Declaring Casualties

[wwestpro]

While playing yesterday a buddy and I had just finished the first round of combat for a naval battle and we began removing our casualties before the second round. I saw him take his destroyer off so I decided to keep my sub instead of another piece. Just before rolling for the second round he noticed I’d get pre-emptive and adjusted his casualties to leave a destroyer. A back and forth ensued and we didn’t know how to resolve it.

So my question is, who removes casualties first so there isn’t this “oh I changed my mind based on what you lost”?

[MarshmallowofWar]

The attacker rolls for attacking units. The defender designates casualties after the attacker concludes rolls, and then the defender rolls for all units (including those declared as casualties). Once the defender finishes rolling defense, the attack designates casualties for the defender’s hits.

Then the attacker decides whether or not to continue or retreat. If the attack is an amphibious assault, ground units landed amphibiously may not retreat.

There is no changing your mind once you’ve designated casualties.

Marsh

[simon33]

The main exception to the above is sub surprise strikes which go before other rolls. If the defender is the only one with a surprise strike, they can roll first. If both have a surprise strike, attacker then defender, then other attacker rolls etc.

The only other exception is bombardment casualties which are also theoretically chosen before other attacker rolls although I don’t generally play that rule in live play and just add another dice to the main attack.

[Young Grasshopper]

Most of my YouTube videos show myself and my gaming group members taking defending and attacking casualties off the battle board at the same time. This is incorrect and the above comments by MOW, and Simon33 detail the proper way to conduct the resolve combat phase… I apologize that my videos have been misguiding in this regard.

[baron Münchhausen]

IMO, it would be more fair if all hits from attacker and defender are known before taking defenders casualty then attacker.

[taamvan]

It seems pretty fair;  you have to commit to what is going to die before you see how you do on the retaliation.  That usually means avoiding losing your destroyer or tipping a carrier until later in the battle;  forcing you to take these casualties without gaining another piece of information (your defensive performance) seems like a great idea.

Its the exact same as buying your units; you are not allowed to purchase units and then see how you do and what dies and lives and revise that buy to make up for what was lost or not gained by luck.  Same in each round of combat;  you don’t get to know how you perform before you are forced to choose what dies.  Usually, its losing a DD at the wrong time.  Without this rule, subs would be slightly weaker because as it is; they force that choice on the defender.

[ScottishOne]

@ShadowHAwk:

@taamvan:

It seems pretty fair;  you have to commit to what is going to die before you see how you do on the retaliation.   That usually means avoiding losing your destroyer or tipping a carrier until later in the battle;  forcing you to take these casualties without gaining another piece of information (your defensive performance) seems like a great idea.

Its the exact same as buying your units; you are not allowed to purchase units and then see how you do and what dies and lives and revise that buy to make up for what was lost or not gained by luck.   Same in each round of combat;  you don’t get to know how you perform before you are forced to choose what dies.  Usually, its losing a DD at the wrong time.   Without this rule, subs would be slightly weaker because as it is; they force that choice on the defender.

This favors the attacker pretty heavy as they know what they did before they take hits where the defender does not know the result of the roll.
Normaly we play that we first roll the battles and then remove the casualties, defender first then attacker if it makes a difference.
Just makes defending a bit better currelty the attacker has all the advantages.

If done right, attackers should have the advantage, they get to pick the when and where. If the odds aren’t favorable for an attack then they can choose not to attack in the first place. That’s why defense in depth is such a crucial strategy in the real world. Defenders do have some things going for them, it’s cheaper to build a defensive force then an offensive one. Usually you need to have around 1.4-1.5 times more/better units to be able to have good odds of winning a battle. You often have a decision to make in regards to scrambling/kamikazing which forces your opponent to account for the potential that you might do something. This can lead to the attacker diffusing his attack power all on his own.

Lastly whatever advantage or disadvantage a player (nation) might have, the roles will oftentimes switch in the near future.

[ausf]

You guys are too nice.  8-)

At our table, when the attacker rolls, he usually stands over the defender taunting him as he removes pieces. Then the defender retaliates, usually with equal trash talk.

‘Better take that plane off, you need that infantry to hold if any survive the next wave’

‘Flip that carrier and the planes are stuck (or dead)’.

[General 6 Stars]

@Marshmallow:

The attacker rolls for attacking units. The defender designates casualties after the attacker concludes rolls, and then the defender rolls for all units (including those declared as casualties). Once the defender finishes rolling defense, the attack designates casualties for the defender’s hits.

Then the attacker decides whether or not to continue or retreat. If the attack is an amphibious assault, ground units landed amphibiously may not retreat.

