Country Builds Cards

[Mark]

Current Draft of the German production point and builds table

[Darkman]

1942 infantry weaker than 1939?

[Mark]

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.

[Bobsalt]

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.

[Bobsalt]

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.

[John D.]

career military rather than conscripts... - I would guess

[Mark]

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

[Godleader]

For me at the beginning of the war only Japan and Germany got 3-4 infantry the rest 2-3 infantry.
Its a great idea to bring up the less quality of the German and Japan infantry at a point of the war but the allies have a opposite face of this fact. In my opinion Russia infantry 1939-1942=2-3 infantry 1943-1945=3-4 infantry. Germany 1939-1942=3-4 infantry 1943-1945=2-3 infantry
Usa 1939-1942=2-3 infantry 1943-1945=3-4 infantry and Japan 1939-1943=3-4 infantry 1944-1945=2-3 infantry. This is my systeme in my version. I dont know in your version march whit this rule.

[Bobsalt]

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.

[Micoom]

Will the other powers also be posted? How is the progress in playtesting with the advanced game?

[Micoom]

Thank you! I'm really wondering about how the progress is on this new game? Will it be finished soon? Just curious.. 

[Mark]

So - the map is pretty much done - we have not made too many changes to it in a while.

There are a few things we are still testing out - for example, the latest is to have 2 mech moves during Summer turns in non-desert, mountain, forest terrain.

Another item that is still being played with is North Africa supply - we have kicked around a few different ideas - but have settled back pretty much where we started - which is the standard supply rules - (i.e. you can supply the number of units that you have port points to trace supply through).  In North Africa, the British can interdict the port points by attacking the Italian convoy box off of Malta.

A third item still under discussion is whether we should add British Homeguard, Soviet Militia, and German Volksturm units to the game to provide those nations some qucik cheap infantry for a one time build after the Fall of France (for Brits) after Barbarossa (for Russia) and from 1944 on for Germany.

But, really most of these types of things are just tweaks - and people are going to tweak the game the way they want anyway - so maybe we will just add them as ideas for optional rules.

I would really like to bring the game to Origins or GenCon this year - but we will see - everyone's schedules are still up in the air

[Mark]

I think I like early war and late war Japanese infantry or regular and conscript or something. . .The imperial guard would really only be a couple units (or one) while what we are trying to reflect is the degrading of Japanese infantry units over the course of the war. 

[Godleader]

(Veteran infantry) before you change for the (regular infantry).

[Yoper]

I would really like to bring the game to Origins or GenCon this year - but we will see - everyone's schedules are still up in the air

I wasn't planning on going to Origins this year, but if you are going to be there with the new game then I would give it a serious looking into.