Table Tactics Destroyers

I am thinking of adding a third research table to our G40 games. I believe one or more might have been suggested already.

1. Self-Propelled Artillery Artillery can move 2 spaces and can blitz when paired with tanks. Infantry and mechanized infantry paired 1:1 with SPA attack at 2.
2. Super Carrier Aircraft Carriers can transport 3 aircraft (fighters and tactical bombers).
3. High Speed Transport Destroyers can transport 1 or 2 infantry
4. Convoy Escorts Enemy units disrupting convoys ignore roles of 3 or more.
5. Mine Layers Destroyers can lay mines instead of moving, attacking or defending. Anti-Submarine rules are not applicable when laying mines. SZ that is mined do not impact friendly units. Enemy units entering a mined SZ roll 1d for each ship. Each ship that rolls a 6 is hit by a mine. Aircraft on carries that hit a mine can fly to a friendly territory or carrier up to 5 spaces away; if there are no applicable territories or carriers then aircraft are lost. Mined SZ is cleared after enemy contact.
6. Improved Transports Transports can carry 2 infantry plus one additional ground unit

I would use these rules:

(1) if the defender sees a key battle coming and can predict that they’ll want an unusual order of loss, they can leave a note, send an e-mail, etc., informing the attacker of their preferred order of loss, and the attacker will then follow that order.

(2) if there is no note, the attacker will provisionally use a standard order of loss.

(3) after seeing the results of the battle, the defender can pay 2 IPCs to the bank per casualty that they want to switch. You didn’t want to lose your bomber after all? Fine, pay 2 IPCs, and you can have your bomber back in exchange for one of your infantry. This should be expensive enough to deter casual abuse but still cheap enough that if you would really be upset about the order of loss, you can fix it without too much drama. Don’t think it’s fair that you should have to pay to set up your order of loss exactly the way you want it? Well, then, you should have foreseen the battle and given orders in advance. Don’t feel like thinking that hard every turn? Well, then, you can always just cough up 2 IPCs. It’s a way of speeding up the game while making sure that nothing unacceptably bad will happen because of order of loss issues.

@Der:

Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill’s meetings are represented by the 10 minute opening meeting and the 5 minute meeting every round. According to this site the three only got together three times during the whole war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_War_II_conferences

As for the table talk sample you gave, at our table it would go more like this:

Player 1: “dude, you really want to throw all those troops at Crete?”
Player 2: “Yeah, because look over there, the USA could counterattack.”
Player 1: “No they won’t with my submarines threatening them.”
Player 3: “What you should do is use those on the East Front”
Player 2: “But islands are hard to get back - Crete could pay off for several rounds.”
Player 1: “But that won’t win the game for us.”
Player 1: “OK take Crete, but use the bomber on Caucasus’ factory.”
Player 3: “No way - what if it gets shot down? Italy doesn’t have money to replace it.”
Player 1: “Seriously dude, just do this…” (Starts moving player all of player 2s pieces around) “See?”
Player 2: “No, I don’t like that” (Moves all pieces back to where they were)
Player 3: “Can we have the map for a few minutes?”

It’s this type of tomfoolery I’d like to curb - in my solution players can advise each other all they want if they are not actively trying to complete a turn. I think that is reasonable. If you have something so all important to say to your teammate that it’s worth spending 3 IPCs, you can still do it. We’ll see if it works, I could be wrong also.

I like the setting individual goals idea the most, but after thinking about it it seems too hard to implement. Each nation does not start out even. For example, Italy may have played a great game just keeping what they have with their small income, while Japan should be able to take a lot of land. How do you figure out who did better to declare individual winners? Seems complicated.

Yes, this does happen over table and in team meetings !  :lol: :lol: :lol:

We do have little talks over table if somebody needs to ask what you or him want to do if its like when US and UK are playing split sides and Germany Italy.

We do have team meetings after every turn for 5 to 10 mins if sides request it.

Last game was really good and we had more team meetings than was expected. But guys want that and get it.  :wink:

One method to regulate commanders is to roll at the beginning of the game to assign each leader a level. That level would be how many rerolls they get.

@baron-münchhausen I think part of what’s needed to make subs both simpler and more realistic is to have a strict “up or down” rule that always applies. In other words, in any given battle, for the entire battle, the sub is either above the waterline or below the waterline. The sub’s owner might get to choose, or the attacker might get to choose, depending on how many destroyers and planes and things are in the battle zone, but we can’t have five different “states” for a sub to exist in, because that’s part of what causes the confusion. Right, like I don’t want to learn about what happens to a sub whose surprise strike is cancelled but that can still submerge but only after the first round of combat. That’s just too much. Either the sub is up, in which case it participates fully in combat, or down, in which case it ignores all combat.

Just my two cents.

I finally found a different HR intended to fix Subs vs planes:
@deslock:

IMO, subs are too weak if they can’t be used as defending fodder (I know some other user agree as I read posts complaining about this).  To illustrate, suppose USA approaches Japan with an invasion force and Japan strikes first:

Japan (attacker):
8 ftr
2 bmb

USA (defender):
2 CV
4 ftr
8 sub
2 dd
4 trn

The rules are fairly clear that in this battle the USA can’t choose to take subs as losses, which means Japan has a ~90% chance of victory (killing everything except for the subs).  I’m contemplating a house rule that states:

Defending subs can be hit by any air/sea units regardless of whether or not an attacking DD is present.  However, if no enemy DD is present, the subs may submerge before any rolling.  If subs attack and no defending DD is present, then defending air units can’t hit subs (even when they’re on the surface).

(I believe that the last two sentences are how it already works, but I included them with the house rule for clarity)

This way subs’ current capabilities are preserved, but they can now be used as defending fodder. Does that seem reasonable to the more experienced players here or does it throw off the game mechanics? (I’ve only played AA50 a couple times)

And there is also this thread about how to limit the DDs vs Subs ratio (same problem):
http://harrisgamedesign.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=6367

@toblerone77:

@knp7765:

I think destroyers should be able to bombard @ 2. In fact, I think all surface warships should have that ability.
The only thing that worries me is if destroyers can bombard @ 2 plus their ASW abilities and cheap price, that will start a new wave of people saying “Cruisers aren’t worth buying”.

Well FWIW I don’t mind adding some firepower especially if everyone can do it. I’m working with using the bunkers from HBG to have major and minor bunker complexes that soak hits even on islands. It really just depends on how far you want to diverge from OOB rules and what other units are going to come in to play.

A simple rule could be that all surface warships no matter their type boost +1 on a 1:1 ratio with land units for one round, and tweak it to your liking from there.Â

Interesting extrapolation.
It could be used by cruiser and BB in addition to their basic bombardment.
We can even consider more boosting power toward BB.
Cool. :-)

Yes but Herr Andersson you too have been held in such high regard and sorely missed by thousands who can benefit from your wisdom. Well to get you up to speed another company is making new pieces and many of these new ideas are to form the rules for the new pieces. I am sure you have been aware of the FMG project?