AARHE: Phase 2: National victory conditions

I think the USA non-combat turn zero pretty much balances the game 50/50! If you want, you can give the Axis a bid of 3 to 6 IPCs, but I doubt it’s necessary.

I don’t think Russia gets erased by Germany. Russia actually starts with a healthy number of troops even out of the box, and because Russia goes before Germany, Russia has a chance to shape the European map in its favor. With an USA turn zero, the Allied Atlantic fleets will survive, which means much earlier Allied pressure on Norway/France/Morocco, which really limits Germany’s ability to secure a permanent economic advantage against Russia. In other words, in my opinion, the problem with the OOB 1942.2 setup isn’t that Russia is too weak – it’s that the US & UK are too weak. Giving the USA a zero turn helps protect both US & UK assets, which fixes this problem.

Related to #2, if you haven’t already read Black_Elk’s sticky thread on Russian Openings, you really need to. It will totally change the way you see the 1942.2 board.
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=35487.0

I like all the special sea zone restrictions. Gibraltar and Danish straights. Any thoughts on Suez going through Egypt.

Also like the inclusion of aaafire and some limited transportation capability. Anything that makes for more attractive ship builds always seems good to me.
:-D

On the air, the main impediment to ready testing FtF is the requirement to buy more stuff than comes in the boxed game. With a G40 expansion you still only have 3 sculpts.

I was thinking about this issue for the C5 strategic bomber concept in 1942.2.

One thought I had about Tacs in 1942.2 for the Defenseless Strat B idea I had, was that some aircraft might be represented on the map by a scult that always has a green chip under it (saving all green chips for this use). So with that idea, I was thinking you could represent 3 air units with only 2 sculpts. For example

Strat B = C5 SBR only
Green Chip Fighter = Tactical Bomber
Fighter (red or gray chip) = Fighter

Or you could use a roundel, or paint a tail, but the green chip seemed pretty easy to work with.
Fighter can still fit on a deck that way.

Perhaps if its a game designed to use G40 sculpts for 1942.2 you could just do the same thing with the bomber sculpts? Like
Medium bomber = normal sculpt
Strat bomber = green chip sculpt.

Just an idea to make it easy to test, without a big commitment in painting or purchasing new stuff.

For the factories, I do worry that it takes any series threat to Tokyo from the Americans pretty much off the table. It’s very hard to get onto the mainland in an effective way with US, without expanding production on the money islands. Is this what you are trying to avoid? Or are you trying to prevent Japan from using one on India/Africa/Australia?

For my part I enjoy the factory unit, so rules that restrict where it can go aren’t as appealing to me. Basically the 3 islands affected, Philippines, East Indies and especially Borneo, are pretty much the only interesting territories in whole the Pacific, by virtue of their production potential, so it seems a shame to lose them.

After a year break we played a game according to these rules yesterday.
Japan heavy navy focused getting Honolulu, Sydney, Rio de Janero and even San Francisco! Leading to a land war on the American continent.
Meanwhile Russia and Britain heavy focusing Germany, with conquering the whole of northern and eastern Europe (Oslo, Kiev).
But then, Germany seized an opportunity of taking London after Britain player overcomitted and did some bad rolls.
Axis win the game.

It was very confusing, and we did a lot of bad mistakes. But it was fun, and we really had a game with battles at totally new battlefields.

After Russia and Britain both starting very defensive, Germany and Japan player decided to play an altrenative strategy, attacking US. It worked at least partially. Germany forced to play defensive on land, losing total whole of east and north Europe (but defensive Russia took quite a while). Japan using heavy Navy and invading Australia, South America and finally even US west coast. Land war on the American continent between Japan West coast and US East coast (and Canada a bit). Few action in China at all…all players were turteling after the initial clashes. Money was needed elsewhere and infantry could hardly attack alone. Tank war in Africa between German Egypt and British South Africa. Both players had minor factories in africa, pumping tanks. Great navy clash in the northern Atlantic between US+Royal Navy and the German navy. To some bad rolls, British and US player losing atlantic fleet. Germany lost as well nearly whole fleet, but was able to invade exposed London and win the game. Maybe one turn later, the Russian steamroller would have taken Berlin.

The changes in Navy Balance (increase offensive power by chaper Battleship and Cruiser) as well as the alternative start setup allows for totally new strategies like “Kill US”. We are still not sure if this setup is balanced, we did only 3 games with this so far. I’d be happy about any feedback.

And a Prussian ought to know.
Long live Germany!

I believe this thread below maybe looking for some ideas here and concept such as “double dipping”.
So I bumped it to reactive this Collect income phase… thread (much harder to find with google search).
Re: House rule proposal
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=38261.msg1563914#msg1563914

@oldsalty:

The way our group plays this is fighters (without attacking land units) are allowed to attack defending land units at an attack value of 1.  Fighters are then allowed only one round of attacks.

your group’s interpretion of the rule is correct

the idea is that defending land units have nothing to fight so they stay in bunkers and what not
attacking air units in excess of attacking land units can still do damage, but at a reduced rate

I think its ok, unless there is a problem I am not seeing

@Imperious:

The rules already cover the idea of planes flying over to just engage other planes. Lets look at them:

think you misunderstood oldsalty
he is not talking about counter-air

IT USED TO BE IN THE FILE UNDER COUNTER-AIR. Now the section has been changed yet again and CA is not explained.
Tekkyy??? why?

yeah I got your PM
repeating my reply for others:

the paragraph “Counter-Air” merely explains the effect unique to Counter-Air
hence it looks a bit short
rules common to all air missions are written under the paragraph “Air Missions”

Counter air is one round of air combat using air values. It allows just air to air units to hit to model the control of the sky thing.

you can already perform an attack with only air units like in OOB/LHTR
air units then engage enemy air units

what Counter-Air is, is that it stops the defender from running (via air unit relocation rule “Defensive Air Support”) from the Counter-Air attack

Yes private emails and a few PM’s its been going on for about 4 months. Its usually ok, but that last one was rather long. I answerd the first 5 questions and felt it would take me alot of time which i didnt have.

thanks again.

yeah I checked out your USSR player aid
I feel a complex pattern might make it slightly harder to read the text on the printed thing
maybe just go along the line of one compact and one pretty presentation version

so would be nice to have additionally a simpler one for “comfort zone” reasons
it would look similar to revised OOB in colours patterns and style