Posts made by Cernel

@krieghund Ok: I see it now. Thanks for the new version. However, I would write the release date (if not a proper versioning) within the document itself, so you can reference whether or not you are actually looking at the correct one after you download it, also since I assume the site-given date of September 28 of 2021 is not the correct one, as I understand this version was not made after my recent querying but released a long time ago (and just never added to BGG). I’m not sure if it is opportune to leave the old version available at all (and I guess it is there only because BGG doesn’t allow you to take it out?).

Side note (which I’m fairly sure you know), the phrase “may not” in English is a bit risky to use because it may be easily misunderstood. For example, some may understand “air units may not be hit by bombardment” as meaning that “it can happen that air units are not hit by bombardment” (without completely excluding the possibility that they may be hit). However, I agree that the correct meaning of “air units may not be hit by bombardment” is either “it is not possible for air units to be hit by bombardment” or “it is not permitted to hit air units by bombardment” (both correct).

@krieghund said in Is Larry Harris' website down again?:

I’m as sure as I can be that all I just said is correct, but I don’t see this distinction being made in the “Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition Rules Changes” paper posted by @Krieghund on the Harris’ forum, so I was wondering if this is something missing in the paper (and, if it is so, I would suggest @Krieghund to update the paper by adding this matter), but I cannot see any official place where I can reference to it any longer…

It’s on page 2, under “Amphibious Assaults”. This document can also be found on BGG.

So, I had to register to that forum in order to be able to visualize the document…

In this document I see no mention at all of what naval bombardment can or cannot target, which means I see nothing telling that, starting from “LHTR”, naval bombardment receives the ability to hit air units too.

Also, per the headers, I think it is confusing to call Revised OOB as just “Revised” and Revised LHTR as just “LHTR”. That seems (wrongly) affirming that only Revised OOB is the actual Revised, whereas LHTR is not Revised.

@krieghund Honestly, this doesn’t come as a surprise. I guess the whole thing wasn’t considered valuable enough to pay somebody to archive it into a series of static pages.

So, not my business, but curiosity makes me wonder if there is now an other forum, or similar place, where Larry Harris is communicating, like talking about War Room or whatever, or he’s just back to the good old pre-internet times, sharing opinions only with friends and acquaintances.

@panther So this came to my mind because I wanted to ask if it is correct that in Revised OOB naval bombardment cannot target air units, whereas in Revised LHTR it can. I’m as sure as I can be that all I just said is correct, but I don’t see this distinction being made in the “Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition Rules Changes” paper posted by @Krieghund on the Harris’ forum, so I was wondering if this is something missing in the paper (and, if it is so, I would suggest @Krieghund to update the paper by adding this matter), but I cannot see any official place where I can reference to it any longer…

I also wanted to point out that in the
https://www.axisandallies.org/wp-content/uploads/AAR_LHTR_v2.0.pdf
at page 12 it says “Each battleship fires once during this step against enemy land and air units in the territory being attacked.”, which is arguably vaguely confirmed at page 19, saying “Each battleship fires once during the opening fire step of the first round of combat against enemy units in the territory being attacked.”, yet at page 27 it says “Each battleship fires once during the opening fire step against enemy land units in the territory being attacked.”, which is reiterated at page 28, saying “Each destroyer fires once during the opening fire step (using its attack of 3) against enemy land units in the territory being attacked.”. So there is one instance in which it is said that the targets of naval bombardment are land and air units, another instance in which it is said that the targets are whatever units (which would be the same as saying land and air ones if the meaning is that every unit in the battle can be targeted) and two instances in which the targets are land-only units (thus excluding air units). I’m as sure as I can be that the occurrences at page 27 and 28 are incorrect, in that they are either missing to say “land and air units” instead of “land units” or just simply saying “units” instead of “land units”, but may a LHTR 2.1 (or whatever) rulebook be released fixing these oversights (and I guess it can realistically only be released on the Harris’ forum if anywhere)?

@Krieghund @Panther In Revised OOB, can you send air units only to attack an empty, or occupied by an IC only, enemy territory (not conquering it, of course)? If you cannot, how about if there is only an AA Gun in the territory?

I realize this may seem a pointless question, so I’ll contextualize it.

Let’s assume in Revised OOB (not LHTR) you have 1 carrier and 1 fighter in a hostile sea zone. Let’s also assume we won’t move the carrier (either because we decide not to or because it is an Allied carrier).

1. I believe it is against the rules partially to move the fighter out of combat, during Combat Move, to an empty sea zone which cannot be reached by any carriers (in order later to use the remaining movement of the fighter to move the fighter back to the carrier (or somewhere else) after the Combat Move phase is over). This move is illegal because it will be possible to move the fighter again neither during Conduct Combat nor during Non Combat Move, so the fighter would crash for sure. Meaning that you can never move a fighter during Combat Move and thereafter move it again on the same turn unless the fighter takes part in a battle on the turn. Correct?

