Best posts made by Stucifer

Would you rather have 10 ANZ infantry in Europe or this?

@gamerman01 Oh shoot, I get to play the legendary @Adam514 in my first playoff game here. Sounds like a good hazing for the new guy!

@gamerman01 I donated to the site after I started playing League and had a game or two completed. I think having an allowance of 3 games in League before requiring a badge could be a good compromise.

I agree that having special in-game benefits for patrons feels like the wrong approach, to me. I do love the idea of having special benefits, however; I think this is a good discussion to have. I do not have any suggestions for perks at this time (the bid initiative is a nice idea)

I wonder if there is a way we could drive some engagement with the League by showcasing one of the title matches on YouTube or something. I followed @crockett36 covering the OOB Championship match . With some added production value, like following with a real board setup in the vein of Young Grasshopper or the YouTube wars guys, it might help spotlight the League play here and reach some curious eyes. Maybe some interviews with the players if they were willing to discuss their thought processes/notes. Or an actual show match if some people are interested in participating.

1942 2nd edition is very popular outside these boards, thanks in no small part to the Beamdog PC game (which I believe is available for some tablets now?) It is also my go-to for face to face play.

I don’t want to split League play up more than it already is between OOB/BM/PtV - but is there a good way we could capitalize on some of the recent surge in interest. I saw in Steam metrics that there was a pretty big spike of viewership/players in January. A couple YouTube channels (Board Game Nation is the biggest one) show corresponding peaks as well.

@gamerman01 said in League General Discussion Thread:

But like farmboy pointed out, you can throw out all the bidding rules if you can agree with your opponent. However, your other opponents may wish to abide by the “default”

I haven’t played any OOB league games and just started one with Gamerman. So I am looking at AndrewAAGamer & ABH’s playoff game and the bid is something I never would have considered, a couple other key units but the big whopper: 46 IPCs going to China’s bank! First time I have seen anything like it, so I’m watching the game closely now! :)

@aequitas-et-veritas There’s two conditions and both must be true.
1- Russia is at war with European Axis, then
2- SZ5 has no enemy warships.

The first is true in your game, but likely the second is not. For if Japan & USSR are not at war, Japanese warships are not enemy warships. Thus only a German or Italian warship would cancel the NO. You can declare war as Japan and your DD will cancel (you can test this by opening as a Local Game and editing the Politics)

@Martin I am playing a match with Gamerman using tech, there is an optional rule to use tokens instead of one-shot rolls. TripleA engine allows this in the Game Options. Uncheck the box that states: “Remove All Tech Tokens At End Of Turn”

Also I owe @gamerman01 another crazy tech game once he has free time!

Was curious so I looked at some of the stats for the year in PtV, Allies won 51 of the 83 games. I can’t filter the google doc so I didn’t catch all the bids but looks like average is around X+12, which I believe is higher than last year.

When Roboto first made the charts included on the Statistics tab, the lifetime bid average was X+6.6. Although, there were plenty of 0-bid games included in the data, which skews it…median is probably closer to X+9.

And Happy New Year everyone :)

🍾 ✧˚ ༘⋆2025✧˚ ༘ ⋆ 🥂

Our first fish is on the hook! 🎣 Good luck on your game gents

I know many of us are working on our league playoff games, but I wanted to draw some attention to this thread, since it is easy to miss in the activity of the forum:

https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/41499/pre-announcement-the-axis-allies-cup

@djensen Is taking suggestions for a separate team competition that I think many of us would be interested in participating in

@Argothair Welcome back! I have seen your name many places on this forum before, it is good to get some new, “Old Blood” in here too!

I would love to take on some more challengers in the Spring, should have a fairly clear slate again by then.

Gives you time for a warm-up game with someone else first!

First time!

We’ve played a lot of games at this point online and hang out on Discord together, so I figured what the heck, I might as well fly out for an epic weekend of Axis&Allies and @mikawagunichi has a healthy bourbon supply so it’ll be a good time!

I’m having a great weekend with @Daaras and @mikawagunichi playing some live PTV!!

(Will be away from my forum games for a few more days)

@peirce welcome, good to see more fresh meat for PtV! I mean, new friends!

This post is to discuss Anti-Aircraft Artillery (AAA) and their use in the game, with some insights from the new North Africa game.

Introduction

One of my main squabbles with AAA is that they are almost always one-and-done units, and generally considered overpriced for the value they provide. I have purchased a couple across all my games of PTV, but they can be useful deterrents against the infantry & plane trading meta of almost every Axis & Allies game.

There was some discussion recently on the boards here about changing the cost of AAA to 4. I think this would be a good start, and certainly might see some more purchases than at the current price point of 5. However, I think there are problems with the unit beyond its cost.

Problems & Goals

AAA have an (in my opinion) overly emphasized luck component as they throw many dice but at the lowest odds. This makes them a prime candidate for unbelievable streaks of good and bad luck–I recall a game where a significant battle was decided almost before round 1 with 5 AAA hits out of 6; another game I was spectating recently had something like -5.00 Hits for Allied AAA by round 4.

