AARHE: National Units (Phase 1)

[theduke]

I’m saying I don’t know what bombers you are referring to… the bomber unit on the game board or the dive bombers that were used in blitzkrieg tactics.

[tekkyy]

I meant the bomber piece on the game board

I see now, only dive bombers take part in blitzkrieg

[Imperious Leader]

German Blitzkreig: these units get a +1 combat modifier against enemy ground units in every round where no enemy fighters are present. They also give one armor unit a +1 attack with each paired unit at a 1/1 basis.

Yep you’ve had displayed this rule before, good to have to eliminate enemy fighers first.

OK ill explain how it could work… under the land combat system… air fights air and land fights land… once one side has “cleared the sky” after any combat round… they ( lets use the germans in our example) get this advantage as a matter of course due to the revolutionary concept of Blitzkreig. Specialized planes (dive bombers… skuka) worked well with advancing armor columns and took out the enemy armor and other strong points to allow the classic breakthru. This was clearly a german concept for war with the mind set of quick victories and a method of getting them. Armor gets a +1 because the divebombers are destroying and assisting the armor to accomplish this task. The benifit has to be rewarded with this bonus… so the germans will commit their armor ( a risk that they acknowledge fully)… i dont want to reward germany to use infantry… we allready have this with artillery giving the bonus to infantry, now planes give the bonus to armor… does this make any sense?

Duke writes:

“Well, I guess it’s clear, but not realistic. What does blitzkreig have to do with attack modifier? The OOB blitz rules were more realisitc in that if you atack for 1 round only, then you can attack again with armor. I think if we just include fighters to that also, we’d have a simple, realistic advantage.”

IN OOB your armor does not attack and attack again…But i do favor something like this in my games ( which have many more territories) in our project something like a “Breakthrough and exploitation” phase would not work because their are too few territories IMO.

[tekkyy]

Trust Imperious Leader to come up with solutions.
He has many games behind him.

Its probably true that our territories are too big for that.

[Imperious Leader]

There is a level of abstaction with respect to time and place that are key ingredients when assigning rules that may interfere with the established “unit” of scale. So some rules may be more complex or less abstracted but as long as they conform to the time and scale of the game they can be made to work.

[tekkyy]

So we are pretty much good with it? 1 National Unit and 1 National Attack/Defense.

[Imperious Leader]

Yea id go for that.

[tekkyy]

To sum up, round up, clean up, finish off…
I understand there is still strong debating on UK’s national unit.

National Units

USSR = Once per turn, 2 ARM can be puchased and placed in Moscow for 8 IPC.
Germany = Once per turn per IC, 1 SS can be purchased and placed there for 6 IPCs provided no surface naval units are purchased there.
UK = FTRs can be purchased and placed in London for 8 IPC each provided at least one FTR was purchased last turn.
Japan = Once per turn, 3 INF can be purchased and placed in Japan for 7 IPC.
US = Once per turn per IC, 1 CV can be purchased and placed there for 14 IPC.

National Attack

USSR = ARM fire in the opening fire instead of main round in the first cycle of combat.
Germany = FTR get +1 attack modifier and each gives 1 ARM +1 attack modifier when enemy FTR are not present.
UK = UK FTR defending in UK get +1 defense modifier.
Japan = Japan may declare no retreat at the beginning of combat, all INF gets +1 attack/defense modifier provided Japanese side consists of only INF.
US = INF gets +1 attack modifier in the fire cycle of combat of amphibious assault.

[theduke]

Does SS stand for sub??

There’s a lot more that I personally debate with than just UK unit.

Why does Russia have strong tanks? Their tanks weren’t stronger, just much cheaper when mass produced. Give Russia Katyusha Rockets. More rockets but less accurate and used together to create shock effect. So we could somehow let the advantage be better the more rtl there are in a single battle (ideas?). Since they were important more in the star of the battle than the end, we could have it so they roll 3 1’s in the first round of an attack (include advantage on defense?).

I’m still not on board with the other attack advantages.

[Imperious Leader]

1)Yes SS is submarine.

2)“Why does Russia have strong tanks? Their tanks weren’t stronger, just much cheaper when mass produced.”
I would think the idea is not actually “strong” tanks but 2 things: 1) at the start of the campaign till about a year later the t-34 was the best all-around tank and it achieved superiority. 2) The tank also represents self propelled artillery ( su-122, su-155, etc) these things were very efficient as tank destroyers and i think thats what hes driving at 3) the katyushkas are also in this equation… but they were not the “icon” of the Soviet armor strike… but all three are embodied into the NA.

