Posts made by dinosaur

Wild Billy …

Or were you sugesting that IL make a notice in the other fora (AAR, AA50, AAG, AAE, AAP, AABulge & AAD-Day) to make sure the whole community is aware of this project?  That is how I understood your question.  Take care.

I would like to add my voice to the B-25 for the USA.  I would love to see the P-51 but I wouldn’t mind seeing the Corsair for the carriers instead.  I’d also like to see one infantry piece (maybe in a later offering) that is an officer.  As for the artillery pieces, lets stick with actual artillery instead of some of the anti-tank guns.  Most A&A arty pieces are already anti-tank guns anyway except for the German flak gun, which was used as both an AA weapon and in direct fire mode, not as a real artillery piece either.

Keep going FMG.  We’re pulling for you!

I would ask that we not get ahead of ourselves.  The most important thing I think we could get is a set of plain blue chips that match the grey and red chips curently in use.  Once FMG has this, he would have the mold available to make other colors and/or fancy chips.  I don’t want to get too distracted and make this offering out of reach or unviable for FMG to see to the end.

Later chips we could enjoy might be Green, Supply tokens - Yellow, Damage markers - Orange, Black, White, … for other things.  However, we should seek to reserve the basic A&A colors for a possible nation specific offering.

a) This will happen…  even if I complete it on my death bed
b) They will be a great improvement from what WOTC has given us
c) There will be new units to play around with
d) There will be LOTS n LOTS of units, so AAA gamers will never again have to worry about running short.

Remember Field Marshal, I use a lot of pieces playing Pacific!  You cant use chips for carriers or carrier air if you want to look good.  BTW, can anybody make blue chips or green chips so we will have three colors?

I don’t know about Red Faction, but if your talking about a strategy game, …

I’d love to see a remake of the old game Command HQ.  That game rocked! on a 286 platform with EGA in DOS.  If anyone knows what I am talking about, think of what that game could be with curent technology.

WWII - Either Ike or Goerge C. Marshall

All History - George Washington

@Imperious:

I advise they wait till the new AA42 game comes out if they want to make a piece set for everybody, but i also said they should instead work on new Italian pieces to fix the duplicates from AA50, and also make all the new pieces. I would not want them spending thousands of dollars and charge $30 bucks or more for a set, when AH is already making a new game with all new pieces for $30… that would not be a good decision. Its better to wait till we get pictures of the new pieces, because they may be really good and hardly anybody will spend more to get a second new set.

But my advice is only that. Its prudent to wait till pictures arrive, then make decision.

With the track record of this company reusing old molds, does anyone think they are going to have new pieces that compare to what FMG is talking about?  On the small possibility they do have some new pieces, I doubt they will compare with FMGs for acuracy or detail.  FMG did a great job on the dice.  I’m expecting similar drive to produce pieces for this market.

I had not thought of making this kind of change, but it has quite a bit of merit from an intellectual POV.  The biggest problem is that there aren’t many folks with enough D8, D10 or D12 out there that want to play test the concept.  You can certainly get the dice, but most folks just don’t want to go to the expense.

I had once thought of making a handicap system using D8s.  If a player was a little better, they might be willing to roll 1-D8 during each attack.  If a player was much better, they could roll 2-D8 each attack.  This would give a handicap without altering the game too much.  The obvious counter-strategy to this is to use a couple extra pieces so the penalty is absorbed to a smaller statisitcal significance.

Yes, I agree the behavior of the droid armies is also seriously suspect.  First off, they act like eight year olds walking through the forest, noticing things but not taking any kind of military posture.  But if they were real, they would communicate at the speed of light, some of them working as sensors, some laying down defensive fire, and others manuvering or attacking.  If they couldn’t neutralize a threat, they would just pull back a little and nuke the whole area.  If they knocked out a few of their own, so what.  We can make more.

Still, my biggest objection is that the force is wide open full contact all out combat.  But in the later movies, it seems the force is not the fearsome weapon it was before.

I also think the defensive fire from the Death Star in Episode IV would have been much more effective.

I consider the truck as representing a significant investment in logistics support.  The moter vehicles present help get material where it needed to be.  Even the trains used in Europe needed an investment to keep them running so invensting in transportation should have a benefit.

Giving a truck a cost of 2 IPC and allowing it to move one infantry or one artillery 2 spaces in non-combat is a reasonable value to me.  It would take two trucks to maintain the chain from Germany to West Russia, so I think a cost of more than 2 IPC would be too much.  I also agree they should not have any combat value and thereby not be allowed to soak up hits.  They should be lost if the territory falls to the enemy.  On the other hand, I don’t think they should be vulnerable unless the enemy’s attack includes ground units.  Since a fighter can’t “capture” a territiry, I don’t think the trucks should be vulnerable to air-only attacks.

On the other hand, I would be happy not to use trucks in the world wide campaign games of the AA genre.

I don’t have BOTB,  but I did buy AAG for my son and we enjoy it.

I would be surprised if most folks in this forum did not say AAG is better.  I definately think it is worth the cost.  It is a much different game from AAR, AAP or AA50.  As a matter of fact, we joke about AAG that to learn how to play it, you have to forget how to play the other AA games.  Happy rolling.  BTW, if you are interested in enhancing your AA experience, check out the Field Marshall Games company where you may buy custom AA dice.  You may find more info in the “Variants” forum here at A&A Org.

Mine are …

Chess!!

Sid Meyers games (Railroad Tycoon, Civ series, …)

Total War Games (Medieval & Rome)

Axis & Allies Games

Bridge (the card game)

Honorable Mention: Pool and Hold 'em

I didn’t want to hijack the other thread about movie series.

What are the big quirks about the Star Wars movies that annoyed you?

