@manincellv
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https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/36699/another-dimension-defender-retreats
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Defenders being able to retreat?
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out of curiosity has anyone implemented some form of rules that allow defenders to retreat from a battle, or to be forcefully pushed back instead of being completely wiped out? i know this would drastically change strategy but im wondering if there is a solution or if anyone has come up with something balanced? Ps: in any game version, classic, 41,42,40, bulge. im just looking to see if its possible
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I have yet to see any rules that would allow it. I agree it would change the play style of the game very much but I would work the rule like this. Defense out of fairness must survive at least one attack, take it casualty shots and then choose to retreat before assault gets that chance. It has to move to a joint territory and it cannot escape by a transport. Personally, that’s how I would do it.
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Fortress America uses a 1 roll on the dice to “push” units out of combat. It uses d6, d8 and d10, a 1 on any dice results in a push rather than a hit.
The problem with permitting a defender retreats rule is that the defense in AxA is very “set piece” and structured. You have to make cagy decisions about how and where to defend, because you don’t get to retreat. If some units survive every battle, that may be more realistic but it leads to a problem of not being able to reduce or trap your opponent’s armies because they can never be destroyed, only pushed back. Because units don’t move on their opponents turn, pushing them out of combat effectively gives them free moves that can push them into areas they wouldn’t have been able to get to, and giving the defender the choice of which territory he can retreat into is different than the attacker rule (which states that at least one unit had to come from that direction to retreat in that direction).
Another problem is that at times, every power (especially Russia) will have to push everything forward in order to get their odds. This leaves gaps in the back, which armies can roll through. If defending pieces are allowed to retreat into these territories on the attackers move, they become free blockers that the defender placed there after his turn.
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I have a retreat rule that I use is for the attacker and defender.
Any piece that rolls 1 D12 and rolls a 12 has to retreat.3 inf roll a 3,5,11 no retreat
2 tanks roll a 5,12 1 hit and 1 tank has to retreat.
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Interesting thread. Haven’t seen this one lately.
How about after 2 complete rounds of combat, the defender could choose to retreat?
By the end of 2 combat rounds, most units are wiped out anyways. A rule I’d want of course is for a territory to be vacant (already mentioned above of course); my interpretation being, if the only option for Russia was to retreat to Bryansk in a given situation but Germany rolled a battle and occupied that territory first, then the Russians forces would be trapped and therefore not able to retreat. The German player would have to achieve a real Kesselschlacht.
I don’t see a retreat option being an issue for either side as it would be very fair for both sides. Of course it would change things, but it might make it more interesting as G40 has been around for awhile. Also, I don’t mind units retreating by transport either (transport moves 1 space to unload normal amounts of units; enemy warships are not in same SZ or in the SZ where the evacuation occurs to). Germany could defend on the coastline (Normandy and then retreat)…or an Allied landing could evacuate back to London (if SZ110 was secured). On the other board side, the back and forth for Calcutta would be fair for either side.
I’d be interested to try this concept out.
Retreat by transport makes me think of the British and Common Wealth forces evacuating from Dunkirk…then evacuating from Norway, then more training by evacuating from Greece to Crete…followed by one more evacuation from Crete to Egypt. No Army at that point in time had that kind of expertise on how to retreat from port or the shore line.
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It’s an interesting and realistic idea. But I’d require 3 stipulations:
- Retreat must be declared at the beginning of a combat round.
- Like Caesar said, they must not be allowed to return fire.
- All units must retreat or none must retreat (otherwise people would send things like Strategic Bombers back every time they thought they’d lose)
- Units that moved must not be allowed to move or attack the next turn (including planes).
Certain about all of these, except maybe 3 which I could think more on. Otherwise it would not only be unrealistic, it would break the game. But under these circumstances could see it being reasonable.
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My rule is based on the attacker and defender retreating. As thee attacker, when the bombers make there attack roll and if any bombers roll a 12 they must retreat.
All my games are D12 die. So the odds seem to be higher before you have to retreat using the D12. Plus you save die rolling time by using the D12.The die roll of 12 just means an auto retreat. If the attacker or defender decides to retreat, all ground units have to retreat after 1 round of combat.
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I think this entire HR idea becomes a mute point if units can’t return fire if retreating.
In real life, tactical withdrawals performing retrograde set-up rear-guard ambushes on the tactical scale or momentary defensive strong points at the operational level.
A person can also stop, shoulder his rifle and fire.
