Posts made by VonDox

I am wondering if my group is playing the tech wrong in this game. Here are some issues I am having with the 1936 set-up and tech.

First question: How many roles do you need to make to complete a tech? Is it 4 or 5 roles? Most tech you have to roll at least a 7 or better to move your market to the first stage of tech. Then there is stage 2 and stage 3 and then finally stage COMPLETE. Since you have to make a ROLL to start on STAGE 1 is it reasonable to assume when you reach the COMPLETE stage you have to make one LAST role to get the tech moved OFF off of the chart? So a total of 5 rolls rather than 4?

Also, in the 1936 V3 rules ( Germany and the US have 5 or 4 tech roles to start ) BUT they have to stop advancement when they reach stage 2 tech until they reach a certain time frame (July of 1939). So as an example, the German player is lucky and gets all 5 of his tech to stage 2 by turn 3 of JULY 1937.
Can the German player BEGIN 5 new techs then and then they have even average luck and now they have 10 techs by July of 1939 at stage 2! If you go by the chart they could have 5 techs playable by Jan of 1940 or for sure by Jan. 1941 and then another 5!! So 10 techs on the board by Jan 41!! That seems crazy to me. ( and we had this actually happen )

So, is it that they have to complete a tech BEFORE they start a new one or upgrade a factory to a Major to gain a new tech roll?? So start 5 and then when you hit stage 2 you have to wait until you COMPLETE those techs which will resume in July of 1939 which means the earliest you could bring a tech into play is 1940? Or can you start 5 techs, stop in 1937, then start 5 more techs in 1938, reach 2nd stage in July of 1938 and then start 5 more techs if your that lucky???

Building off of my last paragraph… Just to be clear… once you start a tech line you have to reach completion BEFORE you start another tech line? So in GW36 it’s possible to reach stage 2 in techs for as many rolls as you have. Do you then wait for July of 39 to make rolls to complete those techs making the earliest possible date of completion Jan. 1940?? That seems really fast for a tech advancement like Radar and Jets and rockets?

Lastly, when does TECH come into play? Example, I am Germany and we are playing GW 1936 and I got better than average rolls and make all 5 rolls to level 2 ( I am assuming 5 rolls to move a tech off of the chart to completion) of my techs to stage 2 by Jan 1937. I wait, then in July of 1939 I start again and make my roll in July of 39 and Jan 1940 to the COMPLETE stage then 1 more roll to move it OFF of the COMPLETE column in July of 1940. So does TECH become ACTIVE the minute I make that last roll so on the next action which is PURCHASE units I can then BUY jets, heavy armor, adv. mechs and adv. artillery??? OR since the discovery was made at basically the very beginning of my turn I have to have the tech for 1 FULL turn so that tech can be purchasable and goes into effect on the following turn?? This is how we have played it A&A for a long time. Your tech has to be completed for 1 full turn following your completion before you can start buying units or getting the benefit of the upgrade.

The steps are:
Roll for peacetime income increases
Make tech rolls
Purchase new units and (REPAIR units?) Is the correct stage that damaged facilities get repaired?
Diplomacy
Pay to more units along
Declare lend lease

The weird thing is that the rules state if you repair a factory you GET the technology die roll in the same turn?? So wouldn’t that imply that FACILITY REPAIRS HAVE to take place BEFORE tech rolls?

A lot of nuanced questions here but a group of long time A&A players I game with were really frustrated by the tech in this game and after a few games want to make substantial changes to fix what they see as run away tech.

BTW, when does repairs fit into the order of sequence???

Here is what I think…

1. That you need to make 5 rolls to advance a tech off of the chart to become active. 1 roll to get on the chart, 3 rolls to move it to stage 2, then 3, then COMPLETE then 1 MORE roll to move it OFF the chart to active.

