Messages

1

Game Design / Dissolving fortifications

« on: July 03, 2007, 07:27:08 AM »

What about getting 1 PP back when dissolving fortifications?
1 PP lost for the static entities (Bunker, ....)
1 PP regained for emplaced gun that could be redeployed.

Would be an interesting option for both russia and germany.
The fortification has to be in supply of course.

Another idea that came to my mind was to seperate between garrision and fortification, thus it represents a building only
One can garrision them with infantry just like the owning players wishs, but you dont have to!

A ungarrisioned fortification can be occupied by the attacking party, to gain an additional hit during combat without increasing the combat value of the attacker

The enemy does not see whether the fortification is garrision.

In order to represent this on the game board you could place 2 markers
1 at the fortification representing the infantry
1 somewhere on the map as a ghost division. Only 2 markers per fortification are possible, not in the same province.

Only one fortification per province per turn may be re-/ungarrisioned to avoid regarrisioning of fortification stacks too quickly.
So its part of a long term strategy to confuse the enemy and can t be abused to double the stationed troops


The allieds didn t know what was waiting for them after all.

This could have some interesting influences on tactics especially during the invasion of france.
Faked attacks would serve as reconnaissance missions to gather information about the enemy group strength.

Its also a viable option for the russian during barbarossa to confuse the germany invaders during their offensives.

2

Game Design / Re: Optional Naval Rules

« on: July 03, 2007, 06:51:33 AM »

I think the french fleet should be bound to the mediterranean to keep track of italy as it where historically

3

Game Design / Re: Balanced frontlines

« on: June 13, 2007, 10:47:57 AM »

Yes, I agree it should be easy to understand and to apply, otherwise it lengthens the round time, which is already pretty long

How about something like this:

1. round after battle, place atleast 3 units in the captures province, or the maximum amount you have left after combat
2. round decrease the garrison by one each turn
.... until you reach 1 garrison


This could be extended by differentiations on the theaters.
E.g.:
Africa 1 garrison
France 2 garrison (usually you have more than enough in france to prevent invasions anyways)
Balkan 2

Soviet Union  west of ural 3 or 4
Soviet Union east of ural 1
America ever seen an axis invasion?

This would be good distribution, but should be tested somewhen.

The idea of leaders is also very good, this somewhat defeats the point of super stacks.

If you engage the enemy with 12 vs 12 and manage to beat him the defender has 1d6 per lasting division to surrender
the rest may flee to a neighbouring province or has to surrender if they are encircled.

But what about an allied invasion ? They usually stack more than just 12 divisions at once,
a) its very easy to smash them and throw them back into the sea
b) you can t capture the province as german player after victory until you defeated all the allied units.
c) the allies may not attack with the units left in their round, thus have to reinforce their beachhead in order to hold it.

No more meching into Berlin if they engage heavy  resistance.

One has to evaluate the impact on gameplay and how to adjust the VPs to counter potential inbalance

4

Game Design / Balanced frontlines

« on: June 12, 2007, 08:10:55 AM »

Hi,
today I thought about the latest AAR and one thing came into my mind, most games are decided by battles with huge stacks on either side. I doubt that a general would move all his divisions into a single area and riscs his troops like that.

The idea I had was to force the players to equally distribute their divisions along the "IMPORTANT" frontlines. So battles don t depend that much on quantity, rather more on quality of  the involved troops.

Therefore I propose the introduction of some tables to judge the importance of provinces and maybe a minimum garrison if it is in danger of being captured.


It would be interesting to see how land combat especially in russia changes with these rules.

At the first couple of turns I d say the russian player would be busy reinforcing the front lines,
the german player on the other side  has to hold troops back to garrison the provinces strong enough.

What do you think?

5

After action reports from first edition / Re: U.S. National Championships (sort of)

« on: April 09, 2007, 09:15:48 AM »

in our next match I gonna play the soviets and beat the axis back in winter 1941

6

General Discussion / A page to order pieces

« on: March 04, 2007, 02:30:27 AM »

http://www.nobleknight.com


Just found this on the web

also what do you think about the xeno games  pieces pack available on their homepage?

unfortunately I couldn t find any pictures to have a look at

7

After action reports from first edition / Re: the first Holland game...

« on: March 02, 2007, 10:24:34 PM »

landing in the back of the russian front you can easily isolate the caucasus from the rest, infantry without supply can t attack you anyways so they are no threat to the middle east, just make sure you got enough transports for some armored vehicles ore paradrop into  the provinces near the caspian sea 

8

After action reports from first edition / Re: the first Holland game...