Good debate on this house rule. I’d accept the HR for the defender being able to retreat if he couldn’t fire back and had to declare it before hand. However, again, I don’t think this HR really changes anything enough to make a new way to play. Â
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The defender does get a return shot.
Defender
3 inf roll a 2,7,12 Thats 1 hit and 2 misses. Now 1 inf has to retreat. You use the die roll for a defense roll and at the same time use it for the retreat roll. -
My 2 cents on this as we have discussed it but never tried yet.
Attacker rolls attack rolls,
Using a D6 as currently prescribed maybe any 6’s rolled by the attacker allow the defender to withdraw an equivalent number of units of his/her choice? This would represent a lack of unit readiness. Sort of like your infantry/artillery wet their pants at the moment of truth or your mechs/tanks/planes broke down. In naval situations this could be a dud shell or dud torpedo.Defender fires defense and makes withdrawals until they are dead or fully retreat.
Thoughts or ideas… or just poop can be slung at this.
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I"m looking at it more of a if attack has a couple auto retreats do to rolling a 12 then attacker has to decide if he’s going to retreat. The defender would not have the option of retreating. His pieces would only get to retreat if he rolls any 12’s.
Granted the defender will wish he rolled 12’s to save his troops in some battles.But want the rule to stay in place of defender can’t retreat if he decides too.
Still give the attacker some power from attacking.
Defender looks at it 2 ways. Some auto retreats will help block for next turn, reinforce another stack or attacker has to retreat do to to many auto retreats from his die rolls and defender wins the battle.Lets say attacking or defending 3 inf roll 3 D6’s and 3 D12’s for retreat. Rolls for D6 die rolls are 1,3,6 = 1 hit 2 misses. Rolls for D12 die rolls are 4,11,12 = 1 inf has to retreat.
Roll all 6 die at same time.
Ground troops can retreat to off shore transports next to territory. If no place for defenders to retreat to, they fight to the death.Have not tried the auto retreats with Naval units yet.
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Just to add a few comments to this discussion. In real life, what armies can and cannot do when they’re retreating is dictated by some of the general principles that govern ground warfare. (I’m leaving sea warfare and air warfare out of the picture for purposes of clarity.)
First: there’s the principle that an army can only fight to its front. Armies fight most effectively when the operate as a coordinated group, not as a bunch of individuals acting as they each see fit. From ancient times to (roughly) the era of short-range, unrifled, muzzle-loading firearms, this meant soldiers from one side disposing themselves in long lines facing towards the enemy troops, who were likewise disposed in long lines facing them. The two relevant points here is that the soldiers on each side are all doing the same thing (because as I’ve said armies function best as a coordinated group), and that they’re all facing the opposing forces (because soldiers, regardless of how they’re armed, can only use their weapon against people who are in front of them, which is why a military front is called a “front”). Things became more complicated when long-range rifled firearms arrived on the scene around the middle of the 19th century, and became even more complicated when the rate of fire of rifles became faster as breachloaders and then machine guns were developed. Those developments made massed infantry formations dangerously obsolete in many tactical situations – a point which WWI generals were surprisingly slow to grasp – but they didn’t alter the fact that the “front” concept was still applicable in land warfare. In WWII, the sheet size of the armies involved and the fact that some of them were mechanized to various degrees meant that “fronts” went from being tactical in scale to being strategic in scale. The classic example from WWII was the German-Russian conflict during the period from 1941 to roughly 1944: the zone of conflict was more or less linear, it stretched from northern to southern Europe, so it was quite appropriately called “the Eastern Front”.
Second: there’s the principle that defense tends to be stronger than attack because an attacking infantryman must (to put it simply) stand up and more into the open and expose himself to enemy fire in order to advance, whereas the defending infantryman can stay in his foxhole or crouch behind something or even lie on the ground while he’s pointing his weapon at the attackers. The attacker, in other words, is a physically larger target than the defender in terms of how much of his body is exposed to flying bullets, which is why there’s a rough rule of thumb saying that an attacker typically needs three times the numbers of the defender in order to take a position.
What does all this have to do with retreats? Because it all means that, generally speaking, an army can either fight or retreat but it can’t do both at the same time. At least not as a unified formation. The compromise method of having it both ways at the same time is for an army to divide itself into a covering force and a retreating force; this works to some extent, because it allows part of your army to escape, but the price to be paid is that the covering force will usually be annihilated. A good example is the Falaise campaign in France in 1944, in which the Germans were compressed into a pocket by the British to the north and the Americans to the west and to the south. The Germans formed a defensive perimeter and fought desperately to keep open the “Falaise gap” through which part of their army was trying to escape, while the Anglo-Americans were fighting just as desperately to link up in order to seal the gap – which they ultimately did, trapping and/or destroying the German forces that were still inside the pocket.
