Messages

46

General Discussion / Re: Miniature Pics

« on: October 17, 2009, 04:36:36 PM »

Russian bombers painted by Peter. Lead plane is a B-25 lend-lease plane. Lend lease rules in the rules we're
working on will also work differently.

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47

General Discussion / Re: Miniature Pics

« on: October 17, 2009, 04:34:25 PM »

4 x Japanese A5M Claudes. In our rules aircraft will be broken down by fighters, bombers, tactical bombers
(Stukas, etc.), heavy bombers, naval bombers, naval fighters, naval dive bombers, naval torpedo bombers, and
air transports. Fighters will be further divided into early, mid, and late war.

These Claudes represent Japanese early fighters. The white ones are models of two fighters that were based
on the Soryu; the other two were based on Kaga. When I painted the Kaga ones I misread the photo caption
and thought this was an army paint scheme. It wasn't - it was used by the Kaga air wing. In our game though these two will be land-based army fighters.

The Kanji on the port wing of the Soryu fighters was very difficult to paint, but it is very close to the actual Kanji
painted on the real fighters. The striping and numerals on the starboard wings are authentic. The only thing
missing from these fighters that was on the real planes are some Kanji on the fuselage - these were far too
small for me to even consider painting.

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48

General Discussion / Re: Miniature Pics

« on: October 17, 2009, 04:22:16 PM »

Next up are some Japanese bombers I did. 4 G4M Betty's and 3 G3M! Nell's.

The rear Betty is in a pre-war metal finish. The one in front of it is from a squadron based on Rabaul in 1943,
and the other two are in standard camouflage patterns. The forward Nell is a pattern used in China; the other
two are in a mid- to late-war pattern. These two weren't all that difficult to paint, but were very time-consuming
- each of them took over an hour. In our rules the metal-finish Betty will be an air transport, the Nells will be
standard army bombers, and the other Betty's will be naval bombers.



[attachment deleted by admin]

49

General Discussion / Re: Miniature Pics

« on: October 17, 2009, 04:12:29 PM »

I finally got around to getting out the camera to take some photos of our latest work.

First photo up is some of Peter's work - the French air force.

We replaced the Blenhiems that came with the game with 3 x SNCASE LeO451. Fighters are D520's and a
couple of American P-36's.



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50

RULES (UPDATED APRIL 2018) / Re: Country Builds Cards

« on: October 17, 2009, 06:00:28 AM »

OK - so "Elite Infantry" is not a good name I suppose. . . So Perhaps, I should maybe call them early war infantry and late war - or veteran and poor or something (please give me your suggestion). . .

But, Japanese infrantry did decline in quality over the course of the war.  By 1942, the Japanese started swapping out good formations in Manchuria and China with poor troops in order to get their best units out into the Pacific.  By the time the Soviets invaded Manchuria, the Japanese army there was  a shadow of what it was in 1939 in quality.

Bacically, the game has 2 types of infantry 2-3 units and 3-4 infantry units.  French, Italian, Soviet and most minors are represented by 2-3 infantry.  British, U.S. infantry formations are 3-4 for the most case.  German and Japanese infantry declined in quality over the course of the war - and each nation id faced with a choice - to continue producing high quality formations in smaller numbers, or to switch to less quality infantry units but be able to produce them in greater numbers.  I think this accurately reflects the course of the war - and I like to make it a decision on the part of the Japanese and Germans players when they want to make the switch.

Does this make sense?

cheers,
Mark

I agree with most of what you say here. The only exceptions are:

1) I think the Soviets ought to be able to build at least some 3-4 infantry. This would represent guards units that were of fairly high quality.

2) The Italians did have a few high-quality units. Perhaps allow them to build a couple of 3-4 units over the course of the game.

Interestingly, we were talking about having varying types of infantry the week before this discussion started as part of our reworking of the rules. Something we talked about was letting units gain "veteran" status. No specifics yet since Jason is out for extended training with his reserves unit, but the idea we kicked around was that in every battle you would roll for each infantry unit that survives - on, say, a roll of "12" on two dice the unit would be promoted to "veteran" and get a -1 to their die roll on both offense and defense.

