Development of Alternate Version of Rules

I’ve been playing Axis & Allies for over 20 years. When my brother got the Global 1939 map we thought it was absolutely amazing (there are only a few problems with it which we had to fix). When the rules came out we decided to develop a D6 version and have continued to do so since because we liked the D6 version and we liked much of what Larry Harris has developed already. But we had to make some changes too because we thought the basic combat rules of Axis & Allies could be improved to make the game more historically realistic. After extensive research on how combat actually occurred in WW2, we decided to introduce some major changes or adjustments to the combat rules and other rules.

For the set-up we started doing research about what nations actually had in 1939 and made some adjustments based on training, logistics and numbers of available troops to be mobilized. We didn’t change everything.

We had to make a major overhaul to Turn Order and what each round of play looked like. War is fluid and complex, and we wanted to try to simulate that. So, each turn has a Strategic Combat Movement/Combat phase and a Tactical Combat Movement/Combat phase, and every round of play will be different because you roll initiative for those phases. In Strategic Combat a player can do missions like Strategic Bombing Raids, Strategic Shelling, Espionage and Combat Air Patrol. In the Tactical Combat Phase players can do any number of combat operations that we see in Axis & Allies (amphibious, land combat, naval-air combat, airborne ops, etc). But each phase has a specific turn order decided by an Initiative Roll. Although a player may go first during Strategic Combat, he/she may go fourth for Tactical Combat. And each round of play will be different - you’ll never ‘play’ the same game twice. Ever. The winner of initiative can decide when in the sequence he/she wants to go in the turn order. In the first round of play, we do give Germany and the Axis Minors (we call them Fascist Minors) the initiative during Tactical Combat. In the game we’re playing now, my brother elected to go last on the first turn to start WW2. The Allies couldn’t react to anything he did (which they didn’t).

We also decided to add realism by saying that each turn is one month of actual time, and the game begins in September 1939. This certainly affects how naval and air units move on the board, especially during non-combat movement. We increased naval and air unit movement points during non-combat movement significantly. For example, I was studying how long it took ANZAC troops to travel to Egypt during the early stages of WW2. It took about 18 days, and they stopped in Ceylon on their way. The way the game is set up, that’s impossible, so we had to increase movement during non-combat movement (for combat movement we did not change much, because combat operations take planning and moving logistics in place in order to go into combat). We also added modifiers to Strategic and Tactical initiative. Non-belligerent nations always go last during the turn order. Industrial capacity matters on who goes first.

One of the biggest changes is Tactical Combat. We introduced ‘steps’ to ground units. Ground units have 2 steps: full strength and damaged before they’re destroyed. We bought these little red 1/8" dots and placed them on ground units (and ships that can take more than one hit) when they were damaged. Their attack and defense are degraded. Land combat consists of three phases: Initial Assault, Attrition and Breakthrough, all including an Air Combat Phase. Attrition and Breakthrough require initiative rolls, which allow a player to take the Offensive Posture or the Defensive Posture. Offensive Posture means that your forces are not ‘fixed’ on the battlefield, which means you can attack or retreat. We looked for real world examples in World War 2 and put them in the game. For example, in Operation Market Garden, the Allies were initially in the Offensive Posture (Initial Assault) but soon found themselves in the Defensive Posture during the Attrition phase (especially the British in Arnhem itself) and during Breakthrough, they got the initiative again and retreated out of Holland. That’s what we’ve tried to simulate in the game. Battles are fluid and complex and players have to make good tactical decisions in order to win or survive. We’ve also introduced Forward Supply Bases to reconstitute damaged units.

Additional rules include Retreating, Surrender and Terrain (we added mountain, jungle/forest and city terrain by simply placing a 1/4" colored dot on the map). We changed some National Objectives too. We added some Weapons Development as well and railroads. Railroads are especially important for Russia. During WW2, Russia moved thousands of troops to their fight with Germany from the east - and they did it quickly. Railroads allow that. Otherwise, with a movement of 1 it would take forever, and that is not actually what happened in WW2 at all!

These are but a few of the rules. If you have any comments, questions or show any interest, perhaps we can actually put it down in a written form.

JB, we’re using somewhat standard units (Infantry, Paratrooper, Motorized Infantry, Tank, Heavy Tank, Artillery, Self-Propelled Artillery, AA Guns and Partisans - for ground units). We’re not going to get into ‘elite’ units because this game is a strategic level game, and one infantry guy on the board represents approximately 20,000-50,000 actual troops - and realistically not all those troops could be elite - so it balances out. The scale of the game makes ‘elite’ units less relevant. You probably could add units to the game though without a problem.