There is no changing your mind once you’ve designated casualties.

Marsh

This is the way we do it.

@ausf:

You guys are too nice.  8-)

At our table, when the attacker rolls, he usually stands over the defender taunting him as he removes pieces. Then the defender retaliates, usually with equal trash talk.

‘Better take that plane off, you need that infantry to hold if any survive the next wave’

‘Flip that carrier and the planes are stuck (or dead)’.

Child’s Play. I be saying * Yo, go away, your in my way * or * You need to get back to your side of battle board now *

[seancb]

We subscribe to what would be a common “house rule”? Everybody rolls their dice attacker/defender then each side picks casualties at the same time. I’m sure this is wrong as stated here but it makes the game better if you don’t always get shafted on combat.

[ausf]

@SS:

Child’s Play. I be saying * Yo, go away, your in my way * or * You need to get back to your side of battle board now *

We have fun. We trash talk the whole time. Whether it’s A&A, Bismarck, Feudal, Midway, Risk, Skull, etc. It’s part of the play, get in the other guy’s head.

We don’t think we’re Marshall, Stalin, Hitler or Churchill. In my house, we’re bozos playing a game. Yes it is Child’s play. That’s the point.  8-)

[taamvan]

It does give the Attacker an advantage; but that’s not the reason for the rule in my opinion.  The rule is set up that way to force you to lose cruisers before destroyers and carriers before planes (or vice versa depending on the situation).  If you can’t knock down his DD cover, its better to lose your subs as casualties (attacker).  If you can knock that DD down, then keeping the “cheap” subs is a good idea.

It is one of the few examples where the combat rules force you to be forward looking from round to round and make hard choices that affect the special rules.  It makes the sub/destroyer rule more interesting, and DD’s more valuable.

And I’ll tell you from experience, the rule changes outcome.  There were multiple times in the last tourney that I kept a sub which could have been lost in these battles (instead of leaving a Cruiser and DD behind on the surface) and killed a cruiser, and 2 tipped BBs.

If you leave surface ships alive, they can be attacked by anything.  If you only leave subs alive, they can only be attacked by destroyers.

If you tip carriers, you have to lose planes in kind, so it makes  the carrier tipping rule much harder to game and that part actually favors the defender.  If you take exactly 3 (anywhere) hits, you can tip a carrier and lose 2 planes.  But if you did not know at the time whether you were about to take 0, 2, 4, 5, 6 or exactly 3 casualties, you couldn’t so neatly adsorb them as the attacker.

This is why the rule is flavorful in my opinion.

[wwestpro]

Thank you all for the responses.  As always, such a helpful community!

[General 6 Stars]

:-D :wink:

[Kreuzfeld]

This rule is just one element in combat, this rule helps the attacker. A rule that helps the attacker alot more than this rule is the rule of allowing only the attacker to retreat. if the defender could retreat, this would have been a completly different boardgame.

A rule that helps the defender is : unit stats, especially on land.

[taamvan]

You make a good point sir.

Nonetheless, I feel that the rule forces some calculated decisions, asks you to remove higher value pieces before “lower” value pieces, and that knowledge of the precise rules is a benefit when making the decision, thus it still encourages the kind of gameplay you want the game to have.  Normally AxA would be a “cheapest first, all the way up to most valuable” order of casualties game, but all sorts of (added) rules, such as infantry being cheap but easiest to load on a transport, might make you decide to lose a more expensive or valuable piece first in order to keep a piece that is valuable in that immediate situation or for some other reason.

That’s why the Global edition is so cool, is that the pieces don’t always feel like beefed up versions of one another all the way up the chart, they are all different and useful in various situations.  But as you point out, that is due to special rules that have accumulated over time, not a calculated choice.

Since various teams are the attacker at different times, the rules isn’t biased.  And also I might argue, that there NEEDS to be a subtle advantage to attacking overall (in addition to the retreat chance), so that the game doesn’t devolve into a stackfest of slow, plodding movement and defensive building up.

[Kreuzfeld]

The point of who it helps is not really a big concern in my opinion. At least not in a game as big as G40. If They made the rules to make the defender the strongest, then the two forces would be standing right next to each other. if they made the rules so that the attacker is the strongest, then the two forces would deadzone each other.

there are so many rules and effects that help the attacker or defender, Order or casualties is probably one of the least important. More important include: unit stats, planes cannot land on taken terretory, planes needs carriers or airbases to defend a seazone, retreating gives you an extra round of production in your stack while removing one from your enemy, taking a capitol gives you all of the money, etc…