Alternating Movement Concept

[Mark]

So, one of the rules ideas we have been testing for this big game is an "alternating movement / simultaneous combat" system.  It adds a very interesting dimension to the game - but takes a little while for new players to get used to.  So it has some pros and cons.  The more I play with it, the more I like it.  But, we are still torn as a group whether we should keep it or go back to a standard “you take your turn and I take mine” model.

Here is a rough outline of the idea here:

1.  Everyone Builds units and places Lend Lease points
2.  Everyone collects income for owned territories (not for Lend Lease points yet)
3.  Everyone sets aside strategic moving ground units

4.  Movement Phase
Determine initiative by theater (Mediterranean, Western Europe & Eastern Front)*
Each side rolls a d6: The side that took the most territories, won the most sea battles in each theater wins ties. The initiative winner may either accept the initiative or decline the initiative to his opponent.

• Initiative winner draws chit first for his theater, then initiative loser
  
  There are 5 chits (4,3,2,1,0)
  
  Initiative winner Chit value or higher armies/navies can move into combat or friendly movement
  
  Leaders have an initiative value of 1-4. After the initiative winner draws a chit and moves, the initiative loser draws a chit and moves.
  
  Leaders that have moved friendly are flipped over – all units in a flipped over leader territory are considered moved (so, if a leader moves into a territory that has unmoved units – those units lost their movement).
  
  Activated leaders activate to move into a territory the leader moves into and bring units with him. The "0" chit is for all moves without leaders. (i.e. Leaders activate and move, bringing units with them – units may not move into a territory that their activated leader did not move into.  These units would have to wait, instead for the “0” move chit to move independently into a territory the leader did not move into).
  
  Continue until all 5 chits are drawn.

Marking Attacks
When a player moves his units into an enemy territory (even if unoccupied) it is considered an attack and is marked with the attackers round control marker (add a control marker for each multiple territory the space is attacked from in order to keep track of Flank and Salient attacks).

Reinforcing Attacks
If a territory or sea zone is attacked, the ‘defender’ may still move units into the embattled territory, but any additional defending units must be placed as Reserve for the battle and may not be front line (or support for artillery) on the first combat round.  (To be discussed in another post)

[Mark]

So - I understand that description is a bit rough and perhaps hard to follow - but the idea is this:

A high initiative leader like a Guderian or a Patton have an initiative value of 4.  Poor leaders, like early French and Russian leaders have an initiative value of 1.

So, what players do is draw (blind) a chit - that is numbered 0-4 on its flip side.  Players can move leaders and the units with them that have an initiative value of the chit drawn or higher.

So, a 4 initiative leader has a lot of flexibility - since he can move on any chit draw, he can either move first in a turn or wait to see how things develop and move last.  1 initiative leaders have less flexibility and have to move either on a 0 or a 1 chit.  units without army leaders can only move on the 0 (all move) chit.

This makes for very interesting play.

Once all the chits are drawn, players resolve combats.  So there is really only on mega turn of movement and combat every game turn, not an Allied turn and an Axis turn - it is all done at the same time.

[kriegspieler7]

Interesting Mark.  Do you have suggested values as well as a list of different combatant CO's of the different belligerents?  And, are these just generals of army, or do admirals and generals of the Air Force count? 

Just thought we'd get your take on this.  I'd like to see leaders from each branch of the services, myself, but that's just me.  Maybe a generic leader or set of leaders for the other different areas would be included?  Okay?

When you can.

[Mark]

Here is a current sheet of leaders for the game. Just prominent players to give flavor to the game - not every army commander or fleet admiral is represented of course - but enough to make it interesting.





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[kriegspieler7]

Cool!   Thanks!

[Yoper]

I think that John D. likes Graziani because of the HAIR!

Craig

[Darkman]

Very nice , now it looks like Hearts of Iron , I hope there will be more Leaders

[spitfire]

Here is an example of the commanders we use for Bri/Ger
Every  commander we use have a trait and a flaw, a max unit level and are cathegorized just like in Hearts of Iron under either offensive or defensive. The commaders really make a difference in my opinion. I will try to get around to post our commander sheets...

Britain                                               

Army
1. Alan Brooke
2. Harold Alexander
3. Archibald Wavell
4. Bernard Mongomery
5. Claude Auchinleck
6. William Slim
7. Orde Wingate
8. John Gort
9. Brian Horrocks
10. John Dill
11. Marmaduke Pattle
12.Leslie Morsehead
14. Miles Dempsey
15. Percy Hobart
16. Kenneth A.N Anderson
17. Oliver Leese
18. William Ironside
19. Henry Wilson
Navy
20. Andrew Cunningham
21. John Tovey
22. James Sommerville
23. Dudley Pound
24. Bertram Ramsey
25.  Bruce Fraser
26. Paul Harwood
27.Thomas Syfret
28. Basil Embry
29. Charles Portal
30. Lord Mountbatten
31. John Collins
32. Thomas Phillips
33. Charles Backhouse
34. Phillip Vian
36. Percy Noble
Airforfoce
37. Arthur Harris
38. Trafford Leigh-Mallory
39.  Arhur Tedder
40. Gerald Bowhill
41. William Sholto Douglas
42.  Maurice Buckmaster
43. Arthur Grasset

