Artillery

Play testing has ended. The rules are now available at the Axis & Allies Global 1940 House Rules Expansion thread, pg. 1 (see Optional Rule No. 22).

A re-post of some thoughts I had on adding Arty to 1941:

While I’m no expert, if I were going to add artillery units from 40 or 42 to my copy of 41, this is how I would do it.

First, use the pieces and rules from 42. Here are the stats for artillery:
@Axis:

Artillery
Cost 4
Attack 2*
Defense 2
Move 1

Supports Infantry: When an infantry attacks along with an artillery, the infantry’s attack increases to 2. Each infantry must be matched one-for-one with a supporting artillery unit. Artillery does not support infantry on defense.

Also, note in the rules section for infantry:
@Axis:

Infantry
Cost 3
Attack 1 (2 when supported by artillery)*
Defense 2
Move 1

Supported by Artillery: When an infantry attacks along with an artillery, the infantry’s attack increases to 2. Each infantry must be matched one-for-one with a supporting artillery unit. If your infantry outnumber your artillery, the excess infantry units still have an attack of 1. For example, if you attack with two artillery and five infantry, two of your infantry have an attack of 2 and the rest have an attack of 1. Infantry are not supported by artillery on defense.

Finally, I would change the initial setup for 1941 to reflect the presence of artillery in armies already on the board. I would think that changing every 3rd infantry in a territory to artillery would be a decent start. If I did that, I would change the setup in some territories and leave the rest alone. The changed territories would reflect the following setup:

Russia: 4 infantry, 2 artillery, 1 tank, 1 fighter*
Archangel: 2 infantry, 1 artillery
Karelia: 2 infantry, 1 artillery
Caucasus: 2 infantry, 1 artillery, 1 tank
Siberia: 2 infantry, 1 artillery

Germany: 2 infantry, 1 artillery, 1 fighter, 1 bomber
Eastern Europe: 3 infantry, 1 artillery, 2 tanks
Ukraine: 2 infantry, 1 artillery, 2 tanks
West Russia: 2 infantry, 1 artillery

Japan: 3 infantry, 1 artillery, 1 tank, 1 fighter, 1 bomber

*Note that according to the FAQ put out after the game released, the territory labeled Russia should start with six infantry. If you haven’t read this FAQ, you should, as it made other changes to the setup of the board. If you swap every third infantry for an artillery, you would get four infantry and two artillery, as shown above.

Also, this would mean that neither the UK nor the US would start with any artillery as their regular setup have no territories with three or more infantry. Either shrug your shoulders or change their setup as you feel appropriate, perhaps as follows:

India: 1 infantry, 1 artillery, 1 fighter
Eastern U.S.: 1 infantry, 1 artillery, 1 tank, 1 fighter, 1 bomber

The above changes should integrate artillery into a game of 1941 fairly well. The Axis would swap 5 infantry for 5 artillery and the Allies would swap 6 or 8 (with optional UK and US artillery swapping) infantry for 6 or 8 (with optional UK and US artillery swapping) artillery for the setup of the game.

My 2:gg:

-M_R

P.S. The FAQ for Axis & Allies 1941 can be found here: www.wizards.com/AvalonHill/rules/AA_1941_FAQ.pdf

P.P.S. Edits: Credit where credit is due.

Source: boardgamegeek.com/article/22682014#22682014

-Midnight_Reaper

I think Artillery Prep is kind of already modeled by giving a +1 attack modifier to the Infantry.

Artillery Prep was as much to cause the defenders to “hole up” to let the attacking infantry advance as it was to try to KO key defensive positions.

Just my 2 cents anyway.

Thanks amanntai,

I like your idea of giving the originally proposed unit def 1, as indeed rockets were primarily offensive; they were very inaccurate, making it harder to hit units on the move (as attacking units would normally be) as compared to targeting fixed positions (as defending units would usually be in).

I think I will implement it this way and see how it plays.

Thanks, Zeus

@userx:

@Baron:

I would rather prefer to limit them to their role of AA gun but, specialy for Germany, it seems they used a lot their 88mm AAA as antitank gun (El Alamein battle, i.e.).

I like that because you are correct, in Real Live, AA was just high-velocity ammo pointed at the sky, point it at a tank like the Germans did, it became an effective anti-tank.

I like the idea of taking out tank and/or armor for the pre-combat AA roll.

I don’t know if it would be unbalanced but I think I will try this next game

Thank you

I just learned that Germans put their Flak 88 on tracks and plates so it becomes the Tiger (Mark VI) and deliver them for the Battle of Kursk in 1943.
This gun seems quite an invention.

In a strategic game; how about giving the naval bases (cost 15ipc ) a roll against ships during an amphibious assault. After the naval shore bombardment the naval base gets to fire one die at each ship, like AA roll. This would add more usefulness to the naval bases an make an opposing player think again on how to take a zone by amphibious assaults!

@lnmajor:

@Fishmoto37:

@SSPanther:

What do you guys out there think about the concept towed artillery, that is mechanized infantry being able to move artillery with it on a 1:1 basis?

We are using this in our current game. Works great! We are using Tigerman’s map along with other house rules. One of the main improvements we are working on is improving the submarine rules. The OOB rules for subs in the 1940G game are weak!

what are you doing with subs

The sub rule we are trying now is 2-1-2 unit as in 1940G OOB but each DD that is declared a sub hunter rolls a die and sinks the sub on a one and locates on a two. Located or detected subs can then be attacked by CAs or additional DDs. If sub survives first round of combat then it defends at one or submerges.

4-6 was still good in the game though.  Since you could only have 2 + aircraft per territory…