AARHE: Rule files

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yes i prefer this as well. make it more simple. but you need to add a step where the defender can allocate adjacent planes for support.
thats “Air Reinforcement”, which is declared during “combat move” phase

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Also, on item #7:  should read Press attack or retreat declarations.
that list was just what LHTR had as a combat sequence
its not a AARHE combat sequence which I am saying we don’t need to make

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The defender needs to get to fire first, but this can be limited to artillery like we have it before.
so:

1. shore bombardments (defender removes loses)
2. defending non-infantry fire ( attacker removes loses)
3. attacking units fire
4. defending infantry fire
   how bout this?
   ok we just say defending artillery fire in opening fire in the first cycle of combat
   but for shore bombardment, I was sugguesting:
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   *no shore bombardment dice, just +1 to infantry on 1-to-1 basis

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]They are huge territories  but invasions are only performed in narrow sections. The limitations are realistic. playtest it and you will see less invasions, but more stronger invasions rather than raids.
what kind of raids are you seeing in your games?

Invasions now are in the form of just invading for the purpose of killing units to prevent reinforcement to other areas, they are less frequent than OOB, but the purpose of what they have become is still not like the new rules have intended.

On the sequence for invasions:

1. shore bombardments (defender removes loses)
2. defending non-infantry fire ( attacker removes loses)
3. attacking units fire
4. defending infantry fire

the idea above seems correct, but you got to keep SB bonus per 4 units landing like 4.0

in AARHE you collecting income at end of turn, so UK doesn’t collect income from Western Europe to replace losses unless they can hold it

add that basic shore bombardment change (not an original idea) there would be little incentive to raid?

what I am thinking is your limit does not affect small attacking force, but disadvantage large attacking force

I disagree with the rule as I consider the capturing of beaches and ports to be shorter than the 1st cycle of combat, a small thing in the overall campaign that last several cycles
where majority of the fighting occurs inland

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Invading specific mountain areas is nearly impossible to do with large forces. Japan should not be mountain.
territories are labelled “mountainous” in AARHE according to actual geography
if Japan is not to be labelled mountainous than Southern Europe (with a higher % of plains) can’t be mountainous…and than if Southern Europe is not mountainous something else in turn shouldn’t be…

Japan is mountainous, but these are in the interior. So for invasions its effect is too great because it makes this important territory virtually impossible to invade. In Southern Europe its more like Norway where the cliffs and poor terrain are located much closer to the shoreline. Hitler feared the British would invade in the Balkans, but knew they didn’t have to be defended too much because of the terrain was so favorable for the defender.

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no not at all. That cant be changed. its great. we should have some rules on multi national forces.
well I am not sure OOB or LHTR National Advantages are compatible with AARHE
it wasn’t the intention for players to use OOB National Advantage or Technology in AARHE

Well lets just say their is no need to change the movement sequence.

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Invasions now are in the form of just invading for the purpose of killing units to prevent reinforcement to other areas, they are less frequent than OOB, but the purpose of what they have become is still not like the new rules have intended.

I think thats an issue with “reinforcement”, not amphibious assault
reinforcement: passive land units that did not fight in combat can move to adjacent friendly territory in “non-combat move”

you can increase the difficulty of amphibious assault but it won’t stop UK from attacking Western Europe with a small force to stop units in Western Europe from performing “reinforcement”

but its a problem anyway…defending units at Western Europe can just retreat to Germany or South Europe instead of using “reinforcement” rule to move in NCM…unless both are under attack (can’t retreat to unresolved combat zone)

and both under attack then the player is under attack left right and centre and I would say its fair he has to wait for his active turn to move

well yes the defender can retreat, but the invasions still go on in spite of the income collection value from OOB.

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the idea above seems correct, but you got to keep SB bonus per 4 units landing like 4.0
what about my proposal of SB ships giving +1 to infantry instead (1-to-1)?

AARHE 4.0’s one SB die per 4 units landing sort of took SB out of the game, especially in the Pacific

importantly, neither of us want battles to be over (in opening fire) before it started due to SB

yes but in 4.0 we have both the +1 and 4 units get one SB rule, your proposal is already the 4.0 rule.