The biggest thing I hate is that the Jedi in the early movies (I, II and III) fight with much more flash than they diid later (IV, V & VI).  It seems the force got weaker as time passed.

Think about it, if the movies were as well thought out as Lucas wants us to believe, Obiwan and Darth Vader would have had one awesome showdown in the Death Star (Episode IV).

Actually, I think the Jedi tricks in I, II & III are a bit over the top.

Before anyone says it, Sound in Space doesn’t count as a quirk since it is just a helpful cinimatic device.  But if someone want to point out that spaceships don’t “fly” fhrough space like fighter planes, I can get down with that.

I don’t have AA50.  What are the OOB paratrooper rules?  Are they nation specific?  Are the part of a set of optional rules?

I still wish you would consider another perspective on paratroopers.  Paratroopers are used in combined operations where during the initial phase they sieze key objectives to disrupt and delay the enemy preventing them from counter-attacking in the initial phases of a new campaign.  The best example is the Normandy invasion, a campaign reasonably close to the scale of AAR.  In this role, the airborne troops did much more to the enemy in their part to assist in the invasion than a single equivalent sized grunt infantry unit.  Yes it is true that they were “relieved” in short order, but I view their participation in the same way that I view artillery as helping the effectiveness of infantry.  I do not think the rules you are steering toward capture this relationship that airborne are part of a bigger battle.

We definately need new molds for everything.  New BBs, new CV, new CA, new DD (maybe even a tiny bit smaller).  This is going to be great.

I can see part of our problem in agreeing (you and IL seem to agree fairly well) is that I am letting a nation build elite infantry that can also do airborne operations.  You fellows just want some kind of airborne infantry.  Another reason we don’t agree is that I believe if infantry is in its proper terrain, it can fight tanks.  The spaces represented in AAR and AA50 are plenty big enough for the infantry to get suitable terrain even if not ideal.  I would love someone to playtest these two approaches and report back which was more fun.

I guess there are some things we will have to just agree to disagree.

I wouldn’t have a problem limiting fighters either, for just the reason you give.  If there were two fighters, I wouldn’t have a problem assigning all the fighters after the second purchased each turn to a lower class, say attacking and defending at -1 due to scarcity of the best pilots.  Look what happened to Japan as the war went on.

We just disagree.

I likewise do not understand why folks can’t buy into the idea that being limited to purchasing one.  I consider these the elite men in the countries infantry service.  These are the men in better physical shape, with the better mental toughness, and the better leaders handling missions similar to the grunt infantry, but I am willing to add on an airborne capability because it all seems to fit together well.  Nations had units that were known to be stronger than average, and the elite infantry having a +1 attack capability is quite understandable.  Limiting the production of elite units is also understandable because a nation isn’t going to produce high quantities of exceptional warriors.

If we are ever going to have mechanized infantry units while maintaining play balance, I can’t see paying more than 3 IPCs for airborne infantry.  If we’re going to pay 3 IPCs for airborne, we have to limit them or there will be no grunt infantry.  The other scenarios are not giving the airborne a big enough punch to make them worth it in the long run.  And if you make the punch any bigger, then you have something crazy going on.

Well, in my opinion all infantry should defend on a two.  It seems the attack will have to be either a one or a two.  If you give them a 1, they are only a slightly more mobile infantry with no other benefit.  If you set them at 3 IPCs, who is going to buy grunt infantry?  If you set them up with an attack of 2 and charge 4 IPC, I think folks are going to buy artillery.  This is why I thought giving them a little more punch would have to be offset by limiting their numbers, setting the purchase at one per turn.  I think it will be very hard to prevent a balance buster without an artificial limit.

If we have a special second infantry piece (compliments of the FMG project) would you want to incorporate it into AAR or AA50 as a paratrooper?  Or would you rather just have a second theatre piece such as an Afrika Corps (German) and a US Marine for the Pacific?  If you want to create a new unit that has new capabilities, what would those capabilities be?

For my part, I’d rather just have a second sculpt for the other theatre.  This doesn’t really work for Russia, but this is a small point.

I believe the complexity of handling a new infantry type would not be worth the effort of keeping up with them.  To make them effective enough, you are likely to make them “balance busters” (units that upset the balance in the game).

Another problem is the balance in the purchase system.  There is a delicate balance between an infantry purchase of 3 IPC, an artillery purchase of 4 IPC and an armor purchase of 5 IPC.  I don’t think you can create an infantry piece that costs 4 IPC and maintain play balance because to give it additional capabilities you will almost certainly make it worth clearly more than an artillery piece rendering the artillery useless.

The only system I can think of that even comes close is this …

Each nation is only allowed to purchase one airborne infantryman each turn.  The cost is 3 IPC.  It attacks and defends on a 2, but provides no bonus to other units in the way artillery helps infantry, but may be helped by artillery as other infantry are for a +1 on their attack.  An airborne infantry unit may move two spaces if it starts its turn in a territory with any type of aircraft piece (either fighter or bomber).  The aircraft piece does not have to attack the same territory and in fact is not even moved with the airborne infantry piece unless the player wants to add the aircraft to the attack.  The reason for this is that an aircraft piece represents a group of aircraft, not just the single aircraft type.  Also note the player may move airborne infantry two spaces from one friendly territory to another without attacking.  One down side is that the airborne infantry are subject to AA fire if they fly through or to an enemy territory with AA.  The aircraft piece is not subject to this unless it is also flying to the same battle.

These rules attempt to keep the numbers of Airborne infantry at reasonable levels while providing some opportunity for their deployment on a strategic level.  The costs are low for what you get, and enhanced infantryman, but the new capabilities are not outrageous and the limit should help keep them from from dominating the battlefield.  Players will want to protect their ABI with grunt infantry so you should still see mostly combined arms attacks with GrI, Arty, Arm, Fgtr and ABI.