Topics

16

Game Design / Dutch East Indies

« on: May 23, 2008, 07:48:50 AM »

This is the first of several posts I’m going to make. I’m not sure where, if anywhere, these are going to go, but I’d like to start some dialogue about several issues in the game we’ve run across to see about coming up with some tweaks to the game, or at least some possible rules for the next game.

Peter and I were talking and going over some of our past games and in our conversation we realized we were noticing some of the same things. I don’t know if these are things that have been noticed by other groups or not. However, as we were talking we realized we’ve been playing at least once a week now for about the last 18-20 months, so we’ve probably gotten in as much (or even more) time playing the game as just about anyone else, so it may be that we’ve seen things just because we’ve gotten so many games under our belt.

None of these things are game-breakers (with maybe one exception), so to speak, but they are things that seem to either happen over and over and/or are unrealistic. So, in no particular order, here are some of the things we’ve been talking about.

Dutch East Indies

This is something that, though it hasn’t affected game play all that much, is probably one of the most unrealistic things we’re seeing in our games. Every game, as Japan goes to war, they invariably go after the victory points spread through the Pacific – and never even so much as nod their head at the DEI. This is a blatant disregard of historical reality, of course. Japan’s entire reason for going to war was to secure access to enough oil to keep their military (especially their navy) operating – that oil was in the DEI. Japan’s major thrust at the outbreak of war was to head directly to take the DEI. They knew that once war broke out the Dutch would likely sabotage the oil wells and wreck all of the equipment (which is exactly what happened). This meant that Japan couldn’t simply take the DEI and start shipping oil back home – repairs were going to take at least several months before they would be able to start oil production again. Japan’s hope was that if they took the DEI in the first three months of the war to be able to begin shipping oil by the end of 1942. In other words, it wasn’t enough to just take the oil producing areas; they had to take them as quickly as possible so as to begin getting the oil flowing as quickly as possible.

I understand that in the game, the victory points for Rabaul, Port Moresby, Guadalcanal, etc. are necessary in order to cause each side to fight over territory that was important in WWII. This helps give a historical flavor to the fighting going on in the Pacific. At the same time, it looks very odd indeed to see Japanese ships going right past the DEI on their way to other objectives. Now, I know that it can be argued that the economic value of the DEI territories should be enough to encourage quick occupation. The problem is that usually when Japan comes into the war the Axis are in the low to mid 30’s in VP’s, meaning that if Japan can take the VP’s at Rabaul, Port Moresby, Rabaul, Manila, Singapore, Midway, and Gilbert Islands (and maybe go after Australia and/or India) they can often lock up a win without Japan even having to glance at what was historically their primary objective and reason for going to war – namely, the oil of the DEI. Jason in our group stated it bluntly – “the income of the DEI is nothing – it’s the VP’s that matter.”

I’m not sure how to address this, but I do think it needs to be addressed, since in a game of WWII it seems really strange to have one of the major antagonists not even go after what was their major objective historically. Some ideas I’m kicking around (please feel free to comment):

1) Add a couple of VP sites on the DEI. This is probably the easiest to do, but I’m reluctant to go this route. The VP’s seem fairly balanced as is, and I’m fairly confident that just adding a couple of VP sites without making the correct adjustments to the numbers needed for victory through the rest of the game will likely skew the balance.

2) No VP’s in the Pacific other than what Japan starts with count toward the VP total until Japan is able to conquer and hold all four DEI territories for one full turn.

3) Same as above, but simpler – the Axis cannot win the game until/unless Japan satisfies the conditions above.

4) Peter’s suggestion was that if Japan doesn’t take the DEI by a certain turn that their ships only get half of their movement points (both tactical and strategic) until such time as they do.

5) Japan cannot invade Port Moresby, Rabaul, Guadalcanal, or the Gilbert Islands until the turn after all four DEI territories have been conquered. Historically, this may make the most sense, since the moves toward these areas was to protect the DEI from attack while at the same time threatening Allied supply lines. This could also be combined with 2 or 3 above, but I think not allowing invasions in the Coral Sea area until the DEI are secure is probably enough to ensure that Japan fulfills what was historically their primary objective.

6) The same as above, but instead of the 4 DEI territories Japan may satisfy the requirement by taking the four eastern-most Soviet territories since the Siberian oil reserves would satisfy their requirements for oil. Either option allows Japan to move into the Coral Sea area, but they must take all four territories of one of the two areas. Historically, taking Siberia would represent Japan going with the Army plan instead of the plan developed by the navy.

17

Rules questions from first edition / Yamato battleship

« on: April 23, 2008, 02:37:47 AM »

I haven't been able to find this anywhere, so I'll ask here:

Does the Yamato battleship count as a battleship against Japan's build limit? My assumption is yes, it does because the Yamato is, indeed, a battleship; in addition, in real life building the Yamato and Musashi were extremely resource- and labor-intensive. One of the guys in our current game disputes this because it isn't specifically spelled out in the rules. A ruling please?

18

Rules questions from first edition / Airbase question

« on: February 26, 2008, 03:45:51 AM »

Since my friend Peter is still having no success in getting added to the forum, I’m posting his question for him. We are now using the airbase rules in our games, and we have a question as to how airbase attacks are supposed to work. The first paragraph of the airbase rules reads:

“Air units may now conduct special attacks against enemy air units. On the movement phase, the attacker may fly air units to territories containing enemy air units and conduct an airbase attack. Each attacking fighter “pins” a defending plane from being able to react and fly defensive air support in the same or an adjacent space. Excess defending air units that are not “pinned” are allowed to fly defensive air support mission normally.”

Peter has interpreted this to mean that you can attack an airbase and thus prevent any defending planes (at least, up to the number of planes you have attacking the airbase) from reacting. Our other player, Jason, interprets this to mean that when you attack an airbase the defending planes are forced to either do combat with the attackers or try to retreat (after combat). I’ve been going back and forth as to which interpretation I think is correct. It seems to me based on the strict wording of the paragraph that defending air is not required to react (fight); on the other hand, it seems illogical that units being attacked would not be required to give combat.