You could use D12, which gives you ways to add differences between units. But we found other ways to add variables to combat rolls. Infantry roll extra dice in the Defensive Posture in rough, city or jungle/forest terrain. Bombers conducting Saturation Bombing roll an extra ‘shock’ roll. Fighter Bombers attacking ships roll an extra Strike Severity against ship targets, allowing the possibility that they can sink an aircraft carrier (which we did at Midway) or a battleship (which the Japanese did at Pearl Harbor).

Our basic approach is this: what actually happened in World War 2 must have the possibility of occurring in the game - at least to some extent. Equally, rules must be grounded in realism. If an infantry unit invades a territory and there is a bomber defending it, why does the bomber defend on a 1? What, is he surprised by 35,000 troops coming into the country and couldn’t get in the air before then? Couldn’t he just fly away or bomb them? We fixed that problem. Or the problem that Fighters attack everything on a 3 and defend on a 4. In actuality, Fighters weren’t good at attacking ships at all, were not great attacking ground troops, but were the best thing to use in shooting down other planes (which is what they were designed to do primarily). They can attack railroads for a strategic strike however. Fighter Bombers are what you want against ships and for close air support.

We also reduced shore bombardment for cruisers and battleships. In World War 2, we just do not see the type of devastation that could easily occur in the game. It wasn’t as effective as it looked to be at all. We bombed and shelled Iwo Jima for days and when Marines got there, the Japanese weren’t badly damaged. Same with Tarawa. And D-Day.

Carrier combat. In the air-naval battle sequence, we’ve included an air battle phase - because planes reach ships before ships reach ships; ships don’t fire at planes that are not attacking them; planes generally select their targets; planes cannot fire at subs without anti-sub capability. The ocean is just too large.

To all interested readers: game development of alternate rules has resumed (I was overseas in the summer conducting research and have returned). We’re play testing the rules and the game thoroughly. It is an advanced version of Axis & Allies for the serious, long-term gamer. Since each turn is a month of the war, the game lasts a long time. It’s impossible to play the game in a single afternoon or even a weekend. The obvious disadvantage of a game like this is that some players simply do not have the time or space for this type of game. It requires a space for the game to be set up and remain set up for weeks or even months. We play once a week for three hours at a time (we’d play more but that’s just not possible). We set up the game in a game room and it remains set up week after week. The advantage of a game like this, however, is that you will 1) never play the same game twice - because we introduced too many new variables; 2) it is based on realism; 3) it’s really fun but requires a lot of thinking and planning - a high level of strategic thinking - much more like World War II.

Someone asked about strategic shelling. Strategic shelling is when a battleship or a cruiser moves to an enemy port or naval base and shells it during strategic combat - to destroy it.

We did alter the map a little bit. We added some territory in Africa. Basically we put down scotch tape and drew a new border with a marker to make Kenya and NE Congo. We wanted to make Africa larger because it is actually a HUGE continent and without railroads it takes a long time to get from South Africa to Cairo. Railroads are really important in this new game. Troops from eastern Russia can actually go west and fight Germany if need be - which actually happened.

We’ve added a few more new developments to combat: Surprise (which the game had already but needed to be improved) and the number of combat rounds per offensive, which is 0-5 (we bought special D6 dice that range from 0-5, but you don’t necessarily need this - as you can just roll the D6 and subtract one as a base score). For the latter development, we thought about situations in which armies would make little progress for months on end (like in Burma) but huge gains in other areas (like the Russian offensives of 1944). We asked why. One factor is terrain. Burma is a rough, jungle area. The British were still fighting the Japanese there in 1944 - while the Russians by that time had overtaken huge sections of their country back and were on the Polish frontier. In Africa, for several months there was essentially a stalemate. In Italy, the Casssino line held for months. So, we introduced the number of combat rounds per offensive. These are modified by terrain, weather and whether you have a commander in the operation. If a player ends up with a 0 for combat rounds, there’s no actual combat: the territory becomes contested. They move in the territory, but there’s little violence. A number of factors could be the cause 1) supply problems; 2) communication problems that make coordination difficult; 3) unwillingness of troops or commanders to engage the enemy; 4) the enemy avoids contact. While we don’t have rules to tell you what actually takes place (this is a strategic level game, after all) - the result is that no substantial combat takes place over that month at that location. Each battle, before it begins, rolls to see how many rounds of combat takes place. This prevents the unrealistic dimension in the game before: that battles last as long as one side either retreats or is destroyed or surrenders. The 0-5 rule gives us an idea of the level of violence an operation had. I think, in the end, if we look at the German offensive in the Battle of the Bulge, we see that the Germans attacked - but they only had - in game terms - maybe 1 or 2 rounds of attacking. They couldn’t sustain a long-term offensive like the Russians did on the eastern front. Naval engagements would also last 0-5 rounds. Sometimes it’s just not possible to find an enemy fleet in a vast ocean. We found the Japanese fleet at Midway almost by luck (we did send out PBY planes, but it took a while to find them). The British hunted down the Bismarck and it took a long time. If a battle is unresolved then it becomes contested - we have rules for what that means and how subsequent combat movement and combat occur in such territories. You lose the IPCs if it is contested, although the other player doesn’t get them either…

We also changed lend-lease rules - a maximum of 16 IPCs may be given to an allied player or players. It’s unrealistic that half a nation’s income can be given to another player. Congress just simply would never allow that under any circumstances.

