A generals.jpg

Aircraft Carriers can be outfitted with technology to have AA Guns that fire just like ground based AA Guns.  Only one per sea zone may fire, but it may fire at each attacking enemy aircraft.

CV was a poor defender for anti-aircraft. They relied on CAP to intercept incoming planes at lower altitude to intercept these and drive them away from the fleet. The Carrier created an umbrella of air cover to protect in this manner. It could not stand up to much of a fight and was the weakest in terms of AA capabilities in WW2.

IN modern times this changed but not in ww2. At midway 3 Japanese carriers were sitting ducks because the air cover was lost fighting off waves of incoming torpedo-bombers, and the carriers had the best Japanese equipment money could buy and it didn’t mean a thing because they were unescorted by cruisers and enough supporting ships.

A BB was a slower moving ship and was meant not to engage fighters but to engage surface ships and having the slower speed could only hope to surprise the enemy from nowhere or fight on equal terms against other battleships. Cruisers were some of the fastest ships and much better suited to fight airplanes by escorting fast carriers that were vulnerable.

The only thing the BB should have is a first strike attack against other surface warships.

Cruisers should move 3 with carriers and have a AA gun at planes hitting at 1 on the first round.