AA50: House Rules

Here are some of the house rules I have come across to help china in AA50, all of these work for 1941 and 1942 setups unless mentioned otherwise. The rule that no more units can be placed in territories with more than three chinese units is still active. Most of these rules can be used together, though you might want to keep it simple and just use one or two. And you dont wont to make china TOO powerful! I can’t take credit for most of these either!

1-China’s economy: China is able to collect and spend IPCs like any other country, similar to g40, although is only allowed to buy infantry and at 2IPCs a piece. This allows China to save money plus gives a bit more of an incentive to the allies to take manchuria/kiangsu.

2-Burma road: If the Allies control India, Burma and Yunnan China gets one extra infantry per turn. Optionally you could allow the USA to buy one artillery for China instead, if the allies have these territories. Another option is that China could buy their own artillery at (3 or 4?) IPCs instead, if playing with China having an economy (like above).

3-Changed turn order (my fav): China gets to go before any other nation, at the start of a round. Since the USA is last and China is first, they can still go at the same time (except for the first round). This allows China to prepare for the japanese invaders a bit better.

4-Round up rather than down: When China has an uneven amount of territories, round up instead of down. Can’t be used with the ‘China’s economy’ rule.

5-Extra starting infantry: 1941 SETUP ONLY: China starts off with two extra infantry in Yunnan in Ninkang. I believe this was suggest by Larry Harris himself so that china can’t be completely destroyed in round 1 by japan. If you wish, in the 1942 setup you could start with one or two more infantry in yunnan to protect the flying tigers.

6-USA replaces flying tigers: If the flying tigers has been taken out by the axis, the USA is allowed to replace it for 12IPCs (10+2shipping).

7-Less restrictive movement: China is allowed to move into Burma. Maybe French Indo China too, though this might be questionable. Another option is that the flying tigers can also move out of China temporarily, though still needs to land in Chinese territory.

Personally I have only been able to test 3 and 4, which seems to work okay. If you have any suggestions, additions or constructive criticisms feel free to comment  :-)

Moderator’s edit: Added tag [Anniversary] to title.

Sorry for the late feedback. I was pretty occupied during the last weeks.  :-(

We did playtest the “Island Hoping” VO and in our opinion it worked very well. The Axis decided to do a G1 Barbarossa and a J1 Pearl Harbor. The idea was to force USA into a Pacific war and that way provide Germany the needed air to crush Russia. This idea worked and the US player did heavily invest in the Pacific to prevent Japan from getting the islands and later even more to get the islands himself. Because of this fact we would say that those new VOs are very good, because before there was not much to lose in the Pacific for the Americans, but a lot to win in Europe.

Resume, we will keep playing with the new VO in our next games and keep you informed!  :wink:

@der-kuenstler For some reason I’m just finding this thread now. I mostly agree with what others have said. The only thing I want to add is that if you want to play with more than the simplest of house rules, you should feel good about creating play aids to support those rules. Seriously, go out and print your new rules, in full color. Put some thought into how to design and lay out a chart or a cheat sheet that will help players remember and use your rules. Cut them out so they’re the right size, and then laminate them or print them on heavyweight cardstock. If your rules involve any special pieces, buy sculpts for those pieces or use some paint or something to convincingly alter the closest available piece; don’t just slap a chip underneath artillery and say “OK, now it’s a self-propelled artillery.”

If you’re not willing to put in that work to make things easier on your players, then why should they put in the work to test out your house rules? It can take 8+ hours for a single playtest; if you invite 3 friends over, that’s 24 hours of other people’s time. You should be willing to put in at least 10% of that (2 hours) on creating play aids to improve that experience. If you’re not, maybe that’s a sign that you’re having so much fun imagining new rules that tickle your fancy that you’re not really thinking hard about whether those rules will be fun to play with for others.

@knp, 3D6 heavies have never been popular. Back in the early nineties we played off and on with them. It’s one of those things where if you have them, you love them if you don’t, well life is hell. I like the 2D6 and seems like most players can live with them especially on the Global scale and sheer number of units on the board.

Personally I liked it better when SBR came out of the player’s bank. People really hate that one and democracy usually rules most of the time when you have a regular group. I understand why people hated that one, however I liked it. It’s one of the things I like about disrupting convoys.

Honestly I love HBG, you can now add a lot of stuff to the game especially when it comes to tech. SPA and TDs are a must.

Anyway your thoughts on mech blitzing and both dice counting for heavies was spot on.

@WILD:

So as the defender you bring in 2 reinf 2nd wave. The attacker doesn’t like the odds and has no eligible units to reinf so he retreats. The defender would then have to pull his 2 reinf units back and they would be idle for 1 complete round? Sounds like a good bluff and you might hold on to the country. Keeping track of idle units might be hard, because you could end up with several nations with idle units causing some confusion. Don’t get me wrong I like the idea of the defender having options for reinforcements or retreat. I think its silly to think the defender would just sit there and let the enemy dictate the battle with out using all his resources. Maybe someone else will chime in with an idea or two.

yeah hopefuly

no fractions. make it easy.

Well i hope they will grace us with the bounty of wisdom contained in them.

Remove heavy bombers technology and do the following

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Additional Ally advantages

Superfortress / USA starts with bombers (B-29 superfortress) that move at 8 spaces and have an attack value of 5. (only 1 roll per bomber)

Marines / USA player can designate all Infantry units (beginning of the turn) in one amphibious assault as Marines. Attack at 1-2. (artillery does not increase attack value)

Home Guard / UK player Infantry on the United Kingdom territory defend at 1-3.

Industry Movement / Soviet player may move one of his Industrial Complex units each turn at a rate of 1 movement point. (cannot move and produce on the same turn)

USSR economic penalty / (ally disadvantage) Allied forces occupied in the USSR or occupying USSR Territories prevents USSR from collecting IPCs from these territories. The reasoning behind this is the cost of feeding and caring for the foreign forces and also the cost of countering the anti-Communist political propaganda that these forces would introduce to the Soviet populace.

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Additional Axis Advatages

Kamikaze / Japan player may move one Ftr per turn its full movement allowance and attacks at 1-4. Whether it survived the attack or not it is eliminated after the battle.

Panzerkorps / German player may designate one of his armour as SS Panzerkorps during each of his player-turns. May designate any Armour as SS at beginning of the turn. Attacks at 1-4 and defends at 1-5.

U-Boats / Germany builds these subs at 6 IPCs, but must be deployed in the Submarine Pens. Encourages Germany to expand its Navy

Submarine Pens / The territory of Germany has a built in Sub Pen. The Sub Pen works by giving shelter from air attack to Subs in the Baltic Sea Zone. New U-boats must be placed here.

Kiel Kanal / With this variant Germany can still move ships from the Baltic to the Atlantic to avoid the North Sea and UK waters. Must control Western Europe. Germany navy can avoid sea zone surrounding the UK. The Kanal counts as 1 movemnt space. And Axis must control Germany and Western Europe to use it.

Just like actual war, USA will be encourage to spend money to research A-Bomb tech and drop them over Japan with its superior bombers, or possibly Germany.