A&A Generals

Hi all!
I made this new research table breakthrough for A&A Global, cause i think the original ones was too weak. Stuff like War Bonds or Improved Shipyards are strange concepts imho (spend money to recieve money back overtime ? :? ). Those rules can be used of course on every A&A game, not only Global 1940.

I just want to share this new research with you all, and listening at your feedbacks, you veterans!  :-D
Please let me know what do you think!
Enjoy!  :lol:

(N.B.: 1,2,3 Ground and 1,5,6 Air/Naval are the same of standard rules)

NEW RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT RULES BY ZAIBACH

Research and Development sequence
1. Boost research
2. Roll research dice
3. Roll breakthrough dice
4. Invest in research

1. If you don’t have any research token in your reserve, go directly on step 4. If you have at least one research token, you can choose to boost research for that turn. If you do so, spend 5 IPCs: only for that turn the research is boosted.
2. Roll a die for each research token in your reserve, +1 die if you boost the research for that turn. If you score at least one “1”, you made a breakthrough: remove all research tokens from your reserve and go to step 3. If not, skip step 3 and go to step 4.
3. Choose one table and roll a dice to determine the research you’ve gotten.
4. You can choose either to invest or do not invest in research. If you do not invest, you lost all the research tokens in your reserve. If you do invest, you spend 5 IPCs and add one research token in your reserve.

Example:

On first turn Japan starts with 0 research token and so go directly on step 4. He decides to invest in research, spending 5 IPCs and taking one research token. On second turn Japan decides to boost his research, spending 5 IPCs. He then roll two dice, one for the token and one for the boost. He scores 2 and 5, no breakthrough. He then decides to continue investing in research, spending 5 IPCs, acquiring a second research token. On third turn Japan decides to not boost his research, and then roll two dice for the two tokens he has. He scores 6 and 1, breakthrough! He remove all the tokens and got a research. Then he decide to continue investing in research, spending 5 IPCs. He now has one research token in reserve.

GROUND TABLE

1. Advanced Artillery. Each of your artillery units can now provide greater support. One artillery unit can support up to 2 infantry and/or mechanized infantry units per attack. Up to 2 infantry and/or mechanized infantry units when coupled with 1 artillery unit have attack values of 2.
2. Rockets. Your air bases can now launch rockets. During the Strategic and Tactical Bombing Raids step of your Conduct Combat phase each turn, each of your operative air bases can make a single rocket attack against an enemy industrial complex, air base, or naval base within 4 spaces of it. This attack does one die roll of damage to that facility. Rockets may not be fired over neutral territories.
3. Paratroopers. Up to 2 of your infantry units in each territory with an air base can be moved to an enemy controlled territory 3 or fewer spaces away that is being attacked by your land units from adjacent territories and/or by amphibious assault. When moving, paratroopers must obey the same restrictions that air units do. If the territory being attacked has AAA (antiaircraft artillery) units, the paratrooper infantry units are subject to antiaircraft fire in the same way as air units. If attacking along with land units from adjacent territories, paratroopers may retreat as normal.
4. Improved Factory. Each of your industrial complexes can now produce additional units beyond their normal production ability. Major industrial complexes can mobilize up to 12 units, and minor ones can mobilize up to 4 units. Also, your industrial complexes have now built-in Artillery. Major industrial complexes have 2 built-in Artilleries and minor ones have 1 built-in Artillery. You can use this Artilleries in battle only for defence. This special Artilleries are added on the battle board but can’t never be taken as a casuality. If in any round, after remove casualities, there are no other defence units except for built-in Artilleries, they are immediatly removed. In any case, at the end of the battle, remove them from the battleboard.
5. Accurated Bombardment. Your Artilleries can now be parried with Fighters. This improve the Artillery both Attack and Defence by 1 (from 2 to 3). A single Fighter can both be parried with an Artillery and a Tactical Bomber in the same moment.
6. Fast Tanks. Only on the first cycle of combat, your tanks can support infantry/mechanized infantry (just like artilleries).

NAVAL/AIR TABLE

1. Super Submarines. The attack value of your submarines is now 3 instead of 2.
2. Antiaircraft Cruisers. Your Cruisers have now a built-in AAA (antiaircraft artillery).
3. Torpedo Bombers. Your Tactical Bombers are now equipped with a single Torpedo. Only during the first round of a Naval Combat, both Defending and Attacking Torpedo Bombers roll an extra dice called “Torpedo”. Those dices have attack and defence value of 2 (3 if coupled with a fighter). Enemy aircrafts cannot be hitted by “Torpedo” dices. When you have to allocate hits, first of all allocate “Torpedo” dices, and then proceeds with the others.
4. Dreadnought Battleships. Your Battleships now have long range cannons. Before a naval battle begins (even before AAA phase), there is a single special round fight. In this special round only Battleships attack and defence with a value of 2, and submarines and aircrafts cannot be taken as casualities. For each Fighter on your side you can increase one Battleship attack and defence to 3. Casualities are immediatly removed and cannot take place in the normal battle.
5. Long-Range Aircraft. All of your air unit’s ranges are increased by one space.
6. Heavy Bombers. Your strategic bombers are now heavy bombers. When attacking, whether in a battle or a strategic bombing raid, roll two dice for each bomber and select the best result.