I wish that we could all get together of a day or two with the game in a conference room and brainstorm ideas. There's no telling what we might be able to come up with if we were all able to bounce ideas off of each other.

51

General Discussion / Re: moving infantry on production chart

« on: October 06, 2009, 05:15:01 PM »

I don't think I'd mess with the production times of infantry. If the 13- and 17-week time frames you listed are correct then it's true that an infantry unit took a little longer than a game turn to produce. But keep in mind - usually it takes another turn to get a produced infantry to where you want it. That means that an infantry that you build, say, in spring of 1942 won't actually be used in combat before fall of 1942 - a period of 6 months. In real life that infantry that took 17 weeks to "produce" only took another couple of weeks to be redeployed to England. If you start to require infantry to take two or three turns to produce I think you're going to find yourself facing some real play balance issues.

I think the production of most of the units in the game is about right as it is. The exception to that would be ships. I've thought about doubling the production times of all the ships but keeping the costs the same. In real life you couldn't build a CV or BB in a year.

52

RULES (UPDATED APRIL 2018) / Re: Country Builds Cards

« on: October 06, 2009, 01:35:17 PM »

Yeah - thought about and played around with that too - and maybe we should go back to a "total war" decision for the Germans.  We currently have the same thing for the Japanese by the way - with infantry as well as their fighters.  At some point, up to the Japanese player's decision, they can switch from building a few quality units to more poor units.  Here is a copy of the japanese build sheet.

This is exactly what we plan to do with Japanese aircraft in the rules we're working on. Japan will be able to build limited numbers of elite naval aircraft (carrier fighters, naval bombers, dive bombers, and torpedo bombers). This represents the significantly higher number of flying hours that Japanese naval pilots had when they graduated Eta Jima as compared to other nations - but at the cost of producing only small numbers of them. Japan will be able to switch over to normal builds at any time - but will not be able to build any more elite units the rest of the game.

53

General Discussion / Re: Added Optional Rules and Pieces

« on: October 06, 2009, 03:22:13 AM »

in my last 3 games the US (had great card draws) entered early (turn 8, 9, and 10) the Russians were attacked in 2 of the 3 games; however they were not close to being able to declare war in 2 of the 3 games (not at tension level 1 yet in one) ;however we changed the card draw to eliminate the end of turn draw for maintaining tension level 1 minimums in the one game they weren't at tension level 1 yet (bad card draws that game). I think the russians are more on track with the elimination of the end turn card draw. It forces them to build more factories, just like the US to have the option of declaring war before being attacked.    I have yet to see a bad card draw for the US since we started playing with tension levels - that is one of the reasons why I changed the Japaneese Production #s in the startup. This has helped to bring more balance in the pacific.
ken

Ha! Bad card draws for the US are the rule in our games. In our last game Peter was the US and drew all four of the 2's.

I'd be interested in seeing what one of your games looks like. In our games Japan always has far more equipment on the map when they go to war than they could ever have dreamed of historically, which has skewed the game balance in favor of the Axis.

54

General Discussion / Re: Fast Production

« on: October 06, 2009, 03:13:55 AM »

We never fleshed it out, since that was something we came up with near the time that we stopped playing Struggle.

Craig - Just curious - why did you stop playing The Struggle?

We stopped right after the one Origins (2007) that we played the big grudge match with the Bostonians.

The main reason at the time was that we then put in 4-5 months of playtest work in on the A&A Anniversary game for Larry Harris.

Then we started working on different versions of our own WW2 games.  Not to long ago (March) we did get in game of Struggle which prompted me to make comments on changing the USSR Tension Level Chart.  I then set the game up in the basement with the idea of running through it with the new info, but I started to put up walls down there and had to clean up the game.

Don't worry, we think about the game all the time (good and bad!) when we are working on our own designs.  And should get back to a game soon.  You never know when it will hit the table again.

