Posts made by Field marshall

Good info to know. Thanks!

This is the set list as we know it but will be a few days before we can be sure.

A6M2 ‘Zeke’
A6M2 Zero Ace
Bf 109E Ace
Bf 109E Wingman
Bf 109 F ‘Friedrich’
Bf 109 G ‘Gustav’ Ace
Bf 110 C
C. 200 Saetta Rookie
C.202 Folgore
C.202 Folgore Ace
Channel Front Fw 190A
Expeditionary C.200 Saetta
Fw 190A Wurger
Guards Yak-1
Hurricane Mk I
I-16 “Abu”
I-16 “Ishak”
Ki-61 “Tony”
Kosciuszko Hurricane Mk I
Lend-Lease Tomahawk II
MS. 406 “Matimaha”
MS. 406 Rookie
Navy F4F-3 Wildcat
P-40B Rookie
P-40C Flying Tiger
P-51B Mustang Ace
P-51C Escort
Spitfire Mk I Ace
Typhoon Interceptor
USMC F4F-4 Wildcat
Yak-1 Rookie

@spideyfan:

so just to be clear, Do the units of the various sets overlap? is there a chance for example that I get a booster for early war and i get a unit that is also in another booster pack like the desert one of the 39-45 one?

Yes you are correct. For example the Morris Armored car is in both Early war and NA. You can review sets here: http://www.tintirinti.com/search_AAM.aspx

The game started out with vehicle scale is in the 10-12mm range and was changed to a more standard 15 mm scale about halfway through. Sets that contain 10-12mm vehicles are, Base Set, Set II, Contested Skies, D-Day, Reserves. Sets that contain 15mm vehicles are, 39-49, North Africa, Eastern Front, early War and Counter Offensive. Making a total of ten expansion boosters issued. Note - Only the Vehicle scales were changed and all Soldier, Artillery and Planes remain unchanged for all ten sets. Both scales are legal and acceptable to be played in tournaments and matches. Having said that, they have reprinted some but not all of the 10-12 vehicles into 15mm in the last five sets. The 6th set, 1939-1945 was kind of a reprint of the base set but with 15mm vehicles and vanilla infantry. There were two starter sets. The first with 10-12mm mini’s in a cardboard box and the second in a box but with the mini’s in a blister pack on the front.

I think the starters retail for $40 and contain 4 planes. Not a serious amount of more in this world. All indications from demo games they have played it is pretty fun.

@conanthelibrarian:

Thanks for the quick relpy.

As for quesiton 2.

Say a tank starts out in the open, then during assault phase (it’s side won iitiative and choose first) moves say 3 spaces behind an obstacle which blocks LOS.  If I have a tank that could see the enemy tank when it started, but not when it finished it’s movement, can I shoot at it where it started?  Or can I only shoot at it wherever it finishes?

Hope that makes more sense.  Thanks.

I understand what you mean now, thanks.

No you loose line of sight when the tank moves behind a terrain that blocks LOS so therefore you loose the shot. Thats the thing about winning initiative, you choose who goes first and second. He who goes first gets to be aggressive or defensive first and the other player goes second but gets the advantage of reacting to his opponents movements before the combat phase. So the second player can completely change the first players intent by reacting second like in your example of a tactical withdrawl behind blocking terrain. In games where you are defensive it tends to be beneficial to allow your opponent to go first.

Anything else thats unclear?

@conanthelibrarian:

Also have played my first three games and have a few quesitons.

1.  Infantry in same hex as tank.  Does tank get front or rear defense?

2.  For line of sight, does only the hex the defending unit end its turn in count?  Meaning can a unit move across an open field into a town, but only be shot at in the town?

3.  If a unit is transported and transport dies, does it die as well?

4.  Had a SIG 33 with bombardment attacking a sniper with enhanced camo in a forest.  Which special ability gets to be used?
Thanks for the help.

1. Rear defence

2. Please restate question

3. Yes the boarded unit dies also.

4. The snipers SA Camoflage doesn’t allow the Sig33 to be able to see it, so there is no attack. However if there is another unit in the hex with the sniper then you may target the sniper also with the B & B SA’s.

As a general rule in AAM. SA’s that say ‘can’t or cannot’ will trump SA’s that allow you to ‘do’ or say ‘can’ to do something.  So in the Sig33 example the camoflage SA trumps the Blast and Bombardment SA’s.