The next question is whether or not defending aircraft can participate in combat in the first round, and then retreat before the next round. I think the third paragraph of this section makes it fairly clear that they can, but, again, this is being disputed.

I’m hoping that Peter’s interpretation is correct, and that the intent of the rule is only to prevent defending planes from reacting, not to force them into combat. We’ve played using Jason’s interpretation the last couple of games and I can tell you that forcing defending planes to do combat has a huge impact on game balance. Germany starts with a numerical advantage in aircraft, and with aggressive aircraft builds is always ahead of Britain. Britain can’t even adequately defend the Channel because if he deploys in London he gets hit with 8 or 9 fighters in an airbase attack. I realize that Germany had a larger air force at the start of the war than Britain or France, but they didn’t outnumber either of them by 5 to 1 in fighters as is the case in the game (historically, England and France combined had more fighters than Germany). In addition, approximately 25% of German fighters in 1940 were Me 110’s, which were almost useless against British single-engine fighters; the game does not account for this qualitative difference. I completely understand why France has been nerfed from its historical strength – you have to be able to account for Germany’s superior tactics (difficult to do in a strategic game), and if France is too tough you don’t have a game. However, I can tell you from our last couple of games that if Jason’s interpretation is the correct one the game is going to require a couple of tweaks.

19

Rules questions from first edition / French Moroccan loophole?

« on: February 25, 2008, 05:05:11 AM »

I came up with something fairly sneaky last week, and after talking to Peter about it I think a change/clarification to the rules may be in order.

My idea is to have Britain build and send a couple of armor and infantry to French Morocco as quickly as possible. This gives Britain two options. They could either occupy all of French North Africa before France falls, which would then deprive Germany of the income (and set Britain up to hit the Italians from both directions when they come into the war), or just occupy French Morocco, and then when France falls you immediately attack in North Africa. With armor in French Morocco you could take two territories on the first turn of attack and begin forcing surrender rolls for Vichy; this also means that you could take the valuable airfield in Tunisia the next turn. I think this tactic has the potential to upset play balance in the Mediterranean, and it isn’t as if the Axis doesn’t have enough problems there as it is.

Although Britain and France were allied, France would have been very suspicious if Britain had wanted to deploy troops in French colonial possessions – I seriously doubt that they would have allowed this. My suggestion is to amend the rules so that Britain cannot deploy troops in any French territory other than mainland France until France falls.

20

Rules questions from first edition / Naval movement

« on: February 12, 2008, 09:47:46 AM »

I have a few rules question about strategic movement for naval units. On page 15 the rules state, “The aircraft carrier moves before the air unit moves during the movement phase.”

Although this is listed under tactical movement, it appears that the intent of the rule is that CV’s must make their movement before aircraft - I assume this would also apply to strategic movement as well? In other words, I assume a plane could not strategically redeploy to an aircraft carrier, and then the aircraft carrier itself then also strategically redeploy (carrying the aforementioned plane).

In the above example, could a plane strategically redeploy to a carrier and then the carrier use tactical movement? Again, my assumption is that the answer is “no”, citing the rule from page 15 listed above.

Can a plane use strategic movement to redeploy to a CV, say, 8 zones away? I assume yes (subject to the limitation of no combat); that in this case a CV deck is treated the same as a land territory.

21

Rules questions from first edition / Attacks across rivers

« on: February 11, 2008, 04:39:23 AM »

We’ve had several games recently with attacks across rivers, and I have an idea that I’d like to toss out for discussion.

In a recent game we had a German attack across a river against the Soviets. The Germans only had a few infantry, and the defending Soviets killed every single one of them. So far so good. The problem is that the Germans had a large number of tanks and panzer grenadiers to hit with on the next round, so the Soviets had to retreat or be annihilated. This situation has happened several times in the past and had bothered me, but this time it generated an idea.

My suggestion is that if an attack is made across a river, the attacker must have at least one infantry with a combat factor survive the first round in order to secure crossings for the rest of the army to follow. If none survive the first round, the army doesn’t get to cross, and the second round has to again consist of only half the infantry and supporting artillery and aircraft (if any).

Example – an attack is made across a river, and part of the attacking force consists of 8 infantry. In the rules, 4 infantry would attack at 1 and the other 4 would be at zero. In this attack, if the defender manages to kill al four attacking infantry that have a combat factor, the attacker did not secure crossings for his other units, and on the next round would again be limited to using only half of his attacking infantry and any supporting artillery/aircraft; other units would not be able to participate until the attacker ends a round with at least one surviving infantry with a combat factor.

In the situation above, the attacker had more infantry he could have committed to the battle, but chose to leave them behind as a garrison to protect against a Soviet force on the flank. He could do this because he knew that even if the few infantry in the attack bounced he would still have an overpowering attack with his mech units, and would still easily win. That just seems a little too convenient for my tastes. Nothing in war is certain, and an attack over a river is never an easy task. Adopting this sort of rule could represent an attack bogging down for any number of reasons.

I may try to convince my regular players to adopt this as a house rule, but I wanted to post it here as well for comments in case this impacts play in some way that I haven’t considered.

22

Rules questions from first edition / Questions on Italian morale

« on: January 17, 2008, 09:36:29 AM »

We started a new game last night and are trying out the optional Italian morale rules, and I have a couple of questions.

Italy has been kicked out of Africa, and currently stands at -5 on the morale table, which means that all of their units are treated as being out of supply.

1) Rules for being out of supply state that units that are OOS cannot make amphibious invasions. Could the Germans use Italian transports to make amphibious invasions in the Med, or does the OOS situation prohibit using the Italian transports?

2) Same question as above but for paratroops (Italian bomber dropping German paratroopers).

3) This level of morale indicates that Italian units that are outside of the Mediterranean Theatre immediately surrender. Probably a dumb question, but I assume that this would also prevent Italy from deploying any units outside of the Med until/unless their morale gets back above -5 since they would presumable desert immediately upon leaving the Med?

