How to make Axis and Allies more diffucult

I’ve heard of this before my friends and I call them blind games, we really want to play one but no one has a copy of two, we really rather play it on 1940 Global but that is darn near impossible to get, :x

@ModernFun94:

tell me what you think of this idea

The most practical way to handle this sort of thing is to have somebody act as a non-playing neutral referee (or game controller) who serves as the go-between for the two teams.

That doesn’t sound like any fun at all. “Hey you guys in the next room -are we winning?” “I don’t know - can’t see your board” “Got any more pretzels over there?” “Yes but we’re out of AA Guns” “Bill has to go to the bathroom - we’ve got to blindfold him” “It’s time to do a battle! Meet me out on the patio at the battleboard”

@Der:

That doesn’t sound like any fun at all. “Hey you guys in the next room -are we winning?” “I don’t know - can’t see your board” “Got any more pretzels over there?” “Yes but we’re out of AA Guns” “Bill has to go to the bathroom - we’ve got to blindfold him” “It’s time to do a battle! Meet me out on the patio at the battleboard”

Actually, I can see the point behind this idea.  When played by normal rules, A&A is an “open” game in which all the players have complete information at all times about the location and composition of all the forces on the board – friendly, enemy and neutral.  In real warfare (and in various wargames), commanders normally have just partial information about non-friendly dispositions, so reconnaissance and risk-taking becomes important factors.  A classic military-themed game that illustrates this principle in a simple way is Stratego, in which the position of the enemy pieces is known but their identity is unknown until one of your own units makes contact with them (with unhappy results for your unit if the enemy unit happens to be a stronger one).

Wargames with a partially-closed information environment arguably do a better job than open-environment games at letting players experience the tension and uncertainty that commanders must deal with when they have to make their plans without knowing for sure where the enemy will be, what types and numbers of forces he’ll have.  (A good example from WWII, as illustrated nicely in the movie The Longest Day, was the German high command’s uncertainty about where and when and with what forces the Allies would mount the expected cross-Channel invasion, and hence how the Germans should best prepare to meet it).

So although I’ve never tried a two-board A&A game (with a referee as the most practical way of handling the flow of information between the two sides), I can see the potential attraction of having a game in which the two teams know the rule-defined starting set-ups of the two sides, but beyond that point only know what neutral or enemy units are in a given territory when one of their own units enters it.

exactly. my friends haven’t played one either but we just ordered two 1941s for the pieces and that board would be a good small test.

A digital application of this, would be the best method…

But there would have to be rules for scouting and spying included.

A TripleA variant… Talk to Veqryn, he can do crazy things for money.

that would make a great TripleA game

@Gargantua:

A digital application of this, would be the best method…

But there would have to be rules for scouting and spying included.

A TripleA variant… Talk to Veqryn, he can do crazy things for money.

Have any of you heard of Supremacy 1914? It’s an online game for WWI (hence the date), but it is almost a simulation, like what you’re talking about. It also takes into account morale of troops and cities, fog of war, and many other things. It’s also RTS, so it takes forever to play. The only reason why I quit is because I didn’t have nearly enough time. It’s a great game, though.

The stratego reference gave me a really good idea.
Use one board, but print out a bunch of marshaling cards and tokens.
Like ARMY A, ARMY B, ARMY C…ARMY Z
NAVY A, NAVY B, NAVY C…NAVY Z

Your opponent would have his cards laid out infront of him, with the matching army near it, but upside down.
Actually…Playing cards would work nicely.
Allies get RED, Axis gets BLACK.

Then print out some little cards that say “4 of Diamonds” or “King of Spades”
And you move the papers around the board, but the units stay on the sidelines.

Man this is so hard to explain…4:00 AM after a long day of work.

@oztea:

And you move the papers around the board, but the units stay on the sidelines.
Man this is so hard to explain……4:00 AM after a long day of work.

I understand the concept you’re describing because I’ve experimented with something similar.  The equipment I use consists of:

• Coloured wooden blocks from the “Commands & Colors: Ancients” series by GMT games, or similar games (I have about twelve different colours)

• Mini poker chips from A&A

• Small Avery-type self-adhesive dots in various colours, which I applied to one side of the poker chips

Here’s a simple example (with a very small number of units) of how this works.  Let’s imagine that we want to represent three different German armies at different points along the Russian border – one big, one intermediate-sized and one small – and that we want to conceal information from the Russian player about which army is which.

The sculpts representing the three armies are set up on a side table, in three groups.  Next to each army, we put a black wooden block (black being Germany’s A&A colour).  On top of one block, we put a modified mini poker chip with its coloured dot facing up – let’s say, a chip with a red dot.  The second army’s block gets, let’s say, a blue-dot chip, and the third one gets a yellow-dot chip.  (The dot colour choices are arbitrary; they have no significance, except for identification purposes.  An upscale variation of this same idea would be to use HBG’s special unit markers: http://www.historicalboardgaming.com/German-Special-Units_c_186.html).