The next two opening Salvo’s are up.Check these out.

Part 3: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=ah/aam/20120207

Part 4: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=ah/aam/20120210

The only German unit that can move the Flak 88 and any other unit with the Large SA are the Trucks. It may load and unload in the movement phase but the truck cannot occupy the same hex as the large unit.

Yea they do look nice. There should be more teasers released and I will keep posting updates.

Opening salvo’s 1 and 2 are upon the WotC site. In Part 1 we see the mini’s and in Part 2 we see the cards. The mini’s and the card graphics look great.

Part 1: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=ah/aam/20120130

Part 2: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=ah/aam/20120201

You mean somebody cut and pasted the article without posting a reference link to A&A.org? While we exist souly to promote and support these games it goes without saying that the author should be credited with the article.

The only maps are in the starter so laminating them isn’t a bad idea. I keep my cards in a binder with 9 slot pages and my mini’s in slotted containers from the hardware store. I bought a ultra fine pen and wrote the names on the bottom of most ships for convenience. My collection is relatively small and I’m fairly new to the sea side, I started on the land mini game.

Say you have a ship with armor 5 and vital 10 and hull points 3

A ship is destroyed when its vital armor is equaled or the hull points are reduced to 0. If you achieve 5 success that is damaged, it removes one hull point making it 2 now. And if a torpedo hits with 2 successes against the hull, it is destroyed. All 3 hull points were removed. Inversely a hit of 10 successes or more sinks that ship. When a ship has only 1 hull point remaining it is considered crippled and suffers negative effects.

They have said it is a air combat game and will not include bombers. So its up to us to proxy their use I guess. It mostly fighters with some fighter/bombers mixed in seems to be the direction they are moving in. The scale they choose pretty much limited the use of bombers from the beginning.

This is roughly what we know so far:

• Air-to-Air combat game
• 1:100 or 15mm scale
• will be compatible with ground game but will have it’s own unique ruleset (ground game stats will be in starter rulebook)
• Starter set is “fixed” (each starter has same aircraft)
• Starter is “Battle of Britain” themed: Six miniatures: 2 Hurricanes, 1 Spitfire, 2 Bf 109s and 1 Me 110C.
• boosters: 3 miniatures each
• 30 Miniatures
• 20 Unique sculpts
• fighters only, no bombers (though some fighter-bombers like Me 110)
• Set “leans toward” early war period '39-'42
• a full set of the stat cards will be included in the starter

Unique sculpt breakdown:
2 French
2 Soviet
3 UK
3 US
5 German
2 Italian
3 Japanese

Other nationalities represented (with repaints):
China
Poland
South Africa
Finland
Romania

Set List:

China (Nationalist)
American Volunteer Group Flying Tiger P-40
I-16 “Abu”

France
MS.406

Soviet Union
I-16
Tomahawk II

United Kingdom
Hurricane Mk.I
Spitfire

United States
F4F-3 Wildcat
P-51B
USAAF P-40B Rookie

Germany
Bf 109E
Bf 109F
FW 190A
Me 110C

Japan
A6M2 Zero

From: http://axisandalliesunderground.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=92

Sorry DFA I forgot you can’t post photos here. I can’t wait or the forum upgrade thats coming so we can have more freedom.

http://i647.photobucket.com/albums/uu197/obermasterfuhrer/A20sizecomparison.jpg

Here’s a quote from an article published today on the Forumini on the game mechanics. http://aaminis.myfastforum.org/about31390.html

Seriously, the game is actually (surpringly) really good.

Disclaimer: No I dont work for WotC. My gaming group was lucky enough to be asked to demo A20 at CANCON as we run the WaS touney at the Con. We got starters a week ago and have been playing since.

Overall
A WW2 dogfight game needs to give you the feel of planes zooming around, manouvering and firing - A20 does this really well. The system is easy to learn but quite complex to enact, the random comes in with dice and skill based manouver rolls. The three dimensions make it remarkably challenging to fly to the piece of sky you want to be in. The stats on the cards work well and the combat system is intuitive and realistic (within the scope of such a game). Yes, the figures are big - but solid plastic molds with a reasonable paint job. They are well mounted with a ball joint and the base doubles as an altitude indicator. The beauty is that you get the feel of a dogfight game, in three dimensions, that rewards good flying tactics and use of your plane’s abilities.