4) Does the OOS situation of the Italians impact Germany’s ability to trace supply through Italian-controlled territories (I am assuming it does not)?

THanks - Bob

23

After action reports from first edition / Last night's game - or - "Why you should respect Poland"

« on: December 20, 2007, 08:22:01 AM »

Well, it’s your problem child again. I know that it seems like every time I make a post it’s because we had something weird happen that never seems to come up when anyone normal plays the game. Well, Peter and I played last night, and we had yet again another one of “those” games, which leads to more “what do we do if…” questions.

Peter was Axis and I was Allies. Peter started out with the attack on Poland. Now, he has always in my opinion gone a little light against Poland in order to have a strong punch against Belgium in the Winter 1939-40 turn. This time it turned out to be too light – believe it or not, be bounced off of BOTH Poznan and Warsaw. He had deployed all of his panzer grenadiers and armor west, so he had nothing to follow up with in the Mech phase so, as per the rules, the remaining Poles and territories went over to Russia.

When things go bad right at the start it’s sometimes a better idea to just reset the pieces and start over. It seems so often that when things go really wrong right at the start it sometimes just doesn’t get any better – something I’m sure we can all commiserate with from personal experience.

This was another one of those times.

The attack on Poland didn’t just go bad – it went REALLY bad. Not only did Peter not take out 2 out of 3 Polish Territories, I also rolled really well for Poland and inflicted VERY heavy casualties on Germany – so much so that they had only one ground unit left on the Eastern Front, which meant he had to place builds intended for the fight in Belgium in the east instead (as an aside, anyone ever notice that when you make a strategic blunder in a wargame, you will then compensate by rolling really bad dice – and it seems that your opponent will always also choose that moment to get really hot with the dice?).  The Polish fighter even shot down one of the German fighters.

To add insult to injury, the attacks on Denmark and Norway both bounced as well. He hit Denmark with 2 infantry and a fighter. Everything missed on round one, and the fighter hit on round two. Unfortunately, Denmark hit in both rounds so Germany couldn’t occupy Denmark. The exact same thing happened with Norway – Peter missed completely on the first round and hit on the second round – but I hit both times and he had no ground unit left to occupy Norway. Norway joins the Allies.

Remember how I said it might have been better to just reset the pieces and start over?

On turn two he hit Belgium. His paratrooper missed his roll to negate the river penalty, so all he had was half of his infantry and aircraft on the first round. He only got one hit on his attack versus three hits for the Belgians, who then retreated the remaining 4 INF and 1 ART into Northern France. Peter also strategically redeployed a bunch of Italian INF into Bardia to threaten the British, and occupied Denmark. The first two turns I didn’t do much more than just build in France and sent over the BEF to prepare for the usual carnage in France. However, I did manage to roll ones with my destroyers and sink both U-boats in the Atlantic.

Remember how I said it might have been better to just reset the pieces and start over?

On turn three, Peter’s attack into Northern France didn’t go too well. He again rolled poorly and I rolled about average – casualties were about dead even if I recall. The big thing is that I had two AT guns and they both hit, whittling down his armor a bit. On my turn, I took a gamble. There wasn’t much in Belgium, so I decided to make an amphibious attack into Belgium as well as counter-attack into Northern France. My reasoning was that if I could take Belgium, I might have a chance to eliminate his forces in Northern France. For the first time in the game, Peter rolled very well and I didn’t do so good. Bottom line was that he repelled my invasion – we both eliminated all of each other’s ground forces so even though I cleared Belgium I had nothing to occupy Belgium. So close… This wound up being a big factor because I rolled very well in the attack into Northern France and inflicted heavy casualties, forcing Peter to retreat back into Belgium with 3 ARM (all that survived).

In Summer 1940 I liberated Belgium and continued to build in France. I also redeployed 3 INF to Egypt to bolster my defenses against Italy, and sent the bulk of the British fleet to the Med to the sea zone with the Italian convoy.

In Fall 1940 Peter took back Belgium, and Italy declared war on the Western Allies, and attacked Southern France. Seeing how things had gone so far, you can probably guess what happened next. Yep – Italy bounced off in their attack. He looked at attacking in Egypt, but only had 5 INF and a FTR to go against 4 British INF, and thought it was too risky. This also brings up a rule question that I’ll raise at the end of this post.

I think this was also the turn in which he went into Yugoslavia – and he lost here, too. This is one move he made that I don’t think was a good idea. The other setbacks (other than being overconfident with Poland) were as much due to bad die rolls as anything else. Yugoslavia, though, was at this stage a side show, and he really couldn’t afford to be diverting units there when things were going so badly in France. In the Allied half of the turn, I did something I had never done before – France made an amphibious invasion of Sicily, and won.

In Winter 1940-41 Peter tried to go into eastern France and bounced. Italy attacked Sicily and took it back, but was repulsed in his attack into southern France – really bad, since he lost all his ground units and thus had to place his builds in NW Italy to defend against a possible counterattack. In my half of the turn, even though I was holding France I had really been bled down, and so all I did was build. I did make an amphibious assault into NW Italy with Britain (I had redeployed 6 INF to Gibraltar the turn before) and took it with the loss of 1 INF. I also went after the Italian navy. He had air superiority, but I had 4 battleships so I felt like I could weather the storm. We both had 3 fighters, and both had one go air-to-air and the other two bypass to go to after each other’s ships. Both air-to-air fighters shot each other down. He had a Stuka and a bomber to go with his two fighters; I had a fighter and a naval fighter. We each lined up our targets and made our AA fire.

Remember how I said it might have been better to just reset the pieces and start over?

Have you ever experienced a moment in a wargame when you actually hope your opponent will roll well, or you will roll poorly, just so there will still be some challenge in a game?

I didn’t mean to do it. I mean it – I really didn’t mean to do it. But sometimes the dice just won’t cooperate.

Against his two aircraft going against the Rodney, I rolled snake eyes on my AA roll.

