Siris101 Playtest

Hi everyone,

I have been enjoying using these unique units for 1942 Second Edition Tournament Rules.

Russia:
Cavalry c3/a2/d1/m2, can Blitz. Max 5 on the board at any time.
Purpose: Allows Russia some more attack power. Sometimes it is really difficult to buy tanks with the USSR’s limited income but you need still need the ability to move 2. Since they defend at 1, they won’t make the final battle for Moscow any more difficult for Germany. This unit adds some interesting attack possibilities especially if Russia has a decent air force.
HBG has some pretty sweet cavalry sculpts and they have colors that match nicely with the OOB sculpts.

Germany:
Maus Tank c8/a3/d3/m2, 2HP, can Blitz. Max 5 on the board at any time. Can only be built after Round 4. Repairs for free if it starts its turn on a friendly IC.
Purpose: Gives Germany another hard hitting unit. This one is mostly for fun and I don’t think the stats are very overpowered since I’ve put a limit of 5 on the board at any time. I also wanted to give Germany a bonus since I gave Russia Cavalry.
HBG has a Maus tank sculpt I use. I think Germany only built like 4 of these tanks irl but they’re fun to have in the game. If you prefer you can call them heavy tanks and use a sculpt of a tank that was actually produced in earnest.

US:
Marines c3/a1/d2/m1. Attacks at 2 on amphibious assaults (not supportable by artillery on amphibious assaults) Max 5 on the board at any time.
Purpose: Represent the US Marine Corps and allow Island Hopping to be a bit easier for the US player.
I used HBG’s dark green Marines for these units.

To balance these units, I also play with the “Tokyo Express” rule which gives Japanese Destroyers the ability to transport 1 Infantry. I haven’t figured out a good UK bonus which would balance well with these small tweaks.

My group also really enjoys the “free factory” House Rule, which gives each player (besides Russia, we decided the Russian extra factory does nothing but help the Axis) a free IC before the game begins with the condition that it must be placed on a territory worth exactly 1 IPC. Typically, Germany puts theirs in Libya, UK chooses either Persia or Belgian Congo, Japan places theirs on Malaya, and the US chooses Sinkiang (sometimes West Indies if the US player is wary of Japan producing on the free factory). We enjoy this rule because it keeps Africa interesting for quite a while. Sometimes the US will get to place a fighter or two in China.

As another house rule, we often give each player one tech token at the start of the game as well. Russia is typically excluded because the Axis players in the group contend that a) Russia had a dearth of scientists at the time due to purges, and b) they would rather each side only get two tech tokens, and I tend to agree with them.

@crockett36
This seems interesting. I’ll try it out.

@GGleize ok but adding 12 ipc to allies especially Russia isn’t the same as just moving a German bomber. Germans can use a bomber admittedly, but a Russian bomber is alot more needed than saving the German bomber imo. Minimally, you need to move both German UKR planes away .

@SuperbattleshipYamato No, Southern France needs to be captured.

@The-Captain

I would love to hear more about your Most Precious Soviet Strategies. I love talking about strategy, especially if it’s about my favorite power when it comes to tactical decision making 😀

@VictoryFirst

Sad that the Axis lost but glad that you, the less experienced player, won (I also kind of consider you a friend after what feels like 5 games with each other).

Classic scorched earth in the end at Persia, loved it. The game report managed to be informative and detailed without being goo long (though I’m certainly not one to judge the length of game reports).

Quite a long salient in the southern USSR over there. The Axis looked better in certain places (Europe) and worse in others (Pacific and Asia) compared to their position historically.

@The-Captain

Thanks for the detailed strategy!

First of all, we never changed the setup from the OOB setup.  All we changed were the land movement rules to allow two moves into a friendly or already contested space as the second space, and the extended 3-move sea movement from friendly sea bases.  And we added in the economic and political collapse rules.

What that led to was a series of games where one side would engage in cheap moves, like dropping one Italian guy in Smyrna to help push the Ottomans into collapse.  It was making the game stupid so we altered the rules to have the effects of political collapse kick in at the end of the turn, and if out of economic collapse the country could collect money.  This in turn unbalanced the game the other way, by creating situations where Germany was in economic collapse at the beginning of every turn but out at the end of every turn, and so it kept collecting money and had something like 110 IPCs when it got lucky and started its turn able to buy about 3 rounds later.

It also led to situations where countries were in political collapse for three or four turns and then managed to turn things around by getting out before the end of that country’s turn each round of game play.

As a result, we think we hit on the right balance: (1) at the beginning of a country’s turn, before purchasing, it must check for collapse.  If it is in economic collapse, it loses all its money.  If it is also in political collapse, it may only conduct moves that are into spaces that would allow it to stop that collapse in addition to losing all its money.  Then check again at the end of the turn.  If it is still in political collapse, it is out of the game.  If it is still in economic collapse, it collects no money.  If it is out of both, it collects money.  (2) In the event that a country starts its own turn in political collapse twice in a row, it immediately, at the beginning of its turn, is out of the game.

These changes to the rules, based on our playtesting, seem to fix the crazy/“cheap” moves and balance the game better.