AARHE: Rule files

Hello Everyone! I made a thread a while back asking for feedback on additional unit stats for some upcoming games of Global 1940 that I would be playing with some friends. After a couple of games, and some more additions and modifications I thought I would share the rules and units that we were using to enhance our games. I hope you guys enjoy them and also if you have any feedback or suggestions, I would love to hear them!

Page 1:
https://imgur.com/m1pqGME

Page 2:
https://imgur.com/J7jSSQI

I was looking over the pictures and realized that the escort carrier did not have a defense value. In our games they defend on a 1.

Here is an Italian rule (offset to Axis Vichy rule).

Italian Co-Belligerent Army / Italian Social Republic

ICBA is a pro-Allied Italian government created after Rome is captured.  At the same time, ISR, a remnant and a pro-Axis goverment of Mussolini’s regime is created and seated out of Northern Italy.  ICBA eligible territories are all Italian controlled territories, EXCEPT Northern Italy and Italian controlled territories with German units.  These territories are treated same as pro-Allied neutrals.  All other forces are part of the Italian Social Republic.  ISR becomes the new Italy and starts with 0 IPCs.  On the each ISR turn, they CAN get up to 5 IPCs from Germany.  For the ICBA, any movement is done after Vichy.
**Procedure:  **
After Rome is captured, the following happens:
1. All ICBA forces (land/sea/air) standfast and defend against Axis attacks.  
2. ICBA land forces can move during the non-combat phase.
3. If an ICBA territory with units is occupied by Allied player, no new units are created, but any ICBA infantry units are converted to the occupying Allied power, and all others disband.    
4. ISR units may move as normal.  ISR can be ordered to attack ICBA units.
5. All ICBA units return to Axis if Rome is liberated.  ICBA cannot be re-created.
(Optional: Any ICBA controlled Allied territories return to original owner, non-infantry units disband.)

Since A&A 1914 came out, I’ve been looking to import some of the rules from there into the Global 1940 game. The rule I’ve been eyeing most is the contested territory mainly, but as this is mainly a result of the limited combat rounds I feel it may limit the game too much. That was until I thought this could be a perfect time to implement oil rules! If you used oil to “buy” extra combat rounds as needed, this could simulate supplying your army as they attack. This really allows the use of the contested territory rules without the limiting effects of a hard one-round cap on combat, as well as limit territory exchanges. I thinking something along the lines of:

**Oil Refinery
Cost: 12-15
Move: 0
Attack: 0
Defense: 0 (AA ability)

Oil Refinery: Oil refineries give the nation that possesses it 3 oil tokens. These refineries can be built in any land territory you control that can support an oil refinery i.e. a territory such as the Caucasus or Romania (places that had a historical set of oilfields during the conflict); you can only have one per territory.**

I totally agree.
Timeframe and time lapse between turn makes a better understanding of how units interactions in combat rounds depict in an impressionistic way WWII battles.

If people want to see a houserule set intended to simplify interactions between these units, based partly on Classic Submarine unit here is the start of the opening post. Follow the title-link:

@Baron:

THE ISSUE

According to Dedo (see quote below), and probably other players (I’m thinking about Toblerone77), many new players seem to have issues with rules about defenseless Transports, Submarines immune to aircrafts or not and the various combinations with Destroyer presence or absence.

The learning curve can be hard, particularly when special interactions which deviate from regular rules and principles of this game are involved. Since many months I tried to find different solutions to answer this issue of complex and out of usual interactions. Maybe now this can have a useful purpose.

Wanting to help new players focus more on strategy than bogging on special rules, I would like to introduce six changes to Transport, Destroyer and Submarine combat rules to simplify things.

@Baron:

@dedo:

When following the forums of 1941 and 1942.2, I counted roundabout 20 topics (that is up to 10 percent) with questions concerning submarine or transport rules in both of the forums. It seems that for new players especially these rulebook parts are difficult to understand. Wouldn’t it be appropriate to pin down these rules in general parlance and to make them sticky in the forums? Honor to the members, who has already answered the more or less countless questions concerning these topics, but in my opinion we should put an end to this and stop to reinvent the wheel by giving a clearer wording to these mechanics of the game obviously difficult to understand. What do you think?

For my part, I revised these TPs and Subs rules to make interactions simpler between Subs, Destroyers, planes and TPs for tabletop games.
Your comments make me thinks about an alternate rules set which can be provided in addition to the OOB rules. New players can use it as a simpler intermediary or introductory step.

@Der:

@toblerone77:

Many of the newer OOB rules since revised in fact do not help the game for the more casual player and stretch the game out to the point where; if you can actually find a gamer willing to give it a go, you must use HRs in many cases to get them even close to playing the game again.

I absolutely agree! I think this subject - of general simplicity in Axis And Allies - is worthy of its own thread, so I will start one.