Further reducing their utility, AAA are typically immediately picked as casualties since they cannot continue to defend; generally, the only time it is optimal to not select AAA as first casualties are in cases where there is a strafe attack on the territory before the hammer falls.

Also, as AAA for defending infrastructure is modeled as part of those facilities, it is not being affected by changes to this unit.

In combat, AAA could and would be used against ground targets, especially vehicles. The infamous FlaK 88 and the US 90mm gun M3 were both examples of this dual-role capability.

Therefore, I believe a redesign should achieve these goals:

• AAA should continue to fire at aircraft until lost as a casualty.
• If aircraft are not available as targets, AAA changes to ground fire.
• If an area is saturated with AAA defense, it should not be wasted if the enemy only has a single unit for air support. If anything, it should all but guarantee a much higher casualty rate for that materiel.

Lessons from North Africa

In my limited experience playing Axis & Allies: North Africa, AAA are great purchases. A couple reasons why:

They only cost 3 in that game and they roll Air Defense at a 2 on a D10 - about 20% better odds than 1 on a D6. They still get the first-strike ability that immediately removes selected air units from the battle, and roll up to three dice each. The higher defense value makes attacking a position defended by AAA even riskier if using aircraft, and the Stacking Limit in North Africa often makes supplementing attacks with aircraft crucial.

For comparison, the odds of getting at least one hit in Global with a single AAA against 3 aircraft is 42.13%. In North Africa, it is 48.8%. Odds for two hits is 7.4% and 10.4% respectively, a very meaningful difference as well.

Another concept introduced, is the Targeted Fire ability for Anti-Tank Guns and German Bombers. These units force the opponent to take tanks as casualties in the case of an Anti-Tank Gun hit, and for the German Bombers, the German player gets to select their choice of land or sea unit. I believe BBR, a tournament version of Global many are probably familiar with, has something similar to this. Anti-Tank Guns only receive Targeted Attack for the first round of combat, while the Bombers ability is always in effect.

Re-Design Thoughts

These are our goals:

• 1. AAA should continue to fire at aircraft until lost as a casualty.
• 2. If aircraft are not available as targets, AAA changes to ground fire.
• 3. If an area is saturated with AAA defense, it should not be wasted if the enemy only has a single unit for air support. If anything, it should all but guarantee a much higher casualty rate for that materiel.

Proposed Changes:

• Add Targeted Fire (Aircraft) to AAA.

Rather than a separate phase occurring before the regular Combat rounds, AAA rolls on the defender’s turn—after the Attacker has rolled, and Defender selected their casualties. Using the Targeted Fire ability, any hits scored by AAA (these dice need to be rolled separately as long as there are valid targets!) must be assigned to Attacking aircraft. Even better, I believe this handles all three goals in a neat package. It is just as easy as the original rule to understand and play with, and also intuitive; perhaps more intuitive than the original rule.

New AAA Unit (using language from the A&A:NA rulebook)

An example of what the stats might look like. I picked 4 for cost as a discussion point:

• Targeted Fire - Aircraft: Anti-Aircraft Artillery may target aircraft with their fire, so they must be rolled separately from other units. For each die that scores a hit, the firing player has the option of requiring the opposing player to choose any of their aircraft as the casualty.
• Cannot Attack: Units with this characteristic cannot move in the Combat Move phase.

In summary, I think a re-design of AAA has the potential to be a great change for the game. Playing with the special Targeting rules in North Africa are a lot of fun and make the German 88s & Stukas fearsome units for the British to grapple with. I think some of these new ideas have the potential to be adapted to our beloved variants and improve them for the years to come.

Also - I have not tried coding combat round/dice rolling phases in TripleA so I am not sure how much work this would be to implement in a test environment. If someone knows how to make the AAA guns roll separately kind of like subs, but without the immediate destruction, please reply/DM!

@axis-dominion

I realize most League players don’t take 30% odds very often, but considering you have better odds at 30% than landing the same side twice in a row flipping a coin, I think a lot of us (myself included) put too much faith in a 70% defense

More clarification from the Rules thread:
Seems to be intended that you can carrier scramble to Any Unit in a territory battle (not sz), not only Land Units.

Thanks for the input gents @axis-dominion @gamerman01

simon33
Feb 12, 2021, 12:01 AM

Is it intended that you can’t scramble to land where there are air units only?

regularkid
Feb 12, 2021, 2:45 AM

You can scramble to a land territory that contains only defending air units. Any defending units at all enable the scramble.

simon33
Feb 12, 2021, 3:27 AM

The notes say “land units”.

regularkid
Feb 12, 2021, 1:54 PM

ah thanks i’ll fix this

https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/post/1486419

@crockett36 Seconded, G42 is the official GenCon tournament version.

I have been practicing quite a bit for BGN’s Battlefront Dayton this November, and the time limit using a tournament format really changes the game.

@barnee I’ve checked out Oztea 42, heard good things. Haven’t ever played it against a human opponent though.

Interesting stats between the 3:

OOB

Larry Harris Global 42 Tournament

Oztea