Torpedo Bombers, Example:
A Japanese Aircraft Carrier and an American one are standing in the pacific ocean. They have both one Fighter and one Torpedo Bomber.

During the Japanese turn, the Japanese attack with his Fighter and his Torpedo Bomber on the sea zone with the American Aircraft Carrier. The Japanese has 1 dice of 3 for the Fighter, 1 dice of 4 for the Tactical Bomber, and 1 more dice “Torpedo” of 3.
He rolls and obtains 6, 4, 2 respectively, inflicting 1 normal hit and 1 “Torpedo” hit.

The American has 1 dice of 2 for the Aircraft Carrier, 1 dice of 3 for the Torpedo Bomber, and 1 dice of 4 for the Fighter. His “Torpedo” dice is lost, because there aren’t ships on Japanese army.
He rolls and obtains 5, 5, 3 respectively, inflicting 1 normal hit.

The Japanese assign the hit to his Fighter, which is destroyed.
The American first of all have to assign the “Torpedo” hit, he has to assign it to the Aircraft Carrier, because it has to be assigned on ships, which is now damaged. Then he assign the normal hit at his Torpedo Bomber, which is destroyed.

At this point the Japanese decide to pull back with his Torpedo Bomber, returning on his Aircraft Carrier.
The American Fighter cannot land in the Aircraft Carrier, because it’s damaged, and cannot also land in any place, so it’s destroyed.

With this attack the Japanese, losing only 1 Fighter, has inflicted a devastating blow to the American fleet, destroying two Aircrafts and damaging an Aircraft Carrier!

I would highly, highly recommend going “Three-Turns per Round”.

Axis Powers go first.

Then, Russia & China go.

Finally, Allies go.

If you have 8 players that know what they’re doing, this makes a very intense G40 game happen in about 7 or 8 hours.

Axis and Allied forces can attack together.  Russia may not attack with Allied forces.  China also may not attack together with Allied forces.

Extremely well thought out, I wouldn’t play it to be honest, but I admire your creativity.

Did some real brief digging around on the wiki and found this…

The last part seems to confirm those speculations in Reason 2 Marc mentioned aboved. Though I think there might still be enough in here to justify a starting Strat B for the Russians.

The fact that the Russians are unlikely to ever be able to afford another one would put a ceiling on it, and give a nod to the fact that the Soviet strategic bombing campaigns in WW2 were dwarfed by those of the Western Allies. The logic there I guess would be that Britain and America can readily expand their bomber arsenal through purchasing, whereas the Soviets are basically stuck using what they start out with, or risk just getting crushed in the land war haha.

Anyhow, here’s quick copy paster…

"Soviet strategic bombing
See also: Shuttle bombing and Operation Frantic
The first Soviet offensive bomber campaign was directed against the Romanian oilfields in the summer of 1941.[185] In response to a German raid on Moscow on the night of 21�22 July 1941, Soviet Naval Aviation launched a series of seven raids against Germany, primarily Berlin, between the night of 7�8 August and 3�4 September. These attacks were undertaken by between four and fifteen aircraft�beginning on 11 August the new Tupolev TB-7�from the island of Saaremaa, base of the 1st Torpedo Air Regiment.[185] (At least one raid of the 81st Air Division took off from Pushkin.) Besides thirty tonnes of bombs, they also dropped leaflets with Joseph Stalin’s defiant speech of 3 July. The Soviets sent a total of 549 long-range bombers over German territory in all of 1941.[185]

In March 1942 the strategic bombing arm of the Soviet Union was reorganized as the Long Range Air Force (ADD). It raided Berlin from 26�29 August and again on the night of 9�10 September with 212 planes.[185] It raided Helsinki for the first time on 24 August, Budapest on 4�5 and 9�10 September and Bucharest on 13�14 September. The German-occupied Polish cities of Krakow and Warsaw were not exempt, but the bombers concentrated primarily on military targets.[185] There were 1,114 sorties over Germany in 1942. In March 1943 there was a strategic shift: in preparation for the Kursk Offensive, the bombers were directed against the German railroads behind the front.[185] In April the Long Range Air Force expanded to eight air corps and eleven independent divisions containing 700 planes. After the Kursk preparations, the Soviets turned their attention to administrative and industrial targets in East Prussia in April. With 920 aircraft taking part, they dropped 700 tonnes of bombs there. The largest Soviet bomb of the war, an 11,000-pound weapon, was dropped on Konigsberg during one of these raids.[185]