Needless to say, Peter was not impressed. We both managed to score one hit each with our aircraft, and then my battleships and cruiser proceeded to sink the Italian fleet except for one transport. I elected not to continue another round and risk letting his planes get at my ships again (although the way the dice were going, perhaps I should have). At any rate, the transport was useless – all the sea zones in the Med except the ones adjacent to Italy were British controlled, and Italy had no combat ships left, so the transport wasn’t going to be able to do anything.

In Spring 1941 Peter took Northern France; in my half of the turn I took it back. He also tried to push Britain out of Italy, and failed. I wasn’t able to do much, though, because he did bleed me down to two INF, and he had enough aircraft in Italy to prevent an amphibious assault (we use the rule from the forum that allows aircraft to react to a sea zone from which you’re making an amphibious assault).

In Summer 1941, Peter pulled a cute little trick and amphibiously landed two infantry in Brittany – I attacked and pushed him back out. So far so good – 8 turns in and France hasn’t had to make a surrender roll yet. Italy, meanwhile, passed their roll (and would succeed with every roll, as it turned out).

In Fall 1941, it finally happened – the die rolls caught up with me and Peter got hot. He was able to take eastern France (losing 10 infantry), and then mech’d into Paris with 4 or 5 armor and 6 panzer grenadiers to knock France out of the game. All remaining French ships were scuttled. In my half of the turn, I pulled my remaining BEF forces (about 5 INF, 3 ARM, 1 ART, 2 AT) into Brittany and reinforced there from England. At this point it was a little after 10:00 and we called it.

Analysis

Usually we pick up the next week and continue the game from that point – this time I’m just going to reset it and we’ll start clean next week. At this point Germany’s position is hopeless. Peter has to decide whether to attack into Brittany before the British forces there get too strong, If he does, he doesn’t have any INF there to absorb losses which means losing panzer grenadiers and armor; if he doesn’t I’ll just keep landing troops there every turn. He also has to occupy the rest of France if he wants the income.

In the east – well, again, hopeless. Russia is growing. They’re not at tension level one yet - they have 49 points going into this turn though (I drew some VERY poor cards), so they will be at tension level one at the end of the turn. Needless to say, though, Germany will never be able to make up the gap in units in time to be able to attack Russia and probably won’t even be able to build up a credible defense for the Russian attack. On top of that, Russia has troops in Warsaw and Poznan, putting East Prussia in a very untenable spot.

Italy, too, is hopeless. All of North Africa is out of supply with no possibility of ever getting back in supply, and with NW Italy in British hands Italy is only building with 5 or 6 points (I don’t remember exactly which).

I haven’t talked about the Pacific, but there isn’t much to tell – everything there is fairly ordinary. Japan has a factory on the board, and placed a CV and a CVL, and is in good position in China. The US is at tension level one and is holding 36 points worth of cards toward level two. They place 2 factories this turn, and so will draw three cards at the end of the turn so have a good chance to go to tension level two this turn.

In my view, Peter overall didn’t play all that bad a game. He made the mistake of going too light into Poland and it cost him big. He has always gone a little on the light side – this time he cut it too close and it burned him. I can’t fault his attacks into France – they were fairly orthodox – he just had the bad luck to roll poorly and I rolled average or above average. After bouncing off of France I can’t really criticize much of what he did (with the exception of Yugoslavia – see my earlier comment). He pretty much had to react to events after that. I could go either way on him bringing Italy in. He wasn’t really strong enough to be able to adequately protect the Med and his forces in North Africa; on the other hand, bringing them in did cause me to commit the British fleet to the Med, which meant I wasn’t using it to harass him in the Channel & North Sea.

Now to the rule issues that came up.

First, if Germany doesn’t take all of Poland and they go to the Soviet Union, how does this affect the border garrison requirements for the SU? Does the requirement to have 5 ground units and 1 aircraft in every territory adjacent to Poland and East Prussia apply to the Polish Territories as well? This would require the SU to be penalized for Germany’s failure so that doesn’t seem right. However, I can see where the garrison rule might be interpreted that way.

Secondly, I have a question about supply related to the situation in our game. I had ships moving around a lot in the Med before Italy came into the war, and at the beginning of the turn Italy came in their North Africa territories were out of supply (they had been put out of supply the turn before. Should they be considered out of supply for the turn in which they declare war? We played it that they were indeed out of supply.

Third, when Germany attacks Belgium, can allied aircraft react to fly defensive air support for the Belgians? We have been playing that they cannot, as their flying to interdict German aircraft would be a violation of Belgian neutrality.

24

Rules questions from first edition / Cutting the Soviet Union in half

« on: December 14, 2007, 05:00:19 AM »

We ran into something in our last game that I think ought to be addressed, at least as an optional rule.

We were able to cut the Soviet Union in half. In the Allied half of the turn the SU was able to build in Moscow with his full income, which makes sense since the income he’s building with had been collected at the end of the previous turn. However, if he was unable to “reconnect” the two halves of the SU (and he couldn’t), would he be allowed to use his full income the next turn to build again in Moscow? The way the rules read it would seem that he would be able to. The rules say that any territory that is put out of supply doesn’t produce income – but since there were far more than two flagged territories in the eastern half of the SU, they weren’t out of supply. My thought is that in this situation the SU would have to keep straight what points came from where, and could only build in each half what that half produced.

Another question that came up in that game is whether or not the Axis can count a victory point controlled by a pro-neutral toward their VP total - in this case, the one point in Sweden when Sweden is pro-Axis.

Speaking of victory points, has anyone created or thought to create, a listing of all the VP’s on the map and who controls them at the start? This would be handy when you’re deep into the game and it seems that units are covering up every VP site.

Another rules question, or perhaps a suggestion for an optional rule that was brought up by a friend of mine who happens to also be an active duty army officer. Why don’t AT guns get the same +1 modifier for defending in rough or forested terrain that infantry gets? This is precisely the sort of terrain in which they would be so dangerous to armor. Perhaps a rule could be added that AT guns in that terrain gain the +1 to their defense if the attacking force contains any armor. This would force an attacker to decide if he really wanted to commit armor to attacking in terrain for which it is not suited.

