Development of Alternate Version of Rules

Hi Munck,
We plan to keep everyone informed of its development - for those who want it. I am aware about the new version coming out in November. The map looks really interesting, although I’d personally want some modifications to it (I think Africa is too small and the Pacific is too small). We actually like the revised map HBG put out a couple of years ago… We just had to make modifications, including adding extra Sea Zones, placing a blue dot on certain Sea Zones to count for 2 movement points, adding terrain, adding territories (mainly in Africa), and changing IPC values for some territories. We also changed set up to reflect a historical approach - so we made set-up charts for all the nations. We didn’t change everything though. If it was historically accurate, we kept it. We based units on the board according to combat power and not number of troops/tanks (the Russians had about 19,000 tanks in 1939, but they don’t have a massive stack of tanks on the board).

Anyways, we’ve abandoned the idea of each turn lasts 6 months approach. That approach makes it more playable and faster (and maybe more fun?), but we just couldn’t reconcile it with actual historical events and ship and plane technology. Their movement points don’t coincide with history at all. Our one-month-per-turn will be a slow, grinding game - but we’re going for more realism. As a player, you get to make the strategic and tactical decisions that are difficult: we’re trying to lessen “game” aspects and heighten realism. Obviously it is still a game. But we’ve introduced things that will make the game more fluid: weather, terrain, leadership, logistics, somewhat complex rules for actual battles (with initiative, number of phases in a battle, offensive and defensive posture, retreating, amphibious evacuation, surprise and surrender), politics, an events chart and partisans, different training among nations and their armed forces, some new Weapons Developments. But most of all: changes in strategic and tactical turn order every month. Who went first in last round may not go first in this round. It’s random but there are modifiers that give you a better chance of acting before your enemy does. You’ll never play the same game twice. You don’t know what the weather will be like. And, of course, you might radically alter what the Axis or Allies actually did in the war. It’ll be like a game that you “save” and come back to later. Some people might not be able to do this, and that’s okay. But for those who want a more historical approach to World War II, we’re going to offer it as an alternate version.

Chris_Henry,
Thanks for the feedback and question. As for the new map, I’m not sure if these rules would be compatible. You’d have to adjust a few things I suppose. We’re not in a position to get the new map right now. Plus, we like the 1939 revised map.

I think the size of the maps are okay actually - What we thought the problem was that ships - if the timetable is 6 months - would be able to move much, much farther than is allowed. And planes even more. It took about 15 days of sailing for American troops to reach North Africa from Virginia. Given loading a ship and disembarking, we figured that the US should be able to invade North Africa from the US in a turn - 1 month - not 6 months. So, we had to adjust the map by eliminating SZ 35 around Gibraltar, give the US “improved Naval Bases” that add an extra movement point during combat movement (i.e. ship 2, +1 for naval base, +1 for improv. NB = 4). But we added some extra sea spaces between the US and France by placing blue dots in certain SZs in the Atlantic so that the US couldn’t simply invade France from the mainland of the US - it’s a bit fictional. We may or may not do this and actually remove the blue dots…All in all, we didn’t want to make our own map - we didn’t have the time and we liked the revised version of the 1939 map (we bought the largest one)…

@Munck:

Do you have your current rules written down? Would love to see where you are at this point.

Are you looking for feedback or help from other people, or are you doing this ‘locally’?

The new map should be a better version of 1939 revised. They have made more changes since the Facebook post, so I don’t know the current lay-out. How have you made your revisions to the 1939 map? Have you scanned the HBG one or are you using ‘pen & paper’ ?

Another question, how many hours do you envision a game will take?

Again, keep up the good work  :-)

Munck,

We have the rules down in draft form with additional charts for easy reference. We’ve received some feedback on this board. For map revisions:
new countries/sea zones: scotch tape, black marker for a new border - it isn’t permanent but it looks decent
IPC changes: we made little red and black squares with numbers, like you see on the map, printed at Staples on a single adhesive sheet (I forget the Avery number) - then we simply cut those out and peeled them off and put them on the board. Looks great. We made our own terrain markers this way as well. And we made some 1/2" square chips for RR, Defensive Lines, Weather - we also use HBG stuff and Axis & Allies stuff too, and counters from other games. But you can virtually make any type of chip you want.

