absolutely, it’s historical until you start play. After that you’ve changed the timeline.
I think the bigger question about the accuracy of the games deals with “Are things able to happen that happened historically”
Were Carriers able to go into the Slot? Yes, they feasibly could have, but the 2 sides historically choose not to do so. If you had to do everything that did happen, then you already know the outcome.
This is the from the Advanced AA game, but could be modified for the original. Since this is used in conjunction with the Adv. Pacific game and there are no specific Lend-lease convoy zones in the original. Historically, much of the Lend-lease that went to the SU from the USA went through the northern pacific, but you could simply set a cap on IPCs to send and then give the Axis a shot at them as they travel to SU.
anyhow, here’s the Adv. AA rules:
Lend-Lease Convoy Zones:
I hear ya, I only got into it this year and am still wading my way through it. Enjoying it though, a good bit like Bulge, which is great, but you have to come at it like a new game and not think of it as one of the older AA games.
Krieghund’s got a link to the new FAQ too on the Larry Harris site, if you haven’t seen it yet.
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=13333.0
you fire from one sub at a time. The first attacks the CA and damages it, you can attempt to finish it off with the 2nd, or 3rd and then the 4th could go after a Trn or whatever else you like.
I believe though that subs move one at a time, so you would move the 1st one in, attack, and then you could move the 2nd and so on there if you wish to continue attacking ships there.
yes. when it talks about building airfields it may not read as clear as when it talks about repairing airfields, but the supplies need to be where they are going to be used. Like the supply tokens need to be at your home base to repair ships there.
that’s a good question, one which I tried as Germany a number of times.
In short they run don’t have the troops to overwhelm Russia like they need.
They try the TP without most of Army Group South and/or give up the territories all the way to Italy before the TP could hit Moscow, which it won’t.
For the TP to work, Germany needs the bulk of the Army Group South (Hungary/ Czech/ Austria and south) to participate in Barbarossa. There’s no good way though that we’ve found yet for Germany to get enough of it’s troops from the Balkan Peninsula to Moscow by going around the RW to participate in the TP to make it effective. Hungary can move it’s troops north to Poland, but most of the rest get caught by advancing Russian troops out of Ukraine/Bessarbia. Russia can pull it’s tanks back to hit EPol without problem and still take the Peninsula with minimal troops supported by air and could feasibly even get some additional help from the British forces in Egypt as by B2-3 the Med DD/Trn is likely still around.
Another option for Russia then is to push north from Rumania and into Poland, cutting off the German supply line and either separating their units (as they’d be building tanks then and their armor would be a turn away to help) or forcing them to turn back and further delay their push. Russia would still be picking off the Penn. countries and causing Germany to further defend or give up the Italy.
End result is Germany’s offensive being split and not effective. The TP is like walking a tightrope that’s been set on fire behind you. You are hoping to get across it before the fire catches you or burns through it behind you.
[edit]
It’s just like the historical result. Germany tried a Tank Push to Moscow in reality. BUT, because they diverted troops to Leningrad when less than 200 miles from Moscow and they diverted away from the Oil fields to Stalingrad Their superior offensive ability was blunted on the numerous Russian targets rather than the prize of Stalin, Oil and Moscow. Had they just pushed straight at Moscow when they were supposed to they would have leveled it before the Siberian Army and winter arrived. Then they could have dealt with them and turned en masse at Stalingrad from Moscow and from the captured Oil Fields.
The RW diverts the German attention away from Moscow and the TP. Russia fights the helpful battles, usually smaller than the big stack fight in Belo or Moscow that often goes with a TP. Russia is vast and each territory really isn’t worth that much, so if they are putting everything towards Moscow they really need to go straight there. Pulling them away from there will dissipate their attack. The RW really forces Germany to not be singular in attack by breaking down the pieces that play to their advantage. And when they cease to be singular, the TP actually ceases and the Axis is left with a huge gapping hole to the West and a quagmire to the East.
@aequitas
yes, it worked out alright in the end. I was the US player, and I think that the real downfall of the Axis in that game was when the Celtic Fleet didn’t die on G1, the Axis player bought 3 SS to help, thinking they would be more helpful than a couple more tanks and infantry on the Eastern Front. He said that at the time he didn’t realize that he could also hit that reinforced fleet with the 2 fighters in France that he had landed there after G1. So he bought the SS, (said he would have just bought 1) and then when it came to CM’s, he realized he had fighters too. Still he wiped out the fleet and the SS helped hold things up. Just oversight that cost him later.