2. Is it allowed partially to move the fighter to an enemy-controlled empty, or occupied by an IC only, territory during Combat Move, make a battle (against nothing) and move the fighter back to the carrier (or somewhere else) during Conduct Combat (both in the case no land units are sent to take the territory and in the case one or one or more of them are)? If this sequence of moves is not allowed, how about if there is only an AA Gun in the territory, rest being the same?

@cernel To answer myself on the specific (still wondering about anything else though), I see Revised is covered here:
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/33761/axis-allies-revised-faq

So, has the site been deliberately nuked?

If I want to read the latest errata and clarifications of Axis&Allies Revised (or such), where should I go if anywhere @Krieghund? How about the “Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition Rules Changes” paper posted by you on the Harris’ forum? Have such things been reposted elsewhere? Am I the only one having such questions?

Almost nobody, beside maybe Communists, expected the Soviet Union to be so productive, especially considering Zarist Russia arguably generally underperformed on expectations, in the previous war.

To this day, after almost a century of research, how much the Soviet Union was productive, for example by estimating the ratio of the per-capita GDP of the Soviet Union to the United States of America, is highly contentious a matter. Imagine in 1941: nobody outside the Soviet Union (and hardly anyone inside) had any reliable idea on what was actually going on there, in term of economic and military potential.

Actually, with “vanilla” I meant no optional rules so neither NO nor interception.

@the_good_captain said in Axis and Allies Anniversary Series on YouTube::

Also…Keeping with the same group of online players: regarding Escorts and Interceptors I feel there is still some confusion as regards why it’s needed. (not helped by the fact that TripleA has the wrong rules for EandI for Anniversary).

Simply always use the “WWIIv3 1941 Move-Buy-Move” game of the “ww2v3_variants” map, which is better also for a few other matters.

@the_good_captain said in Axis and Allies Anniversary Series on YouTube::

@cernel

Right. If you don’t activate “escorts and Interceptors” I agree the game is imbalanced in favor of the Allies.

In my series, I advise the use of that optional rule to fix that particular buggy aspect of the game. My “green skies” video addresses this in more detail.

Also, I’m positive that, if you don’t activate “Escorts and Interceptors” but do activate “National Objectives”, the game is modestly in favour of the Axis. Pretty much all optional rules favour the Axis except the Dardanelles closure, which is impacting very little on balance (as Italy has good alternative options), and the 13 victory cities condition, which just requires the Axis to be a bit careful avoiding the Allies sneaking an early victory but doesn’t really impact much.

Of course, with your strategy of stacking both Belorussia and Caucasus on round 1, having the Dardanelles open (allowing Italy to take averagely slightly more than 1.5 infantry out there in exchange for 1 infantry and 1 artillery) may seriously impact on balance, but I don’t believe Russia has to be played that way.

@the_good_captain Actually, I didn’t affirm it to be clearly unbalanced in favour of the Allies. I’ve almost no experience in playing with no options, so I’m not sure, but I tend to think the game is about perfectly balanced with no options (the sort-of-broken bombing raiding rules about exactly counterbalancing the advantages of Axis without taking bombing raiding into account). Of course, the game cannot be actually perfectly balanced, so I guess it is more likely slightly in favour of the Allies than of the Axis when played “vanilla”.

@the_good_captain I have immediately to disagree on your statement that “this game is, unfortunately, unbalanced in favour of the Axis”. I belive the game itself is well balanced or maybe even slightly in favour of the Allies as long as it is played with no optional rules at all (mostly meaning without National Objectives and without interception). Of course, I’m stating this on the assumption that Americans will invest heavily on bombing raiding (which is a huge game-changer, favouring the Allies more than the Axis, as long as both National Objectives and interception are not used).

@kaleu said in My Axis & Allies collection:

I had scanned my copy of the ‘Rules Clarifications’ in the meantime. It’s available here.

Re-reading this old piece of paper, I have to say that advicing the (reportedly, many) Axis players to play aggressively as a response to the generally accepted observation that the game is hugely umbalanced against the Axis feels like grossly underestimating their player-base.

Beside this, this is a very nicely written and very helpful piece of paper and something which would be good to have in this site (namely in https://www.axisandallies.org/resources-downloads/, under “Axis & Allies 2nd Edition (1986)” (Wasn’t it 1984?)).

@victoryfirst said in Tigerman's Barbarossa Game now at HBG:

Hi, i was interested in playing this game, but I am too young to be able to buy this game at HBG, so I took a picture of the map, made it looking nicer with GIMP and printed it out. However, there are a lot of errors and I want to reprint a flawless map. Because the pixels are so thick, I needed to redraw the names and borders, but I can’t figure out the names of some territories. Also I had a lot of ambiguity with the rules, can someone help me?
To begin (I dont ask all my questions yet as I don’t expect anyone to reply to my message but whatever…), I have a question about Soviet IC’s. The rules state they can be destroyed by the Axis, but how and when? Upon capturing? At the end of the turn? At the end of the Soviet turn?

