The Veteran Tiger is better at killing things (Vehicles, Infantry, and Aircraft)
The King Tiger has +1 front defence, which actually makes a fair amount of difference. However it does costs 6 more points, though in a 200-350 point game that has much less of an impact.
If I had to choose I’d go with the Veteran because I prefer the firepower over defence, but really I’d rather go with a Panther than either.
Soviet Union
BA-10M (Armoured Car, Unc)
BT-7 (Tank, Rare)
Degtyarev DP-27 (LMG, Common)
IS-3 (Tank, Rare)
Soviet M3 Lee (Tank, Rare)
SU-152 (Assault Gun, Rare)
T-35 (Tank, Rare)
… I’ve listed all the units in the set already under the thread called “Set V Unit List”
@Sir:
My first impressions about Set V:
1. Finally, we get Fallschirmjagers. I’m certainly going to make extensive use of those.
2. Its nice to see the Hungarians getting all the basic ingriedients for a real army.
3. Its also nice to see some minor nations get heroes.
4. Why is Poland getting two kinds of infantry? Unless the Polish Mauser has some good Special Ability, it’ll be completely useless. Also, why isn’t poland getting a commander, anti-tank gun or any other tanks?
5. Its great to see some planes that are uncommons. I’ve been notoriously unlucky with planes. I must have bought close to seven Contested Skies and D-Day boosters combined and I still don’t have any planes.
The Polish Determined Infantrymen are elite. I still would have rather seen a Commander, but I suppose I’ll simply continue using the Bold Captain.
None of the planes are uncommon; they’re all rare. 7 boosters from two sets combined doesn’t give you that good of odds getting aircraft, so I would hardly say you’re unlucky. Even if you had bought all the boosters from one set, there would still be reasonable odds of you not getting an aircraft. The best way to be sure of getting them is to buy by case if you’re able, or even better just buy them off eBay, etc.
It could be an advantage to either side.
4x SS-Haupsturmfurher
3x Imperial Sergeant
16x SS-Panzergrenadier
4x Panzerfaust
6x Wehrmacht Sniper
4x PAK 40
2x Mauser
Just think of how long and hard it would be to kill all them (assuming you even could). The Allies can do the same thing with Partisans and Paratroopers, or Commissars, support weapons, and chinese infantry. This is why my play group always uses historical formations; so you don’t get lopsided battles.
10 Units +5 per 100 points it usually a reasonable number; 15 per 100 is not.
Reinforcements can be whatever you want, just consider what all someone could get with those points and if you think it’s reasonable for the scale of battle you’re doing. How much of an impact do you want those units to have? (If you wanted the battle to be a little more historical the starting force would actually be the smaller one and made of recon units, with the main force coming later.)
So if you’re using 300 points / 30 points of reinforcement, I can get a PzIV G, or 6 SS-PGs, or a Sherman +9 points of soldiers, etc etc. It won’t likely be a huge difference in the battle but could be welcome aid. Reinforcments equal to 10% of your starting force doesn’t seem unreasonable to me.
Here’s the links to the Photos:
http://boards.avalonhill.com/showpost.php?p=193237&postcount=12
http://boards.avalonhill.com/showpost.php?p=193402&postcount=28
http://boards.avalonhill.com/showpost.php?p=193405&postcount=29
http://boards.avalonhill.com/showpost.php?p=193407&postcount=30
http://boards.avalonhill.com/showpost.php?p=193409&postcount=31
JAPAN WINS
My Cunning Plan was pretty straightforward; primarily focus on two beaches with ATGs, and cover the middle one with the faster Ha-Gos that could respond to either side.
Everything and anything with ANY AT capability was put on the front; Mortars, Flak, whatever. The goal was to blast away with everything to disrupt as much as I could and grind the invasion to a halt. The best result I could get was to damage a unit; destroying it just causes the next one to arrive (and probably diverts too much firepower), but damaging causes it to take a lot of time to arrive.
Meanwhile the Arisakas job was simple - rush the beach and hold it so the enemy soldiers can’t land. It was fairly successful on the West Beach, and had limited success on the East Beach, but I lacked the infantry to do it on the North Beach. Still, even throwing the Arisakas into a meat grinder was good enough; it kept the marines in the open so my MGs and Mortars could rip them apart.