I think when we introduce the new units … somewhere a Soviet Rocket ( katyuskas) may be part of this… another use for the AA gun.

The list is very close but not exact he was tidying up the current situation… BTW where are we with Neutrals?

[tekkyy]

Yeah we haven’t defined clearly what the ARM or ART piece represents. It just because the ART piece looks like little infantry-pushed guns to me.

So these are some of the conflicts:

USSR attack: ARM opening fire (IL), or +1 modifier ART (theduke) ?
UK unit: FTR, or cheaper DD (theduke), or modern BB (IL) ?
US attack: toss up between marine and mech infantry?

[theduke]

I’ll try to avoid +1 modifiers whenever possible so I wouldn’t nec. say  I’m for +1 rtl.

I’m not totally attached to DDs. I like spitfires also. I just don’t want unit for UK and Japan to both be fighters.

I like marines better than mech infantry.

I don’t like a nation’s unit and attack to benefit the same unit. example: russia with tanks. key is to diversify advantages to stimulate variety of purchases whenever possible.

[tekkyy]

@theduke:

I’ll try to avoid +1 modifiers whenever possible so I wouldn’t nec. say  I’m for +1 rtl.

So what do you prefer? You want Katyuskas rockets right?

I’m not totally attached to DDs. I like spitfires also. I just don’t want unit for UK and Japan to both be fighters.

Thats fine then. Japan is infantry at the moment.

I like marines better than mech infantry.

Thats fine too then.

I don’t like a nation’s unit and attack to benefit the same unit. example: russia with tanks. key is to diversify advantages to stimulate variety of purchases whenever possible.

So Germany and US is fine for that.
Russia is both on ARM. UK is both on FTR. Japan is both on INF.

Actually for UK attack…what is it about Spitfire historically? dogfighting? bombing? patriotic defending London?

[theduke]

As of now I prefer rockets for Russia, but we’ll have to redo how it’s presented so it has more of an attack advantage feel to it, if you know what I mean. IMO rockets are the best idea we have yet.

We will continue to disagree about allowing the nation’s unit advantage and attack advantage to apply to the same unit/s. I put in my 2 cents, that’s all I can do.

I really like the idea of limiting Russia’s adv. to 2 arm per turn, Germany’s to 1 cheap sub per IC where no surface unit is built, and UK’s to 1 cheap fighter in London per turn. For japan, i think inf is the best cheap unit. i think allowing 1 to defend at 3 for every yellow territory is a good idea.

From wikipedia on spitfire:
Another contemporary, the German Luftwaffe’s Messerschmitt Bf 109, was similar in attributes and performance to the Spitfire. Some advantages helped the Spitfires win many dog fights, with maneuverability the attribute most often quoted. Good cockpit visibility was probably a greater factor, as these early Bf 109s had narrow, paneled heavily framed cockpit windows. Where possible, Spitfires were assigned the task of taking on the Bf 109Es, while the Hurricanes intercepted the bombers. Nonetheless, seven of every ten German planes destroyed during the Battle of Britain were shot down by Hurricane pilots.

Even though the Hurricane seemed to perform better, for some reason the Spitfire is the symbol of the British resistance in the Battle of Britain and is better well known. This might be because the spitfire is the ‘most beautiful’ plane ever made.

[Imperious Leader]

OK then lets do those Katyuskas as the Soviet since you went with Jap infantry and the defend at 3 thing. Thats good. Teckky make the record to reflect this and now we can move on. What is the current state with neutrals? WE only need this to finish Phase one! lets get a move on.

[tekkyy]

Changes highlighted in bold.

Ok so UK is 1 cheap FTR only.

We actually haven’t said how to model Katiuskas rockets. As far as I know they are for saturation bombing and is mainly defastating to infantry. They are highly mobile.

The 1 infantry thing for Japan is weak compared to others. It is also defensive (modelling dug-in but not banzai).

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National Units

USSR = Once per turn, 2 ARM can be puchased and placed in Moscow for 8 IPC.
Germany = Once per turn per IC, 1 SS can be purchased and placed there for 6 IPCs provided no surface naval units are purchased there.
UK = Once per turn, 1 FTR can be purchased and placed in London for 8 IPC.
Japan = Once per turn, 3 INF can be purchased and placed in Japan for 7 IPC.
US = Once per turn per IC, 1 CV can be purchased and placed there for 14 IPC.

National Attack

USSR = ART hits on 3 and fire in opening-fire instead of main-round, for first cycle of combat only.
Germany = FTR get +1 attack modifier and each gives 1 ARM +1 attack modifier when enemy FTR are not present.
UK = FTR defending in UK get +1 defense modifier.
Japan = 1 in 3 INF defending in yellow territories gets +1 defense modifier, assigned at beginning of combat.
US = INF gets +1 attack modifier in the first cycle of combat of amphibious assault.