I doubt this is legal. I surmise you need to draw a map yourself (in a way that the game is substantially the same).

@Panther I’m watching the
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S16AfK2A82o
video of @The_Good_Captain, so I happened to notice that he believes antiaircraft fire is resolved in a way I doubt is correct.

Reading the rules, I think there are only 3 different ways one may sensibly understand the antiaircraft fire in presence of escorting fighters is to be conducted:

1. The defender rolls as many dice as the number of attacking air units and then distributes all hits as he/she wishes (likely taking fighters out first, to save bombers).
2. The defender rolls as many dice as the number of escorting fighters and also, but separately, as many dice as the number of attacking bombers and then distributes all hits obtained against the fighters amongst the fighters only and all hits obtained against the bombers amongst the bombers only (rationally virtually always choosing to take the air units with less movement left first).
3. The defender rolls on every attacking unit individually, taking it out if scoring a hit.

I understand that @The_Good_Captain believes it works as point 1, whereas I believe it works as point 2, yet I need an official answer to be sure.

Thanks.

@The_Good_Captain If I’m correct, let me point out that this additional rule is a pure disadvantage for the attacker, as it would not be true that this rule “improves the probability that your bomber survives”, by allowing you to take out fighters in stead of bombers.

By the way, @The_Good_Captain, in the video you said that you got @Krieghund to answer, but here I see @Panther did.

Finally, I surely disagree that, under any circumstances, strategic bombing with anyone else but the Americans (the Germans or whoever) may have a significant impact on the balance of the game (meaning that, even with bombers at 12 IPC, no National Objectives and no Interceptors, I believe it is not very good for the Germans to bomb Soviet territories).

A fifth point may be that they considerably increase the complexity of the game.

It is quite unfair (and likely quite unfun for them) to play with NOs if any number of the players are still in the process of learning the rules. NOs, like tech, are more for players who are starting getting bored of the basic game yet not bored enough to move on.

As to add my personal opinion, I theorically dislike NOs in Anniversary, even not considering the unbalance that they cause, because I think every territory giving its own income is good enough and cleaner and I do not believe the game needs more money (which turns into more units to stack on the board and manage), but practically recognize that they are a good thing to make the game reach a conclusion faster (if you like to finish games within 12 hours) and to offset the dominance of bombing raiding (if you don’t want to use the interceptor optional rule, which I believe virtually kills bombing raiding as a strategy, rather than rebalancing it).

@the_good_captain said in National Objectives vs balance:

Question for serious players of Anniversary:

Do you play with NOs? If you do what is the bid like?

I have found it pretty heavily in favor of the axis so generally leave this optional rule to the side but am still curious.

In the 1941 scenario of the mentioned game, the NOs have four main effects, in order of importance:

1. They unbalance the game in favour of Axis to the point where no good player would seriously competitively play it without a bid (of course, as long as you are not using Low Luck, the randomness will assure a decent chance for Allies to win). This is particularly upsetting as the game without NOs is actually highly balanced (a rare case in the franchise if I may say so).
2. They reduce the importance of bombing raiding, especially of the bombing raiding of Germany (as Germany should have more income whilst the bombing cap is still 20). I believe you don’t need to use the interceptor rule as long as you are using NOs (though bombing raiding is of course still very strong with no interception).
3. They speed up the game a lot, easily cutting out a few hours of gameplay to get your win against a stubborn opponent (especially the +10 Soviet NO). Meaning that, when the game starts going in favour of one side, the NOs help the unbalance to grow faster.
4. They make the game significantly more luck-driven (as bad dice making you unable to take a territory may cause you to lose NOs income too).

As long as you are not using some Low Luck house-rules, I would say a bid of about 9 for either scenario (either 3 infantry or 1 artillery and 1 armour) to the Allies (likely all to Russia) may make for a balanced game while using the NOs but not using Tech.

If you are using some Low Luck rules, I would say bidding with NOs becomes virtually mandatory, and, in the 1941 scenario, the bid should be higher (maybe as high as 15).

@squirecam Since the bomber strategy (purchasing mostly bombers for the Americans at least during the first three rounds) is Allied and aimed at Germany, I’m not seeing how it can be a viable strategy (meaning a strategy a very good player would ever do against an other very good player) under this rule. However, I’ve no actual experience about this rule.

I’m nonetheless convinced the rule would have been fine (maybe even for bomber-strategy haters) if the escorting fighters were not subjected to any AA fire (rest being the same).

Isn’t this rule a long way to say you virtually never SBR in a territory with one or more fighters in it?

I wonder how often this rule is actually agreed to be used upon starting any game.

@crsluggo I’m curious too, if there is any professional around which can answer, but what I understand is that it should remain copyrighted until 70 years after when Frank Zenau dies if he is the author.