After paying the cost the first time, place the ship on the land region. It is automatically destroyed if the territory is captured.
If you are going to place the ship on the territory and allow it to be destroyed if the territory is captured you might want to go ahead and make the shipyards targetable by enemy bombers and either damage the ship further equal to the number on the die rolled or simply destroy the ship on a 1 or 2.
I know the way Guadalcanal and AA50 play is vastly different, but if I understand the rules correctly, in AAG, ART gets to fire at ships in adjacent seazones AND ALSO at ground troops in land combat in the same turn.
So using that similarly in another version is a believable extension as ART is an abstraction for all artillery. The addition of coastal bunkers could even go with the use of the bunkers from D-Day and could be more specific.
@Imperious:
So if you were in North Carolina and bought a gasoline station and hired Gomer to serve the people at Mayberry your not making much of a trade, but if you instead went to Raleigh, your business would improve.
Sure, but since there is no anti-gouging law in NC, Gomer could charge as much as he wanted since he was the only station in Mayberry…
But on a more serious note, I remember way back someone had put together an idea for each territory to produce it’s ipc’s in it’s territory and then they had to be transported to a factory to produce, so you could build factories where-ever, but you had to get the materials there. On land they could move, but over water they needed a cheap 'merchant ship to move them. No ships, no movement of goods to factories. More detail in the factories could be interesting time to put more detail in the raw materials production.
@Imperious:
about 17 japanese Level bombers sunk the prince and whales and repulse in 1941
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_Prince_of_Wales_and_Repulse
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Torpedo-bomberBombers used in AA50 and not played with house rules for specialty units like torpedo Bombers/dive bombers and the like can be interpreted as more than standard “bombers”. So if your playing the OOB with no other units than the idea is not realistic to restrict bombers, nor is it balanced. However, as i said of you got other pieces that take up this slack, then it could work.
Yeah, just watched a show on the military channel about the battle of singapore and saw that the Japanese Bombers sunk them quickly.
It brings some interesting changes to the game, but because they do represent bombers as a whole, you’d probably be better served to get alternate pieces to represent various types of bombers if you wanted to be more accurate and versatile.
yeah, stinking rules…
I had a similar almost, when I took out everything on the southern road and had everything appear open through Bastogne and beyond…
It was a good try though Gen.
That’s great! if they respond as quick as for the problems with the Guadalcanal pieces, you’ll have them by next week.
Does anyone know whether or not carrier operations were conducted in the midst of all the islands or were they conducted outside of the islands on the “edge” of the board?
If you are asking historically… in my recollection I believe that as for the Allies, that the US Carriers, like the Enterprise stayed out of what would be the center of the board (between the islands) and launched from what would be the edges. I don’t know about the Japanese Carriers–they were in the Guadalcanal area though, which is part of what pushed Allied Carriers farther out to sea…, that and Japanese night fighting.
Still, watching my son’s reaction to his good dice rolls was a roit! He was laughing as the 'ol man grumbled and put the ACC’s back in the storage bin. We really do have a great fun battling each other over the game. I treasure these moments as he is 12 years-old and time spent w/ Dad is becoming a premium. Get it while I can! Know what I mean?
Great Job Maddog!
+1
Found this on the Larry Harris Forum and haven’t seen any corresponding conversation about it here as yet. It comes from Mr. Harris himself, so I was thinking that it might be more optional play rules as compared to House Rules, being from ‘the man’ himself. I trust the moderators here though to move or not move if needed.
This is straight from his post, except for the italicized portion- that comes from a later post by LH which I included where he was talking about adding it.
The original post and discussion can be found here:
http://www.harrisgamedesign.com/bb2/viewtopic.php?t=11
http://www.harrisgamedesign.com/bb2/viewtopic.php?t=388
D-Day Optional Rules by Larry Harris
Optional Play # 1 Artillery
Call it: Dimensional Battlefield - ARTILLERY
The system will require 2 additional cards. Number them 9A and 11A. When playing this system simply add these two cards, in numerical order, to the deck. You will have to make your own cards and insert them in the deck.
Card 9A Reads (This follows card 9):
Allied Artillery Fires
Artillery can target specific enemy units.
It can fire at adjoining zones.
Hits with rolls of 1 or 2 **
Card 11A Reads (This follows card 11):
Axis artillery Fires
Artillery can target specific enemy units
It can fire at adjoining zones.
Hits with rolls of 1 or2 **
Artillery can fire (roll) against enemy units in their same zones or enemy units in adjoining zones. The controlling player can designate specific units as targets. A hit will immediately remove the targeted unit.
When conducting combat (Cards 11 & 13) artillery units do not roll either offensively or defensively. As their dedicated cards may suggest, they have their own special moments. They can be attacked if the region they are in is attacked. If they are selected or targeted as the loss they will be removed.
Additonal
When artillery fires and hits; on a roll of 1, the attacker chooses the unit destroyed, on a roll of 2, the defender chooses the unit to be destroyed.
Option # 2 Naval Bombardments
Naval Bombardments (card 2) - The Allied player should be able to roll against any enemy units of his choice – not just blockhouses. This is restricted to only the coastal regions ranging from Barfleur to Auberville (the bay).
Optional Play # 3 Attack or not Attack
During an attack phase a player can elect NOT to attack in some or all contested regions. For example a single unit in a region facing a greater number of enemy units might better be used only defensively. If it were required to attack, its elimination would be assured when the opposing player, in great numbers, rolled back defensively.