I don’t know what to do with this. Perhaps just return it to OOB to make it easier

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2) defending non-infantry fire ( attacker removes loses)
yes we previously had defending artillery fire in opening fire on 1st cycle of combat, are you saying we should include tanks?

Its either artillery get preemptive fire or anything with a barrel can shoot, for tanks this would be committing armor early enough in the invasion which would have had a huge effect on D-Day.  I would like the rule to be more simple but effective.

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Japan is mountainous, but these are in the interior. So for invasions its effect is too great because it makes this important territory virtually impossible to invade. In Southern Europe its more like Norway where the cliffs and poor terrain are located much closer to the shoreline. Hitler feared the British would invade in the Balkans, but knew they didn’t have to be defended too much because of the terrain was so favorable for the defender.
Japan’s mountains are pretty close to the edge too
it also has a low % of coast line invadable (Japan vs. Eastern part of Southern Europe)
however, the territory “South Europe” includes the plains of Italy

as for “important territory virtually impossible to invade”, South Europe surely gets invaded while Japan usually gets invaded in end game

well its also such an important place, i think the label it mountain is not good for game play situations.

so I think the mountainous amphibious limit of 2 units on 1st cycle, 4 on 2nd, 6 on 3rd…are just too low for both South Europe and Japan

Thats why i propose landing = total land pieces with IPC value… so southern Europe can be invaded by 6 units on round 1 and 12 on round 2…etc.  Norway would still be at 2 because its value is 2.

how about no limit on normal amphibious assault
and use your IPC limit for mountainous amphibious assault?

yes lets do that. script it.

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Well lets just say their is no need to change the movement sequence.
I think by “movement sequence” you meant “round sequence”
yeah we can keep AARHE’s existing round sequence

we got carried away, I am trying to say that you mentioned D-Day but there is no D-Day (or any other OOB-wording National Advantages) in AARHE

right no NA in this 4.1  if we go with NA they will be universal national advantages so that its equal and balanced for everyone.

yes but in 4.0 we have both the +1 and 4 units get one SB rule, your proposal is already the 4.0 rule.
I don’t know what to do with this. Perhaps just return it to OOB to make it easier

it’ll be good to bring back SB for the Pacific
but we don’t want OOB’s SB winning land battle

maybe I didn’t explain clearly
I am proposing SB +1 to infantry….instead of the SB rolls

ok so thats one round or every round? If just round one its not enough juice.

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Its either artillery get preemptive fire or anything with a barrel can shoot, for tanks this would be committing armor early enough in the invasion which would have had a huge effect on D-Day.  I would like the rule to be more simple but effective.
yep ok, include tanks

ok then out of this defender will stock more armor for defense and not just have infantry. script it.

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well its also such an important place, i think the label it mountain is not good for game play situations.
I still don’t get it
Japan doesn’t get invaded til end game

or are you ok with it now that we use the IPC limit not the limit of 2

Ok no limit of two except small island rule: Stacking limited to X and invasion limited to X.

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how about no limit on normal amphibious assault
and use your IPC limit for mountainous amphibious assault?
yes lets do that. script it.
before I script I need one more detail

US invades Southern Europe (6 IPC)
1st cycle of combat, only 6 amphibious land units can roll
Germany rolls and gets 7 hits…does US allocate 6 or 7 casualties?

no it can only hit what lands, so 6. On round 2 you got 12 coming in.

note, if US only have to allocate 6 casualties there is a side effect of reducing the power of the +1 defense bonus for mountainous/snowy on 1st cycle of combat
(ie. for large battles, it might actually make amphibious assault easier than normal land-to-land assault)

well its also connected to SB. The attacker has to get something decent because the defender in mountains is strong. I prefer to keep the terrain rule, which limits attacks on Norway which were harder to do anyway.

the stricter limit of 2 land units per cycle, I would want to apply it to territories marked as “small” (eg. Wake Island)

yes the 2 limit applies now to small islands/groups ( not Philippines, Borneo or east indies.)

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ok so thats one round or every round? If just round one its not enough juice.
hehe I was worried about too much juice
in OOB you can win battles with SB and not actual infantry

ok one round.