We have actually toyed with the idea of making our own design as well. Not to sell, but for our own enjoyment. The house rules we're working on for this game are in many places a complete replacement for the rules, so the idea of writing up a completely new game has come up more than once.

55

RULES (UPDATED APRIL 2018) / Re: Country Builds Cards

« on: October 05, 2009, 03:35:40 PM »

Yeah - German infantry divison organization generally got weaker as the war wore on (while panzer divisions probably increased in combat power).  Starting in 1942 - but certainly by 1943, regular German infantry divisions were reorganized from 9 infantry battalions to 6 (not to mention having less seasoned troops and training).  Additionally there began a lot of lesser trained formations - like Luftwaffe field divisions  - and later - Volksgrenadier divisions.  All of this adds up to a weaker German infantry unit later in the war.

As a trade of - the Germans can produce more of these units - which they sorely need by 1942-43.  Having the transition in 1942 works very well in the game, as the German player usually replaces his qaulity 3-4 divisions that are garrisoning places like France and the Balkans with 2-3 infantry divisions in order to send the 3-4't to combat armies.  Also, it is a better deal to convert your 2-3's to fortificataion (fortress) units than converting the better 3-4 divisions to static units.

In most hex wargames I have played (like Europa - for example) - they model this degrading of German infantry divison combat power.  Of course, the Germans still have their elite infantry divisions - like their Falschirmjager divisions, that defend on a 5.  It makes these elite units even more valuable as the game moves on as they are much more capable than the late war German 2-3 divisions.

My suggestion - maybe as an optional rule - would be that rather than make it a hard and fast date is to say that the German player can build the 3-4 units as long as he wants, but at whatever point he begins to build 2-3 the decision is irreversible - from that turn forward he can only build 2-3's.

56

Rules questions from first edition / Re: Yamato battleship

« on: October 05, 2009, 08:39:15 AM »

With the ability to carry 3 aircraft on a Japaneese Fleet Carrier, it gives it a very good reason to build at the printed cost, besides the Japaneese Carriers carried more planes 80-90 as opposed the the US 60-70

Actually, you pretty much have it backwards.  Ship-for-ship US CV’s carried more aircraft than their Japanese counterparts – in most cases, considerably more aircraft. Japanese CV’s and their nominal complements:

Shokaku 84
Zuikaku 84
Akagi  91
Kaga 90
Hiryu 73
Soryu 71
Taiho 60
Hiyo 53
Junyo 53
Shinano 45-55
Unryu 65

This data is from www.combinedfleet.com, which is about as solid a source as you’ll ever find. Note that the aircraft totals above include spares. The Kaga, for example, actually only operated 72 planes; the rest were spares in various states of disassembly to replace combat losses.

Compare that to the aircraft capacities of the US carriers:

Essex-class 90-100
Yorktown-class 90
Lexington-class 91

Only 4 of the pre-war Japanese carriers had an air group equaling or approaching the size of those on US CV’s; the later war builds carried considerably fewer planes than US CV’s.  Compounding the issue is the fact that Japanese logistics weren’t anywhere near as good as the US’s. Japanese carriers frequently operated below their organizational strength due to shortages of aircraft and pilots. This was a factor at Midway (along with many other things of course). The point is made in the book “Shattered Sword” that going into the battle, in spite of Japan having one more CV than the US the two sides were about equal in the number of carrier planes they could deploy.

As to making them cheaper than the US carriers – I was originally in that camp. After playing the game the past couple of years I changed my mind, for two reasons.

It took about the same resources for each country to build each of their CV’s. However, Japanese carriers were never as well-built as US CV’s. Their vital areas were not as well protected, their damage control procedures were not as good, and AA protection wasn’t as good. As an example, the US used steel piping for their water mains for firefighting; the Japanese used cast iron which was cheaper. When US carriers took a hit they usually kept water pressure – the Japanese learned the hard way that the shock from a bomb hit tended to shatter their cast iron water mains.  As I said, though, it cost Japan the same amount of resources to build lesser designs as it did the US.  This leads me to the next point…

As US tension levels increase, Japan usually begins to feel the economic pressure in the game, just as they did historically. In my opinion, any changes made to the game should emphasize that rather than give any relief from it. Japan can already do many more things in the game than they could have historically. My experience has been that if both sides push carrier construction prior to war, they usually end up about equal in CV and aircraft strength, which is about where they were historically.