The game will take months - literally months. I’m the Axis this time. My associate, who happens to be my brother, will play the Allies. He’s a really good player. I’ve somehow got to find a way to beat him.

BTW, we changed the Axis victory cities to 12, not 10 - it forces the Axis to essentially eliminate a major power - i.e. a major competing political system at the time - either communism or liberal democracy. That’s really what World War II is about as far as the Germans are concerned. Social Darwinism on a national scale - a global scale. We put all of that in the game as accurate, historical background, because we think it’s fun to also learn about history as you play the game…

@Chris_Henry:

Sorry Bud, I should have clarified what I meant. It was more the land combat than anything I was referring to (I completely agree about ship movement realism). The idea of Burma falling quickly always bugged me, short fights in Africa, fighting in Italy etc. Essentially saying I agree with you on a way to simulate the longer drawn out battles. I had always thought of a map that had Burma split into two or three territories for example, but your version is more practical (as you’re right, it would take a ton of time to make a map!).

I agree. Having huge tank battles in the jungles of Burma never made any sense to me. It was an Infantry war. We made Burma’s terrain difficult (jungle and a river area), which will be a real challenge to the Japanese (I have to figure out a way to dislodge the British there).

Terrain, specifically, we’ve determined, has the following ramifications (jungle/forest, city, mountainous):
Mechanized forces have less combat power
Infantry get additional rolls in it when in the Defensive Posture
Aircraft have less of a chance to hit targets
Terrain also reduces the number of combat rounds a battle will have (normally it’s 0-5 rounds, but terrain will reduced this by 1) - which means - since combat units have 2 steps (full strength and damaged), initial invasions can turn into long, drawn-out campaigns over months in a contested area - with both sides pouring in troops to try to dislodge the other player(s)…

Then there’s the monsoon season in Burma, which virtually stops combat operations or limits them to a huge degree…

As for the long game, we figured people play Xbox or PS4 and “save” the game and come back to it later; or role-playing games that people spend months even years on a campaign - playing once a week; or a TV series that progresses over a season. So, we wanted to introduce that concept to a WW2 game…

It might take a conceptual adjustment at first on how one can play a board game… The most important challenge besides setting time aside once a week or so is having a dedicated place to play. That’s the real challenge and we know that won’t be possible for many people. That’s the only real drawback I guess.

@SS:

Bud, I’d be interested in your rules and setups to. I know the group wouldn’t play but a buddy or 2 might. I’m hopin to setup a 3rd gaming table were I could pretty much change out games, keep setup for certain games for a period of time.
I do have 3 HBG G39 maps.

Have you thought about having ships move only 2 spaces from a naval base and if no naval base, can only move 1 space for the whole map ?
Then you wouldn’t need the blue dots.

Also agree with your comment about time and space.

The blue dots in the Pacific seem to be fine. We’re not sure about the Atlantic. If we decrease the mobility of ships then it won’t be historically accurate at all. It took about 15 days of sailing from Virginia to Morocco. We have to make sure that’s possible in our game - i.e. to be able to do that in one month of the game. Therefore, we eliminated SZ35 and gave the US “Improved Naval Bases” along with the UK (which is reasonable).

To all those who wanted rules for an alternate version of this game, we’ve hit a wall. We’ve play-tested it several times but arrived several conclusions:

1. The map, in our view, requires so many alterations that players in the community might not want to go through all the trouble. It’s a decent map but spaces = distances is so distorted that it makes things ridiculously artificial. We have used scotch tape and a marker to add new territories and sea zones (we think the Pacific Ocean is just too small, for example, and that Africa should have more territories to simulate its enormous size geographically).

