Posts made by Narvik

Still way off topic

Now that depends, are you looking anything like your picture ?

If you play UK IMHO you should never scramble your fighters in UK anyway, but not because of the rules, but because its not a very clever move. This is only a good move when you want to lose your planes fast. IMHO

@ItIsILeClerc:

. Like getting 6 hits from 3 FTR attacking your 3 fully loaded CV (happend to me once), which is ofc rather silly to do in the first place…

I think that is what actually happened at Midway in the real war, and that is the beauty of using dice. Now if your friends got upset because of that, offer them hot beverage, that helps, it do for Sheldon anyway.

OK, being slightly borderline off topic, but IMHO what causes this issue is that France is way to overpowered. France was not that strong in the real world. It should be possible to play several turns with France alive, but in that case France and UK combined should not receive more IPC than Germany, and at least not poor Russia. When this 3 Allies out produce Germany 2 to 1, then the game is obviously scripted in the way that Germany need to capture France in T 1.

BTW, here are a pic from a game where France surrendered in Turn 1

@theROCmonster:

This is one reason why I have always favored doing LL for the first turn, and then dice after that. This makes it a much more level playing field.

LowLuck is ….maybe…good for Tournaments, but then why not play Chess, now that’s a fairly balanced game. When you gather 4 or 5 real men in your basement, some of them vets, then you don’t start the game with cheating and candy. You use the dice, man. If you cant handle bad dice, then play it safe, always attack 4 to 1, and if that miss too, whine until you get a reroll.

Now the real battle of France was not fairly balanced in the real world, it heavily favored the Allies. The Huns had to use everything they got, and they barely won, by luck. So why should the A&A battle of France be a sure thing ? It can be a sure thing if you throw in your planes too, but then the UK fleet survive. And you don’t want that, neither. So we got a dilemma, play it safe or gamble. I guess that’s A&A in a nutshell

@Black_Elk:

I honestly judge a player more based on how they handle a bad roll, than whether their strategies under optimal conditions are awesome. I think half the game is managing to keep it together when you’re down. Playing through a rut, and just grinding things out, trying to recover from a poor start. Most people would probably just quit if they got backed out of France, but I’d have total respect for person who played on hehe

The dice is what makes A&A games great. I believe there is some God of War out there rolling dice for real battles too. Just look at the attack on Singapore, Percival could not handle poor dice so he surrendered, same with Freyberg on Malta. Look at the Winter war in Finland, or the attack on Norway. Or what about the German attack on France 1940 ? The Germans were outnumbered in men, tanks, artillery, planes, everything, but anyway they won in 6 weeks, cant copy that in a game of A&A. They say the real world is more crazy than fantasy. And it all boil down to, as Black Elk says, who can handle the bad roll.

Finalized or not, I buy them anyway  :-D

@ChocolatePancake:

Also, don’t forget that the USA had the nuclear option.
If the war in Europe kept on grinding, then I bet the allies would have eventually nuked Germany out of existence.
With the overwhelming air and naval advantage the allies had, Germany would have had no chance.

I don’t think so. They only made two bombs, and had stuff for one more. You could hardly bomb any nation out of existence with that. Strategic bombing is also severely overrated, it cost more to build bombs than the value of the cornfields that most of them land in. The Allied bombing killed more French cows than Germans, and that’s a fact. I figure the Allies would have won anyway, but because of Patton and not the Bomb.

@General:

On a side note I do feel Germany should be rewarded for Russian conquest by having Turkey and Spain ally with them since they were on the fence to begin with.

I believe that neutrals are likely to join the stronger power, and not the loosing one. Its opposite in A&A games because of balance. If you occupy a true neutral in this game, all the neutrals in the world will turn against you. This is a design to script the game to follow a historical correct path. Every WWII games have this flaw. But the real war was different. After Germany crushed neutral Poland, all the minor neutrals like Finland, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Slovakia etc joined the strong Germany. Not one minor would go to war against the strong Germany at that time. But after Russia had proved to be stronger than Germany, all the former German allies mentioned above, switched side and went to war against Germany. Major neutrals like Sweden, Spain and Turkey made trade agreements with the strong Germany after Poland got crushed,  but after Germany lost at Stalingrad they all switched side, and started to support the by now stronger Allies.

But how to implement realistic rules into A&A ? Maybe ditch the 5 IPC NOs Germany get after capturing Russian cities, and rather give them the IPC income from the true neutrals, representing trade agreements. And when the tide turn, let the Allies get the trade income from the neutrals. After all, the NO was designed to make a short game, so it doesn’t matter from where they take the IPC.

@coachofmany:

The beautifully recolored map features a host of new territories and terrain
features - a completely historically accurate landscape.  Â

So, you say the map will have terrain like mountains and marshes that effect the combat value ? Are the rules finished, or are you open for suggestions ?