25

Rules questions from first edition / New units/rules ideas

« on: September 17, 2007, 03:05:55 AM »

I’ve been thinking about optional rules and additional units ever since getting the game a couple of years ago. After getting in quite a few games in the last several months, and organizing my thoughts, here’s what I’ve come up with as ideas. Some of them are completely my own; others are ideas that I had and combined them with things I’ve read here on the boards. I’m in no way trying to steal anyone’s ideas; I’m just trying to contribute to the dialog to make this game even better. As always, everyone’s thoughts, comments, suggestions, threats, etc. are welcome. At any rate, for better or worse, here’s what I’ve come up with.

UNITS

NAVAL AIR
Air to Air 2
Ground Attack 2
Ship Attack 3
Cost 4/4
Counts as fighter for production limits

Comment: Fighters are currently too effective against ships, considering that only some of the planes in a group would be carrying ordinance; the rest would truly be fighters with a mission of air superiority. Conversely, fighters on CV’s are too effective at air-to-air, since some of the planes carried by CV’s would be torpedo and dive bombers, and thus not effective at air-to-air. Several people have also commented on the lack of realism in naval combats when one or both players will designate all of their aircraft as either bombers or fighters, when in reality about half of a CV’s air group would be of each type. I always liked the dedicated Naval Air units in World in Flames, and wanted to bring something like that into the game. Several people have already suggested this type of unit in one form or another; this is my take on the subject. What I especially like about this unit is that creating a new unit for naval air introduces more decision making into builds, as players must consider which role a plane will be used for when deciding to build a fighter or naval air. When using this unit the anti-ship value of fighters should be reduced to 2, or even 1. Another idea would be to say that fighters have 2 against DD’s, subs, and transports; 1 against anything else.

Optional – Allow players to choose which to place on a carrier. For example, a player could put 1 each naval air and a fighter on a fleet carrier. This allows for mission-specific deployments.

GERMAN EARLY FIGHTERS
Air to Air 2
Ground Attack 3
Ship Attack 2
Range 3
Cost 4/4
Counts as fighter for production limits

Comment: When the war began, Germany was convinced that long-range two-engine “fighter destroyers” would be effective in bomber escort missions, and also be able to hold their own against single-engine interceptors. Experience proved otherwise, of course, but Me 110’s continued in front-line service as fighters into 1941. They did prove to be effective as ground-attack aircraft however, as well as night fighters.

Replace one of the fighters in the initial setup with a Me 110, and require that Germany must build one Me 110 for every 2 regular fighters (since Germany will start the war with 4 regular fighters and one Me 110, this means that the first fighter that Germany builds must be a Me 110). Germany must continue to build 1 Me 110 for every two regular fighters until they have lost two Me 110’s in air-to-air combat or until the winter 1940-41 game turn. Range for the Me 110 is 3 because these planes had considerably longer range than contemporary single-engine fighters. Me 110’s cannot be based on a aircraft carrier. For play balance purposes, since this will somewhat reduce the effectiveness of the German air force, I would suggest allowing Germany to begin the game with a Me 110 already in the 1 box of the production chart.

If using the Night Bombing rules (below), the Me 110 is considered to be a Night Fighter.

BRITISH NIGHT FIGHTER (if using Night Bombing rules)
Air-to-Air 2
Ground Attack 1
Ship Attack 1
Cost 4/4
Production limit 1

Comment: This unit represents planes (such as the Mosquito) specifically designed to defend against night bombing raids (see optional rule below).

ASSAULT GUNS (Germany & Soviet Union)
Attack 3
Defense 3
Cost 3/3
Production limit 2

Comment: Both Germany & the Soviet Union placed large guns on tank chassis for the specific purpose of assaulting fixed positions; they could also be used as regular artillery. These units may target fortifications (only) ala Stukas/Sturmoviks and one hit from an assault gun destroys a fortification unit, or they may be used as conventional artillery.

JAPANESE HYUGA/ISE HYBRID AIRCRAFT CARRIERS
Attack vs. Ships 3
Defense 3
2 hits to sink
Cost 5/5
Can carry one naval air (this unit has combat values of 2 for all combats due to small size of air group) or one Kamikaze.
Can only convert one BB to this unit

Comment: After the debacle at Midway, Japan frantically looked for ways to quickly get more aircraft carriers into action. One method was to convert the battleships Hyuga and Ise to hybrid CV’s. This was done by removing the aft main turret and installing a flight deck over the after part of the ship.

After the Japanese lose two fleet carriers, they may at any time convert a regular BB to a hybrid. To do this, pay 5 points and place a BB that begins the production phase in a sea zone adjacent to a production territory on the 1 box of the production chart. The conversion can be completed the next turn at an additional cost of 5 (total cost 10 for the conversion).

This unit will not be that effective; it’s really just an excuse to get a “fun” unit into the game (ala the Yamato).

US MECHANIZED INFANTRY
Attack 2
Defense 2
Cost 2/2
Production limit 2

Comment: Basically a copy of German Panzer Grenadiers. The US deployed mechanized infantry using halftracks for transport that were very heavily armed with machine guns, light and heavy mortars, and light artillery (in addition to the weapons carried by the halftracks themselves). As such, these units packed quite a punch, though their tactics weren’t as developed as those used by German Panzer Grenadiers. The US may deploy these units on a one-for-one basis with infantry (these units did not operate independently, but alongside regular infantry). They may move & attack in the Mechanized Phase and must take an infantry with them on a one-for-one basis the same as armor. If there is no infantry available to move with them in the Mechanized Phase, they may move but not attack in that phase.

US MARINES
Attack 1
Defense 2
Cost 2/2
Production limit 2

Comment: US Marines were trained for, and had special equipment designed specifically for, amphibious assaults. To reflect this in the game, marines hit on a “2” on the first impulse of an amphibious invasion. In addition, ALL marine units fire in the first round of combat. Marines may only be deployed in the Pacific Theatre.

