G40 Delta 1st Edition

@Young:

• Activation now applies to capital cities as well as non-capital cities allowing a $5 city objective bonus for liberation
• The paratrooper restriction against territories with fighters has been removed due to the above capital city liberation bonus

I do not understand why these two are related… can you elaborate on the situation that caused this change?

@Young:

@LHoffman:

@Young:

• Activation now applies to capital cities as well as non-capital cities allowing a $5 city objective bonus for liberation
• The paratrooper restriction against territories with fighters has been removed due to the above capital city liberation bonus

I do not understand why these two are related… can you elaborate on the situation that caused this change?

Our group argued that with the $5 capital city objective bonus changing hands once liberated, and the addition of the Political Exile optional rule, Sealion would never become a viable strategy for the Axis and I agreed. Therefore, we decided to throw the Axis a bone by giving operation Sealion the opportunity to use paratroopers.

Granted I did not play the game, but is it worth throwing the entire rule for a single (limited) example?

And why does paratroopers have an effect on this? Neither the 5 IPC capital bonus or the Political Exile rule affect the number of British units that a German Sealion invasion would have to deal with. Is a Sealion invasion less palatable to Germany because once UK retakes England they essentially get 5 extra IPCs for the remainder of the game? I still don’t see what that has to do with paratroopers. Even if Germany takes England, it will take two or three Turns for UK to get ships built and in range to retake it, by which time Germany can have solidified a hold. Still don’t see how paratroopers help.

@Young:

I must not have explained the issue properly…

We all agreed and recognized that there are too many variables that work against the logic of attempting operation sealion. Since none of us wanted sealion to be a bad strategy to attempt, we removed one variable to make the operation more atractive. The variables are not historically related what so ever, this is a modification based on game play and not history, although it could be argued that transports planes have surprise and are the first in at night avoiding interceptors. I hope this explains things, however, I fully expect each group playing Delta to house rule the advantages that best suit each group’s participants.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that during the game Italy wanted to send paratroopers to Algeria but there was a French fighter on it. He was disappointed that he couldn’t use his advantage and even the Allied players were sympathetic to his case.

Alright, I guess that is good enough for me. Still looking forward to those cards.

@Young:

LHoffman,

You have been an excellent contributor to these Delta house rules and it seems that this is the only issue you have with the changes made this weekend. Therefore, I will reinstate the paratrooper restriction when fighters are present, and our group will either house rule it out ourselves, or wait for the reevaluation during 2nd edition discussions next year.

Cheers.

Why thanks YG, I feel honored. Though you need not do anything on my behalf. There are certain opinions I have, based on historical consideration or because I think they are appropriate, however, I will be the first to say that I have not played with these rules yet, so cannot speak to how well they work in an actual game. Ultimately, rules should be tailored to create a fun and smooth game, even at the expense of superseding history to some degree.

That said, I do still think the air superiority rule is appropriate, but haven’t played with it. One way to still allow for paratroopers to be used would be to go back to one of my previous suggestions for the rule: that as long as the attacker has superior numbers of fighters to the defender’s fighters, the attacker may use paratroopers. That is another option which would at least allow greater flexibility in using paratroopers. Whether or not the attacker has fighters in range is another issue, but the rule still provides the possibility.

I am looking forward to some months for playtesting and seeing how things come back for next year. I imagine there will be some changes, though it is hard to predict what those might be.

@Young:

I’m happy with this…

1A - Airborne Assault Troops
Up to 2 infantry units from a friendly operational airbase may attack an enemy territory up to 3 spaces away, provided that the target territory is also being attacked by land units coming from an adjacent territory, or sea zone via an amphibious assault. The enemy territory under attack must contain at least 1 enemy land unit. There must also be an equal or superior number of attacking  air units to the number of defending air units.

That sounds pretty good to me. Not that I take issue with this, but by saying “air units” you include bombers and tacs in the mix of aircraft that count. Again, I do not have a problem with this exactly, but I assume you wanted it to read that way.

The bold was just a syntax revision on my part. I think it makes it a little clearer. Your choice whether to use it or not though.

Will there be any sort of Delta manual - like a rulebook - which gives all the SAs and Objectives and explains them in (perhaps) greater detail than on the card? I am just thinking that the whole system will need some further explanation for someone who has never seen it before and a Delta Rulebook would address that and also any loopholes or FAQ on some of the Advantages.

@Young:

The cards can only fit so much in their description, so players will need to refer to the document on page #1 of this thread for further clarification.