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ok then out of this defender will stock more armor for defense and not just have infantry. script it.
for amphibous assault…
Step: Conduct opening fire
In the first cycle of combat, defending artillery and tanks only fire in this step only.

ok fine…

the +1 mountainous/snowy defense bonus was about defensive terrain bonus
I don’t think it should apply to the above preemptive shot
if you agree I would move the rule to the particular step:
Step: Defending units fire
In mountainous or snowy terrain territories, defending land units have their defence increased by 1 on the first cycle of combat.

ok thats fine.

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no it can only hit what lands, so 6. On round 2 you got 12 coming in.
I am having second thoughts
normandy landings (days) is a small part of the operation overlord (months)

invasions need to occur less frequently and be less easy. This is an easy way to not allow a bunch of builds landing every turn just taking stuff for the hell of it.

like we already have
defending artillery/tanks preemptive fire…1st cycle only
+1 defense bonus for mountainous/snowy…1st cycle only

so should try to make
shore bombardment (SB)…to be 1st cycle only?
landing limit…to be 1st cycle only?

ok first turn = IPC determines what can be landed

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yes the 2 limit applies now to small islands/groups ( not Philippines, Borneo or east indies.)
yeah the old list only contains Wake Island, Midway, and Gibraltar
all below 10km^2

Add Hawaii, Solomon, and Okinawa, and list to include 1939 added islands which are small.

I got an excellent solution for Shore bombardment!!!

A player may bring any number of ships he wants, what they now do is this:

The ship rolls out its attack roll and the number of what it rolls is the defending unit that is suppressed. A suppressed unit cannot fire but cannot also be taken as a combat loss. Its basically useless and should be retreated because it wont get to fire at all. So if you got a BB and it rolls a 3, then any unit that defends at 3 wont be firing and does not defend. Its not exactly destroyed but its basically a broken unit.  So a battleship can suppress all land units and air units that defend at 1-4, while a cruiser can effect only units 1-3.

Reasoning: SB had the goal of rendering the defender (which is dug in and at the advantage) basically unable to make use of his environment so he cant fire back. I would take this to mean he cant fire back from these prepared positions. The trick was to make it so that the attacker could have some choice on what unit he wanted to suppress because  the attacker had vital information prepared in advance as to where the defender had his strong points, which were blasted before the landings. This in terms of gameplay allows a stronger naval unit the opportunity to effect a wider range of units.

The other idea was this:

The BB or other SB unit rolls out and any time he hits he can select the unit that now defends at 1. So if a BB rolls a one, it can assign a defending tank a new defensive value of one.

in both systems no restrictions on naval units you bring in.

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ok first turn = IPC determines what can be landed
proposed script:
Step 1: Place units on battle board
In the first cycle of combat the attacker offloads from Transports a number of land units equal to the territory’s IPC value. Units remaining on Transports do not fire and may not be taken as casualties. In the second cycle of combat (or at the end of first cycle if combat is won by attacker) the attacker offloads remaining units.

this is good.

Step 1: Place units on battle board (territories marked as small)
In the first cycle of combat the attacker offloads from Transports two land units. Units remaining on Transports do not fire and may not be taken as casualties. In subsequent cycles of combat the attacker may offload from Transport a number of land units to ‘‘top up’’ to two land units on the battle board.

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Add Hawaii, Solomon, and Okinawa, and list to include 1939 added islands which are small.
Wake Island, Midway, and Gibraltar are <10 km^2 and marked as small in AARHE

Hawaii, Solomon and Okinawa are large enough as staging area and hence not marked as small in AARHE

Hawaii 28,311 km^2
Solomon 28,896 km^2
Okinawa 2,271 km^2

Allied forces in Battle of Okinawa is huge, 50% that of Battle of Normandy

ok thats fine your list is what will be used.

last thing before moving to naval combat
if partial retreat is not hugely important I would prefer to get rid of it

partial for attacker or defender?

OK perhaps this:

each SB successful changes the defensive value of the unit it rolled to one.

so if your BB rolls a 3 ONE tank or less is reduced to defending at one.

if you got 2 SB hits and roll a 4 and a 2, then ONE defending fighter or less is reduced to one value, and a unit either artillery or infantry also goes to one ( attacker choice) The new value of one will last for all combat rounds.