Continued Play
Another possibility…After turn 10” Each Army (German American and British) rolls a die. The number rolled is the number of reinforcement units that can appear on the board this turn. Following the silhouettes on the BOTTOM of the reinforcement charts. Reading them from RIGHT to LEFT place those type of units on the board. If you roll a 6 you receive no reinforcements that turn.
there are some optional play rules by larry harris on his site to alter in-game play and end-game play. might be of note if game becomes too repetitive.
If you expanded D-Day to include the entire battle for France it would no longer be “D-Day”. AA-France would probably be a great game, but and Neptune was apart of Overlord, but not the whole thing.
I think you start a game called D-Day you gotta understand that what you are getting is the opening stage of the Western Front, ie, the landings and securing the beach head cities.
Worst game, no, it’s a good game, i’ll say even great, that’s right I said it, so there. I have not seen an imbalance of it yet, except in the number of fighters each side gets. (if we aren’t gonna care about any part of the history of it, i’d really like some messerschmits to strafe with). And if you throw out that mandate to hold the cities for a whole turn so that you can win on round 10 all the more intense. But I’ve seen both sides win, after all, this isn’t AAE we are talking about or even AAR.
What it is is a different AA game, it has different game play from cards to optional cards to 1 round attacks. What it probably is is a simpler game, but that doesn’t make it weaker. It’s probably the best game to get people into AA, the cards help to make the play straight forward and all, but I played it after years of the others and I’ve enjoyed it.
If I could only play 1 AA game for the rest of time, would it be D-Day? -No. Would I keep it in the general circulation of AA games in our group, yes.
Aldertag, +1 for you… we’ll be trying our hand at some of these variations in the near future.
Niice Aldertag!
That’s a lot to digest and lots of add-ins to the game. Even if it were still broken, it would be a lot more interesting.
My group play A&A Europe with Italy this way:
Italy control N. Italy, S. Italy, Libya and Tunisia, a total of 8 IPC at start.
Germany control the rest, a total of 32 IPC at start.
Aldertag, now this has some promise.
Do you find that with Germany is often moving into the ‘boot’ to bail out Italy too often? I’ve seen the 30-10 split to start but does 32-8 make much difference?
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/20457
It is not a boxed game as it seems to be; just a rules set.
hmmm, so the Italian Fleet remains German?…. I think that is best summed up by quoting a William Shatner song, “I just can’t get behind that.”
why not make them Italian since all the units there are Italian already. I didn’t see it in the rules either, but unless Germany can build in Italian shipyards they won’t be able to add to the fleet unless Italy does it, which means loss of coordination of the fleet.
I have to choose between either moving BB + TNS to sz 13 and sacrifice G1 Anglo, or not having BB + TNS to help threaten UK fleet on Ger2.
that’s about the choice you have to start with already isn’t it?
“Life is not a continuum of pleasant choices, but of inevitable problems that call for strength, determination, and hard work” –Indian Proverb
Shake it up with your opponents, see how they react to different things, maybe you’ll find a hole in their reactions. Force them to do something different.
I haven’t seen a foolproof or guaranteed German naval strategy yet to win with, too much depends on the enemy’s reaction.
There are many tweaks to the different approaches you listed, and others you didn’t, maybe build destroyers or whatever. You have to look at what use you will get out of the units–not how long can I keep them alive. What’s the best way to use them to further your path to victory–if that’s a delaying tactic, that’s something.
But that leads to a happy soviet union …
nice….and happy commies are never good for the Axis.
which is heard more:
The Baltic Fleet won the game for Germany. or…
The Baltic Fleet lost the game for Germany.
welcome!
there’s a relatively new thread on the “un-baltic” idea, may be another one for you to consider.
it includes a bid in the idea, but it could bare out to a non-bid strategy.
Where can I get some pieces for Battle of the Bulge? Do I have to buy a used game?
Hey SSPanzer,
Welcome, this looks like an older thread to jump onto, but you may find pieces via ebay or similar, however it’s more likely you will just have to buy another copy of the game to get the pieces.
You may want to start a thread in like player help or even the BOTB forum about if anyone is looking to get rid of pieces.
House rules/player help may have threads about 3rd-party vendors who can get you similar pieces or scale ones that could work as well.
I personally gave up looking for extra pieces and just picked up another copy of the game.
had to ponder all this a bit after being outta town last week…
Also, what’s the percentage of victories for Axis vs Allies in your experience?
My estimate is similar to frimmel’s, maybe at this point it’s even alittle better than 3-quarters of the time for the Axis to win, but the Allied victories are starting to come along and a couple have been beat-downs.
What percentage of games where the Axis didn’t press westward do you think it still could have won if it had to take another City or two? What percentage were so close that requiring another City or two would have lost it the game?
I do think that most of the games are within the 3-5 point range for the ultimate decision. I’ve blitzed to Huy once and to Neufchateu once each to win. I don’t think that in either of those though that Bastogne had fallen. It’s generally either the 3 towns to the north, Bastogne or Werbormont-LaRoche-Marche that will have to fall–further penetration is generally open on a mistake or hot dice and the concern for turning a flank becomes all the more great.
I don’t think it’s harder to win as the Allies, just takes longer to understand how, but when you do, it gets easier.
In the book on page 6 we see the historical German advance. If we apply my proposed victory conditions, they end up with 22 VPs instead of 23. So maybe the solution is to also reduce the VP requirement to 23, which still beats the historical outcome, satisfying the object of the game. I’m sure this opens up a whole new can of worms. :evil:
new can of worms, yeah–here’s a tangent that looking at historical map gave me. the odds of getting the axis to repeat the same penetration in the game as history according to the pg 6 map would have to be astronomical. Supplies would never make it along the road(s) without the allies dropping supply dumps all over that the axis swoop up.