Looking at the real-life data, there isn’t any basis for giving Japanese CV’s larger air groups than the US; if anything, the opposite should be done.

If you really want an equalizer, something that’s in the advanced house rules we’re working on is that when Japan goes to war with the Western Allies their fighters get a -1 modifier to their die roll and the WA get a +1 until the WA successfully gain Advanced Air Tactics.. Every turn AFTER the turn the WA go to war with Japan they roll a D-12. Initially the WA must roll a “1” or less. The number to roll or less goes up by one each turn; additionally, the WA get a -1 modifier to the die roll for every Japanese fighter shot down by a WA fighter (this modifier carries over every turn, so shooting down three Japanese fighters would mean a permanent -3 die roll modifier). When they roll less than the required number the WA have gained AAT and Japan no longer has their combat modifier for the remainder of the game. NOTE – If trying this rule it replaces the “Pearl Harbor” rule for aircraft units – Japanese fighters do NOT get both modifiers.

The intent of this is to give the Japanese the qualitative edge they had for the opening months at war – an edge that they gradually lost through combat losses and the development of superior fighter designs by the Allies.

We have not playtested this yet – too busy painting aircraft. But comments are welcome.

57

Rules questions from first edition / Re: Air Units in Combat

« on: October 05, 2009, 05:47:58 AM »

I like your river rule tweak - have you actaully been using it?

No we haven't. We have discussed it and it is going to be in the rules re-write we're working on.

As to the "1 infantry & 15 aircraft" kind of attacks, we are probably going to do two things:

1) Bombers can support ground units on a 1:1 basis; fighters on a 1:2 or 1:3 basis.

2) All aircraft will be "single use" per turn as they are in World in Flames. So - you can use 15 aircraft in an attack if you want - but then they will all be "used" until the start of your next turn.

58

Game Design / Re: Optional US Entry

« on: October 05, 2009, 05:38:25 AM »

I modified the Japaneese stats when playing with the tension levels.

I am testing/asking for suggestions of two choices - 24 (this gives the
production squares of 3, 9, 3) or starting with a factory (25). This is due to the
US getting a first turn (an extra 25 production points) and the requirement of
the frozen units on the Russian border (Artilery, Fighter, Lt Armor - this
represents 19 production points the Japaneese can not use, and the economic sanctions on tension level 1 and 2)

If you are going for realism you should leave Japan's production where it is or reduce it a bit. Currently in the game Japan is able to do FAR more than they could historically. For a detailed but concise presentation of what Japan could and could not realistically do I'd suggest reading the articles posted on www.combinedfleet.com and then take a look at what Japan can do in The Struggle.

59

General Discussion / Re: Added Optional Rules and Pieces

« on: October 05, 2009, 05:23:17 AM »

The russians have it the easiest because they have production centers everywhere, and they have the most rail capacity.

The Results of the game at FenCon VI - The Allies in Spring 42

The tension level rule where Russia gains a card at the end of their turn is to strong, needs to be modified or dropped.
This enabled the Russians to attack on turn 8, the same turn as US (fantastic card draw for US player). This decimated the german forces in the east, and took a lot of heat off the brits, who were struggling to hold Cairo, Gibraltar, and the Homeland.

The rules for varied entry for the US and USSR are on the right track, but in my opinion still need work. As they are now the Russians can get in too quickly; the US not quickly enough. In our last three games the earliest US entry was fall 1942; the other two were spring and summer 1943.

I'd like to see an approach similar to World in Flames, where US entry is determined by events in the game and can even influence their own entry.

60

General Discussion / Re: Fast Production

« on: October 05, 2009, 05:12:19 AM »

We never fleshed it out, since that was something we came up with near the time that we stopped playing Struggle.

Craig - Just curious - why did you stop playing The Struggle?