I would prefer it simple but yeah we could consider new Shore Bombardment ideas

1. to be simple, instead of reducing to 1 its ok to just make it not fire at all

2. effects has to be 1st cycle only, naval ships should never exert power inland or through out the entire campaign

Well in OOB the effects are permanent. The unit is destroyed. Under this it just has a reduced combat value of 1, so it can either latter retreat or get taken as combat loss, and the # rolled determines the type of unit thats effected. IN this manner the attacker is pinning down units of his choosing ( done randomly) going after the strong points.

New we add to this our previous rules that the defender fires first and the attacker is limited to the number of invading units = to IPC for the first round…. and i feel we modeled the invasion as well as possible given what we have to work with in this game.

3. still has to be 1-to-1 with invading land force, defender wouldn’t over expose themselves nor send excessive forces down the beach

ok 1:1, but it may be a two round affair, ( example: landing in Norway) and having 3 SB but only able to land 2 units on first round , with latter SB on 2nd round?

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partial for attacker or defender?
I was thinking of both
when would you want to do a partial retreat anyway?

yes definatly partial retreats for both sides as usual.

actually this suppress rule may unrealistic
even all the naval support at Normandy the landing wasn’t exactly easy was it? still plenty of losses.

I think its because naval bombardment is during landing of friendly troops
once friendly troops start charging up the beach or hill naval bomardment STOP or else there’ll be horrible friendly fire

so bombardment does not exactly “suppress” the enemy while your troops walk all over them

I think we should stay with BB supporting infantry with a +1 like an artillery

The suppress idea applies to the first round SB only. What is going on is the defenders position is ruined and the hard points of his defense have been neutralized. The way to simulate this is to reduce his effectiveness and not add attack value to the attacker. So we reduce him to one and to overcome the fact that the defender will always choose infantry as his loss, we assign the roll of SB to determine which unit is suppressed, so now the defender has the decision if he thinks the battle will not go well be will allocate the reduced unit as a combat loss.

Also, we install the limit of landing units on the first round to the IPC value and give the defender the opportunity to fire his artillery and non-infantry after SB to simulate the advantage of the attackers resolve. Now both seem like a smooth system  to balance out all the invasions each turn.

Id also add a new idea: For invasions we could bring back the old “co-exist rule”  Which in this case simulates a bridgehead for the invasion. In doing this the attacker does not keep any IPC and is merely holding a small portion of the territory. the defender may have the opportunity to counter attack on his turn.

Example: US and UK land in france and establish a bridgehead with say 12 units. When they landed they could have decided to keep attacking until the defender was eliminated, but the odds were not in favor of success, so they decide to rest on what they have, which gives the German the opportunity for counter attack, except now the allies are defending ( which is some cases is a good thing).

If the Germans don’t push them off, the Allies can stay put or bring more forces to france and attack with a larger force. Note: that once they have a bridgehead they no longer get more SB.

Play this out and note how it looks more like D-Day and how that went.

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ok 1:1, but it may be a two round affair, ( example: landing in Norway) and having 3 SB but only able to land 2 units on first round , with latter SB on 2nd round?
note its actually:
mountainous = IPC limit
small = limit of 2

so Norway = 3 land units first round

ok this is fine

anyway I think there can’t be any SB effects in 2nd cycle
the beach battle is over
defender bonuses for example do not appear in 2nd cycle

right

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partial for attacker or defender?
I was thinking of both
when would you want to do a partial retreat anyway?
yes definatly partial retreats for both sides as usual.

confirming whether you understood me correctly…

I am saying lets remove partial retreat for both attacker and defender

its not obvious to me why you want to do a partial retreat
(as we no longer have any complex retreat without firing or capture-enemy-troops rules)

ok well how bout the Jeff rule from his world war two game?

Partial retreat allowed, if attacker rolls up and the remaining defenders are not sufficient, then additional hit allocations go against retreated units…

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The suppress idea applies to the first round SB only. What is going on is the defenders position is ruined and the hard points of his defense have been neutralized. The way to simulate this is to reduce his effectiveness and not add attack value to the attacker.

but in the end both land artillery and naval artillery (shore bombardment) does the same thing
neutralize the hard points, soften the target

no they destroy units. This is wrong. Its impossible to destroy an army from a Battleship, but the unit can be reduced in effectiveness and i feel this is a good model. And since the BB can effect units defending in a range of 1-4, while cruisers its 1-3. This gives the BB a new advantage as well.