We’re still working on the rules. We are going to write them down in readable form (they are written down, but it’s still in development). We’re sticking with a D6 system but there’s no reason you can’t convert it to a D12. My associate wants to move to a D8 system, but I’m not sold on the idea. I hate the D8 dice. Never liked it.  :-)

We’ll keep everyone updated with developments as we go along. Hopefully by Christmas this war will be over. But it’s only March 1940 in our game. War has already began between the Germans and the Russians; Japan has invaded Australia and is fighting in Burma. The Italians are in Somaliland causing the Commonwealth and the British in Cairo huge problems. But the British are on the verge of taking Tobruk, and that is key. America isn’t in the war yet, but getting closer. The Axis control the Atlantic. France has fallen. It’s a dark time for the Allies. But China is fighting hard. Really hard.

@rohr94:

Upon seeing this original post I’ve also been trying to create a one month turn, but I have one question and one request.  My question is how do you deal with purchasing units when a turn is one month and most of my military buddies say combat training now a days is about 4 months.  My solution was to buy four turns in advance and each nation would get pre determined units for the first three turns.  Did you do something similar.  My request which also comes with a question is, could you post your setup charts you’ve created, because I’ve found nations like German and France very easy to find but Britain given the size of its empire very difficult to find the exact dispositions of units.  The question that goes along with that is what scale are you using.  For me it seemed most logical to use divisions for tanks and infantry and such, wings for airplanes, and groups of 500 or so for artillery.  I also favor a 12 sided die combat system to allow more variation within units, because its fair to say that in the beginning of the war German infantry would be better than Russian infantry due to more experience and stalin’s great purge.  Also with regards to strategic combat I had the idea to add counter battery fire so artillery can fire to destroy other artillery pieces in current combats or future combat zone.  Sorry for the disorganization and rambling nature of this post, I’m replying on my phone so it’s hard to format this into paragraphs.

Rohr, I’ve thought about that. Taking turns to mobilize units… It would be more realistic - you are absolutely right. For Infantry, you can assume that the training has already been done and when you ‘purchase’ new units they are then mobilized. However, you’re correct about the timeline. So, we’re going to work on this. Making a battleship takes time. All of this depends upon a country’s infrastructure too. Great question and point!

For set up - funny - we were just having this conversation… We used number of troops as a baseline - but a unit on the board includes more than just numbers (1 Infantry = 30,000-50,000 troops): training, equipment, communications, leadership, and combat power. All those factors go into set-up. So, for example, in 1939 Germany had I believe about 2000-3000 tanks maybe - 6 panzer divisions entered Poland in 1939 out of 63 divisions. The Russians had about 19,000 tanks. Russian tanks in 1939 were not very good - the German tanks weren’t much better, but: they had communications equipment in their lead tanks, better tank officers who understood tank warfare (although the Russians had just as good tank theorists as the Germans - i.e. Tuchachevsky - but he was killed by Stalin). So, we give the Russians 5 tanks in 1939. They have more tanks but probably the same amount of combat power… Set-up is difficult.

The French boasted that they had 5,000,000 reservists and fielded about 900,000 men in the field in 1939. But, essentially, this was a World War I army. It was ‘larger’ than the German army at the time - but on the game board the French won’t have more troops than the Germans because the Germans were a better army.

The other reason why we shy away from a strict ‘numbers of troops’ ratio to game board pieces is because the Russians later in the war were moving around 400 divisions. We can’t have 400 infantry on the board - or anything close to it. So, we decided to make infantry represent more and added other factors.

I have set-up charts but they’re not quite right. We tried to stick to the set-up charts of other versions and make adjustments, but we did have to change. For example, the Russians may have had a battleship in 1939, but was it the equivalent to a German or American battleship? No. In terms of combat power it was a cruiser - so that’s what we gave to them…

The counter-battery idea is interesting. I’ll talk to the other game designer. It certainly happened in WW2 but the question is how effective was it on the strategic level. Could an artillery battery really take out another artillery battery during a battle - with pin-point precision? In a large territory - hundreds of square miles? Maybe. Aircraft can certainly select artillery units - we do have that in the game… Maybe the Weapons development ‘Advanced Artillery’ can do something like that - or at least select targets they want to fire at in a battle. That might work… Thank you for your post. You bring up some good ideas. This is precisely the reason why we posted this thread.

Nashville area.