AA50 on Steroids!

Hello!

A friend and I play A&A Anniversary almost exclusively. We are looking for other players in Texas. We are in San Antonio, but are willing to travel for games. Contact me at dagan@usa.com if you may be interested.

Thanks!

Dagan

As it has not been posted before: Renegade indeed relased a reprint of Anniversary Edition celebrating the 40th Anniversary of A&A itself:

https://renegadegamestudios.com/axis-allies-anniversary-edition/

Research is super fun, but can seriously unbalance the game if a player gets lucky with their first couple rolls. Therefore, we play that the player chooses which tech to research, however better techs have a lower chance of being successfully researched.

The mechanism of researching is the same, you buy research tokens (dice rolls), roll for success, if none hit the tokens are banked for next turn and can roll again at no cost, if successful the tech is gained and the tokens are removed and must be rebought to do more research . The cost of each token (die roll) is increased to 8 IPC (normally is 5). But, tier 1 techs will be successfully researched with a roll of 3 or lower, tier 2 with roll of 2 or lower, and tier 3 with roll of 1:

(3/6 chance) 1. adv artillery, inc factory prod . || mech infantry, war bonds
(2/6 chance) 2. long-range aircraft, radar . . . . || paratroopers, rockets
(1/6 chance) 3. heavy bombers, super subs . . || jet fighters, improved shipyards

To balance out how multiple techs are gained, we separated complimentary tech into opposing groups to prevent them from easily being researched too quickly back-back and becoming OP. To research a tier 2 or 3 tech at least one tech from the tier below must be already obtained from WITHIN the branch. Note, the techs are separated into left and right branches.

So to get heavy bombers (left, tier 3), you could research adv artillery or factory prod (left, tier 1) then radar or long-range air (left, tier 2). Then, to get jet fighters (right, tier 3), you’d have to also research 2 corresponding lower tier techs in the right branch, because adv artillery/radar/etc. don’t count towards the necessary lower tier techs for the right branch.

Thoughts?

So the rules me and my crew have been using for the last 5 or 6 years have worked for us so far.
Atomic bombs are a two part tech: require both heavy bombers and atomic bomb its self. Its a time consuming and expensive proccess. Although it is not listed here we have contemplated adding resource requirment for radioactive materials. Listed bellow is how our text appears in weapons and development:

*Enables nuclear Bombs. It costs 5 IPCs to build each atomic bomb. Must be loaded at an airfield aboard a Heavy Bomber. An atomic
bomb run can only be shot at by Anti aircraft fire. Each bomb may be used in one of 3 ways.

Infrastructure target: automatically destroy a grey infrastructure target of your choosing as well as roll a D-6 to decide
how many enemy units die. Strategic Nuclear Bombing: roll a d-10 to decide IPC property value to be destroyed and a d-6 to decide how many
enemy units die. The property value will increase by 1 IPC per turn until it is returned to its starting value. Naval Bombing: Automatically destroy your primary target, regardless of hit points; also roll a d-6 to decide how many
ships are destroyed. You may not damage ships.

(Explanations not in text)
.Bomb is destroyed from its single use
.no limit on bomb stockpile or building
.one bomb per heavy bomber
.loading a bomb consumes bomber movment for that round
.bombs can only be loaded at airfields
. a stategicly nuked territory can never deplete value below zero. Every following round its value will climb by 1ipc value per round until it reaches its original value

@Wise:

Thanks SS for the Oil rules you sent to me. I’ll think we will go with those instead of dice. I’ll be back with a review when we have played with them.

Sweet. Looking  forward to some results.

Nice work thanks, the dropbox files are still available! I have downloaded them all, now I have to find a way to print these in a decent way. Any tips?

I think that radar is a little weak. Perhaps make it a minor tech? Or make radar activate always active AA guns. That would be scary.

@General:

hi jen, thanks for the rules.  I have a few questions though.

How does rolling for research work now?  Do you just pick a tech and if you roll a 6 you get it?

Yes, technology works the same as it did in Revised, but with the 4:6 rule as in AARe.  It makes it a more cost effective choice since you’ll never end up with one you cannot use - especially helpful to Italy and Russia, but also to the other nations.

does Italy place their afrika corps every round?

No, it’s just like before.  You get the units on the round you get it.

Do you place 2 free infantry every turn for mech inf?  And what does 1. Borrowed from American National Advantage mean as the usa do not have this advantage

Again, it’s just the round you get it.  And yes, if something is “borrowed from” it means that it was a rule for that nation at one time that is now being applied to all nations to account for the advantage being turned into a technology from revised to anniversary.

The italian advantage ii. +5 IPC if Axis controls: Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Sudan, Italian Africa, Gibraltar, Balkans, Algeria/Morocco and no enemy SURFACE ships are in SZ 13, 14, 15 or 16. isnt this the same as the regular no ?  and where is Italian africa?

Italian East Africa is that spur sticking out into the Red Sea to the right of Egypt/Sudan. (It is directly south of Sudan on the map.)

No, it is not the same since Italy now needs more territories and the entire sea, instead of just three.  Also, France is not a requirement for Italy to have this NO.

Thanks :)

You’re welcome.

Wild Bill:

Yes, joint strike can be absolutely devastating to the axis forces if and when it occurs, but it is designed to be.  Furthermore, if the allies give up taking it, that means the axis could defend it with less and put more pressure on Russia.  It’s a game of weighing the odds and this is a strategic decision - do I force Italy/Germany to defend France early and give up Joint Strike, or do I let them move more towards Russia so I can have a joint strike later?  It’s all how you think your opponent will play, will he mass defenders to stop you, or will he ignore it in hopes you take it then mass defenders?