Now we go to the game map.  The German player puts down three black blocks (representing the three armies) at the desired locations.  He then takes three poker chips (one with a red dot, one with a blue dot and one with a yellow dot) and puts them on top of the blocks with the dotted side facing down.  Each block on the map therefore now corresponds (based on its dot colour) to the three armies on the side table, but the German player is the only one who knows which army on the board reprsents which army on the table because the Russian player can’t see the dot colours on the board.  It’s only when a Russian army makes contact with one of the German blocks that its chip gets turned over to reveal its identity (which is where the Stratego parallel comes in).

@Ghost:

I’ve heard of this before my friends and I call them blind games, we really want to play one but no one has a copy of two, we really rather play it on 1940 Global but that is darn near impossible to get, :x

I’ve done this on the forums here.  Not that bad really.  Just get one person to play referee.

I was the moderator for a few blind games of Pacific 40 back in 2010… It was a blast! Especially with all the naval encounters, and the hiding spots available in the less popular sea zones, every move was packed with a lot of tension. It’s harder to get the same effect with land battles, but not impossible to get some nice moves going there as well… especially with moving in reinforcements in the non-combat phase, when the enemy thinks they’ve already taken your measure. All-in-all, it was a very different (and actually better) way to play.

Scrambling, I recall, was always a very tense decision for the defender as it would need to be made without having any idea of the size or composition of the attacking force.

Subs had a special role as spies because if an enemy navy passed through a sub-infested SZ without a destroyer, the defender had a choice to remain ‘cloaked’ and spy on the contents of the passing convoy without being noticed themselves.

The moderator has to keep a very good poker face on throughout the proceedings to keep himself from giving away information to either side; as creepy as it sounds, it probably have been a decent idea for me to wear a mask as I went from room to room…

Should bombers be able to fly recon patrolls in blind games?

And can you see whats in a territory that borders yours?

Planes can fly over multiple territories / sea zones, but are only permitted to ‘search’ the one they rest in during the combat movement phase.

You are not allowed to ‘peek’ into adjacent land territories. That would defeat the whole purpose of playing blind! If you want to see into enemy territory, you need to commit at least one land unit to enter it during the combat movement phase.

I remember one game where the guy abandoned all of Russia and moved his armies into China for kjf.  Worked because the German player was paranoid, kept figuring Moscow had to have a huge stack!

On a similar note:  Anyone ever play the rule that Submarines can pick their target on the first round of battle, if no destroyers are present?  That one’s always fun since you can hit Transports first if you want, then run away any surviving submarines - or another one that would be good in Global 1940 would be to snipe the carriers so the planes can’t land!  Dont have to sink the carriers, just damage them.

@Make_It_Round:

Planes can fly over multiple territories / sea zones, but are only permitted to ‘search’ the one they rest in during the combat movement phase.

You are not allowed to ‘peek’ into adjacent land territories. That would defeat the whole purpose of playing blind! If you want to see into enemy territory, you need to commit at least one land unit to enter it during the combat movement phase.

In the war, though, weren’t planes sometimes used for recon. I think a good rule might be that if the planes weren’t participating they could look into territories (still subject to AA fire, of course), but only see the number of units there, not the types. The player declares what path the fighter takes, and if there are any AA guns, they fire. Then if the plane(s) survive, the contents (limited info) of the territories they passed over are revealed. Might make the game more interesting, also, if AA guns are hidden.

@mastermind93:

@Make_It_Round:

Planes can fly over multiple territories / sea zones, but are only permitted to ‘search’ the one they rest in during the combat movement phase.

You are not allowed to ‘peek’ into adjacent land territories. That would defeat the whole purpose of playing blind! If you want to see into enemy territory, you need to commit at least one land unit to enter it during the combat movement phase.

In the war, though, weren’t planes sometimes used for recon. I think a good rule might be that if the planes weren’t participating they could look into territories (still subject to AA fire, of course), but only see the number of units there, not the types. The player declares what path the fighter takes, and if there are any AA guns, they fire. Then if the plane(s) survive, the contents (limited info) of the territories they passed over are revealed. Might make the game more interesting, also, if AA guns are hidden.

Planes were indeed used as recon units, yes. But the areas that the planes are required to recon are so great in A&A that this needs to be represented by only allowing them to ‘see’ one specific land or sea zone (their final one during the combat move–the rest are considered blind fly-overs, above cloud cover).

Moreover, this was dangerous work, sometimes resulting in unplanned engagement with enemy units, and occasionally offering up unexpected targets of opportunity. This reciprocal risk demands that recon planes be under threat by enemy units, and moreover that they are free to give threat to their enemies (to a convoy of unescorted enemy transports, for example). Give it a try, you’ll see that simplicity is best with these things… Having special ‘spy’ movement rules above and beyond fog-of-war dispersement through combat makes things unnecessarily complex and dull. The chance of being destroyed, or destroying one’s enemy, adds drama and excitement to scouting.

We use sea planes for reconnaissance. Sm plane flies 4 spaces, Lg plane flies 6 spaces. You have to use them to find fleet before you can attack. Roll 1 die for each plane. A 3 or less is that you have found the ship or ships and now you can attack. and theses planes do not attack. Defend at 2 and can leave combat after 1st round.

SS…you’re the man!!!