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So your kinda saying to scrap the whole idea ? There is lack of supplies, moral, leadership and so forth to this idea for certain pieces needing to retreat.
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I’m saying that the only realistic way I see of allowing an A&A ground force to retreat would be to split it into two groups, one of which – the covering force – would automatically face 100% destruction 100% of the time. The retreating force would be allowed to retreat, with two automatic guarantees: that parts of it would be guaranteed to succeed and that parts of it would be guaranteed to be destroyed, based on some sort of dice roll. Just to make up some figures off the top of my head, the odds could be that 25% of the force would be sure to escape, 25% would be sure to be destroyed, and the remaining 50% would randomly have a result ranging from complete success to complete failure – perhaps with the odds being plotted on a normal distribution that would be weighted towards the centre, so that most of the time rouyghly half of the 50% would escape and roughly half the 50% would not.
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I was responding to Piscolar who said that the defender has to declare before hand, and then retreat without returning fire that round. My point was ok, but then it would make this whole HR rule idea a mute point. It would be rare for someone to take lots of hits and retreat without killing anything back.
I think any HR changes need to be simple and straight forward not complicated.
I propose:1. Defender has to complete a minimum of 2 full rounds of combat. Then retreat or decide to stay another combat round. Not complicated stuff like (if an infantry rolls a 3 it can do this or only these types of units can retreat).
2. No partial retreats, all or nothing except 1 unit must remain behind to represent the rear guard action.
3. Territory retreated to must be owned by a friendly nation.
3. Retreat by sea zone to one space and land is an option also (no enemy warships present in loading/landing zones).I think this would change the game dynamics enough to add a different fun interest without too much complications.
CWO Marc, I’m not sure your point on the Falaise gap where the defeated Germany Army tried to stop a superior Army from trapping them. In 1941, Germany trapped many Russian Armies who desperately tried to escape a trap.
In theory, Armies can retreat systematically, by moving back at night or a lull in the fighting, setting up a rear guard defense, fighting a little bit, and then retreating again during another lull in the fighting. Mobile defense was pretty common in WW2. I see this explanation as similar to the game of the defender rolling hits back representing a hasty or deliberate defense and then performing more retrograde operations. Remember, this is all representational.
Fun debate over a HR I probably will never see on a real table top game.
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Ya I hear ya on what your saying. Also thought of having to have so many rounds of combat before retreats start or auto retreat only used on first round of combat.
Nice discussion. Later.
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I like my mechanism best. Attacker rolls a six that many defenders can retreat. They fire and casualties are counted for the attacker hits and defender hits. Defender can now retreat for each 6. Attacker can always retreat as usual. This continues until attacker wins or withdraws so the defender may have to stay in order to stop them or face even more people while they run.
We found this to be very simple. We have argued that this would be fun but no one has the nuts to try it in our group because you would have to completely rethink the whole battle plan.
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I have NEVER thought about this, but I fking love the idea!! You got my gears turning! Ill give my 2cent after some thought. Again, dude, I fking love it!
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Ichabod, I agree with you. In fact, prior to seeing your post I thought about the idea a bit more on a walk today and realized it either a) would never be used considering the strictness of the stipuations and b) Without the stipulations I didn’t like how it would affect gameplay. Imagine you’re trying to take out a fleet of transports or a battleship… they get away and you have to pursue them later, the latter one getting repaired? Ok, so units that can’t defend can’t escape… but now you’re getting complicated. Truth is so much of what makes an attack matter is timing, and there is an opportunity cost of an attacker not being able to utilize his units fully that turn. Next turn he may need that those fighters or those tanks for another target; not being able to resolve battles bogs down the game.
SeanCb’s idea is cleanest imo and has the potential to introduce the most fun dynamics with the least amount of complication. But still think I’m going to take this one off table (literally - ha).
Plus, as some of you have seen - I’m already overdoing it as it is. Feels good to say “no.” 8-)
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I like my mechanism best. Attacker rolls a six that many defenders can retreat. They fire and casualties are counted for the attacker hits and defender hits. Defender can now retreat for each 6. Attacker can always retreat as usual. This continues until attacker wins or withdraws so the defender may have to stay in order to stop them or face even more people while they run.
When attacker rolls a six is this roll just a separate die roll ? Defender can now retreat for each six. Are these rolls of sixes part of there Attackers attack roll ?
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