Throughout 1943, the Soviets attempted to give the impression of cooperation between their bombers and those of the West.[185] In February 1944 they again shifted priority, this time towards terror bombing, with the goal of knocking Finland and Hungary out of the war.[185] Helsinki was struck by 733 bombers on the night of 6�7 February, by 367 on the 15�16th and 850 on the 25�26th. A total of 2,386 tonnes of bombs were dropped.[185] Budapest was hit four straight nights from 13�20 September with a total of 8,000 tonnes by 1,129 bombers. The Soviets flew 4,466 sorties into enemy territory in the year 1944. In December the Long Range Air Force was reorganized as the 18th Air Army.[185]

The main task of the 18th Air Army was to support the final offensive against Germany, but it also undertook raids against Berlin, Breslau, Danzig and Konigsberg.[185] In total, 7,158 Soviet aircraft dropped 6,700 tonnes of bombs on Germany during the war, a modest 3.1% of Soviet bomber sorties, a mere 0.5% of all Allied “strategic” sorties against German-occupied territory and a measly 0.2% of all bombs dropped on it.[185]

After the war, Marxist historians in the Soviet Union and East Germany claimed that the Soviet strategic bombing campaign was limited by moral qualms over bombing civilian centres.[185] One early bombing theorist, Vasili Chripin, whose theories influenced the Soviet Union’s first strategic bombing guidelines (1936) and the service regulations of 26 January 1940, drew back from terror bombing as advocated by Western theorists.[185] The Spanish Civil War also convinced Soviet war planners that the air force was most effective when used in close cooperation with ground forces. Nonetheless, after the war, Marshal Vasili Sokolovsky admitted that the Soviets would have gladly launched a strategic bombing offensive had they the capability.[185] In reality, the Soviets never geared aircraft production towards long-range bombers, and so never had enough to mount an effective campaign. The land-based nature of warfare on the Eastern Front also required closer cooperation between the air forces and ground troops than did, for example, the defence of Great Britain.[185]"

That note 185 heavily referenced above shows the following as its main/only source… so there’s that too I guess. Little lackluster, but you know what they say about beggers lol

Horst Boog; Derry Cook-Radmore, trans., “Part I: The Strategic Air War in Europe and Air Defence of the Reich, 1943�44”, in Germany and the Second World War, Volume VII: The Strategic Air War in Europe and the War in the West and East Asia, 1943�44/5 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006 [Stuttgart: Deutsche Veralgs-Anstalt GmbH, 2005]), 153�58.

OK, version 10 is now a available at BGG. An error was corrected and the Advanced Rail Network tech was enhanced a bit, hopefully it hasn’t become too terribly complicated - just a bit more useful.

We finished our second game with these rules. The Central Powers won it, Austia-Hungary was the star of the show, interestingly enough. It took Rome and jointly defeated Russia. Built a massive fleet in the Meditterranean and gained control of it where it was able to invade France from the southern coast while the Germans kept the French busy, and fleet battle after fleet battle kept the British occupied in the North Sea.

The Americans were sent to Italy to save them, which they did until the massive Austia fleet took the Med and entered Rome amphibiously. It was an 8 turn epic, at 1.5 hours per turn until the allies finally threw in the towel.

The tech kept things interesting. The more you accumulate the harder it becomes to remember to use it but that is a good problem to have. ;)

I prefer simplicity. I prefer to have them operate like minor ICs except their bonus is one research die per turn instead of producing units. (when not damaged). I’m okay with a cap of 1 tech per turn. I’ll pass on the captured technology raid rule. I think having your enemy capture your research facility (and the free roll each turn after that) is reward enough.

Having them operate like minor ICs let’s you build them on 2 iPc territories, which is necessary if someone like Anzac hopes to ever acquire any technology.

Overall it’s a great concept.

@Cmdr:

Where and how to place free infantry for violating the neutral agreement which derived from the cash for doing so.

Oh yes, now I dismember, I mean remember. We are starting a house rule game monday and I want to see a more binding non-aggression pact between Japan and the Soviets.

@Cmdr:

Yea, but I just dont see tanks having the ability to hit bombers and fighter/tbombers.  Maybe tanks can select any ground unit they want to hit, but then to rebalance, prohibit them from hitting aircraft.

Yes, my intent was to limit the targeting to ground units. The other units not directed by the general could hit aircraft in the first round if the defender does not have enough fodder. The planes could be hit in the second round of combat by anything as normal.