How Are You Using Your (HBG/FMG/Table Tactics/Other) Battle Pieces?

I was looking at these lists of specialized / customized units (which tie into both the subject of house rules and the subject of HBG’s combat pieces), and it made me wonder about something.  Since the presence in a game of too many specialized units goverened by too many house rules could easily get out of hand, what methods are used by players who are fond of such units to keep them manageable?

For example, I can see that it might be practical to have an overarching house rule which says:

1. For the most part, the game is played with OOB pieces having performance characteristics govered by OOB rules.

2. In addition to these OOB elements, the players have at their disposal a (potentially very large) list of specialized units, governed by special house rules and represented by non-OOB sculpts (e.g. HBG sculpts) and /or customized OOB sculpts.

3. Some of these units are available to all player nations, while certain designated other units are restricted to just some (or just one) of these countries.

4. Each player nation is only allowed to use one (or two or three or whatever number) of these special unit types during the course of a game.  Players can purchase as many units of these types as they wish (and can afford), but they can’t make use of more than the specified number of types.  Thus, only a small number of these special types (out of a very large potential list) get used in any single game.

5. The overarching house rule would also specify: a) whether players must choose in advance which special units they will use, or whether they are free to make their choice later in the game; and b) whether the special units are considered purchasable at any time or (alternately) whether they are considered tech upgrades only purchasable under defined conditions.

If people use different methods for handling this, could you describe how your personal system works?  I’d be very interested in knowing what approaches are in use in the A&A community.

@toblerone77:

To be completely honest Marc, as of yet I have a bunch of ideas scribbled into a note pad. I’d like eventually to compile and organize all of the ideas and have them in a well presented supplemental rule book, even if I just print it for myself and the people I play with. Essentially it would be a list of HRs for my custom super set.

Sounds reasonable – it’s a work-in-progress, as is often the case with creative projects.  I like the idea of the final outcome being a specialized supplementary rulebook.

@toblerone77:

The main reasoning for this is that I plan to use every possible unit in some way.

Sounds ambitious.  Looking forward to hearing what you develop.

Guys,

––While I’ve had ideas for a few additional NEW UNIT TYPES, I’m not certain that all of them are necesary and/or wanted. I like things to be as SIMPLE and FAST to implement as possible without having to remember a thousand different rules and/or ‘situations’.

––Having said that, I’ve been a proponent of Long-Range Fighters for quite a while. However, IMHO they MUST be two-engine aircraft so as to ease the identity process along without having to “THINK” about it. We already have the OOB American P-38, OOB German ME-210, OOB British Mosquitto(BAD example). From Shapeways I’ve ordered and received some Japanese J1N1 Gekko’s, and British/Anzac Beaufighters. With both HBG making literally dozens more sets that include aircraft and Shapeways also available,….I don’t think there will be any trouble getting enough
2-Engine Fighters for use as Long-Range Fighters.
––Wouldn’t you agree that for “GAMING PURPOSES” that it would be much better to have
only two-engine aircraft represent our Long-Range Fighters?

What do you think?
“Tall Paul”

****

Iagree with ya and what kind of game are you making?

We almost have the same type of unit.

• Heavy tank: YES CinC TANK
• Heavy artillery: YES HBG and CinC tank)
• Self propelled artillery: YES HBG and CinC
• Truck: C4 NO YET
• Flame tank: NO

Sea new units:

• Escort carrier: YES CinC
• Super Subs: HBG and A&A and custom
• Basic battleship: YES, HBG,A&A and custom.
• High capacity transport: YES HBG, A&A and custom
• Battlecruiser: YES (Light and heavy cruiser)…CinC and custom
• AA Destroyer: YES CinC
• Heavy carrier: custom
• Convoy Cargo…custom

Air

All different type of plane like Long range fighter, Fighter-bomber, Jet fighter, heavy bomber, Medium bomber and dive bomber are from 1/700 airplane and HBG.

Tobleone77 & others,

@toblerone77:

@Tall:

Guys,

––While I’ve had ideas for a few additional NEW UNIT TYPES, I’m not certain that all of them are necesary and/or wanted. I like things to be as SIMPLE and FAST to implement as possible without having to remember a thousand different rules and/or ‘situations’.

––Having said that, I’ve been a proponent of Long-Range Fighters for quite a while. However, IMHO they MUST be two-engine aircraft so as to ease the identity process along without having to “THINK” about it. We already have the OOB American P-38, OOB German ME-210, OOB British Mosquitto(BAD example). From Shapeways I’ve ordered and received some Japanese J1N1 Gekko’s, and British/Anzac Beaufighters. With both HBG making literally dozens more sets that include aircraft and Shapeways also available,….I don’t think there will be any trouble getting enough 2-Engine Fighters for use as Long-Range Fighters.
––Wouldn’t you agree that for “GAMING PURPOSES” that it would be much better to have only two-engine aircraft represent our Long-Range Fighters?