US DESTROYER ESCORTS
Attack/Defense vs. ships & aircraft 0
Attack/Defense vs. subs 2 (both naval and strategic warfare)
Cost 2/2/2
Production limit 4

Comment: The US both built and converted large numbers of small vessels specifically to fight subs, ranging in size from destroyer escorts to merely large yachts with a depth charge launcher. This rule mimics reality by allowing the building of purpose-built ships to engage in ASW at the expense of being able to do much else.

OPTIONAL RULES

SEA ZONE ATTACK – In the current rules (if I read them correctly), a player may make an amphibious invasion against a territory, and if the sea zone doesn’t contain enemy ships, the defender cannot react, even if he has aircraft in the territory being invaded. This is unrealistic, because in real life in this situation the defender would send his aircraft to attack the fleet. This rule allows the defender to fly air support against an adjacent sea zone, regardless of whether there is a sea battle there or not..

Comment: Not being able to fly air support against a fleet invading an adjacent empty sea zone is one rule in the game that really bugs me. It’s also inconsistent with the rule that allows aircraft to fly air support into an empty land territory that’s being attacked.

NIGHT BOMBING – A player may declare that any strategic bombing attack is being made at night. This is safer for the player making the raid, at the cost of reduced effectiveness. Heavy Bombers using Night Bombing roll one D6 for damage; Bombers roll one D3. Anti aircraft guns/88’s may only make two shots instead of 3 to simulate reduced effectiveness. Only Night Fighters can be used to intercept the raid. Due to the US commitment to daylight precision bombing, the US may not use Night Bombing in Europe.

LONG-LANCE TORPEDOES – Japan had the best torpedoes in the world at the outbreak of the war, and were able to score hits at ranges not thought possible for torpedoes. In addition, Japan was very highly skilled at making night attacks. To reflect this, Japanese destroyers can make Long-Lance torpedo attacks. After setting up the naval battle board, Japan designates any destroyers that are using Long Lance torpedoes. The Japanese player designates his targets the same way as is done with aircraft, and rolls their attacks before any other surface combatant. Torpedoes hit on a 2 as normal and any damage is scored immediately – any ship sunk by a Long Lance attack does not get to return fire. Japan may make these attacks in any battle taking place prior to 1943; after that the growing number of Allied ships using radar helped offset this advantage. The target of Long Lance torpedoes must be a ship with surface combat values unless there isn’t one in the enemy fleet.

Comment: This is a rule I suggested in another thread and really like. Japanese destroyers were really effective early in the war, and the Long-Lance torpedoes were yet another nasty surprise for the Allies.

AIR BASE AA – When airbases were constructed, AA defenses were almost always assigned permanently to the base. To reflect this, Level 3 airbases have 1 intrinsic AA shot; Level 5 airbases have 2 intrinsic AA shots. These are in addition to any AA unit that may be deployed in the same territory. The intrinsic AA cannot be destroyed, but also cannot be used against ground troops. If the airbase is captured, the intrinsic AA is captured as well.

US ARMOR DOCTRINE – US tactical doctrine in WWII specified that armor was intended to support infantry, not fight toe-to-toe with German armor. When encountering heavy armor, US doctrine specified that they were to be dealt with by dedicated tank destroyer units. To simulate this, casualties inflicted by US light or medium armor do not have to be taken against German heavy armor.

Comment: I’ve been trying to figure out a way to work tank destroyers into the game, and can’t really come up with anything. I thought of trying to make them like anti-tank guns except that they could attack and also move in the Mechanized Phase – but then they’d basically be armor, which would make them redundant, and there’s no point in increasing complexity for something that doesn’t really make a difference. However, the guy I game with regularly reminded me that US doctrine in WWII was that enemy armor was to be engaged by tank destroyers; armor was actually supposed to avoid engaging enemy armor if possible. This rule attempts to simulate the tactical doctrines in place during the war.

EXTREMELY OPTIONAL RULE

Magic/Ultra – Disclaimer: I think this can be a fun rule, but I also think that it can also be a very unbalancing one, so try it at your own risk. This one is more of a “thinking out loud” proposal, so there may be issues with this that I haven’t adequately thought through. At any rate, here it is…

One of the things that greatly benefited the Allies, especially early in the war, was the ability of the Allies to break the codes being used by the Axis. Examples of where the Allies used this ability against the Axis include the Battle of Midway, shooting down Yamamoto, and interdicting supply convoys in the Mediterranean. To simulate this in the game, use the following procedure.

In the Purchase New Units Phase, either of the Western Allies may allocate up to 6 economic points on Intelligence; Germany (if Italy is still in the Axis, they and Germany are considered one combined power for this rule), and Japan may allocate up to 6 economic points on Counter-Intelligence. The US and Britain have an intrinsic intelligence value of 2 before spending economic points (so by spending 6 points they could have a value of 8 ). Each turn, after the Axis has completed their movement and declared their battles, but BEFORE resolving any combat, either or both US and Britain may attempt to break Axis codes. To do so they roll one die. If the result of the modified die is higher than the amount of economic points spent by the targeted Axis power, the attempt is successful. The result of a successful attempt is that the Allied power that succeeds (or both of both succeed) may move units from ONE territory (one for each power if both succeed) into any other territory, subject to normal movement rules. This movement may be strategic or tactical, just as long as it is a legal move. A fleet with transports may pick up units from an adjacent territory and transport them to another territory (presumably one that is being attacked), subject to the normal naval movement rules.

If an Allied roll fails and the result of the die is an unmodified 1, the Axis power that the roll was directed to changes their codes and the Allies may not make a roll against that power in the next turn.

Each time the Allies use Magic to redeploy forces, the Axis receives one permanent victory point. This is limited to one point per turn per targeted power; if both US and Britain succeed and use Magic to redeploy forces against Germany/Italy, the Axis receives one victory point. If the Allies roll against both powers, succeed with both rolls, and react to both powers, the Axis receives two victory points. Because the US and Britain shared much of their intelligence information, the success of one of them allows both to react; however, they can still only move units out of one zone per successful attempt.

