Larry's new tank rules for Global 1940 Alpha Beta

[Shakespeare]

This is all such a joke now!

[calvinhobbesliker]

IL, you forgot 3-3-2-5 for Revised

[Cow]

I don’t like it. I’d rather go back to classic tanks.

[ll Duce]

Sorry… but NO.  It’s one thing to try and balance the game with setups and NOs etc… this is ridiculous.  Even if/when +2 goes legal, I will never be using this change, it’s dumb.  At 6 points now there’s absolutely no reason to take tanks, because once you take a territory you defend it less?  I don’t think so.

[knp7765]

I thought the reason that the cost for tanks rose to six was BECAUSE the defense factor rose from 2 to 3, making them a more powerful yet more costly unit to buy.  If you are going to lose that more powerful defense, then you ought to lose the higher price as well.
Also, making tanks pair up with infantry for a stronger defense seems kind of silly to me.  All units need to keep straight values for defense.  Units only support other units in attack.

[Kobu]

I posted some musings on Larry’s board. Summarizing, I’d say:

1. The cost of 6 is too much now. I thought 6 was just right with all that tanks currently are.

1a. I still don’t think I’ll buy any more mech inf. Probably less tanks now too in favor of just more inf/art.

1b. Mech inf ought to get an attack bonus with tanks also. Then I could start thinking about buying them with tanks.

2. Germany is going to get screwed in the current setup. It still has a lot of territory to cover, but now it’s got less on defense after it commits to an attack or tries to outmaneuver Russia.

3. Now the good(?)–odds will favor the attacker a bit more in some situations. If you can get through an inf screen, you can can get further into the remaining tanks. This may work to get rid of some of the large stack standoff situation.

@knp7765:

h infantry for a stronger defense seems kind of silly to me.  All units need to keep straight values for defense.  Units only support other units in attack.

Why? I don’t see any issues with units supporting others on defense from a simulation or game perspective.

[ll Duce]

I guess Larry is basing the reduction on the idea that Tanks as defensive ‘pillboxes’ are at risk to infantry with grenades getting in close and such.  The problem is… he is dangerously close to tipping the game away from a fun time to a experience in rules lawyer-ing and too much ‘realism’.  It seriously hurts Germany just when Alpha +2 is approaching balance.  There is NO reason to buy tanks with this rule.  Why would I spend 36 IPCs to get 6 units (for example) that now defend weaker when I can spend 21 and get the same defense that still do decent on attack?

[94Canuck]

Must say I do not care for this change.  It wouldn’t be the first time a suggestion has been made that didn’t make it into an official rule change after further thought.  Wait and see I guess.

[Hellmet]

@Shakespeare:

This is all such a joke now!

I agree!  We (battle group of five experienced players) have played both Global and Europe with the Alpha +2 Rules and have found them to be quite biased, except for the first few rounds, towards the Allies (the Allied states winners have gotten their way).  With very few exceptions we have found that the unit setups are adequate for the most part but all the rest of the stuff, NOs, SBRs, special Rules, etc., either force you into a specific strategy or are so complicated as to make the game slow and uninteresting.  Our next game we are going to scrap all NOs, use the setup changes, and apply a few of the special Rules (Scramble, AA gun cost, and a few others) just to see if we can’t make the game a little more user friendly and faster.  We will most likey add a FEW NOs as we go.  For all you that want to disagree with this, that’s fine, but each group plays a little differently and you can’t ‘balance’ a game for everyone and all player groups.  IMHO, just generate a somewhat balanced unit setup for a variety of scenarios and let House Rules balance the game for each different group of players.  I’ll now shutup.  :-)

[Dark_Destroyer]

Wow really?  Nobody has even been complaining about tanks being op.  6 IPC is a hefty number to be buying mass stacks of.  No reason to change this, you might as well buy fighters instead of tanks with this change, same attack 2 more defense and a lot more move for 4 more ipc.  Germany would never see a tank again… and that is not how history was.  :|

[The Fire Knight]

