Posts made by General Di Caro

I am settling on 150 games as a good fit.  Maybe 200 to allow an extra tank for a bigger battle.

I do not believe your friend rolled all 1’s out of how many dice??

Funny you mention that.  I recently played the 1943 Battle of Kursk (with a couple 1944 tanks, sorry) and my German-using opponent consistently rolled terribly with his big tanks.  He was consistenly getting 3 or 4 successes out of 15 rolls!  My Ruskies were surviving his salvos.  I somehow managed to lose this game through terrible tactics of my own, which I will not burden you with details.

Let’s say I have a habit of leaving all of my units out of LOS except for one… and this one happened to be my KV-1!  What a waste of the “Hulking Mass” special ability.

I am looking forward to playing year restricted scenarios.  For instance, Barbarossa.  1941.  At that point, the Panther and Tiger weren’t on the battlefield.  Not even the Mark IV Panzer, according to this game.  The best tank in the world at that time was the T-34.  So, in such a scenario, the Russians would have an advantage over the Wermacht.

Of course, 1941 was a unmitigated disaster for the Soviet Union, as it lost every major engagement before winter, invaluable equipment, hundreds of miles of its territory, and hundreds of thousands of men to German encirclements by armored thrusts, men who would starve in German captivity.  The cause of these calamities was abject neglect and delusion by Stalin, who didn’t believe Germany would attack, and for other reasons to lengthy to mention in this post.

But this can’t be incorporated into a 100-point 1941 battle in Axis and Allies minis.  It seems the Russians might even have an advantage because the T-34 is the best of all pre-1942 tanks in both sets.

Any thoughts?

How about Battle of France in 1940?  Have enough Renault Tanks? or even Italian soldiers?  Or some 1935 engagement between Japan and Chinese.  The way I am going with my boosters, I will soon have enough Kuomintang rifleman to field a 15-unit, 30 point army!!

This game has some great possibilities… if you are willing to drop major coin to get enough units.

Have any of you played any of the scenarios published on the Avalon Hill site???

Yes… it could happen… but would be rather improbable.
I guess it is one of those things that can’t be avoided because of a certain rule.

I’m thinking about experimenting with an all-soldiers army… maybe even all of one type of soldier.  Might make for an interesting game.

I believe the sniper constitutes one person, from what I have read from Avalon Hill.

Think of this.  Most of the units an MG-42 fires at have defense 4 or 5, and two hits against those units destroys them.  So the difference of one dice roll is significant, and since you fire twice, you are actually throwing 2 more dice with an MG-42 than a Vickers.

Seems to be a Sniper’s ability to destroy an entire squad of infantry is a bit unrealistic.  A face-up disruption counter seems more appropriate.

If each individual M-1 Garand is, say, seven or eight soldiers, and if each game turn represents one minute of real time, then a sniper that scores enough successes to destroy a squad of men will have shot and killed each of them in less than one minute.  I guess it is possible.

We are all imperialist stooges.  :?

Yes.  The rules state you can move where you’d like as long as stopping movement doesn’t violate the stacking limit in a hex.

Defensive fire may occur anytime when a unit moves from one hex adjacent to an enemy unit to another hex adjcanent to that same unit… I think that is stated pretty clearly in the rules.

Haven’t used the sniper yet.

The Wermacht Expert is 11 points… and rolls 6 dice at all ranges, +1 on each die.  And has head shot special ability.  Woo hoo.

Of course, this all seems to depend on how many points each person uses and what kind of map you are using.  One sniper placed in the right spot in a 100 point game against an army that has just one or two infantry wouldn’t have much of an impact.

Against an opponent who is infantry heavy would make more of a difference.

There is another thread on this board about different set ups.  I have used mostly 100 point armies and 150 sometimes.  Once I used 200 points, but that was to allow more tanks on the map, not a ton of 4 point units.

The map is only so big-- and the game was designed for 100 point armies-- to optimize the use of tactics like cover and flanking.  A bigger map with more objectives would possibly make infantry less useful because they can’t cover as much ground.  Unless you extend the time of the game.  And the possibilities go on and on.