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Analysis of national attack:
USSR: 100% ART 16% once per combat (100%) =
Germany: 100% FTR 16%(+16%) when no enemy FTR (25-50%) =
UK: 100% FTR 16% in London (10%) =
Japan: 33% INF 16% in yellow (50%) =
US: 100% INF 16% once per amphibious combat (20%) =

But its not important. Should talk about balance in overall game not individual rule. Individual rules are for realistic historic modelling.

[theduke]

I think we still need some modifications to the national attack. As with the Russian tanks, I don’t think the the national unit and national attack should apply to he same unit/s. This is why I don’t think Japanese inf should be the unit and the attack. It’s effectively just double ‘counting’ for that warrior code advantage no matter how it’s justified. I still like kamikazes best even if that means they have to be redefined from what they are now.

Minor point, but we need to be sure to change London to UK in order to be consistent between capital and territory.

I think it’s important that the national units only apply to costs, defense and/or movement and not apply to attack in order to clarify its distinction with national attack advantages. This distinguishes Japanese Warrior Code (defense +1) from kamikazes (suicidal attack).

I also think it’s important how we present this set of rules to minimize the debate between other players that we went through while designing the rules. I think we should define the national units to symbolize that nation’s military production strength. By defining it as such I think people will agree that the units should be the Russian t-34, German type vii u-boats, UK spitfires, Japanese infantry, and US CVs. Some could argue that German Tiger tanks might also symbolize Germany’s strength, but since they don’t symbolize productive strength as well, the type vii subs are a better candidate.

[tekkyy]

@theduke:

As with the Russian tanks, I don’t think the the national unit and national attack should apply to he same unit/s.

Thats done. Russia is currently tank unit and artillery attack.
I pull the attack rule ot of no where and is keen on hearing how you think we can model Katyuskas rockets.

This is why I don’t think Japanese inf should be the unit and the attack. It’s effectively just double ‘counting’ for that warrior code advantage no matter how it’s justified. I still like kamikazes best even if that means they have to be redefined from what they are now.

Yeah but IL was saying Kamikaze was only used when Japan was desperate. Hence the argument that it shouldn’t be standard. I actually like the no-retreat Banzai attack/defense thing more. Was that used before Japan started losing? But if attack shouldn’t be infantry as well then for Japanese attack then we can look at modelling Japan’s Navy?
Bing! Didn’t IL wanted Lance torpedo?

Minor point, but we need to be sure to change London to UK in order to be consistent between capital and territory.

Yep it shall be United Kingdom, Russia and Japan respectively.

I think it’s important that the national units only apply to costs, defense and/or movement and not apply to attack in order to clarify its distinction with national attack advantages.

Thats done.

I think we should define the national units to symbolize that nation’s military production strength. By defining it as such I think people will agree that the units should be the Russian t-34, German type vii u-boats, UK spitfires, Japanese infantry, and US CVs.

Thats done.

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National Units

USSR = Once per turn, 2 ARM can be puchased and placed in Russia for 8 IPC.
Germany = Once per turn per IC, 1 SS can be purchased and placed there for 6 IPCs provided no surface naval units are purchased there.
UK = Once per turn, 1 FTR can be purchased and placed in United Kingdom for 8 IPC.
Japan = Once per turn, 3 INF can be purchased and placed in Japan for 7 IPC.
US = Once per turn per IC, 1 CV can be purchased and placed there for 14 IPC.

National Attack

USSR = ART hits on 3 and fire in opening-fire instead of main-round, for first cycle of combat only.
Germany = FTR get +1 attack modifier and each gives 1 ARM +1 attack modifier when enemy FTR are not present.
UK = FTR defending in UK get +1 defense modifier.
Japan = DD fire in the opening-fire instead of main-round,for first cycle of combat only.
US = INF gets +1 attack modifier in the first cycle of combat of amphibious assault.

[Imperious Leader]

On the Japanese Destroyers… why? Lance torpedo is a naval fighter weapon… so how bout Japanese planes get a +1 modifier against warships in the opening round of combat… or all rounds?

[theduke]

What’s more well known, even among people who don’t know history that well? Kamikazes, banzai infantry or lance torpedoes. I think we can all agree it’s kamikazes. I think people will be more likely to raise a fuss if we omit kamikazes rather than lance torpedoes.
We can always modify kamikaze rules to portray any additional ideas we want to include, like Japan being desparate.