2. You can’t start a new tech until you FINISH a tech that has been already started.

3. Tech becomes ACTIVE 1 full turn AFTER you achieve it. So, if you roll just above average ( 1936 start ) and make your (5th roll). The first chance to buy or have a tech ACTIVE would be January of 1941 ( 2 rolls before July of 39 then in July of 39, Jan 40 and July of 40 3 more to make a total of 5 ). You wait 1 FULL turn before the NEW techs become active but you can START NEW tech rolls on the chart in July of 41. In JULY of 1941 your first 5 techs become active and purchasable units can be paid for and placed on the board at the end of your turn to become active in Jan of 42. You can start 5 NEW techs in July of 41 (Germany) that would then become active in July of 1944 ( assuming you got lucky and made every roll perfect ). So at the most, if Germany made every roll for tech perfectly by that date they would have 10 techs in July of 44. That seems much more reasonable to me than having 10 techs become active as early as July of 41 vs 10 techs active in July of 44. That would mean that unless you use the variable ending rules the chances of getting another 5 more techs before game end would be next to impossible unless you got the war to go to 1948!

Again, thank you for all of your input for those who respond…

@linkler And amphibious units are ( per the rules ) Fighters and infantry ( marines or regular infantry )… AND only infantry can participate in the first round of assaults and at least 1 infantry has to survive in order to bring on any further assault waves…

So if you can’t afford to take losses in your assaulting infantry then bring along a lot of fighters I guess.

Thanks, makes more sense now.

@generalhandgrenade In the V3 rules it states the following: (pg41) “On the first round of Amphibious assault only aircraft and infantry class LAND units may attack. The land units suffer double casualties unless they are Marines.”

So based on the example given. Playing V3 rules the LAND units would have been required to take the first loss not the planes.

I also have a follow-up question to Amphibious landings… Example: Japan is invading a coastal province in China. From land, they are attacking with 1 artillery and 2 infantry and from the sea they are amphibiously landing 1 marine and 1 infantry. The Chinese have 3 infantry.

Since it’s a combined operation. ( and perhaps I am overthinking this ) Is there an order of attack that must occur or do they happen concurrently? So, per the example, if the Japanese attack and get 1 hit with the land infantry/supported by the artillery and no hits from the sea landing the enemy would take 1 loss. The defenders roll and get 2 hits. How do you decide on which of the Japanese infantry take the hit? I guess you could assign 1 hit to the Marine that landed and 1 hit to the land forces. You couldn’t assign the loss to the infantry unit landing with the Marines because it would only count as a HALF of a loss? (correct?) Since the defender gets to CHOOSE which units he loses as part of that round of combat.

How has anyone else handled joint land/sea invasions and order of combat and loss??

@trig It does, ALOT… Thank you. I thought that might be the case. So in the example I cite if both the Attacker and Defender get 2 hits with their fighter those ‘hits’ must be taken against air craft in turn 1 only. On round 2 and more any hits that result from planes can be taken by any unit. Your right… I was overthinking it…

I am hoping wiser minds might be able to clarify the rule on Air Supremacy. After FIRST STRIKE the next step in combat is 1 round of Air Supremacy. I pose the following scenario, “A German player is attacking with 4 fighters and 2 tac bombers along with 1 tank and 3 infantry. The defending player has 2 fighters, 4 infantry.” No units are first strike.

The Germans role a total of 2 hits.

According to the example the first hits MUST be applied against the defending players air planes ( per the rules ) So the defending player must take 2 hits vs their planes leaving 1 left.

QUESTIONS: Does the defending player get a defense roll? Or does Air Superiority depend upon which power has the most planes in combat for that battle. If the example was flipped concerning the fighters present ( 4 fighters vs 3 fighters for the attacker ) does that mean that the defending player is allowed to make defense rolls against the attacking player first??

QUESTIONS: In the example, the attacking player gets 2 hits. Does the defending player get a defense roll if they have fighters left? Also, it would be assumed that any hits scored by the defender would ALSO have to be taken by the attackers planes first.

QUESTION: In the example above, after air superiority is completed the FIRST round of GROUND combat begins. No fighter planes can take part in this first round of combat since they just engaged in 1 round of battle. The TAC bombers can participate if the first round provided ( above ) they survived "the defending players counter attack??? "

QUESTION: In the above example changes, in that, the defending player has NO planes of any type, then the attacking player still has 4 fighters that make attack rolls and they get 4 hits. All 4 hits are taken against the infantry and they are gone and they get NO return/defense rolls? Since infantry do not have air superiority they can not defend in this round of combat. If 1 infantry HAD survived then they could have fought in the next phase of normal combat against the the 2 TAC bombers, 1 tank and 3 infantry.

Sorry but this happens to be the most confusing and poorly written and least commented on rule in GW 1936

Thank you .