Jet Power – too powerful

[Bierwagen]

O.k. I just got done getting hammered by German Jet Power.  Admitted, I had some crappy rolling – but, Germany rolled Jet Power on it’s first turn in LITE.  I think they only lost 1 airframe the entire game.  The allies were in a constant state of retreat and couldn’t do any SBR because the sky was littered with Jets.

US sent Russia some money which also got them Jet Power on turn 1, but it never panned out.  I think the attack values are out of whack on this one.  Even OOB only gave them an increase in defense of 1 (e.g., increase 4) vs. 5.

As far as I recall German jets never went on the offensive in WWII, but helped out immensely in defense – so I always thought this made sense.

The way it is balanced now, Jet Power will be the first thing researched.  And with tech hitting on a 2 – there is no stopping the first power to get it.

At first I was overjoyed with the concept of air battles, but now I’m terrified of it’s awesome power.  Once air superiority starts hammering your limited combat capabilities with +1 to tanks it just becomes a full rout.  “Run away… run away”.

Perhaps the Air Supremacy bonus should be limited to a Combined Arms concept of INF + ART+ ARM + FTR in order to tone it down.  Even with that the Jet Power is too much of a hammer.  If it were indeed that awesome and available we’d all be speaking German right now.

Air power is dangerous enough without Jet Power.  What kind of results have you all ended up with in the past?

• Bierwagen

[Jennifer]

What version are you referring too?

Just to clarify, not saying you don’t know it already, just making sure we’re all on the same page.

Axis and Allies Revised rules stipulate that jets defend on a 5 and are immune to AA Gun fire, but other then that, you don’t get any other benefits to them.  You also still only have a 1 in 6 chance to get them per roll.

I agree, they can be a royal pain to kill off if you are attacking, but if you are on defense, and they negate AA fire which means your guns are no longer rudimentary shields for your stacks but rather liabilities because they can be captured and turned on your own fighters.

But I don’t see them too over powering really.  Perhaps if you gave us some more details we, as a community, could take a look and offer some advice on how to deal with them for you?

[Bierwagen]

Sure!

I’m referring to AARHE 4.0 & LITE.

Jet Plane:
Fighters and Bombers are immune to Infrastructure Defense fire. When only one side has jet air units at the beginning of combat cycle, jet air units have selective attack (except for Bomber). All targets are selected before rolling.

Unit    Move Attack Defense Dogfight
Fighter  4      4          5        4/4
Bomber  6      3          3        0/2

Once these beast took to the air, the game was quickly over.  Germany had around 10 fighters on the board to Russia’s 3 and US/UK can’t get planes to fight easily with “Stalinist Xenophobia”.

It is the dogfighting that just tears you up.  FTRs rolling 4s is a real hammer…

BTW:  Russia had spent 10 IPC and got Jet Power the same turn in hopes of counter it.

• Bierwagen

[Imperious Leader]

Ok here goes:

If Germany gets jet fighters early enough the game will favor them. This is the historical conclusion that we follow. However, after more playtesting we can easily add more tech boxes and essentially fix this. Thats all thats required.

The allies can also develop their own jet fighters and counter it.

also, note that jet fighters must be built!… when you get the tech you must also build dedicated fighters from scratch. This is not some stupid idea where like in revised: “poof” magically all your planes are instantly upgraded to jet fighters. This is most likely your playing it wrong and allowing all of German fighters to be converted. Again they must be built.

[Jennifer]

Well, if’n you boys don’t mind, since this is AARHE and I have no experience with that rule set as of yet, I’ll curtsy out of the conversation and let you manly fold take care of it. :P

[Bierwagen]

Yup!  That’s it.  We up-converted the existing fighters at the roll of the die.  It wasn’t clear that jets had to be built from scratch – good one.

Dang, this means I have to acquire more pieces after all.

I’m just too eager to try this game out and have run out of the chute half-cocked.  You all have obviously been working this one for a while and there is some backdrop that I’m not tuned into yet.

Thanks for the clarification IL, we’ll work this into the equation and attempt to solve the problem again.

• Bierwagen

[Imperious Leader]

yea i knew it was something like that.

Jets are like heavy tanks… you need to build them to get them. Tech is not enough. The reasoning is that it eliminates technology runs and wasting all your money to win the game for one huge tech result.

[tekkyy]

Wait you are mixing the two tech system.