Good: Great dogfight feel, clever rules, good enough figures.
Bad: Figure scale makes bombers unlikely, balance and playtesting not as good as it should be.

Now on to more specific comments and thoughts…

The Rules
Work really well and are similar to WaS etc. Initiative determines moving and firing. A number of mods come into play, both special abilities and if you are trailing your enemy. The winner of inititative gets to choose to move first or second. Movement alternates (though abilites can change what moves when) - so moving first is generally bad as your opponent can get on your six. The ‘balance’ comes in the firing phase, shooting alternates, with effects applied immeadiately and if you moved first you shoot first. The rules also deal with mis-matched numbers of planes as well.

Movement is based on declared aircraft speed and mediated via hexes. You can turn 60 degrees for free. If you want to do something special, like a split S or barrel roll, then you need to roll two dice, add you aircraft ability and beat a number depending on your speed. This is a really clever mechanic and adds lots of uncertainty to the game. We have found that failing a speical manouver usually means you can’t fire (as you end up in the wrong spot or pointing the wrong way) and/or the enemy then gets to jump on you more easily - don’t stuff the roll! The plane and pilot quality all help/hinder this.

Shooting is check the range, work out the angle of attack, apply some basic modifers (pilot quality, cripple, diving/climbing) and roll (preferably ‘6s’!). Damange is straight away. Simple, quick but reflects ‘reality’ well.

There are six altitude bands marked on the base (but no reason you couldn’t play 10 if you wanted). The maps can ‘float’ or you can play on map only. We found that two starter set maps together worked really well to fly around.

Some basic typos in the rules are disapointing, also there are some abilites that will need errata/clarification.

The Figures
I expected the paint job to be better, especially given how big they are. In particular the canopies are a bit ugly. I don’t mind the no-prop decision - and you could easily mod them on if you wanted (and having played a bit, props would just further entagle the figures). The 109 Ace is the best paint job. The plastic is hard so no risk of bendy planes like we got/get with the ship version. The ball joint base is really clever as it allows you to angle how the plane is flying and affects combat and moving. The fundamental problem with the scaling is that the 110 is about as big as you can get on the maps they have. As a WW2 air combat game, I want bombers in the game. I’d really like to have a dozen Lancasters under attack from the Luftwaffe - but that would require a huge amount of space. The Lancaster has twice the wingspan of the 110… In short, the scale decision is a wierd one - I hope they give us an explanation.

The Cards
Yes, you do get them all in the starter - another odd decision and the only explanation we can come up with is that it is cheaper for them to do it that way. Everything you need is on the card, the layout works fine. One thing pointed out by one of our group is that the pilots should be separate. This is really an obvious idea that we wish they had done. Planes should have been just an airframe then you add a pilot on with another card - more cards, more choice, better mix of points. Sadly you are now locked with the pilot quality on the card with the points costed in. The costings are … well … interesting. I had better not give away the stats for the other planes, but rest assured the US v Japan quality/stat argument will continue… Simply, I suspect there was not enough playtesting of some planes and abilites to balance things out well (sound familiar?!?).

Will the game succeed?
I hope so. Two starters is good for anyone who wants to play the game as you get plenty then. I expect that the starters will sell well. However, I am less convinced of the value of the boosters, especially as you already have the cards. The singles market will probably be really big for the planes in the boosters, with people wanting a few specific planes and not wanting to buy boxes to get them.

These look great!

Go to page 25 in your rulebook in the solving attacks section and to the effects section on page 34 for the rest of the explanation.

Basically if your successes equal a ships armor rating it take one damage. If the shot is between the armor rating and it vital rating it also takes a damage. If the attack successes equal the vital armor or better its a destroyed ship. Torpedo attacks use the hull rating to determine damage.

Ive got a starter and 4 boosters coming to get acquainted. I’m really curious about it. WotC usually does a good job of rule and game mechanics for their other games so it will be interesting to see how smoothly it plays.

Have you seen any of the pics yet?

….and welcome!

Version III is available now. It includes all the WotC unit SA clarifications. You can access them by clicking the text on a unit and viewing the card screen. If you scroll down and there is a clarification it will appear for review. From the lower part of the card screen there is a link to the dbase to all clarifications if you wish to review them all.

Ober (Field marshall)

PS - Thanks to Sgt Fury for providing the raw information.