House rules for using the new 1941 sculpts in other global games…

@jacobg I think that makes airplanes too vulnerable. You would need to make them cheaper.

Cheaper airplanes and more effective AA might well be more realistic, but be careful about shifting the balance.

I’m sorry, 1942 is the edition I always play now and I had a brain cramp and thought they were priced at 16. It’s the price I think they should cost, but you’re absolutely right, they’re at 20 and so we never buy them!

EDIT: Ahem, I just realized that there’s a subforum for house rules… can a mod move this there, or should I just repost?

I’ve been watching this forum for a while, but waited until today to create an account. After looking around on the internet for house rules for Guadalcanal, and only finding Krieghund’s submarine changes (I can’t post links at the moment, I guess), I decided to make my own. This isn’t some small change, this changes how the game is played completely.

These rules are in early development, and we have only just started our first game using these rules, but I wanted to see what feedback you guys can give.

Introduction:
Guadalcanal was the first Axis and Allies game that I ever played. My dad got it for me for Christmas one year because it was the cheapest version at the time. After playing a few games, we found that we didn�t like some of the major components in the game. We felt that the 15 victory point limit made for a short game that was hard to change the course of midway through. We also felt that, though important, airfields shouldn�t be what decide victory over defeat.

We made some changes to the rules, the major change was that the victory condition was total domination, a simple objective, but it more accurately reflected the true objective of the Solomon campaign. We also did small tweaks to units, including changing the armor mechanics for battleships and adding an entirely new unit: the transport plane. But, these rules encouraged building up each of your islands with an unbreakable force which caused neither side to make large offensives. Usually someone (normally me) would surrender while both sides still had three of the islands.

I realized that, while I didn�t want to go back to the original rules, our primitive house rules had to change. I searched for house rules that did anything more than altering submarine mechanics, but none (that I found) existed for Guadalcanal. I decided it was time to take matters into my own hands and do a major overhaul of how Guadalcanal plays. This was the result, and with a few more changes it should be close to perfection.

Rule Changes:

Mass Invasion: When one player lands at least six land units on an island controlled by the other player, they must declare a �mass invasion� on that island. Put a marker on that island to signify a �mass invasion�. The �mass invasion� ends when all of the attacker or defender�s units are killed or moved off of the island.

Note: If the attacker already has units on the island and declares a �mass invasion� those units become part of it, along with any units put on the island after the �mass invasion� has been declared.

Objective Changes:
It was difficult thinking of some middle ground between getting points for airfields and total domination. We decided to stick with the point system, but instead of just getting points for airfields, we added more objectives for the player to complete.

Note: The points gained from each objective are added at the same time during the �score victory points and check for victory� If both players reach 15 victory points in the same turn, the player with more points past 15 wins. In the case of a tie, play until one player has more points at the end of the turn.

Objectives:

Build Airfield: Build an airfield. (1 point)

Capture Airfield: Capture an island that has an airfield on it. (1 point for 1 airfield, 2 points for 2 airfields.)

Capture and Hold Island: Capture an island and still have control of it at the end of the next turn. (1 point)

Sink Capital Ship: Sink a battleship or aircraft carrier. (1 point)

Damage Airfield: Succeed in damaging an enemies airfield. (1 point)

Foil Invasion: As the defender, have control of the island at the end of a �mass invasion�. (2 points)
Unit Changes:

Submarine: There are two different types of submarines: Fleet submarines and Patrol submarines.

Submarines are fleet subs if they are in a sea zone with a friendly non-sub sea unit. They behave as submarines normally do.

Submarines are patrol subs when they are in a sea with no friendly sea units, besides friendly submarines. They may not be attacked unless they attacked that turn. After a patrol sub attacks, any surviving unit may fire back at the sub(s) during the Attack Sea Units phase at its anti-submarine power, which is shown below:

Artillery: 0
Infantry: 0
Submarine: 0
Destroyer: 2
Cruiser: 1
Aircraft Carrier: 0
Battleship: 0
Bomber: 2
Fighter: 1

Battleship: A battleship hit by a one on its first hit that survives the turn retains the damage and loses the �heavy armor� ability until repaired using a supply token that is at a friendly island during the Reinforce, Repair, and Deploy phase.

A battleship hit by a two on its first hit that survives the turn ignores the damage like normal.

Fighter: Instead of fighters moving two zones during movement and two zones during regroup, fighters can move a total of four zones, but they must have enough movement during the regroup phase to get them to a friendly airfield or aircraft carrier.