[A]
LITE: $5 a die, hits on 1
AARHE: $5 a die, hits on a 2, tech boxes, free dice, cap on dice purchase
[/A]

[B.]
Note that Germany needs large ground force to make the most of a large Jet fleet. (Remember excess air units fight at 1, in both LITE and AARHE)

The current wording is that Jet plane is an upgrade. Heay Tanks and Self-Propelled Artillery are new units.
I want to see if you guys still find it a problem after considering the two points.

[tekkyy]

same discussion from the other thread
@Imperious:

oh wow. thats not how i played it. Otherwise Germany can build fighters and get all her planes instantly as jets?
thats really strong Tech….
Perhaps you can convert one fighter per turn or build a new fighter that will be a jet?

When we made the rule we tried to keep it simple in terms of extra game pieces and accounting.
But if it has to be differentiated then lets do it.

Cost per conversion?
Any free conversions and what should it depend on?
Or if it even realistic to convert? How many % of total cost is the engine?

[Imperious Leader]

no conversions, I think getting jet planes gets you one free prototype at no charge, with the rest you need to buy. I think from 8-10 ipc should be about right.

if this proves not good then i guess we need to go the conversion route which would represent your piston fighter squadrons being out fitted with a number of jet fighters rather than replaced. I prefer option 1

[Imperious Leader]

also what do you think about the night bombing concept?

no aa rolls
no air interception
SBR at 1/2 value

[tekkyy]

8-10 IPC?
as in you want Jet Planes to make fighters cheaper?

what about advanced submarines
have you been playing no conversion?

we gonna need so many game pieces

night bombing idea is difficult to get right, I’ll post in the other thread

[Imperious Leader]

8-10 IPC?
as in you want Jet Planes to make fighters cheaper?

what about advanced submarines
have you been playing no conversion?

we gonna need so many game pieces

this is easily solved… i can make .75 inch decals that you stick to a chip to indicate the plane is jet or super sub.

Techs are different… some like radar are easily installed, while heavy tanks, jets and rockets cant just replace your entire army with instant bitching equipment… it has to be built in every case.

[dezrtfish]

Her you go man, let me know if I can use my powers to help in any other way…

[Imperious Leader]

Besides avybody who is playing AARHE is gonna own the milton bradley version.

Thats another reason why we have those additional units to make the best use of the extra pieces from that game

The bomber is our transport plane

The battleship is our cruiser

The fighter is our naval fighter

The tank is mech infantry

The sub is our super sub

etc…

[Bierwagen]

As for the night bombing – I’m going to have to try it.  I was too afraid to fly any BMRs in for SBR because ID and 1 wave of responding air defense (e.g., FTR has a 50% of a shootdown!) just seems too daunting of a defense for the chance of 1 die of dmg.

Before there was always some math and odds that made sense when doing SBR (e.g., count on losing a BMR every 6th attempt) that made the risk acceptable – now, it just seems like suicide.

Once Germany got Jet Power my bombers basically sat still the whole game.

Did I interpret this wrong?

• Bierwagen

[Imperious Leader]

As for the night bombing – I’m going to have to try it.  I was too afraid to fly any BMRs in for SBR because ID and 1 wave of responding air defense (e.g., FTR has a 50% of a shootdown!) just seems too daunting of a defense for the chance of 1 die of dmg.

Before there was always some math and odds that made sense when doing SBR (e.g., count on losing a BMR every 6th attempt) that made the risk acceptable – now, it just seems like suicide.

Once Germany got Jet Power my bombers basically sat still the whole game.

Did I interpret this wrong?

Well for one you need to build up the air forces and create an arms race with air forces. The allies naturally have an advantage in this because they have more IPC.

Bombers doing SBR roll one die if they get a 6 only , then they roll another die. If they get a 6 the bomber is destroyed and 4-5 the bomber have to go back home and does not deliver its bombs. So basically its a 1/36 chance with one plane increasing to 1/18,1/12 etc…

well we have jet bombers in the game ( see optional pieces)

[tekkyy]

I’ll leave the drafting of night bombing rule to the other thread

so how are we doing with the conversion thing?
so is it going to be no Jet conversion allowed?

[Imperious Leader]

Well in my games Jet power came up twice. Both times we figured automatically it was a item you had to build. Its not like you built 10 fighters in the past turns and get Jet power and all of a sudden you got 10 fighters attacking at 4 and defending at 5 and bypassing bombers.

I say you get one free conversion, and the rest you need to build, perhaps at cheaper cost … say 8?

This would represent the He-162 salamander “peoples fighter”

[tekkyy]

well He-262 idea is too specific and has more merits as a National Advantage

without other reasoning coming to mind we’ll merely change it to only new fighters and bombers get the new Jet combat values