New Convoy raiding rules

[KillOFzee]

I was reading the new convoy disruption rules, and I don’t personally like the new changes. It was already hard enough to get 3 subs around England for an entire round of play, and that still only did max 8 damage. With these new changes, not only are you less likely to do 8 damage, you run the risk of wasting 18 IPCs only to do 4 or 5 IPCs worth of damage.

Maybe with the new SBR rules, I guess this makes Germany more inclined to bomb England. But overall, I just think it narrows the gameplay. What do you think?

[Alsch91]

My opinion on these changes are mixed - I like some parts and dislike others.  But I should clarify that stastically, subs will still do 2 points of damage on average in a given convoy zone.
Sure, sometimes they’ll do more and sometimes less.  But it evens out to 2 points per sub.
I don’t really care for carrier planes getting 2 roll, though.

[Young Grasshopper]

I really like what they have done for both the SBR and Convoy disruption rules. I played a game this Saturday with the latest modifications, and the overall changes made for a very interesting game. I was the allies, and I decided to play the Med very aggressive, so I went after Italy with everything I had to throw at them. By round 5, the UK controlled the entire med with a factory in Egypt and allied ships in SZ#97 (the Italians lost all their ships and aircraft with only $8 to spend). In that sea zone, I had a UK battleship, cruiser, and destroyer, a French Cruiser, and an American destroyer. All they did was Convoy disruptions for the remainder of the game, but in that particular sea zone, the ships could not only disrupt Italy for $8, but also Germany for $4 because they controlled Greece and Yugoslavia. The interesting thing was, under the old rules, my 5 ships would take only take a max $5 from a possible $8 and although there were two rounds where I rolled the max amount, there were a couple of rounds where I took less than the $5 I would have took for sure with the old rules. Also, I would have taken all $4 every round from Germany, but with the new rules, there was a round where I missed everything and took $0. In summary, the new rolling for disruption rules make things interesting in a lot of ways. Its possible to take more than you deserve, but you may come away with nothing. I like that you don’t have to send a huge American fleet into an empty zone #6, 4 subs with a couple of loaded carriers should do lots of damage. As for carrier based aircraft getting 2 dice for damage, why not? aircraft attacking merchant ships should be a sure hit.

[Alsch91]

Because Carriers were already just about the best purchase possible for a large naval buy.
Now there’s just more incentive to get them; a single loaded carrier will convoy as well as 2 subs now.  This is on top of their phenomonal combat use, especially on defense.
It’ll be tough to consider buying other surface vessels when carriers are so very superior now.

[cenator01]

@Alsch91:

Because Carriers were already just about the best purchase possible for a large naval buy.
Now there’s just more incentive to get them; a single loaded carrier will convoy as well as 2 subs now.  This is on top of their phenomonal combat use, especially on defense.
It’ll be tough to consider buying other surface vessels when carriers are so very superior now.

signed!

[special forces]

The carrier rule is interesting, but the whole dice-system makes everything unnecessarily complicated imho.

[Young Grasshopper]

@special:

The carrier rule is interesting, but the whole dice-system makes everything unnecessarily complicated imho.

I thought the same thing after reading it, but now that I have played it, it’s a lot easier than you think.

[cond1024]

I don’t like the new convoy rules, the extra rolling doesn’t add to the game IMO and their is nothing more frustrating than when your sub has survived long enough to conduct a raid and then rolls a 6 and 5 and you have nothing to show for it.  Go back to the OOB, thats my vote.

[Young Grasshopper]

Most of the units in this game have always involved rolling dice. In fact, the idea of giving units a fixed result without rolling dice, was out of wack with A&A game mechanics in the first place.

[knp7765]

I’m not so sure about the new convoy raiding rules.  It was kind of nice to have a set amount, something you could count on each round as long as your submarines or warships survived to attack the convoys.  However, the new system does present the possibility of getting much more damage per ship (6 per sub and 3 per warship) plus it lets carrier planes get involved too.  I will be interested to try them out in my next game and see how they work.