The Brit player immediately took out the German force in Tunisia on B1 with landings and Tank Blitz because the German Med Fleet went to Gibraltar and couldn’t retaliate. I think that with that big stroke it seemed that the Fighter wasn’t needed in Africa. Germany transported troops via France to Morocco and walked over with the Bomber support, but the Brit Fighter had already been converted to Russian. All 3 initial Brit fighters became Russian in the first couple rounds
Axis income (don’t have the exact figures) was steadily rising even up to 59 around G5 or 6. The extra SS in the Atlantic did a good job of keeping Allies at bay, until they moved their fighters away from Germany into Russia and we could start SBR, then we turned it around. I think they surrendered with around 18 IPC per turn and about 15 INF in Germany, could have held out for a few turns, but not enough to strike again.
I just played a game where we tried something similar to this. The Axis attack on the Celtic Sea 3 SS/1Fig vs Brit-DD/2Trn utterly failed. All the subs were sunk and the plane withdrew without sinking a single Brit boat. Everything else but the Canadian fleet was sunk, so the Brit player combined in the Celtic Sea and even built an additional couple subs. ON G2, the Axis countered though with 6 SS/2Fig and the DD/BB which had taken Gibraltar on G1. They wiped out the Brit Fleet completely, but it brought out the Med Fleet. So a new DD built by the Brit allowed US SS and Planes to clean out the rest of the Germans.
Still, with additional uboats being built each round it was still round 4 before any landings in Europe or Norway could have occured, however Norway/Findland were taken by the Russians by then anyhow. Game ended in by Axis surrender in G9 after 2nd attempt to take Moscow failed. Africa went back and forth. 2 extra tanks in Egypt helped UK early, but Germany kept bringing troops in to take back and Malta fighter went to USSR on B2 so they could never sink the German Transport.
Possible, I think yes. Probable, I’d lean towards no. I think it would be more of the Axis player making a mistake in troop allocation early in the game and not sending enough to the Eastern Front that would lose them the war as opposed to Russia winning the war.
The Soviet Patriotic War was more what WW2 was called from the Soviet standpoint, while Lend-Lease was how the other Allies, particularly the US helped aide it’s allies with war materials and money. If you look at the Soviet Patriotic War rules as Lend-Lease, which is what it should have been called in the manual, then sending planes, or war materials, was historically accurate.
The US gave the Soviets over 11 Billion in material during the war, and over 31 Billion to the Brits (US gave over 50 billion total during war, today equal to over 700 billion) The British actually sent 14% of their total tank production to USSR during the war, so some of the money and goods the US gave the UK was in turn given to the USSR. But as for planes, over 18,000 of them went to the Soviets historically from US/UK.
This function in the game is both historical and necessary for the Allies to win the game as it was historically.
Lend-lease aircraft amounted to 18% of all aircraft in the Soviet air forces, 20% of all bombers, and 16-23% of all fighters (numbers vary depending on calculation methods), and 29% of all naval aircraft. In some AF commands and fronts the proportion of Lend-Lease aircraft was even higher: of the 9.888 fighters delivered to the air defense (PVO) fighter units in 1941-45 6.953 (or over 70%!) were British or American. In the AF of the Karelian front lend-lease aircraft amounted to about two-thirds of all combat aircraft in 1942-43, practically all torpedo bombers of the naval air forces were A-20G Bostons in 1944-45 etc.
from http://lend-lease.airforce.ru/english/articles/geust/aircraft_deliveries.htm
also…
_The aircraft delivered as part of the lend lease programme were especially welcome following the Red airforces catastrophic losses during the opening months of the campaign. Lend-lease aircraft amounted to 18% of all aircraft in the Soviet air forces, 20% of all bombers and 16% of all fighters and 29% of all naval aircraft. Some American aircraft types, such as the P-39 Airacobra fighters, A-20 Boston and B-25 Mitchell bombers and C-47 transport aircraft, were highly revered by their Russian crews. Several Russian aces scored more than 40 victories with Airacobras. The list below details the numbers and types of individual aircraft sent to Russia:
P-39 Airacobra single-engine fighters - 4719
P-40 single-engine fighters - 2397
P-47 - 195
Hurricane single-engine fighters - 2952
Spitfire single-engine fighters - 1331
A-20 twin-engine light attack bombers - 2908
B-25 twin-engine medium bombers - 862_
from- http://www.theeasternfront.co.uk/lendlease.htm
Maybe if you want to keep it more simplified and not have the extra armies fighting and such, you could use a hybrid of your initial post and the classic rules.
