I must confess I don’t understand the appeal of the new AAA units. Essentially, the AA gun has been neutered, first by only allowing up to 3 rolls per unit, plus giving the attacker back the ability to choose casualties, no longer allowing for the chance to hit more valuable bombers. To my thinking, this significantly reduces their value, yet their cost was reduced by only 1 IPC. Now, instead of having 6 IPCs worth of units to protect against that 8 or 10 plane luftwaffe, it will take 15-20 IPCs worth. Doesn’t seem like a good value to me.
I suppose some value comes from being able to use AAA as fodder, but at 5 IPC a pop, that’s some pretty expensive fodder. But on the other hand, each dead AAA costs nothing in terms of combat ability, at least for that battle.
I get what they were trying to do, making AA guns more suitable for protecting your units instead of constantly using them to shield your industrial territories, but it seems to me like they are just going to be one of those units that don’t get replaced once they get blowed up.
Allow me to add the caveat that I haven’t actually played a game with these rules yet, so maybe it will all become clear once I see it in action. Perhaps one of you can explain to me the error of my ways.