Just a thought guys. But from what i’ve heard Larry and his “team” of play testers were rushed in creating this game and didn’t have near enough time to play test it. Yes, this is bs and i don’t particularly like being a guinea pig, but try and think of it as if we are once again “waiting for G40 to come out”. And each alpha addition is like a preview. If you just don’t like change then that’s fine. Go and play classic. But honestly this is a really minor change. In all reality alpha 2 or its successors is the final. OOB is the rough draft. If you like playing rough drafts then that’s your choice. And really you aren’t even playing that. Since we normally don’t buy a rough draft you’re in fact making up your own game now. Alpha 2 is the game. And i would also just like to add that this affects me almost none. If you buy big tank stacks that defend by themselves then you suck anyways. That’s just the truth (and if it works for you then your opponents suck). But i do understand the historical argument and the nitpicky thing. There are a lot more things that Larry could choose to insert history into, and this does seems really random.

[jsp4563]

I’ve been ok with most of the changes, except maybe the new turn order which really slows down game play.  But IMHO the new tank rule sucks, at 6ipc it was an agonizing choice, but at 2 defence, we probably won’t see many tanks.

[saint1012]

I cannot stand this change…

This seems to have come out of nowhere. I read this on Larry’s site and was left thinking, “What the hell?”

[Imperious Leader]

Guys just don’t use it. Their is no need to follow the daily changes of rules until everything is settled. Once they publish a proper document it might be smarter to just keep it as you played it because it might just change back.  Personally, i think somebody convinced Larry to make this rule up and because it worked out in a small sample playtest, Then he decided to make it a new rule. But as you know, the playtest for Global was nothing less than a joke for such a large undertaking, it may be borne out that this too was a mistake and the rule will change back like it did the other 3-4 times just with tanks.

[saint1012]

Yeah, I don’t intend to use this new rule right now. I am just disappointed with the direction taken.

[Idi Amin]

I’m holding out for the 3 hit battleship. C’mon Yamato!!!

[Imperious Leader]

If the solution is to “just not play with it” why are people even here if they are just supposed to play with whatever rules they feel like?

Because thats how Alpha was created. The OOB was busted and by committee people provided input to form the new setup and rules. The result of the input created what we have now, so it stands to reason that to not play with these changes will influence the rule change back.

Before Revised came out people didn’t like 3-2-5 tanks either. They like 3-2-6 tanks even less. :roll:

[trackmagic]

I kind of like this rule in a way because tanks normally do not fair too well when they get ambushed by AT infantry. The only thing I don’t like about it is that I agree this hurts the axis more than the allies because normally the Soviets use tanks for counterattacks and not for defense. Germans attack with tanks and then the tanks have to hold the territory.

You will either need to slow down the German advance to keep infantry paired with tanks or by quite a bit more mech infantry to keep up with the armor.

If this rule is implemented I would like to see infantry movement increased to 2 if paired 1:1 with mech infantry OR SOMETHING like that to help the axis out.

[SgtBlitz]

LOL, this is the latest rule change incarnation to come out of Larry’s bullplop 1940 game???

What garbage reasons are they giving for the armor’s defense value to be reduced to 2???  “Tanks are only better offensively used in combat?”  What tank DIDN’T take part in local counteroffensives during the war, for chr*st’s sake?  Are stacks of tanks moved into recently conquered territories during NCM just too OP right now?  You even increased the cost of tanks to 6 in the first place to compensate, too!  What was so wrong about them being 3/3/2 5 IPCs in AA50?  “We’ve only just now realized that having a land unit with a defense value of 3 is just too powerful…”  Right…

OH MY GOD, this is ANOTHER balancing issue, right?  You’re taking away Germany’s main ability to defend its piles of infantry in Russia by adding this stupid change, and making it easier for Russia to counterattack, right!?!  WHAT A SCAM.  What a half-assed fix!  I look forward to the historical accuracy of this game when I take Moscow with 23 FIG 15 TAC and 35 MECH, all sacrificed in the name of “game balance”.

[Imperious Leader]

I kind of like this rule in a way because tanks normally do not fair too well when they get ambushed by AT infantry.

But this is not the norm, it is an exception. The most often thing should be represented and not some surprise well dug in prepared defense. 95% of the time the tanks roll over infantry. If somehow infantry are stronger than tanks in WW2 in most situations, then something is terribly wrong and the offensives would be spearheaded by infantry with tanks mopping up the easy stuff.