Strategic Bombing Runs Rule

Well they would be counters for each nation in a cup that you draw randomly. say 1 inch wooden chits with a decal on it. Icons of say a tank or Battleship if the commander effects those. If you draw a chit and don’t own that piece, you just lost that advantage that turn. The next turn you draw another chit. The used chits stay out of the jar, so the design features will balance in total for both Axis and Allies…or not. Depends on the game played…

This house rule was designed by myself independent of any other source and was made in the 1980s when I played A & A Classic and designed my own variant I term ‘Allies and Enemies’. The rule is as follows; During a develop weapons phase a player mat attempt to develop an atomic bomb. A player must pay 30 PFs for every die roll that is attempted. A roll of a 6 on a D6 roll gives the player nuclear capability (needless to say the die roll must be clearly random). Additionally, the second time (a subsequent turn) a player pays 30 PFs to attempt to develop an atomic bomb the die roll to be successful becomes a 5 or 6 on a D6 roll. For each subsequent attempt of 30 PFs the die roll to be successful decreases by one number so that on the sixth attempt research for an atomic bomb is automatically successful. On the turn that an Atomic bomb is successfully developed that player may buy them at the purchase units phase for 5 PFs for each Atomic Bomb. Atomic Bombs may only be delivered to the target space by Bomber aircraft ( 1 atomic bomb per bomber) or by a Rocket (if house rules allow). The effects of an Atomic Bomb are 1) destroys all units in the target space (either land or sea) and 2) permanently (for the rest of the game) reduces the PF value of the land space targeted by 1 PF (0 being the minimum value) for each Atomic bomb dropped.

As the Baron points out, modeling air superiority contests in a relatively simple wargame like A&A is quite a challenge! I think there are actually several different phenomena that go by the name of ‘air superiority’ that a good house rule would pay attention to. One is that if your air force is totally unopposed, your ground units will have advantages in terms of recon, surprise, flexibility, etc. because your planes can survey the lay of the land and strike quickly at the point of maximum impact. Another is that airplanes tend to kill each other first, before killing ground units. A third factor is that when fighters intercept bombers, the bombers tend to be less effective – it’s not just that the bombers get killed accomplishing their missions; it’s also that the bombers fly at higher altitudes, fly at faster speeds, and fly on more evasive flight paths to try to minimize their risk of getting shot down. Even when the bombers survive, they do less damage if they’re being harassed by fighters.

Here’s my take on a set of rules that could capture all of those dynamics:

After all attacks are declared, the defender may scramble up to 3 fighters from anywhere on the board, plus up to 2 more fighters from each airbase. Scrambled fighters can move to an adjacent territory or sea zone to participate in a battle there, and then (if they survive) automatically return from whence they came. The same fighter cannot participate in more than one battle per turn.

Attacking and defending fighters roll their dice separately from other units. When fighters score a hit, that hit must be assigned to a plane if possible. The victim can choose which plane is killed. Even though fighter casualties are assigned separately, they are resolved at the same instant as other casualties. For example, suppose a German force of 4 inf, 1 tnk, 1 fighter, and 2 bombers attacks a French garrison of 3 inf, 1 art, 2 fighters. The Germans score a hit with their fighter, and 3 hits with their remaining forces. The French score one hit with their fighter, and 2 hits with their remaining forces. The Germans would have to lose 1 plane and 2 units of their choice – they would probably choose to lose 2 inf, 1 ftr, leaving them with 2 inf, 1 tnk, and 2 bombers. The French would have to lose 1 plane and 3 units of their choice – they would probably choose to lose 3 inf, 1 ftr, leaving them with 1 art, 1 ftr.

If at any point you have at least one plane in a territory, and your opponent has no planes or AAA guns left alive in that territory, then your infantry and mech. infantry in that territory get +1 to their dice rolls. This is cumulative with the artillery bonus. For example, if you have 2 inf, 1 mech. inf, 3 art, and 2 bombers attacking in a territory, and your opponent is defending with only 3 inf, 1 tnk, then your infantry would score hits on rolls of “3” or less – 1 for their basic offense, +1 for the artillery, +1 for the air superiority. Defending infantry can also benefit from air superiority if the defender has air superiority. For example, if your force of 4 inf, 1 fighter, 1 bomber is being attacked by 3 inf, 3 tnk, then your infantry will hit on rolls of “3” or less – 2 for their basic defense, +1 for the air superiority.

Before each combat starts, match each fighter in the combat with one enemy bomber. At the end of the first round of combat, remove that bomber from combat. It no longer rolls dice to try to score hits, and it can no longer be taken as a casualty. This represents bomber pilots’ efforts to avoid interceptors by flying high, flying fast, and then going home. The bomber can be returned to a friendly territory as normal during the non-combat move. If, in any given territory, you have more bombers than your enemy has fighters, your ‘excess’ bombers participate in the entire combat as normal.

To help adjust for the increased mobility of fighters and for their ability to preferentially target (expensive) planes, the combat value of a fighter is reduced to a “2” on offense and a “3” on defense.

Ok, you’ve learnt me some new things !
Thanks for that. Your NOs look fairly good.

@Imperious:

Tanks could go to 5$ not less, or game imbalanced. Heck for $4 id only buy tanks.

Done

actually perhaps you get discount of 1ipc but you must buy in two’s

complimented it with mobile industry instead, makes for a tough choice against “Trans-Siberian Railway”

Id rather you go with “Rasputita” and create a winter rule in Russia twice per game that effects Axis units in some manner.

There’s a Russian Winter rules in the “Alternative Rules” portion of Delta found here…

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=33730.0

All the discount units creates imbalanced games, certainly because we got 5 allies and 3 axis, so allies have a +2 advantage just in these rules.

Perhaps, but the Axis have the slight advantage when it comes to the “Strategic Objectives” portion of Delta found here…

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=33734.0

I think only Russia and USA should have any advantage that effects prices. The other nations didn’t have capability to build cheaper units.  Colonial troops should only be something that allows placement in some area w/o having a factory ( just one unit per turn).

Perhaps, we’ll find out more when some play test reports get posted.

OH MY GOD! It’s a whole family of GIANTS! RUN everybody, RUN!

What would be neat is if you can arrange it so that all the war crimes result in IPC gains but have morality point losses.  If at some point those war crimes result in tangible bad things happening to you (e.g. Fifth column etc), then you have to balance the benefits against the potential harms and it really becomes a game of “How much can I get away with?”.

Small change to the rules.

I did my playtesting on TripleA where Afghanistan is adjacent to Chinghai.  I had the opportunity to play a live ftf game last night and noticed that on the real board the Himalayas lie between Afghanistan and Chinghai.  Therefore…Afghanistan is no longer a selectable neutral by China…they may take Mongolia only.