Heavy Bombers - FAQ change and other options

@squirecam said in Anniversary Errata Optional Rule: Escorts and Interceptors:

@the_good_captain said in Anniversary Errata Optional Rule: Escorts and Interceptors:

@cernel I played three games against forum members that made a point to do this as Germany while I was the allies. After the final repetition and significant impact from the aforementioned, I had to insist on Escorts and Interceptors.

I consider it less significant than the USA bomber strategy but I’m confident enough to make it an axiom of my own axis strategy …and share it in a video, obviously.

The escort and interceptor rule is required for a fair game IMHO. Moreover, no bombing strategy succeeded in eliminating a country’s ability to build tanks and weapons during ww2, and certainly not without getting through fighter screens first.

This answered my question krieghund.

@taamvan said in Anniversary 2017 Reprint - rule changes?:

The reprint could have re-organized the setup charts, which are not very rationally laid out and appear to just wander around the area and put the units in a different order in each list. In the better organized versions, the lists are alphabetical, or some snake around the land then the sea–but it would be more rational to have some uniformity to that, rather than just a messy list without any rhyme or reason.

As to the tournament rules, the game is VASTLY different in that setting than OOB. The NOs add a ton of money, the tech adds a lot of randomness. I think the tech favors the allies because they are well-positioned to invest in that starting on turn 1, and would probably make better use of most of the random outcomes than the Axis.

I find both games to be quite imbalanced, towards the Allies. There are no other maps where fighters can fly in one move from US to London, then from London unblockably to Moscow (over the top, 4 moves). There are more layers of buffer territories for moscow–almost as many territories in the “maze” as global. In the 42 scenario, the Germans just punch themselves out really quickly trying to fight in the russian maze. And the 5$ tanks are a big boon for Russia because it can fight Germany on even terms. You might argue that goes both ways, but in most of our 41 and 42 games, Germany has to buy DEFENSIVELY, all game–not just $5 tanks. The Allies have easy choices of what to buy–tanks for russia and fighters for the other two powers, until Russia is absolutely untakable. India without a factory is a lost cause. Both setups are an easy 5-turn KGF, OOB.

In the tourney, its a 6 turn game with less than a 6 bid for either side. The Allies won 1-2 more games than the Axis did, in 2018, under these parameters. I think the only way this is possible is for the Axis to grab Sydney, India, Karelia, and then hold those, plus the original Axis cities. They can lose 1 and still win a tie, I believe.

Not having watched the invitational games in detail, that’s the only conclusion I can draw from the available data.

This is an odd reply to a question about the rules being reprinted…

On page 5

Shouldn’t “fighter” be replaced with “cruiser” in the first line of the answer. The defender has a sub and cruiser, the attacker has the fighter.

Q. Assume there’s a sea zone that contains an enemy sub and cruiser, and that I attack it with a destroyer and a fighter. If the defender scores two hits in the first combat round, can I take the hit from the cruiser on my destroyer, saving my fighter, since the sub can’t hit it?
A. No. Because you have a destroyer, the defender’s sub rolls in Step 4 along with his or her fighter cruiser. Since both defending units roll in the same combat step and all dice are rolled in a step before applying casualties, the two hits are applied together. Therefore, you must apply both hits if possible. The only way to apply both hits is to take the cruiser hit on the fighter and the sub hit on the destroyer.

After further consideration I no longer feel the fighter escort/interceptor rule needs any fine tuning. In my previous posts I expressed the view that the rule nerfed strategic bombing too much but I’ve since changed my mind. After all, bombing raids over inland German targets without escorts was near suicidal, especially during the daylight. It wasn’t until the Allies had deployed long range escort fighters and had outnumbered the defending Luftwaffe aircraft, that the Allies were able to conduct bombing missions without terrible loses. The same is true with the fighter escort/interceptor rule as it stands now and it should stay that way.

cool…thats what we thought “sounded fair…and right”.

Just roll them all at once.  As long as you use different colors for different attack powers (ie all 1’s roll white, all 2’s roll red, all 3’s roll blue and all 4’s roll yellow or something) or you just roll for each attack power separately, you are fine.  No need to roll each individual bomber since all the hits total up at the end anyway.

@a44bigdog:

Nerfing IFP REALLY screws the UK. Their normal location for an IC is S. Africa. Sometimes, Australian can be an option if things go right.

India?

LOL what a joke. Japan takes India way too easily.

And as far as repairing damage I don’t think I have ever seen damage to S. Africa. Kiangsu and Manchuria may have been damaged in one extremely funky game but so were the US ICs in Algeria and Libya that would be worthless with the new rules.

I think the best solution is to just ignore this change I know I will be.

I have to agree with you. Although I wouldn’t be opposed to limiting the 1 IPC territories to +1 build capability instead of +2.

The only buying bombers with Uk and such is pretty evil for Germany and Italy espescially if you throw in Heavy Bombers and long-range aircraft it gets worse but Radar and Aircraft carriers would help defeat the bomber menece.