This actually opens up an interesting option that would allow the same cards to keep being used even when the house rules change, without needing to re-print them: have the cards simply show the title of each rule, accompanied by a nice picture, plus a card category title (SA, etc.) and possibly the number of the game round to which it applies. All the other details would be kept in a rules document, which could be edited at will since a change to its contents wouldn’t affect the cards themselves.  A little less convenient than having the details on the card, but much more stable and much less expensive with regard to printing costs.

A variation: use this same approach, but laminate the cards in such a way that each has a clear pocket at the back.  Print out the rule details on paper, cut them into neat rectangles and slip them into the appropriate pockets, facing outward.  The front of the card is the stylish stable element.  The back (pocket) side of the card gives the details of each rule.  This format would actually give you room to include all the details of each rule on the printed paper, thus eliminating the need for a separate rulebook.  If a rule changes, discard the old paper from the pocket and replace it with an updated version.

You didn’t just change the wording, you also changed the rule. Now if an equal amount of aircraft are present on both sides, you can do the airborne assault. In your previous wording, you couldn’t.

@Zombie69:

You didn’t just change the wording, you also changed the rule. Now if an equal amount of aircraft are present on both sides, you can do the airborne assault. In your previous wording, you couldn’t.

Yes, that was his intent. At least based on version 1 wording and current version.

He wanted to make it so that even if there are enemy planes in a territory, you can still use paratroopers providing your planes are equal to or greater in number than the defender.

@Young:

@Zombie69:

You didn’t just change the wording, you also changed the rule. Now if an equal amount of aircraft are present on both sides, you can do the airborne assault. In your previous wording, you couldn’t.

Gonna go back to the no fighter unit restriction, it’s cleaner and easier to explain. We will revisit this advantage during 2nd edition discussions if a change is necessary.

That is not a problem. It is simpler that way.

@Young:

I understand what you’re sayin, I’ve already wrapped my head around a lot of the suggestions you’re talking about. In the end, the ability to have players look down at each card trumps referring to a separate manual every time.

Do you guys understand “trumps” or is that a Canadian thing?

No it translates. Ever play Euchre, maybe Pinochle? Lots of trumps there.

As for a manual… it really would not be difficult to create one. Just type up a list of the rules, their explanation and any relevant FAQ you can think up. It could just be a simple Word document or PDF… not necessarily as fancy as the cards. I suppose you could simply copy and paste everything you have in your first post and save yourself the typing.

I do agree that just being able to look at the cards is way better than having to refer to a manual, but with the size of these cards, I don’t think you will be able to include all the information that will be ultimately necessary for full understanding… as you have stated yourself. A large and extensive rulebook is not the goal, but just to expand on and clarify the rules more than is on the cards. The idea, obviously, is to get to a point where people don’t need to refer to it, but all players will need to for some time at least.

You could just put the document up as an attachment on page one and leave it at that… let people download and print it themselves, that way it is there, but you don’t have to worry about it.

Heck, I might volunteer to do this for you.

@Young:

That would be awesome if you want to do that, perhaps you could include some example diagrams to help explain some of the more complicated advantages.

I might try to… it just depends how much time I can devote to it, but I would like to. Unfortunately, I don’t have any cool photo editing software to make it look really slick, like the cards do… but I can at least get a framework down. I will undoubtedly need your help in choosing the correct examples or interpretation, since they are your rules and you know what is intended. And also you have already played with them.

Young Grasshopper,
I must have not been checking your updates to the Delta rules. There are a few things that I am now unclear about:
1 > The Progressive Advantage for Japan: Kamikaze Honor. You said that the Russian Winter was the only “one time” advantage so Russia may now roll for another 25 points to do it again later in the game. However, you didn’t clarify this for Japan. Can they also roll for another 25 points to reload the Kamikaze again?

2 > Around the Clock Bombing == When the British bombers do an SBR during the USA’s turn, if the US also wants to do an SBR on the same facility (let’s say the German IC in W Germany), do they all attack at the same time? If so, how do you choose casualties from interceptors or AA guns? OR, would it be better to do the British bombers first then do the US bombers?

3 > V-Rockets == It states that they must “Pass all SBR Defense Systems”. I thought that rocket attacks were not intercept able by fighters or AA guns. Have you changed this?

4 > Airborne Assaults == I have to agree with Zombie69 on this one. The way you have it now, if even a single enemy fighter is in the territory, you can not use paratroopers. I think this is way too restrictive. I like the earlier version where you can use paratroopers as long as you have equal or more fighters attacking than defending fighters. Leave Tacs and Bombers out of it.