For the Axis, they could invade, and pay the 3-ipc penalty plus the value of the territory, but they would gain back the value of the territory at the end of the turn. So if Turkey is worth 3, it would cost 6 to invade (covers the material aspect of the war and reconstruction for Axis use) and then they begin collecting those 3 back at the end of the turn. So you would have to have 6 to begin with, even though it only really costs 3 to invade.
For the Allies, they can only liberate these countries.
I’m swayed as far as Spain goes though, you could do the rolls and try and induce diplomatic alignment and no ipc cost. Though I would make it easier for the Axis, maybe roll of 1 or 2, and for the Allies, only a roll of 1.
For places like Himalayas, Sahara, Mongolia, i agree, they should remain impassible.
This may be more general than you want, but here’s a quick overview of what’s different from other AA games in Guadalcanal. definitely download the rulebook at the avalon hill site to see. i just went through the rulebook and noted a couple of the differences from each page.
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=ah/downloads
-Airfields, these are specific sites on islands where you can land planes, 2 to be exact. without them, no planes can land and they can be damaged so you’ll have to repair them before you can land planes. Oh yeah, you had to build them too in the first place.
-Supply tokens- these are purchased with points on each turn and have to be moved to where you want them. they can be used to build/repair airfields.
-1st player token- this determine who performs each step in the turn first.
-battlebox- this is what’s used to determine hits, so a more random order of hits occurs rather than defender choosing units to lose.
-Cruisers- new to AA, now also used in AA50. While on the subject of units, each unit in the game has a land/sea/air attack value and each of these areas of the battles happen separately. Air happens before sea and then land.
-capital ships have ability to bombard land units without landing. artillery has ability to bombard ships.
-Movement- each type of unit moves separately, and each is moved by the player with the 1st player token followed by the other player. 1-load&move transports. 2-move battleships. 3-move aircraft carriers. 4-cruisers. 5-load/move destroyers. 6-move & attack with subs. 7-move bombers. 8-move fighters.
-subs can attack a specific target
-capital ships can be damaged on a 2 and sunk on a 1
-fighters/bombers can only move half their total number of move points to a battle, and then the other half back. -bomb-3 out, 3 back, fighters -2 each
-combat- air units fight first, any remaining with sea attack rating can then fight in sea battle. land battle comes last
-planes can target airfields for damage
-units attack ratings give attack power for number of dice to roll
-hits count to next unit on battle box if unit listed for hit is not present.
-island control is determined by land attack power of opposing forces present.
-capital ships can be repaired if damaged.
-victory points are accumulated for game victory
-reinforcement points determine ability to purchase new units, which the costs of differ also from other games.
I can’t wait to try this approach!
Awesome. let me know how it went, love to hear the action report.
Specifically - all of them. :-)
it can sound brash, but it’s the most honest way to say it. Guadal is like Bulge, forget what you know. They’re great, but they are different!
What are the rules for Total War when someone drops a nuke? is that posted in another thread?
So, how to break the TP? We call it the Rumanian Wedge. The basic understanding is that Russia must split Germany’s offensive, i.e. drive a wedge into it. The UK and US must utilize Lend-Lease (Soviet Patriotic War) and continue to ship both fighters and bombers to Russia each turn (for US, as much as possible for UK). This additional punch will be critical to the Eastern Front in later rounds. A combination of this wedge being driven into Axis forces and the continual addition of aircraft will be the key to grinding the Tank-Push to a halt. This will not cause the Russians to quickly be pouring into Berlin, but the point isn’t to do that. It’s an Allied cause and for the the Russians to simply fight to a standstill is all that needs to occur until the other Allies can overcome the Atlantic wall and open the 2nd front. Still what will most often happen is that the German offensive will be crushed in Belo, and the last group of Armor and Luftwaffe will be sitting in E Poland without additional support because Germany has turtled as UK/US are assaulting Germany after liberating France.
The Rumanian Wedge
The key is Rumania. Often Bessarbia can come into play with it, but will most likely always include Rumania. Any pulling of German forces in Europe away from the buildup and march to Moscow will help the allies. This is about pitting Soviet forces against Axis in helpful situations (not always winning, but helpful) Think about this, normally most of the German forces around Rumania/Hungary (Balkans/Czech/Austria/etc) will end up in those two countries at the end of G1 to help discourage a Russian offensive. But all 6 of the Russian tanks can end up in striking range of Rumania at the end of R1 and a large enough buildup in Ukraine in R1 will often again cause additional buildup on G2 in Rumania/Hungary. So a R2 strike with ARM/INF/ART into Rumania supported by air will destroy the German military there. Additionally, forces that are likely within range to retaliate on G3 will likely not be sufficient to wipe out the Soviet offensive, hence you’ve destroyed what would be Army Group South.