So, following this line of thinking to help introduce new players to a less complex naval combat interaction, I suggest this changes and tweak to simplify things and improve the impressionistic WWII depiction of Submarine warfare and Anti-Sub air cover and patrol to protect Transports and Convoys.

The second post of this thread is a transcription of OOB 1942.2 rules with corresponding changes suggested in this opening post. So, you can print them and see where these changes take place in the rulebook.

LIST of SIX small changes to help make unit interactions more consistent from a beginner POV:

Transport is treated as any other surface vessel when allocating casualty: each elligible transport unit worth 1 hit and can be chosen according to owner’s choice, whether before or after a combat unit has been selected as casualty.
OPTIONAL variant: Still worth 1 hit and Transports are taken as last casualties.

One or more friendly Transport units, sharing the same SZ, get a single defense die roll value of 1 per combat round.

Submarine cannot block unescorted Transport from amphibious landing.
Submarine and Transport cannot control SZ and can ignore each other in combat or noncombat move.

Submarine cannot hit, or be hit by, another submarine.

Destroyer does not block Submarine’s Surprise Strike.

But plane does not need Destroyer presence to hit unsubmerged Submarine.

IMPACTS of these changes:

No more defenseless Transport: TP get a combat value and can be taken as casualty the same way as other units.
Taken last can be an optional variant which is nearer OOB rule.

No combat value changes for Submarines or aircrafts with/without friendly or enemy Destroyer presence.
Aircrafts act the same as Cruiser, Carrier, Battleship when making attack or defense rolls against Submarines, except Subs still cannot hit aircrafts.

Since Submarine cannot harm enemy Sub, no fleet padding can rely solely on this cheapest unit.
Destroyer remains a must against Submarine and because Destroyer can hit aircrafts.

Submarine iconic Surprise Strike full capacity is counterbalanced by Transport illegibility as casualty and Sub inability to stop amphibious assault from lonely TPs.

WARSHIPS & TRANSPORT
Legend on unit capacities:
Unit type        Cost
Combat values
Special abilities

Submarine    6 IPCs
Attack 2 first strike*
Defense 1 first strike*
Move 2
Surprise strike: *Permanent first strike Attack 2 and Defense 1 against all surface vessels only, including Destroyers.
Submerge (instead of firing in Surprise strike phase)
Stealth Move
Unsubmerged Submarine unit can be hit by planes without any Destroyer (or Anti-Sub Vessel) presence.
Cannot hit planes nor submarines.
Cannot control SZ and can be ignored by other warship and Transport units.

Destroyer    8 IPCs
Attack 2
Defense 2
Move 2
Anti-Sub Vessel: One Destroyer unit blocks all Submarine’s Submerge and Stealth move.
Does not block Submarine’s Surprise Strike.

Transport    7 IPCs
Attack 0
Defense 1* per TPs group
Hit value: 1 Worth 1 hit and can be chosen as casualty anytime, same as warships.
Move 2
*Special Convoy Escort Defense: One single defense @1, each combat round for all friendly transports sharing SZ.
Cannot control SZ and can be ignored by other warship units.
Non-escorted Transport can make amphibious landing in Submarines infested SZ, (same rule as OOB first edition)
so Transport can ignore Submarine during Combat and Non-Combat phases, same as warships.

OPTIONAL Variant: Taken as last casualty, once all other illegible units has been chosen as casualty.

QUESTIONS:

Question 1: Do you believe that such units values can be simpler (less exemptional rules) and be used instead of OOB rules to make some baby steps toward a full OOB rules implementation?

Question 2: Is it still somewhat balanced in itself?

Question 3: Do you think that this 1 hit Transport with a small combat value is an easier rule to grasp for beginner?

Question 4: Do you think these six changes really improve WWII depiction of Submarine warfare and Anti-Sub air patrol to protect Transports and Convoys?

Well, it’s not realist to see a lot of japanese tank division because japan didn’t have the capacity to do it. So if a japanese player wants more tank, he must pay the price!

Japanese tank was not bad.In fact most of them were used as infantry tank.
So now if you introduce a tank with a cost of 4 and defend at 1.
Well I will buy more infantry,plane and artillery!

Hi, just joined the website, but I have been playing A+A for a long time.  My friends and I played with our own rules, but they  were all even balanced for the most part.  And ohhh boy did we play!  Did all of you get the dreams?  I swear some nights I would have these dreams like “I had three tanks, 5 guys, and 2 fighters….”, replaying these battle sequences in my dream!

We used 8 sided dice, 18 different units not counting artillery, AA gun or IC, 3 different Tech charts with 8 techs each. We had Auto buy which were free units at the star of your turn and Capital Surplus which was a roll at the end of your turn, if you get a good roll then you get a free piece.  We used the Cards of War, which is a deck of cards that I made which help on offense, defense and misc situations.  And of course we played on a home made map.