« on: March 02, 2007, 08:59:17 PM »

I see 4 bombers on axis side, i would use them to transport infantry to the eastern front or bombard strategically the southern russion provinces, those with 2-3 PPs 

with 4 bombers you could reduce the reinforcements of the SU by 4 infantry each round, invading the turkey would even allow you to do some landing operations in the caucasus in the following turn thus force the SU to put garrisions far behind the front,

so they automatically lose the PPs from the grim up to moscow,

use your luftwaffe fighters to shoot down the SU airforce,  at moment your airforce is to far behind, you can station it right behind the front line in the mech phase which allows you to use it as addition backup on counterattacks

9

Game Design / Re: The problem of Italy

« on: March 02, 2007, 08:31:26 PM »

this would slow down the german advance to much if those forces are bound,

as germany you could invade greece in spring  1940 and ind summer 19040 invade turkey and move the italian fleet to the black sea, this allows italy to react within reach of their homecountry and put additional pressure on russia.

maybe lower the overall ic of italy and  give it full production from the beginning on

10

Game Design / Re: The problem of Italy

« on: March 01, 2007, 08:45:58 PM »

But the Axis need to be incented  to commit to North Africa and the roll of potential Italian capitulation was built to force that issue.  Without it, the Italians can withdraw from North Africa and build "Fortress Italy".  In fact, the Italians may abandon N Africa and engage in that strategy from the get go.

I think historically this is not realistic.  Mussolini's goal was to be a Mediterranean power - if the Italians were driven from North Africa, his regime would be (and was) under considerable pressure.  Historically, Mussolini was overthrown after the Italians were kicked out of Sicily and before the Allies even had a substantial foothold on the boot itself.

Before N Africa was a potential surrender roll, we had many games where the Italians/Germans just put a huge stack in Rome and counterattacked any Allied landing - making Italy almost impregnable.

Having a rule where the Italians don't have to worry about anything even with the loss of N Africa and Sicily will create a lot of problems - believe me.

I d prefer a per unit die rolling system plus some sort of lend lease from germany to italy, they are sharing the same railmovement contingent either.

In order to keep the axis committed to North Africa you could as well say, Italy loses 1 additional production point for each colony in NA.

Currently its just too easy to kick italy out of the game. The lend lease would allow for some extra fleet production, which would make sense since italy is enclosed by the french and british navy, so a early war entry not really an option.

If I were an allied player I would crush the italian fleet during their first round at war, with the italian navy gone you can easily knock them out of africa and invade their homeland.

the rest of the royal navy will be ordered to the pacific to threaten the japanese, maybe offer some destroyers as cannonfodder in order to get the japanese player to declare war on the allies

The german navy is negligable, some bombers will do the job, maybe an addition aircraft carrier in the north atlantic and some destroyers to hold the convoy routes just blockade the north atlantic to keep the axis from sending subs,

11

After action reports from first edition / Re: Our First Game

« on: January 11, 2007, 11:34:05 PM »

what is your experience regarding an attack with ~ 10 plane against a province with 1 or 2 anti air guns?

From my understanding they can pick 6 planes and try to shoot them down with a 'one'
So stukas are a must to pick these guns and blow them away.
But with a little luck the defender causes enormous loses to the attacking party and anti air guns take only 1 round to finish. Planes however take 2 rounds + redeploying them to the front

12

After action reports from first edition / Re: Our First Game

« on: January 11, 2007, 09:07:37 AM »

Another thing I d like to mention is, I had around 92 PPs before launching barbarossa unfortunately I was not able to invest these PPs into anything  of major use in the following combat turns.
25 for tanks
10 for armored
30 for infantrie
25 for fighters

but land units take a lot of redeployment cost to the eastern front (15 shared with italy)  One should add something like additional redeployment for axis for each factory.

Thats also been a major flaw in Axis & Allies, the production centers have just been to far away from the front which more or less forces you to pause the winter term and lets the russian recover from the heavy loses during summer.

I had ~ 23 Aircrafts at the eastern front, canon fodder for the russian flak

13

After action reports from first edition / Re: Our First Game

« on: January 11, 2007, 08:52:03 AM »

Hi, I am the german player ^^, the whole Italian role was messed up more or less due to the restricted rule set (e.g.: declaring war and thus, I lost ~ 2 turns because I forgot to declare war every now and then *gr*)

This delay kept me from taking greece and creta before barbarossa, since I had to launch the initial attack on the USSR otherwise my army at the eastern front would be history withing a few turns *G*

At least I got the bismarck and the tripitz to attack the royal navy a little.


Today I examined the last game a little, concentrating on russia in early 1941 should put the axis into a position that allows them to gain enough VPs to 1942, since the russian can only react on the german attacks as long as they loose all their stacks every battle.
On the other hand you need to redeploy major parts of the Luftwaffe to Italy to save it against the Royal Navy.