Any additional drives into this area by the Germans can continue to be met should they desire to do so, but that will get them off track on their TP to Moscow by G5/6, so they will likely be pushing into EPoland by this point. Great news, your armor can reach EPoland and with the help of other units from Belo, Baltic, and Ukraine, a strafe of EPoland followed by general retreat to Belo will result in further havoc on the Axis and put you back in proper defensive position between Germany and Moscow.
Here an Axis attack will possibly destroy your Soviet forces, (this is that helpful, losing the battle, winning the war part) but your reinforcements from surrounding territories supported by air power will knock out the TP as by this time (R4/5) the other Allies should be closing in on Germany and causing Germany to build INF to protect itself. Your ARM have had multiple offensive hits and been in key positions to be used against two prongs of the German offensive, crippling both.
For a 2-Turn INF build, the plan is much the same, though perhaps a bit closer for the Soviets in the long run. Good news is that it doesn’t have the early attack punch to hit your Wedge because of the 2nd INF build. Drive the Wedge into Rumania again, utilize your Armor and Air Power to maximize your effectiveness and do not forget that adding a few ART into your builds will increase your overall attack power.
In both scenarios, a retreat into Ukraine when the Axis can retaliate from EPoland is not necessarily a bad plan should the opportunity arise, but still should be weighed carefully as to which will get you maximum effect. Should the Axis head through Belo and avoid your Ukrainian withdrawl you avoid the attacks of the Luftwaffe. Should they attack, they have put themselves another turn away from Moscow and allow you to continue building forces to hit them from multiple directions. Drawing the Axis south is better than north as Leningrad is more useful to be left open for aircraft to arrive from the Allies. Certainly the loss of Leningrad is not helpful, but by this time the possibility of Norway/Findland being held by one of the three Allies is very good and aircraft can be brought to USSR via these There are ways territories and around around the loss of Leningrad. Any diversion of Axis forces really will help the Soviet cause in the long run. It happened historically, it happens in the game.
Allied Lend-Lease: The continual building of aircraft to give to Russia can be disturbing to many Allied players, but as the Axis is not adding to the Atlantic fleet, the Atlantic can be brought under Allied control in a 2-3 turns max. But without the aircraft to Russia, Moscow will fall before the Allies arrive in Normandy.
US–needs to build and send 1 Fighter and 1 Bomber per turn. On US1, buy this, and then save the rest of the 40 IPCs until you can build extra multiple ships on US2 as the US may likely lose their 2 convoy zones.
UK–send all starting 3 Fighters and Bomber to Russia if possible, meaning, if the Malta fighter survives, send it too!. If you can build another Fighter on either UK2 or 3 and send it also will be a great help.
Atlantic & Med The TP calls for all new spending to go to the Russian Front, so theoretically the best the Axis can do is impede the Allies in the Atlantic through turn 3. After that, because there has not been additional deployments, without miracle dice the battle for the Atlantic goes to the Allies.
As to the Med, the Axis has really all it needs to not only dominate the Med for the first 4+ turns, but to by the end of it, to take at least a good chunk of the Oil Territories. In light of the overall war, the best the Allies can really expect to put into this area is what is there to begin with. The loss of these areas can be slowed and will not cost them the war.
Bonus Initial placement: Typical TP placement of 12 Axis IPCs is often a TRN with the starting TRN and an ART on the Eastern Front or Northern Africa. The ART helps later battles and the TRN helps to take Leningrad. I would recommend giving the 12 to the Soviets and placing 2 INF in Lenin and 2 in Bessarbia. This will help defend against the landing in Lenin, forcing them to bring fighters to help take it and both exposing them to AA and keeping them out of the Atlantic. Placing 2 in Bessarbia helps to defend your ARM there from a small push G1. in the event that it draws a large push, you have the start of your Wedge all setup for you. How kind.
Should Lenin fall on G1 even with your additional placements, R1 can easily see the recapture of it and opening to Allied Lend-Lease landings that very round.
I’ll line out some likely steps for the Eastern front, but as we all know changes and tweaks are a part of the game and strategy and such, so this can’t be a set-in-stone plan, it has to be as fluid as the battle. Once the Wedge is started it should start creating havoc with the Axis player’s plans to quickly push to Moscow. Russia gets to be the focus, they get to use all the tools, thanks to the Allies, who end up making their income look like 50+ instead of 24. Take your time, you can stop the Push and force the Axis to fight balanced.
