Posts made by Telamon

@U-505:

And just remember that radar doesn’t make SBR’s unprofitable. It only brings the cost/benefit numbers back to a relatively normal level with the advantage still being with the bombers. You knock twice as many bombers out, but the ones that survive still do double damage. You can figure [6 bombers v. radar] means on average 2 lost bombers with 4 remaining bombers rolling 8 damage dice as opposed to [6 bombers v. AA] with on average 1 lost bomber and 5 remaining bombers rolling 5 damage dice. Radar doesn’t exactly offset heavy bombers completely.

A quick factual addition: if one player has heavy bombers and the 'target’has radar it doesnt just balance it back to equal.  Main reason is that the capital cost of bombers is halved.  One bomber at 12 IPC is still carrying out the duties of 2 bombers at 24 IPC, even though the risk/reward equation is comparable.

@Krieghund:

They did discourage SBRs when Germany kept a couple of fighters at home, but only when there were no escorts available.  This made an air campaign more of a committed choice rather than the occassional pot-shot.

I love the concept of the new interceptor rules.  Only, the mechanics do not seem well thought through/tested.  SBRs become totally unattractive as soon as there is a defending interceptor there.  It would require committing at least two fighters on offence for every one on defence and ALSO your fighters get akak hits.  I’ve done the math in a range of scenarios and basically as soon as there is a defending interceptor its not economical to bother SBRing.

The cost of losing escorts was offset by the chance to inflict hits on the defenders and keep some of Germany’s fighters tied up.

This doesn’t really hold too well.  If your fighters are defending they are not really tied up - they are just parking.  It only really restricts their range (and I do note the point that the map is now larger).  The attacker on the other hand has to spend the combat move of the bombers and double the number of fighters on a dodgy SBR with a negative pay-off and huge capital expense/opportunity cost.  That fleet of planes could be doing something more useful… like taking the darn complex!!  :-P

And if the defender is concerned they might lose their fighters because the escort stack would shred them - they can let the bomber(s) through to the keeper and they have wasted the opportunity of the escorts to do something better.  And the fighters still suffer akak fire, for no gain. I note that the akak fire against each fighter exactly equals the damage it will do to the defending fighters (a roll of 1 against each fighter and also by each fighter).

Again, the idea is good but it doesn’t work in its current form.  I think I remember Jenn making a comment somewhere about how interceptors/escorts could work, that seemed fun.  Why not have the defenders at 4, the fighters at 3 and the bombers at 1 + SBR.  Now that would be an exciting air raid for both sides! As it is, there is no point in SBR unless you get a lucky opportunity to take a potshot at a fighter-less IC.

Oh, and the akak fire should definitely go after the interceptor fire.  This makes better logical sense and makes for better game balance.

The rule seems designed to tone down SBR, but it basically disables SBR unless your enemy is silly enough to leave her IC unguarded.  Kreig, I think the concept is awesome but it might deserve rethinking before it goes into the offical FAQ.  Hope you can work some magic to save it!

PS. first post! I love this forum and decided to finally contribute  :-)  Long time player of AA, been reading here (in detail) since AA50 came out and sporadically before that.