So, some units may be more useful in bigger armies than they would be in smaller armies.  I guess that’s why the German tanks didn’t show up in the winning 100 point tournament armies.  They take up so much “space,” while you can fit in three Shermans and have room for a lot of other stuff.

I haven’t used the Japanese yet, but it seems to me that the special Bonzai charge can easily be stopped by defensive fire of soldiers.  It’s great against tanks, but doesn’t seem to help in an area where one would most need it.

I happen to sleep with both my Crocodiles under my pillow.

And starving German troops in Russia ate their horses.  They invaded Russia wearing summer uniforms, wearing leather boots with iron nails in the summer of 1941.  Like Napoleon more than a century earlier.

Starve and freeze they did.

Them Ruskies had felt gloves and felt boots, thanks to that evil capitalist empire the United States.

I guess the Supreme Naval Landing Force wasn’t made up solely of airborne units.

That’s ridiculous.

May a vehicle pass through a hex containing another vehicle, as long as it doesn’t end its move in that hex??
I believe it may… can’t quite remember.

Of course, this would likely have to be a friendly vehicle thing… Defensive fire would likely stop one from moving a vehcile through a hex with an enemy vehicle.

Vehicle.  Vehicle.  Vehicle.

For all the points German tanks are worth, they should get more attack dice at long range.  German tanks did indeed destroy enemy tanks during WWII in one shot at ranges of 1000 yards.  Not all the time, but it of course happened.  In this game, you would have to roll 10 to 12 successes out of 12 to 14 dice, depending on the tanks involved, to destroy it in one roll.  Has never happened in any game I have played.

Most tanks at close range can wreck each other.  Even the Sherman gets 13 dice at close range, enough to damage a German tank.
At long range the difference should be felt… to me, range is a huge tactical part of the game.

What ever happened to 5 Shermans for 1 Tiger?  Wasn’t that the ratio?

Best Infantry: SS-Panzergrenadier (U-S Paratrooper looks pretty darn good, haven’t used it yet). Both have Defense 5.

Best Anti-tank unit: PAK-40.

Best Anti-Infantry Assault Gun: The Sturmpanzer.  (This thing is devastating).  :cry:

Strongest Tank: The Tiger. (Haven’t gotten the King Tiger) I’m sure some folks on this site will vote the Croc.

Most Versatile Tank (a much different category): That’s a toughy.  I like the Guards T-34 (Soviet).

Best Tank against Infantry: The M5 Stuart (British) is very tough because it’s so fast.  Sherman also effective.

Best Commander: U-S Captain.  -1 on cover rolls for opponents is huge.  The Haupsturmfuhrer finishes a close second.

Best Machine Gun: MG-42.
Best Mortar: The U-S M2. (range 8 hexes!)

Worst infantry: The Chinese are useless.  Italians also bad.  So are Soviet Mosin-Nagant with their command dependency.
Worst Tank: The French and all the Japanese tanks are very weak.
Worst Anti-Tank unit: the Soviet PTRD-41 Antitank Rifle.  This is good against hot dog stands, that’s it.
Worst commander: The Commissar, by far.

Personal favorites:
SS-Panther tank.  Moving while disrupted.
Haupsturmfuhrer: I like saying “Fanatic” and “Exert Will” during my games.
Red Devil Captain.

Units I fear: The Sturmpanzer.  As mentioned, this thing is devastating because it can slaughter infantry from 8 hexes while ignoring cover.

Any unit with a flamethrower.  There… I said it.

And the unit that may be the most impossible to deal with… the Nashorn.  RANGE 20 HEXES!!!  Enough said.

I like how the game developers include a variety of different units to play with… but in order for you to play the Invasion of Poland you would need so many cavalry, that Polish tank thing, and early german tanks, like the Mark II, it would require buying a TON of  Boosters to acquire those pieces.

Not many units have the year “1939” on them.

Same with the invasion of France.  It would take $10,000 (exaggeration) to get enough French infantry and early German tanks.

And anyway, those battles were so lopsided, I’d rather play the Allied breakout in France 1944 with German, British and American units.  Or the Battle of Kursk or Berlin… with massive tank battles.

I really don’t want ANYMORE Chinese units!!!

This is pretty good research for a board game.  Read the part about the flame thrower.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=ah/article/ah20050715b