G1-2–builds up Western Front, builds INF, then ARM R2–Russia takes all tanks and units in range to take Rumania before G3 invasion of Russia. G3–Germany should invade EPOL, and try to also repel Rumanian invasion. R3–Russia takes tanks in Rumania and strafes EPOL, then retreats to Belo. smaller force continues advance into Balkan Pen/Hungary. G4–Germany likely takes Belo. R4–combined force of all remaining Russian forces in Lenin/Stal/Russ/Mosc +planes take Belo. Germany still has planes in EPOL and up to 8 tanks, but two turns from Mosc as Allies should be starting landing and forcing GER to turtle.
**this is a rundown of a 1-turn INF build for Germany, a 2-turn build can be extrapolated but gives Germany more time to build and advance, but more time for Allies to land.
Sea Lion’s have been done in AAE, why shouldn’t Barbarossa be possible or at least an acceptable way to play rather than signaling the attempt to take advantage of a broken game? But the TP should not be a guarantee. Maybe the offensive will work, maybe it won’t, but there is a chance for both sides to win. Honestly, the best chance to win will be in a more balanced approach to the war.
What has come out of it is a reassessment of how to wage the war. Too often I fear Russian players simply fall back, building INF and trying to hold out, utilizing their 6 tanks often only on defense. They wait until the Axis is at it’s strongest to make a last ditch attempt to thwart Barbarossa, but to no avail.
First let’s look at the basic version of the Tank-Push, which can be found in several threads in this forum:
@Rakeman:
Ok, so it has been decided by many that the following strategy makes Germany win every time:
1. Use 12 IPC at start to buy a transport, capture leningrad with 4 land units
2. Build all infantry
3. On subsequent turns, build all tanks
4. Kill Russia
**The two breakdowns, either 1 turn or 2 of Infantry building can be seen in these differences:
1-Turn build–reach Moscow by G5, 13 Infantry to the front
2-Turn build–reach Moscow by G6, 26 Infantry to the front,
*The key to winning by TP is to overwhelm the Eastern Front at the expense and sacrifice of the Western Front. So everything is pushed toward the Eastern Front except INF in France/Netherlands. An effective TP will overwhelm the Eastern Front before the Western Front completely collapses on Germany.
An effective TP can expect to take EPoland & Ukraine by turn 3, unite in Belo on turn 4 and take Moscow in turn 5. For two turn INF build, simply delay 1 turn. Proceed directly to Moscow, do not pass go.
For years we have played and enjoyed AAE. When we discovered the Tank-Push (TP), we agreed with many others that the game was broken. When we then played, we would have to agree to not use this strategy. This was frustrating, not being able to utilize what was a good plan to win, even though we could wage a more balanced war and still win. We have been working on various ways to rebalance the game and have gone through changes from changing Attack/Defense values, SBR retooling, free items, convoy zone changes, bonus units, Siberian troops, territory value and size changes to even adding Italy as a 5th player. (Sidebar) Italy as a 5th player replacing German units may come the closest and there is a discussion by players who have developed their own variations of this in the house rules section (but I digress). Basically all of the tweaks we tried either didn’t work or over-compensated and complicated the OOB ruleset.
What we wanted though was NOT to make a house rule or variant, but to develop a simple, easy to understand, easy to utilize and believable way to rebalance the game rather than create something different. There are great ‘Advanced’ versions out there that we wouldn’t have to reinvent to expand and balance, but hey, we already bought this board and wouldn’t it be great if we could play it!
Our goal is simple: to rebalance AAE and remove the ‘broken’ stigma. We have play-tested an idea that also appears to bear out under the statistical analysis and think it viable to fulfill our goal. And what’s great is that it doesn’t actually change any of the rules. While this may not make AAE the most popular version out there, with all the new variations and the scuttlebutt about a potential revised AAE on the horizon, it would be nice to simply have AAE seen as playable.
This strategy is designed to break the TP and because of the risky nature of the TP anyhow, pushing all the eggs to the Eastern Front, will most likely break the back of the Axis in the game. Still, dice have to be rolled and either side could win, but the numbers bear out that the possibility of Allies winning against the TP are far more than the odds they lose. And what else is nice is that you are not committing to breaking it until the Axis show their hand on doing it. What you do as Russia is a solid move even if the Axis don’t TP. Your analysis and feedback are always welcome, especially if you are still playing AAE. We don’t think that we could be the only people to have come to this result but have not seen it on the forum and so if it can help the community, all the better.
i’m in for at least 1 set, likely more.