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So we reduce him to one and to overcome the fact that the defender will always choose infantry as his loss, we assign the roll of SB to determine which unit is suppressed, so now the defender has the decision if he thinks the battle will not go well be will allocate the reduced unit as a combat loss.

why would defender allocate the reduced unit (instead of infantry) as combat loss?
unless the suppressed unit is suppressed for 2nd, 3rd, 4th…eycles

Because the invasion may be very close to winning and the defender might want to take out the suppressed unit as combat loss in order to inflict maximum loses and deny losing the battle. The choice is tough, because the unit suppressed may be a tank and these cost more than infantry.

in the end I feel the suppression rule is a little complex and not entirely realistic

did you play it? Its as simple as any rule from OOB.

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Id also add a new idea: For invasions we could bring back the old “co-exist rule”  Which in this case simulates a bridgehead for the invasion.
…
Play this out and note how it looks more like D-Day and how that went.
probably more suited to a different level of abstraction
like, would it make sense for the timeline of 6 months per turn?

yes thats right, but just looking at the problem with some territories that are very large like france. The rule could solve the idea that the allies keep taking the money, then get pushed off when its Germany’s turn, and then they keep coming back. Play it out. This may solve the constant invasion problem. Id like the allies to come ashore and really mean business and hold france, rather than get pushed off each turn and basically be regulated to nuisance raids.

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ok well how bout the Jeff rule from his world war two game?
Partial retreat allowed, if attacker rolls up and the remaining defenders are not sufficient, then additional hit allocations go against retreated units…
I wasn’t talking about adding penalty to defender retreat
my question is the worthiness of a partial retreat rule

This goes back to the idea of allowing either side to protect its better units from counterattack. for the defender the trade off is they may face retreating fire.

is there a need for it?
what situation would you want to perform a partial retreat?

The defender may have 5 tanks and 2 infantry and the attacker has 6 infantry and 4 tanks. The defender retreats his tanks and the attacker only gets 3 hits on the first round. That saves most of the tanks and its realistic.

If we only allow full retreats the defender gets to fire for free with all his units and retreat, because retreat allocations are announced at the end of battles.

I propose they are announced at the start of the round and retreating units allocated for retreat do not fire. Play it out and see.

I would like to reiterate that we were supposed to keep it simple and produce AARHE 4.1
removal of certain rules and simplifications was the focus
introduction of new rules was not sought after, it would be counter productive to the removal and simplifications we made earlier.

yes that is true

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no they destroy units. This is wrong. Its impossible to destroy an army from a Battleship
yes , this is why I sugguest shore bombardment to be +1 to infantry instead of OOB’s shore bombardment where the ship gets to roll a combat die

+1 is not enough juice to make it worthwhile. The design had it more strong in effect and our solution needs to be something only more realistic, but have a decent weight of effect. +1 one round is nothing

we might be simply over doing al this amphibious assault bonus for defender and attacker
maybe it would make sense to not have this suppression and also not let defending non-infantry land units fire in opening-fire

well we need something with flavor. Let just artillery get preemptive return fire, and limit invasion by IPC each round and leave the SB as per OOB.

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And since the BB can effect units defending in a range of 1-4, while cruisers its 1-3. This gives the BB a new advantage as well.
we’ll worry about that in future version when we reintroduce optional units

ok fine.

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why would defender allocate the reduced unit (instead of infantry) as combat loss?
unless the suppressed unit is suppressed for 2nd, 3rd, 4th…eycles
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Because the invasion may be very close to winning and the defender might want to take out the suppressed unit as combat loss in order to inflict maximum loses and deny losing the battle.
hm…
the defending unit allocated as casualty still gets to return fire

it returns fire at its reduced combat value. thats the difference.

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If we only allow full retreats the defender gets to fire for free with all his units and retreat, because retreat allocations are announced at the end of battles.
well…if we have a parting shot rule it would apply all the time…no reason to let full retreat be exempt

the new idea is retreat is announced before the start of combat. Retreat declarations do not fire. Extra hits go against retreating units. that solves it.

I think the reason why in axis and allies you don’t declare retreat at the beginning of the cycle is the time frame
it would be stupid when one side performed well in the cycle but retreats at the end of the cycle because that side declared retreat before the dice rolling
and this would be funny for a turn that represents months

In the war game it works very well.