The Ha-Gos lasted longer than I had expected, and did fairly well. The ATGs were even more impressive, damaging two tanks and destroying another.
A Mortar shot down a plane. They laughed at me when I declared the attack - I laughed at them when I counted the 6s
A Sniper managed to shoot and disrupt a plane every round until it died.
The between an SNLF Fanatic and aa Japanese Hero, they managed to tie up all the Infantry on the North Beach; only the tanks were able to break through.
The Naval Bombardment was terrible, the only results being friendly fire (typical americans… :P). However a large party of this was just due to bad rolling. If even one of those attacks had hit it would have had a huge impact on the game. We have some ideas on how to change it a bit.
So what were the End Results?
The Japanese held the island, though admittedly it wouldn’t have taken too many more turns for the Americans to secure it. But more importantly, the Japanese inflicted horrend casualties on the Americans; more than their army was worth counting kills alone.
Though the next few turns may have gone differently, at the time the game ended Japan still controlled the Island and had inflicted more casualties than the Americans could possibly do back.
Objective: Japanese are to hold the island and inflict as many casualties as possible. The Americans must wipe out the Japanese and inflict more casualties than they take.
Duration: 12 Turns
Hidden Deployment: The Japanese use hidden deployment cards; they are turned up when one of them fires, is fired upon, an enemy is within 4 hexes and adjacent, or the Japanese player choses to reveal it. Hidden units have a speed of 1.
Pillboxes: Defence 5/5 vehicles that ignore disruption.
Naval Bombardment:
1. During the Airstrike Phase the US players chose a target hex.
2. Roll D6 for scatter direction, then move it D6-1 hexes in that direction; this is where the Naval Bombardment targets.
3. Any units targeted by Naval Bombardment are attacked by 9 dice
4. Any units adjacent (but not in) the hex targeted by Naval Bombardment are attacked by 7 dice.
Note that this attack doesn’t have the Bombardment SA
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US Marine Assault Force OOB
Marine Rifle Companies (x3)
3x Red Devil Captain
2x Resourceful Hero
9x BAR Gunner
9x Marines M2-2 Flamethrower
9x Bazooka
3x M2 Mortar
27x Marine Riflemen
Amphibious Assault Company
6x Amtrack
6x Higgins Boat
6x Sherman DD
US Air Force
P-38G Lightning Squadon (x5)
P-51D Mustang Squadon (x5)
Japanese Defenders OOB
Fortifications
12x Pillbox
Imperial Rifle Company (x2)
2x SNLF Captain
3x Imperial Sergeant
1x Honour-Bound Hero
2x Imperial Sniper
6x Type 89 Mortar
18x Arisaka Rifle
SNLF Platoon
1x Imperial Sergeant
3x SNLF Fanatic
Machine-Gun Company
12x Type 92 MG Team
Antitank Battery
4x 47mm Type 1 ATG
Tank Platoon3x Ha-Go
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For my huge battles reinforcements are usually a must - it’s too much to have everything on the board at once - Normandy, Kursk, Battle of the Bulge, and the upcoming Pacific Island battle are all using waves of reinforcements. You can do it without reinforcements of course, but if you do the turns can take forever. In smaller games unless its part of a scenario (hold out until the Shermans arrive, etc) I don’t use them.
How much the waves are depends on a few things - do we want it to be a tug-of-war where sides alternate between having the ‘strongest’ forces, or just one extra wave, or multiple ones.
For example our Normandy game had the Allied landing forces 3:1 to the Wehrmacht forces defending the beach, and their Paratroopers/Resistance forces were around 1:1. However the landing forces came in waves every other turn until they were all used up, and the Germans got a huge reinforcement but it was split up into 3 groups and each had to roll a certain number before it could come on (D6 + Turn Number > 8 I think it was).
In Kursk both sides had reinforcements on set turns, and only a fraction of the German force began on the map; every 2 turns another wave came on (Recon, Panzers, then support weapons). The Russians also had reinforcements come on when the Germans got their largest wave.
Battle of the Bulge was pretty simple; both sides recieved reinforcements turn 5.
In our Pacific Battle tonight the Japanese get no reinforcements, and the US land in higgins/amtracks/sherman DDs - they get 6 reserve higgins in case the others are destroyed. The US has a set amount of forces; if they run out then too bad. After a Higgins drop off troops the US side can remove it and move on a new loaded one next round, so the arrival of the waves is determined by the players to a degree (if they want to take a direct route, or go around the side of the island).