Example 1: Japan invades Midway in the Spring 1942 turn. After movement and declaring the attack, the US rolls for intelligence against Japan, and succeeds. The US moves a fleet adjacent to Midway to engage the Japanese fleet. The Axis receive a victory point.

Example 2: Germany makes a surprise attack into Belgium in the Winter 1944-45 turn. After Germany moves their forces and declares their attacks, Britain and the US make rolls for intelligence and one of them succeeds. They use 3 transports in the English Channel to strategically redeploy 9 infantry into Belgium. The Axis receive a victory point.

If using this rule, the Western Allies may NOT use Magic against Japan on the first turn that they are at war with Japan.

Comment: Okay, I know this one is really out there. Still, I think it could be a fun one to play with. I’m suggesting that each reaction by the Allies result in a victory point because this rule has the chance to really affect the outcome of the game. Giving it such a high price keeps it from being a gimmick for the Allies to use every turn, but rather something you use at a critical point.

26

Rules questions from first edition / Border between USA and Canada

« on: September 05, 2007, 03:11:38 AM »

Something came up in the game we finished last night. I took Western Canada as Japan. Where is the border between Eastern and Western Canada as it relates to the US? Does Western Canada connect with the Central US? I couldn't have taken and held anything, but there were no units in the Central USA and I could have sent one infantry down to wreck the factories if it was connected to Western Canada. As I said, it isn't critical - I certainly couldn't have held it - but I was able to cause my opponent considerable heartburn with Japan and I would have liked to have been able to add to the harrassment.

27

Rules questions from first edition / A question on naval combat

« on: August 15, 2007, 04:26:01 AM »

We started another game last night, and so far it looks like a virtual replay of the first game. As the Axis I again took France but only after horrific casualties. I’m beginning to wonder if we’re doing something wrong, because it seems in every game France gives the Axis all they want no matter what builds or combat strategy the Axis uses. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the dice always seem to go France’s way.

Anyway, as Italy I’m running wild again, and I have the British Mediterranean fleet sealed in the Med after taking the Suez and Gibraltar in a very risky invasion. I know the rules say that fleets can’t be out of supply, but has anyone considered looking at this again? A fleet in this situation can’t operate at full capacity indefinitely. At some point, fuel, food, ammunition, etc. are going to become a problem. I wondered if maybe there should be a die roll for this type of situation – say, -1 for each turn out of supply after the first, with an additional -1 for each combat the fleet engages in. If/when the fleet fails the die roll, it suffers the same out of supply effects as land units. This would give some urgency to the owning player to do something to re-establish a line of supply.

The game continues to be a blast; we’re enjoying it more each time we play. By the way, if anyone’s interested, I wrote a quick review of the game, and had a couple of long-ish posts about it on one of the Avalon Hill forums; if you’re interested, you can read it here:

http://boards.avalonhill.com/showthread.php?t=22157

Thanks - Bob

28

Rules questions from first edition / When does US roll for economic damage?

« on: July 18, 2007, 02:23:10 AM »

We started another game last night using the event-driven US and Soviet entry. The US reached Tension Level 1 in their part of the Fall 1940 turn. When does the actual roll for economic damage to Japan occur? As soon as they reach Tension 1 (which would affect Japanese builds for Winter 1940/1941) or does the US have to wait until their part of the Winter 1940/1941 turn to roll (and Japan is not affected until Spring 1941)?

29

Rules questions from first edition / Question about naval movement

« on: July 13, 2007, 08:40:55 AM »

I have a question regarding naval movement. Is there a reason why the movement rates are less on the Asian map than the European one? I realize that the scale between the maps is different, but I don’t see how this would make a difference when you are talking about several months for each turn. Did something come up in playtesting that mandated this that just hasn’t shown up in our games yet?

30

After action reports from first edition / Game in Louisville KY

« on: July 11, 2007, 08:25:12 AM »

Hey everybody,

I don’t know if anyone here would be interested in this or not, but we played the game at my house last night. This is the after action report I posted on the FOTOG (Falls Of The Ohio Gamers) Yahoo group. I’ve been trying to generate interest in the group to play this, but haven’t had much luck so far. I posted this in the hope of getting a couple of guys interested to try it at the next game club meeting in two weeks.

This was the fourth game for Peter and myself, though it’s been over a year since we played until we played again last week with Patrick; this was his second game.

Anyway, for whatever it’s worth, here’s what I wrote.

**************************

We played “WWII: The Struggle for Europe & Asia” at my house again last night and had a great time. For those of you who’ve expressed interest in the game, here’s a recap:

(Peter played Axis; Patrick played France & England; I played US, Soviet Union, and China)

Fall 1939 – Germany and Soviet Union split Poland between them. Germany also launches an amphibious invasion of southern Norway, and succeeds, though he loses 1 infantry in the assault. Japan captures a resource point from China. In the Allied turn, the Royal Navy sinks the German transport used for the Norwegian invasion, and mauls the German Surface fleet. US sends 5 points of Lend Lease to China via Burma Road.

Winter 1939/40 – Germany redeploys to western front. With the loss of one infantry in their invasion of Norway, and no transport to ferry reinforcements, the one infantry holding the south doesn’t have a realistic chance of completing the conquest of Norway; the 2 Swedish resource points for conquering Norway remain tantalizingly out of reach.  SU cleans up Estonia and Lithuania. Japan continues to move slowly against China and places a CVL on the production spiral.

Spring 1940 – Germany takes out Belgium and Netherlands; France is trying to frantically prepare for the expected attack in summer. Japan begins a factory and continues to find the going slow against China; they gain some more territory, but no resource areas.

Summer 1940 – Germany slams into northeast France; France takes heavy casualties, including 3 nearly-irreplaceable armor (armor and AT guns score hits on armor first). Italy gathers forces in preparation for their declaration of war.