Bomber: Instead of bombers moving three zones during movement and three zones during regroup, bombers can move a total of six zones, but they must have enough movement during the regroup phase to get them to a friendly airfield.

Right - but using the latest rules for straights - you can make a rule “subs cannot conduct convoy raids while inside protected straits” - so the subs would have to come out to make the raid and remain in that zone for the rest of the turn.

For any game with tech research in it, I like the tech being more likely to be discovered the more money you put into it. Instead of needing to roll a 6 on one die to discover the tech, you roll two dice and need to roll a 12, but for each previous roll, you get +1 to your current roll. So on the second roll you would succeed on an 11, on the third roll on a 10, etc. The average number of rolls needed to get the tech is about the same, but the variation is much lower. You’re much less likely to get it on your first attempt, but also much less likely to need 10+ attempts. To keep track of how many rolls you’ve made, place a die (or an airplane movement marker from Revised) on the tech chart where the control marker would go.

@Fishmoto37:

@finnman:

What I ment was on the map you posted you had different colours of units. I was wondering they represented.

OK, I think I just woke up. You must have been referring to my photo of the ongoing A&AG1940 game when you mentioned colors. If so I think that I had some white AA guns that have not been painted yet, some ICs that I painted in Italian and Russian colors, some light blue infantry for true neutrals, some green infantry for allied friendly neutrals, some blue TBFs for the U.S. tac bombers and one unpainted metal sturmovic for the Soviet tac bomber. I placed the neutral infantry in the original game setup so that if they were attacked it would save time placing units later. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Ah it’s ok I’m looking forward too the Mediterranean game.

Someone voted please tell me your reasoning(rakeman most likly)

Hi, just joined the website, but I have been playing A+A for a long time.  My friends and I played with our own rules, but they  were all even balanced for the most part.  And ohhh boy did we play!  Did all of you get the dreams?  I swear some nights I would have these dreams like “I had three tanks, 5 guys, and 2 fighters….”, replaying these battle sequences in my dream!

We used 8 sided dice, 18 different units not counting artillery, AA gun or IC, 3 different Tech charts with 8 techs each. We had Auto buy which were free units at the star of your turn and Capital Surplus which was a roll at the end of your turn, if you get a good roll then you get a free piece.  We used the Cards of War, which is a deck of cards that I made which help on offense, defense and misc situations.  And of course we played on a home made map.

Before Artillery was introduced in the AA Europe Expansion I think, my friends and I had a custom piece called an Artillery that  was different than the official rules when they came out.  It all started with Germany…how times has an Axis player faced endless UK and American transports just carting dudes in.  And how many times has there been a wall of Russian troops in Karilea?  So I came up with an Artillery…which was an AA gun with a country marker under it.  And it was ruled like a typical AA gun…only one per territory, one on a transport…etc.  but the special thing about the Artillery was that it rolled one die for every defending unit, and hits on a roll of a one.  That’s right…it cost 10 bucks and moved one space and had a range of 2 spaces.  If that isn’t strong enough it could also be used to attack naval units!  As long as a fighter or bomber attack the boats also, an Artillery or two (if in range) could be used as well.  So if UK had 5 transports and a battleship, Germany could attack that fleet with 1 fighter and 2 artillerys.  The artillerys would roll 12 dice total!  Oh yeah, they only fire once per battle.

But in time the aritllerys got used and abused, we even made a new tech called Long Range Artillery to make it really crazy.  Another tech we had was Gunboat Technology, which let transports holding an AA gun or an Artillery and fire then at land or air pieces.  Then another tech we had was Defensive Artillery which meant if you attacked one of my properties and I had an artillery in it, then before you rolled your attack my artillery would first attack you and roll one die for each attacking unit you had.  Any ones that I roll will eliminate one attacking unit.  That was a pretty cool, but not very reliable tech.

I played it for years and loved it.  I made many many maps, ordered countless extra units.  One of the custom units we had was a Chinook.  It carried one Infantry 5 spaces, it attacked at a 2 and defended at a 5, but that is using an 8 sided die.  I made it by cutting the props off of the choppers (special ordered with other pieces)… then I would cut a carrier in half and trim the edges down, then I would glue the chopper blades to the top sides of the destoyer piece and make a nice Chinook with it.

So many good memories with it, I have never played the revised, updated or any other expansion, but I am putting the 50th edition one on the Xmas list for sure!  Thanks for reading!

But I haven’t played it in years, and my stuff is in a storage place in New Jersey, so I don’t have access to all of my custom rules and new pieces.