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« on: February 19, 2013, 12:53:54 PM »
Dear all,
John and I are a good few turns into a Pacific theatre playtest. House rules being tried include:
First Strike: One rule we are playtesitng is a prototype addition to the rules called the "First Strike" rule. This is basically an extension of the idea that ships shoot in order of precedence - Battleship, Cruiser, Destroyer - and rules that the side whose air struck first in an air-sea combat get to apply their effects to the enemy before receiving retaliatory air strikes back. Hence, score a Return or a Damage/Sink on an enemy carrier with a First Strike, they can't shoot back at your fleet with any embarked planes. The First Strike does not apply to attacks on targets in port. The idea of this is to give some advantage to mounting the first strike offensive actions that characterized the Pacific. I'm trying to tweak the naval comb at so that it more accurately resembles the nimble cut and thrust rather than two huge lumpy fleets shadowing each other.
Starting oil: We're playing with both sides starting with 13 points of "free" pre-war oil chits - in Japan and at Pearl. We are also letting these oil reserves be attacked just the same way that Strat Warfare / Port Interdiction damage is done. I figure that this gives the Jap the ability to split his air between the ships and the oil at Pearl if they want to think longer term. It opens up new targeting options for both sides as the war goes on, more flex opening moves by both sides, etc.
Jap Replenisher Fueling from Dutch East Indies: This is fun: we're going to test only allowing the Japs to load replenishers (except for the initial pre-war reserve) from the Dutch East Indies oil spots, up to the max value of those spots. The replenisher can load up from all three areas at the same time by sitting in the sea space between them. This represents the critical naval role at Dutch East Indies oil played in Jap naval fuelling situation.
Destroyers also have Initiative of 4. This makes a lot of sense and might be fun. Think about it: if air and subs are Initiative 4, why not destroyers? This would let destroyers move with aircraft to do anti-sub snapfire. Likewise would let destroyers take up their screening functions around fleets, and thus complicate carrier raids (to get within launching distance you need to take on the destroyer screen first). This rule does not apply to Jap destroyers working as Transports.
Counting aircraft as well as ships against port supply limit. Take a breath: this is not as crazy as it sounds. First logically - if you put an aircraft unit on an island it counts towards supply, but if you put 1-2 of them on a carrier they are suddenly free? Second in terms of shaping the game to be more historical and fun: one of the reason we get the stupid-big lumpy fleets (which are boring) is that you can plant a dozen-plus ships plus aircraft on the big ports. But in reality, one of the reasons naval battles of the Pacific were often small, involving only parts of each fleet, is that the fleets were dispersed across multiple bases. This is certainly why it was hard to mass the equivalent of five fleet carrier groups in one place. If we had to split our forces out to get them back on a port during NCM, the following turns would be way more fun - to pul together a big fleet action would require good commanders, good initiative rolls, etc.
OK, that's the house rules. Find attached the first turn(s) reportm taking us all the way up to the end of Pearl Harbour.
We're halfway through Spring 42 turn. More updates to come.
Cheers
British Mike
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