Germany

Army
1. Walter Model
2. Erwin Rommel
3. Gerd Von Rundstedt
4. Heinz Guderian
5. Georg Von Küchler
6. Jürgen Von Arnim
7. Walter Von Reichenau
8. Erich Von Manstein
9. Kurt Student
10. Paul Von Kleist
11. Günther Von Kluge
12. Friedrich Paulus
13. Hermann Hoth
14.  Eduard Dietl
15. Fedor Von Bock
16. Albert Kesselring
17.  Joseph Dietrich
18. Erich Höpner
19. Wilhelm Von Leeb
20. Siegmund List
21. Wilhelm Von Thoma
22. Gotthard Heinrici
23. Erwin Von Witzleben
24. Jürgen Stroop
25. H. Von Brauchitsch
26. Hasso Manteuffel
27. Herrman Balck
28. Joachim Lemmelsen
29. Johannes Blaskowitz
30. G. Von Schweppenburg
31. Joseph Harpe
32. Carl Hilpert
33. Werner Kempf
34. Hans Von Salmuth
35. Walther Wenck
36. N.Von Falkenhorst
37. E. Von Mackensen
38. Jochen Peiper
39. Kurt "Panzer" Meyer
40. Herman.B Ramcke
41. Otto Skorzeny
41. Hans Von Obstfelber
42. Richard Ruoff
43. Adolf Strauss
44. Georg Lindemann
Navy
45. Erich Raeder
46. Günther Lütjens
47. Günther Prien
48. Karl Dönitz
49. Otto Cliax
50. Alfred Saalwächter
51. Hermann Boehm
52. Conrad Albrecht
53. Hans Von Friedeburg
54. Theodor Krancke
55. August Thiele
Airforce
56. Ernst Udet
57. Hugo Sperrle
58. Erhard Miltch
59. Hermann Göring
60. Adolf Galland
61. Werner Mölders
62. Hans Ulrich Rüdel
63. Walther Von Richthofen
64. Otto Dessloch
65. Hans-Jürgen Stumpf
66. Alexander Röhr
67. Robert Von Greim
68. Stefan Fröhlich
69. Alfred Keller
70. Joseph Kammhuber
71. Kurt Pflugbell
72. Günther Korten

[spitfire]

Sorry about the poor resolution, mainly due to the cards beeing laminated

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[John D.]

I think that John D. likes Graziani because of the HAIR!

YES!

That is the true sign of greatness!

[Mark]

These are some very cool leader ideas.  How do you implement them in play?  do you have a counter that represents the leader?  How do you play with the maximum unit concept - very interesting. . . and impressive!

[spitfire]

Hey Mark and thanks!

Well, first of all every leader is represented by a miniature on the board and a stat army card off board.

Army commanders are Odemars German Generals that are 1/72 scale and stand out perfectly on the board among the 15mm Inf pieces. These are mounted and have a commander "number" on them.
 (http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Review.asp?manu=ODE&code=PF05)

Airforce commanders are simply Aircraftpieces with roundels and the Commanders "number" on them.

Naval commanders are represented by naval pieces with markings and commander "number". These ships are called flagships.

To get a leader into play you have to buy them just like any other unit.
If you look at the stat card for the 6th Army, in the unit box next to General it says L-Armor.
This tells you two things: What unit the commander represents in combat and what he costs. So if you want Paulus on the board you simply pay for a L-Armor unit and place the Paulus piece on the production chart.
All commanders are represented by different unit types, ships and planes

The maximum unit level is off course the total nr of units under a certain commanders rule. It also determines rank  in cases when you attack/defend with more than one Leader. You always use the commander with highest  value, and it is his traits and flaws that are used.

So when you merge two armies with two different leaders you must choose wich commander to use, this is always an interesting part of the game , should one choose the one with say 32 max units but with poor offensive traits or go with the guy who can command 20 units but has excellent offensive traits....

In the stat card in the number box  you can see the maximum numbers of specific units, this is so you cant stack units  that are favored by the leader. In case of Paulus his trait is that infantry def witha +1 value, and his max unit value is 24. In a perfect world he would defend Stalingrad with 24 Inf units, but as you can see he is limited to 5 Inf units.
Its all about finding a game balance.

The number in the lower right corner is the same number that is on the game pieces.

Hope this gives you an idea of how we use our leaders.
I´ll try to take some pictures of our d12 version this weekend.
Thanks for a great game!
//Spitfire

[Mark]

Wow - very interesting. . . and I thought we were the crazy ones investing so much time in this. . .

The concepts look very cool. . .so you play this on the struggle for europe & asia map?  Or did you have your own custom map too?

I would love to see some pictures. . .

I gotta post the combat system / battleboard we are using for our commanders idea to get feedback. . .

[spitfire]

Ha, ha!
I guess it´s a bit hardcore
But these are the fun parts to work with, thats why I bought  your basic game so I didn´t have to make
up the basic rules. Sure we play an more advaced game when it comes to more units,commanders and so on. But we still use your basic rules for almost everything else.

We of course had to make custom battleboards and production sheets mostly due to the d12 system
and that we have a lot more units. But basically it´s still your rules to the core.
What I´ve done is more of adding features to an already great game,  we have actually never changed
any rules just added some new. So if I haven´t answered your question already me use your map and
your rules.
And  I have to say, I´ve been playing a vast number of games and used several maps doing so, but to
this date yours is the best by far.
Can´t wait to see more of your new map, what I´ve seen so far wow!!
I´d like to get some feedback on our custom made battleboards and production charts but the files are
to big to post here ( in excel) could i perhaps mail it to you....

[brain damaged]

Here is a current sheet of leaders for the game. Just prominent players to give flavor to the game - not every army commander or fleet admiral is represented of course - but enough to make it interesting.

Where can I find your Pacific Leaders?