2. The units, like infantry, tanks, planes - just doesn’t really reflect reality enough for us to continue using them. We’re developing a more realistic set of military units (see below).

Our other rules, about terrain, weather, leadership, strategic and tactical phases, the monthly pace/turn, initiative, offensive and defensive posture during battles, combat supply units, strategic assets, etc. do work. They work well. We even set up the game again, thinking to play-test one more round, but the above 2 issues, especially #2, just made it impossible to continue.

We’d like to make a new map and publish that, but we don’t have time to do all the work. So, we’re going to “fix” the map we have. It’s not a bad map…it just could be better! :-)

As for the military units: we’re developing 5/8" counters - like old Avalon Hill strategy games - of division-sized units (a few regimental and brigade units too). This is an enormous task. We’re currently researching every division in World War II for every nation - and adding extra ones in case a player uses more than what was actually used (like the U.S. - who had 90 divisions give or take but the War Dept. at one point had a plan to raise 255 divisions should the war have gone badly). It gets complicated. Some divisions were re-organized and some were deactivated - we’re going to make some command decisions regarding those. Also included will be combat supply units. We realize that the Soviet Union, Germany and China had enormous armies - that Soviet divisions were smaller than German/American/British divisions - their scores will reflect that.

Every unit will have scores or levels for attack, defense, hit points (how much damage they can take), AAA score, cost, stacking points (how much logistically cumbersome it is) and training level (A-E, A being very well-trained, E being more or less auxiliary units). We’ve also made planes and ships too as well as counters for Corps (1-6 divisions), Armies (7-20 divisions) and Army Groups (21+ divisions). Those Corps, Armies and Army Group counters are what actually goes on the board during game play - the actual divisions are hidden from other players in trays - so you don’t know what the other guy has until you either a) fight him or b) recon or c) espionage. The fog of war… It’ll be like that for ships too - Task Forces and Fleets… If you want to attack a fleet in a sea zone you have to “find it” first during strategic combat with reconnaissance aircraft.

I’ve developed a combat system that is based on a Combat Results Table. Damage depends on the amount of combat power being thrown at the enemy. If you have 1 division and the enemy has 6 divisions being thrown at you, you’re not going to destroy all of them by a long shot. But you might hurt them badly enough that it turns the battle in your favor - or gives you more favorable odds. Battles can last several rounds sometimes - so several rolls of the dice - each round players have to roll initiative. The system is complicated but it looks like it’ll work. Battles will take a while to resolve. You get to be the commander, decide which divisions will suffer damage, which ones you should withdraw out of the territory, what you’ll do if you gain the initiative… You’ll have to manage how you’re going to bring in replacements to bring units back up to full strength when damaged. Sometimes your units might just get wiped out entirely - and that’s it for them. Terrain and weather will modify dice rolls, as well as commanders. The CRT has columns and odds: 1-4 all the way up to 7-1. It’s dangerous to attack an enemy when you only have 1-1 odds (your attack factor in total from all your divisions vs. his total defense factor from all of his). Damages are from 1/16 to 1 - 1 being 100% of your combat power effects the enemy (a really good hit). Rolls are determined by the D12. So, it you have an attack of 90 and you achieve “1/2” against the enemy, they take 45 hit points of damage - spread across their army as the defender sees fit. That’s the idea anyways. Sometimes the result will be that you suffer no damage but the enemy does, or vice versa.

Aircraft: we’ve determined that each aircraft unit (Fighters, Fighter Bombers) are about 100 planes. Can 100 Fighter Bombers destroy and entire SS panzer division? We’re not sure. It can certainly damage it. But planes, although effective, won’t be able to just strafe anything on the ground at will and destroy it. It’ll be more realistic.

So that’s what we’re working on. We’re sorry that the version we’ve been working on for a while just didn’t pan out. We just don’t want to play with figurines anymore. It doesn’t make sense to us. It isn’t all that interesting. If we’re going to spend hours playing a war game, we figure it might as well be interesting.