The Fuel Depot is a great piece for most Axis(German) armies, I’m just waiting to see how much it costs.
Just checked, and I was correct about how they would resolve.
I’ve started on a new project … listing all of the AAM units here. Here is what I have so far …
http://www.axisandallies.org/miniatures/stats/reserves
http://www.axisandallies.org/miniatures/sa
Looks good so far. Lots of work though eh :wink:
Under AAM rules “if more than one thing can happen at the same time, the acting player decides what order they happen in.”
The plentiful ammo ability says you can only reroll the attack dice once with this ability.
So chose which one to use first - Guards Crew or Plentiful Ammo - then do the other. Eg Roll your attack, reroll the ones, then reroll a single one or vice versa.
This question has been put up on the boards, if the official answer is different than mine I’ll let you know.
WotC posted some of the abilities of the depot units:
Ammo Dump has the Plentiful Ammo ability. This ability allows each of your attacking units to reroll any 1s on their attack dice. This powerful bonus modifies only the initial attack dice rolled during each attack—you can’t reroll any rerolls.
Fuel Depot has the Extra Fuel ability. Extra Fuel gives +1 speed to each friendly Vehicle that has a base speed of 3, regardless of range or line of sight. A unit’s base speed is the actual speed value printed on its stat card, not its modified speed value. If you have two Fuel Depots on the battle map, their abilities don’t stack.
Headquarters has the Organization ability, which allows you to reroll your initiative die. You get to see both initiative die rolls before you decide whether to reroll or not, and you must reroll before the movement phases begin.
Note that they have additional abilities too, though only Ammo Dump has been shown; it also has Dug In (can’t move or be transported), 3/3 defence, and Flammable.
Here’s the update: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=ah/aam/ah20061013c
Otto’s pretty bada$$! His and the other Kommandos’ abilities seem like they would come in very handy during games. :wink:
Yes, but I don’t think the German players used them to their fullest; Otto and his Kommandos were more of an afterthought to them.
Deployment: This unit is deployed after all other units on both sides. They may be deployed anywhere on the map; but must all be adjacent.
Disguised: These units begin ‘disguised’. While disguised they cannot be attacked at long or medium range. A unit is no longer disguised - replace with the appropriate figure marked in ()'s - when any of the following occur:
(1) It attacks.
(2) At the end of any phase it is adjacent to an enemy soldier.
(3) It is turn 7 or later.
Disguised units still use the cards of the figure marked in ()'s.
Misinformation: After the casualty phase if there are any disguised units left you may place one minefield in the hex of any one of the disguised units.
Added Otto’s card, but we didn’t actually use that one.
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Canada
Entrenched Antitank Gun
Intrepid Hero
France
French Resistance Fighter
Panhard et Levassor P 178
Poland
Determined Infantry
Polish Mauser Kar 98
Soviet Union
BA-10M
BT-7
Degtyarev DP-27
IS-3
Soviet M3 Lee
SU-152
T-35
United Kingdom
Centurion A41
Gloster Meteor
M22 “Locust”
United States
F4U Corsair
M20 75mm Recoilless Rifle
Thompson Gunner
Rangers
M8 “Greyhound”
M4 Sherman T-34 Calliope
Germany
Dornier Do 335
Elefant
Fallschirmjager
Messerschmitt Me 262
Nebelwerfer 42
Panther Ausf. D
Panzerjager Bren 731(e)
PzKpfw 38(t)
Sd Kfz 303 “Goliath”
Werwolf Partisans
Volkssturm Infantry
Hungary
37mm Light Antitank Gun
8mm Huzagol 35m
Tenacious Officer
Turan I
Italy
Stalwart Hero
Japan
Azad Hind Fauj Infantry
Kawanishi N1K-J “Shiden-Kai”
Type 3 Chi-Nu
Type 97 Antitank Rifle
Depot Units (No Faction)
Ammo Dump
Fuel Dump
Headquarters
Otto Skorzeny and the SS Kommandos were priced as paratroopers (+3 points). I didn’t think the misinformation ability would have enough of an impact to warrant more (and as it turned out, it didn’t).