Before Artillery was introduced in the AA Europe Expansion I think, my friends and I had a custom piece called an Artillery that  was different than the official rules when they came out.  It all started with Germany…how times has an Axis player faced endless UK and American transports just carting dudes in.  And how many times has there been a wall of Russian troops in Karilea?  So I came up with an Artillery…which was an AA gun with a country marker under it.  And it was ruled like a typical AA gun…only one per territory, one on a transport…etc.  but the special thing about the Artillery was that it rolled one die for every defending unit, and hits on a roll of a one.  That’s right…it cost 10 bucks and moved one space and had a range of 2 spaces.  If that isn’t strong enough it could also be used to attack naval units!  As long as a fighter or bomber attack the boats also, an Artillery or two (if in range) could be used as well.  So if UK had 5 transports and a battleship, Germany could attack that fleet with 1 fighter and 2 artillerys.  The artillerys would roll 12 dice total!  Oh yeah, they only fire once per battle.

But in time the aritllerys got used and abused, we even made a new tech called Long Range Artillery to make it really crazy.  Another tech we had was Gunboat Technology, which let transports holding an AA gun or an Artillery and fire then at land or air pieces.  Then another tech we had was Defensive Artillery which meant if you attacked one of my properties and I had an artillery in it, then before you rolled your attack my artillery would first attack you and roll one die for each attacking unit you had.  Any ones that I roll will eliminate one attacking unit.  That was a pretty cool, but not very reliable tech.

I played it for years and loved it.  I made many many maps, ordered countless extra units.  One of the custom units we had was a Chinook.  It carried one Infantry 5 spaces, it attacked at a 2 and defended at a 5, but that is using an 8 sided die.  I made it by cutting the props off of the choppers (special ordered with other pieces)… then I would cut a carrier in half and trim the edges down, then I would glue the chopper blades to the top sides of the destoyer piece and make a nice Chinook with it.

So many good memories with it, I have never played the revised, updated or any other expansion, but I am putting the 50th edition one on the Xmas list for sure!  Thanks for reading!

But I haven’t played it in years, and my stuff is in a storage place in New Jersey, so I don’t have access to all of my custom rules and new pieces.

If they saw the latest files i feel we would have won easily. They are that good.

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=8670.0

Imperious Leader:
the whole idea of subs is to be on station waiting for some target to come by… If you just allow any destroyer to “SEE” the sub automatically on CM it defeats the purpose. I feel you must install that roll the DD has to make to achieve detection ( either that 3 or 2)

++++ Thanks Imperious Leader for your comments, you are right, I’ll drop this. Ditto the hidden subs.
Here are the new rules (bold stuff is new):

A player can submerge a submarine in his NCM phase or during his CM phase
when he retreats from an attack. Place a control marker under the
sub every round after the round where the sub submerged. When two markers are under the sub, it has to surface
in the next round. (In effect, it can move 8 fields submerged: 2 in the submerging round, 2 in marker one
round, 2 in marker two round, 2 in surfacing round).
(This may be a bit too much, I’ll have to playtest it. Maybe one marker is enough, making for 6 fields)

A submerged submarine may move through hostile sea zones without restriction.
Exception: When it enters a sea zone with an enemy destroyer in it, a die is rolled
for every sub in the pack. All subs must surface if at least one 3 is rolled (super sub: one 2)
Corollary: It is only allowed to enter a sea zone with a destroyer in it in a combat move phase.
Combat ensues when the subs have to surface.
The number of destroyers does not influence the detection dice roll, only the number of subs
(similar to AA gun / Fighter / Bomber rule)
The player may of course make a normal move and simply surface and attack the
destroyers in its CM.
All subs in the same sea zone have to surface at once.

**If a destroyer enters a sea zone where submerged enemy subs are stationed in a combat move,
they are detected on a roll of three (on a two for super subs). Again, roll as many dice as there are
subs in the sea zone, the number of destroyers has no effect. If a sub is detected, they are all detected
and have to suface.
(Optional rule: DD can go sub hunting: if they only move one sea zone in their CM phase instead of two

this has to be declared in advance - they may add 1 to their detection roll.**
Subs are never detected during a destroyer non combat move.

**4)  Attacking and defending subs may submerge except when an enemy destroyer is present (as stated in LHTR 1.3.).
If the sub submerges during combat, this round counts as a full submerging round.
Example: A sub has one marker under it, indicating that it has been submerged for two rounds.
In this round, it attacks on its CM phase, but retreats during the attack by submerging (or, if victorious, it
submerges in its NCM phase). Do not remove the control marker, instead, place another control marker under
the sub.

The markers are only removed if the sub surfaces during its NCM phase. (In effect, giving the opponent
the chance to take at least one combat action against subs even if he does not posess destroyers).**

So, I think I’ve thought of most of the stuff that can occur, I’ll start playtesting,  any feedback is welcome :-)
Additional thought: with this new sub capabiltiy, maybe it would be wise to raise the price of the sub?
(for instance to 10 IPCs?) And maybe the super sub advantages should not be applied to the DD detection
roles. Any comments would be much appreciated.

Regards,
sponge