What do you think?
“Tall Paul”

�

I think it’s a good idea TP.

I need to rephrase my “wanting to use everything”. I want to add mostly ground and air into the mix and some naval. I am not going to over specialize. At the moment I’m considering giving nations special nation specific weapons like the ME 262 and the Type XXI U-boat as Germany’s “special units”. All nations will have something. My project at times feels like I’m painting the Mona Lisa on a grain of rice LOL.

I have not posted a whole lot information on how I’m using many of my units because frankly in open forum it can have less than desirable results. Also not everybody wants or has a full “HBG Arsenal” which for some ideas is a must.

I do hope people who are using custom units will continue to post their ideas no matter what they are in this thread, I think the forum needs a spot like this for those of us who enjoy custom units specifically.

–-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

----When I said NEW UNIT TYPES,…I meant over and above all of the OOB & HBG unit TYPES that have already been produced,…such as Long-Range Fighters.

––I think that LRFs would be a very useful unit that could escort Bombers all the way,…or simply have an enlarged radius of action. In most of my A&A games I would certainly PAY for the increased capabilities these LRF units would have!

----I doubt that most A&A gamers would want to include ALL of the different UNIT TYPES in their games, especially if they’re only playing G-40.2E
----HBG’s new game Global Warfare 1939 is a much more inclusive game as far as unit TYPES and has many of the “new” rules already play-tested and balenced. If you haven’t already done so, I’d invite you to d/l their free unit list and rules i order to “check them out”.
–-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----As far as other completely new UNIT TYPES I favor would be:
Fighter/Bombers, single engine a/c like a P-47 Thunderbolt or F-4U Corsair
just consider it like a "flying tank), and
Attack Bombers, a two-engine longer-ranged version of the above.
like an A-20 Havoc or Mosquitto

“Tall Paul”

Shapeways A-20 Havoc

****

@Tall:

Having said that, I’ve been a proponent of Long-Range Fighters for quite a while. However, IMHO they MUST be two-engine aircraft so as to ease the identity process along without having to “THINK” about it.

Fair point about easy sculpt identification – but note that, out of the three US fighters which excelled as long-range fighters / escort fighters during WWII, two of them (the  P-47 Thunderbolt and the P-51 Mustang) were single-engine aircraft.

@toblerone77:

These are just some of the general ideas I’m working with.

There are more!? That is a lot of ideas!  :-o

Keep it up though. Like to see innovation. Will probably steal some of your rules or modify them for myself.

I like things to be as SIMPLE and FAST to implement as possible without having to remember a thousand different rules and/or ‘situations’.

I understand that but I can’t resist to get all those different types of unit on a gameboard!! :evil:

OOOOOOOHHHHHH YYYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAA!!!  :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D

I’ve been looking at all the different units that are both coming out in the future and at are already out, and I have quite a few myself.  I’ve been working on rules for the different units and trying to make things balanced.  That is the hard part.  One of the things I’m working on is some of the units are only available after a tech is developed.  That way its not over powering right from the start.  I’m also looking at replacing some of the OOB units with the HBG units, and then using the OOB units for different developments, or other types of units.  and example of this would be changing the OOB P-38 fighter into a long range fighter, and using the HBG P-40 as the basic fighter.

@toblerone77:

I have a complete stock of pieces that includes multiple sets of all sculpts HBG makes plus multiple copies of al but two editions of A&A. I also pieces from many other games that would be compatible.

This is an astonishingly accurate description of my own situation, so clearly we’re operating on similar wavelengths.

The idea of putting a range of possible extra unit types at the disposal of the various player countries raises a point which could make an interesting house rule.  Your super-set Bible could describe these units as conceptual ones (created on the drawing boards of the applicable nations), and each player would then have to decide how many of these extra unit types it would decide to put into actual productions.  The more types a player puts into production, the more capabilities he gains but the more he has to pay a penalty of some sort (probably in terms of cost required or numerical output of units) due to the required dispersal of production efforts.  This was an actual question which both sides faced IN WWII, and which they handled in different ways.  Germany, for instance, spread itself out too thin by creating too many tank types (the Maus being an extreme example of the law of diminishing returns) and chasing too many technological hares (developing jet planes and guided missiles, yet failing to produce such basics as Jeeps, with the result that the Anglo-Americans were fully motorized by 1944 while Germany continued to use horses).  The USSR, by contrast, stuck to just a few basic tank types, periodically giving them realistically-scaled incremental upgrades, and thus was able to concentrate on producing large numbers of units.

What you could do is have most of the advance pieces for each country ( the 5 ) available in a weapons development tech chart starting on a certain turn where you roll for weapons tech ( doesn’t start maybe until  turn 5 or 6 and depends on type of game ) and then when you get into the turns of lets say turn 9 ( depends on your date and year frame for lenth of game ) you start getting those certain weapons automatically. Then by turn 16 or so all the country’s will get all the techs do to development late in war. This way you add them as time goes on and it won’t overwelm some people.