Up to this point, things went fairly close to history. The one joker in the pack for Germany is that Belgium and Netherlands both cost Germany more casualties than expected; they lose 6 infantry in adding these nations to the Reich. Germany was a little weak on the ground in France after their assault, but still had 4 Pz IV’s and 2 88’s, and could have used assault movement to blitz into Normandy, which was defended by only one infantry. They couldn’t have held it if the Allies committed to take it out, but taking it would have increased the French surrender roll to 2/6. As it turned out, it was irrelevant, since Patrick rolled a 3.

In the Allied turn, Patrick is in a difficult spot. Most of his armor is gone, and the Luftwaffe has air superiority. His choices are to either make an amphibious assault into Belgium to cut the Germans in France out of supply, to make a direct assault against the force in northeast France, hoping to at least bleed Peter down or force a retreat, or stand on the defensive. Of these, the least desirable is to stand on defense. Peter has a force of 7 infantry, 4 armor, 1 artillery, and 2 88’s in France, with more armor and some Panzergrenadiers in Belgium; he also has 6 fighters, 2 Stukas, and 2 bombers available to fly defensive air support if Patrick attacks. If Patrick stands on defense, Peter can select any of three French territories to attack, and bring up his reinforcements and move them again in the mechanized phase to make a second attack. The likelihood here is that he’d wind up with three French territories with a 50% chance of forcing French surrender; if he takes Paris and has at least 5 units remaining French surrender is automatic. Patrick can attack with 21 infantry, 2 armor (all he has left), and his outnumbered air force. Taking a deep breath, he goes all in against the Germans in northeast France.

In the air-to-air phase, Patrick elects to fly one carrier fighter as air-to-air, and hope to get the rest of his fighters through as bombers, along with his French bomber. 2 of Peter’s Me 109’s shoot down the carrier fighter, but in going for the bombers with his remaining 4 fighters misses ALL of them. This was to be a harbinger of what was to come.

Rolling for his infantry, Patrick rolls 8 ones out of 21 dice! All three armor also hit, and 2 of his fighters score hits, along with his bomber – and in one round he has annihilated the Germans! Peter compounds the disaster by rolling very poorly; 1 Stuka and 1 bomber miss (out of 2 of each), 2 out of 4 armor miss, the artillery misses, and all 7 infantry miss as well. To add insult to injury, the 88’s, needing 4’s to hit, roll boxcars.

Peter is now in trouble. There isn’t enough in Belgium to mount an offensive, so he has to spend a turn bringing up reinforcements.

Distracted by the debacle in France, he makes a mistake in China and leaves a territory garrisoned only by an infantry, armor, and artillery. I decide to attack with 11 infantry, my artillery, and the Flying Tigers. In the air-to-air combat we both miss. I roll 2 hits with the infantry and hit with the artillery, and kill the hard-to-replace Ha-Go armor and artillery unit. Japan places its CVL, which gives the US an extra card draw for Level 1 tension. Unfortunately, it was a 3 – I’ve now drawn three 3’s, a 2, and a 6. At this rate, the US ought to enter the war around, say, 1948.

Fall 1940 – Germany frantically builds up in Belgium. In China, Peter brings over more Japanese infantry and places a factory (I draw an 8 – FINALLY! – and a 6). Not wishing to lose infantry to Peter’s air force and gathering infantry, I retreat all but the one required garrison unit back into the mountains; the territory I had retaken doesn’t produce income, and they served their purpose in knocking out a couple of expensive Japanese units and I don’t want to push my luck. The Soviet Union takes out Vyborg. The US sends 5 Lend Lease via the Burma Road.

Winter 1940/41 – Germany attacks again into France, and inflicts heavy casualties, forcing a French retreat. Seeing the handwriting on the wall, Peter brings Italy into the war out of desperation and moves into Southern France. By a narrow margin (one damaged fortress left) Patrick holds him out; as luck would have it, this battle made the difference, as he rolled a 2 for French surrender – if Italy had succeeded in their attack France would have been out of the war. The naval battle doesn’t go as well for the Allies, and Peter damages the French battleship and cruiser and sinks the destroyers. Patrick counter-attacks on his turn with the Royal navy; unfortunately; the dice don’t go as well for him as they did earlier, and he takes more damage than he inflicts, and the Regia Marina retreats. The combined French-British army forces Germany to retreat again into Belgium.

Summer 1941 – Germany simply doesn’t have enough to get into France again, and has to waste another precious turn building up in Belgium. The Italian land-based aircraft goes after the Royal Navy and wipes out the British Mediterranean fleet, using destroyers to prevent a retreat. In the Allied turn, France invades northwest Italy, and succeeds. In the north, there is more French armor on the map, and Britain has brought over some more; it’s going to be expensive for Peter to try to get into France again. Italy passes its surrender roll. Nothing much going on in the Pacific; Japan places a fleet carrier. I’ve drawn better cards of late and draw another 8 and a 7 – I now have 51 and the US goes to Tension Level 1.

At this point we called it a night, and decided to start over next Tuesday as well. There is no hope for the Axis – Russia is already well past Tension Level 1, and is massing on the German border. Germany is so far behind the eight-ball that there’s no way even if they got a French surrender next turn that they could hope to make up the production deficit against the Soviet Union. England has two factories on the map, and now that the US is at Tension Level 1 I was planning to start sending 10 points of Lend Lease to England every turn to try to push Germany deeper into the hole.

Looking back, I think Peter made a mistake by not building subs for Germany; as a result, England was able to build unhindered by strategic warfare. Patrick, of course, got very lucky with his die rolls in the climactic battle; compounded with Peter rolling well below average I think this one battle pretty much decided it. Other than the subs and the one mistake in China, I can’t fault Peter’s strategy too much; after the debacle in France he was pretty much forced to react to events instead of being able to force things on his terms.

Anyone who wants to give this game a try is welcome to join us; we’ll be playing every Tuesday night for the rest of the summer. We also plan to play the game at the next Game Day at PSC.