@SS:

I was just lookin to get 40 games but Never had a chance to bid.

You can still get the map,

@questioneer:

rehashing something made 30 years ago.Â

This feels like kicking a dead horse, but if we ditch A&A because it was invented 30 years ago, what about chess, poker, backgammon etc

@EnoughSaid:

1. "Blockhouse Fortification 0/3/0/8 1940+ "
It’s horrendously overpriced. Why would anyone buy that instead of 4 Whermacht Infantry? It needs an extra ability, such as the ability to soak hits (several, at that price) like capital ships.

No, you should not buy that Blockhouse if you want to win the game.

What is a Blockhouse ? Infantry + a concrete bunker ? In that case it should cost 3 IPC + 1 IPC for the concrete, a total of 4 IPC, and defend on 2, and take two hits to kill. The whole idea with a bunker is protection. All units that are protected by armor or concrete are hard targets that absorb hits, or negate hits.

And what is a Fortification ? Is it a heavy artillery gun in a casemate ? In that case it cost 4 IPC for the gun + 1 IPC for the concrete, a total of 5 IPC. I think it should defend on 3 or less, and for sure take two hits to kill.

Ooops, forgot to add a pic of the HBG Atlantic Wall fortifications and the Blockhouses from D-day

@Linkon:

It stunned the world that a superpower such as France (at the time) would fall to a crazy person like Hitler.

I guess the French soldier did not want to die for Danzig. Poland was not a nice guy in the 30s, it was a Dictatorship that stole land from all its neighbors, a bit of Ukraine, a bit of Belorussia, a bit of the Baltic, a bit from Slovakia, from Rumenia, and a big slice of Germany. And now, Germany wanted to take Danzig back, and the French government forgot to ask the Frenchmen if they would like to die for this. Now if your government send you to the meat grinder for a cause you don’t agree with, I bet you stick em up pretty quick.

Anyway

Maybe this thread should be in the “Axis and Allies News” forum ?

Thanks for input, knp7765. I am brainstorming, so noting is carved in stone yet.

Yes, so far I just cover Europe. I live in Europe so that’s the game my group usually play, that or 42. Don’t think we have finished a game of Global 40 yet, takes too much time.

So far this idea is more theory than playability. Since its a house rule, every group are free to play it the way they want. I figure a decent Commander can reroll in every round of combat, not just the first. Maybe the Allied Commanders should reroll in the first round only, since they use a rigid tactic, and after the first meeting with the enemy their plans turn to chaos. But the Germans used the Mission Tactics (Auftragstaktik) where even low leaders at company, battalion and Division levels would take initiative on their own, and don’t sit and wait for orders from above. If a Russian leader would take initiative, then Stalin would send him to GULag, so the Russian tactic was different, no finesse, only human waves. And Zhukov was only successful when he was far away from Stalin, like in the Battle of Khalkin Gol in the far east, or in Leningrad.

If you look at the TDI reports at Dupuy Institute, you will see that for every German soldier, it would take 10 Russians, 3 Brits or 2 Americans. Obviously the German training, skills, tactic and leadership were superior to the Allies. Its two ways to model this, either give German units higher combat values, or give Germany Commanders that can reroll misses. I prefer the last choice.

Monty did not make the list. He did too many mistakes. He did well only against the Italians, but they score even lower than the Russians on the TDI reports from DI.

Yes, then we have the Moscow stack. Lets say Germany attack with 70 units against 60 units. If both stacks got a Commander each, they will balance each other, and the outcome will be the same. The only advantage with Commander units in this case, is faster resolving of the Battle. Lets say you use 10 dice. You roll for 10 units at a time, and with a Commander you do the reroll immediately, saving time. Now you will have less units left after the first round of combat, and the extra time spending is barely noticeable.

@crusaderiv:

2. French Fighting Spirit. French infantry that survived the first round of combat, will surrender before the next round

I can’t see where is the advantage??!!! :-D

The advantage to France is, it saves lives. Now that’s a big deal to the French

@EnoughSaid:

A thought to consider on the commander units:
This game already heavily rewards “stacking” units. Adding this unit increases that incentive even more so.

I mean to be pointing this out from a neutral perspective.

Thanks, this is exactly the kind of feedback I want. I hope to playtest it during the upcoming holidays. I have seen threads about this HR now and then, and would like info from playtests, if any have been done.

I see your point about stacking, but am not sure that will happen before it is playtest big time. I believe the Moscow stack happens because Moscow is a decisive point. If you want to remove the incentive to stack, you must change the Capture of Capital rules.

FRENCH NATIONAL ADVANTAGE

1. The Maginot Line. France start with 4 Fortress units on the German border.

Fortress unit. Cost 10 IPC. Defend on 4 or less. Take two hits to kill

2. French Fighting Spirit. French infantry that survived the first round of combat, will surrender before the next round