Combat scenarios for beginers

@greyleaf3

Don’t confuse yourself by introducing the term “retreat” to the situation you describe.
The decision to retreat occurs during conduct combat phase (Step 6 of the General Combat Sequence).

Your scenario is at the beginning of the Combat Move Phase - and the “Sea Units Starting in Hostile Sea Zones”-rules (rulebook page 12) apply. So this is about combat movement, not about retreating.

And in this phase sea units can move their full range.

The enemy destroyer of course has no effect on the submarine’s movement here - as the submarine is already there - and does not enter or move through a hostile seazone containing an enemy destroyer.

https://avalonhill.wizards.com/rules

Note there are rules AND errata. And yes, the rulebook is poorly written.

Yes. Russia can attack West Russia using forces from Russia, Karelia, and Caucasus. Further, units from one territory may attack multiple territories. E.g. Russia may attack West Russia AND Caucasus on its first turn, using its tank from Russia to hit Ukraine, and its other units from Russia to hit West Russia.

No and yes. The question implies attackers come from a single territory / sea zone. The actual rule is land or sea units retreat to an eligible adjacent territory / sea zone that one of the attackers came from. Also the question implies an attacker decides to withdraw “because the combat isn’t going well” but attacking with intent to retreat is commonly done to preserve units against an opponent counter.

Suppose Germany controlled West Russia but had no German units there, that Germany had a stack of units on Ukraine, USSR had a stack of infantry on Caucasus. USSR tanks on Russia could blitz through West Russia to hit Ukraine along with the Caucasus infantry, then USSR forces could all withdraw to West Russia OR all withdraw to Caucasus. They must all withdraw to a single territory.

Sometimes retreat is not possible e.g. if sea units all start in a contested sea zone and don’t move (sometimes they can’t) out then in again. Then there’s no adjacent sea zone that any sea unit came from, so there’s no eligible retreat zone.

Loading onto a transport does not “consume the unit’s non-combat move for the turn”. That is not how it works at all. A transport can load a unit AND unload it the same turn. Reference page 31 of the rulebook.

Reference page 15 of the rulebook. You cannot retreat seaborne units. You can retreat other units. Yes, you can declare a retreat; in that case the seaborne units fight on.

Yes, infinite defending transports are automatically destroyed by a single attacking unit.

No, flying across a sea zone with a named island doesn’t count as 2 movements at all. Taking off from an aircraft carrier . . . . look. An island is a territory, a sea zone is a sea zone. If a fighter starts on an island, it’s on the territory; if the fighter wants to move from the island into the sea zone around the island that requires 1 movement.

If a fighter starts on a carrier, it’s on the sea zone; moving to an ADJACENT sea zone requires 1 movement.

If a fighter is flying across a sea zone with an island, it uses 1 movement to move into the sea zone, and another movement to fly into the next sea zone, the same as any sea zone without an island. If a fighter’s not landing or taking off from an island, the island does nothing.

Already answered

You can get units of opposing powers in a single sea zone when a power builds sea/air units in a sea zone that already has enemy units in it. Sea units may ignore enemy submarines / transports (with some limitations, like if unloading their own transports). Your question is “these are the only instances when they can exist in the same sea zone” - was that a reference to a retreat (which could also happen) or what was it? Literally don’t understand.

There’s an OPTIONAL RULE that allows fighters to defend against industrial bombing, I think. I don’t use it so I forget. AAA does nothing against industrial bombing. Industrial COMPLEXES have built-in antiaircraft defenses; those are the only thing that defend against industrial bombing.

I suppose you’re trying to use some optional rule with the 4 or lower thing, but I’m just going to ignore that. If bomber survives - NOT THE ANTIAIRCRAFT ARTILLERY BECAUSE THOSE HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT - but the industrial complex’s antiaircraft fire - then it rolls a dice, and whatever the result is is recorded as damage against that industrial complex, up to twice the value of the territory the IC is on. So if you bomb Karelia and roll a 6 for damage, you can only apply 4 damage as Karelia’s worth 2, and double 2 is 4. Excess damage is lost.

Each damage on an IC prevents it from mobilizing a unit on that territory. So if you have a Karelia IC with 4 damage on it, you can’t mobilize anything there; same if it has 3 damage or 2 damage. If you had 1 damage on, you could mobilize 1 unit there.

No. If there’s a battle in the sea zone, there’s no bombardment, period. Doesn’t matter if enemy transports were there and you wanted to destroy them with a fighter, if there’s any battle in the sea zone, no bombardment, period.

I know the rulebook is poorly written, but try going through it a few times.

Thanks P@nther it does help. And Krieghund, I totally misread that part of the book…looking at it now it’s plain as day! I feel like that’s not how it worked (for land or sea) way back in Classic, but maybe I’ve just been playing wrong all these years. I guess I just figured if a unit wanted to live in a territory, it had to risk for it. Thanks again!

The point of the Russians in A&A is to get the German player to say “any more victories like this and we’ll lose the war!”

@NuclearFusion:

How does Combat involving 2-hit battleships work? If you have 5 battle ships bombarding 5 infantry, and the infantry get all 5 hits, can you spread the hits out over all 5 of your battleships. If you can do that, couldn’t you just retreat and your battleships get repaired?

In a sea battle your example would work. Imagine 5 battleships attacking 5 destroyers. The attacker fails to hit and the defending destroyers score 5 hits.
The attacker can now assign the five hits to just damage all of the five battleships. After that round of combat the attacker may retreat - and the battleships are repaired.

HTH :-)

Please see

@Rulebook:

…
Attacking or defending submarines that choose to submerge are immediately removed from the battle strip and returned to the
game board in the contested sea zone, removing them from the remaining battle sequences.

Note: Decisions on whether attacking and defending submarines will fire or submerge must be made before any dice are rolled
by either side. The attacking player decides first.
…

and

@Rulebook:

…
Once all attacking and defending submarines that conducted a Surprise Strike have fired, the casualties they have generated
are removed from the game and this step is over for this round of combat. As long as there are attacking and/or defending
submarines and no opposing destroyers, this step is repeated during each round of combat. Any hits made during this step that
do not destroy units (such as battleships) remain in effect until the end of the combat.
…

Please ask if anything remains unclear.

@Swift:

So a sub can suprise strike, submerge, then other sea units fire, then defending units fire (excluding submarines), then remove casualties, then press attack, then same sub suprise strikes and submerges, then attacking sea units fire… and so on until defeat or retreat of attacker?

No, a sub can either surprise strike or submerge. If it submerges it will be out for the rest of the battle.
If it decides to surprise strike in the first round of combat and survives this round of combat, it can decide
to submerge or to attack again in the next round of combat.

HTH :-)

Thanks guys.  That is kind of what I thought or remember from AA50.

Hi wittmann,

I can tell your a question answering beast on this forum!

I thought this was the way it should work but wanted to be sure and figured why not ask.

Thanks for the help!