Rethinking Air Units

@The-Captain

Thank you for clarifying!

I’d rather have cheaper, defenseless transport planes myself.

I think that’s totally reasonable, Midnight_Reaper. You could introduce cheaper air transports into this roster without breaking anything important. My preference is for more expensive air transports because the extra price thematically represents (a) the up-front cost of developing the technology and tactics (nobody has to spend money on researching paratroopers for this roster), and (b) the relatively limited supply of air transport available during World War II. There’s a fun little article below about how most of the American Air Force’s transports were either hastily converted civilian planes, or wooden gliders manufactured in piano factories. If the Americans had to make do with makeshift equipment, you can only imagine what the Italians were using.

https://amcmuseum.org/history/world-war-ii-transport-and-troop-carrier/

Strategically, air transports provide a much deeper threat into enemy territory that requires a much larger garrison. E.g. if you put an assault boat in the English Channel, it threatens Normandy, Holland, Norway, Hanover, and Denmark. If you put an air transport in London, it threatens all of those plus Paris, Marseilles, Gibraltar, Morocco, Milan, Berlin, Poland, Finland, Austria, and Czechoslovakia. It’s not that I expect anyone to fly many air transports into a battle to use as fodder; it’s just that spending 12 bucks on one air transport can force your opponent to spend more than 12 bucks on extra defending infantry.

In terms of rules simplicity, I have tried to eliminate the concept of the “defenseless unit” from my unit roster. I find automatic combat losses to be something of a downer, and I’d rather use that spot in the rulebook for a more interesting rule.

All of that said, again, this is mostly personal preference – if you want a $9 defenseless air transport with 4 movement, that’s almost certainly fine.

@Der:

@simon33:

You can look at it like that. I’m looking at it from the point of view of what makes the game more fun. If I take your baking a cake analogy, do you read the recipe before shopping for ingredients? The current turn order is basically, buy some ingredients, read the recipe (combat movement), bake cake (conduct combat). You have to prognosticate what will be in the recipe to know what you need to buy.

No combat movement would be moving all of your ingredients to stove. ;)

I think my analogy is every bit as valid as yours.

The point is that the need to prognosticate the likely outcome of the board at the end of your combats is unnecessary, time consuming and reduces the fun. Whether the current rule makes sense or not isn’t really relevant.

The point about forgetting to purchase isn’t really valid with a Triple-A game because it prompts you. You can say that a forgotten purchase is a zero purchase if you apply the rule strictly. In general I would expect so if a retrospective purchase gives an unfair advantage.

Face to face, I use a merged purchase+combat movement phase. Probably why we can play a game in a day.

Hello,

I have Revised and a friend of me has the Spring42 Version. We prefer the newer Rules of Spring42 with the additional cruisers, “better” transporter rules and so on. But the board of Revised seems to be better, bigger and with more detail.

Now we plan to play on the Revised board (with Revised setup) with the Spring42 rules.

Has anyone of you did this before or has any ideas if this is feasible and playable?

Thank you very much!

@Carolina:

To Baron on his first post - my point on giving an attack A1 on the interception round was show that historically STR bomber did shoot down fighters in air battles (I believe B17s shot down more fighters than any other aircraft) and I want to preserve that fact.

OK, so keep as below but StB “1” roll directly hit planes while 2, 3 and 4 make normal casualty.
That way, Fgs and TcBs rolls stay preemptive while StBs can roll if they survive and can still shot down some planes with a “1”.

@Baron:

The first combat round is more important than others.
Full attack with all units is part of the attacker evaluation process to make a go or no go.

A less impactful way to simulate this air battle can simply to follow this stages during first combat round:
1- All AAA fire @1 against attacking planes.
Remove attacking aircrafts casualties.
2- All Fighters A3 D4 (and TacBs A3-4 D3?) roll attack and defense. All hits have to be allocated to Air units.
Remove all aircrafts casualties.
3- All Strategic bombers A4 D1 (and TacBs A3-4 D3?) roll attack and defense. All hits are allocated normally.
4- All other units roll.
Remove all regular casualties.

Basically, it is like giving first strike (surprise strike) roll against airplanes to Fgs and TcBs on the first combat round.
If StB is shot down by Fg or TcB, it cannot roll for attack or defense.
Otherwise, it makes a normal @4 attack or @1 defense.
Of course, you can always sacrifice a Fg or TcB as casualty, so StB can survive and make its attack roll.

Here is an on going air battle during each combat round:

ANTI-AIRCRAFT ARTILLERY A0 D1 CM1 Cost 4, 1 hit,
Each round, up to 2 preemptive defense @1 against up to 2 planes, whichever the lesser, works similar to OOB AAA but can defend each combat round.
Stop any blitz, and defend itself @1 against enemy’s ground units, if no attacking air unit is present.
Can move during combat move phase, can be taken as casualty (owner’s choice).

FIGHTER A3 D4 M4, SBR A2 D2 Cost 8
Air combat unit, Fighter as an Air Superiority aircraft: All “1” and “2” rolls are allocated to aircraft units first, if any available, then AAA, and finally other kind of units (owner’s choice).
Fighter as part of an extended Air Defense System:
1942.2, 1 Fg can scramble from an Air Base/Victory City.
SBR/TcBR Attack @2, Defend @2.

Can hit submarines without Anti-Sub Vessel.

TACTICAL BOMBER A4 D3 M4 Cost 10
All “1” rolls are allocated to any aircraft OR ground units of your choice,
All “2” rolls are allocated to any ground units of your choice.
This can makes for Tactical Bomber as a “Dive Bomber” and “Tank Buster”:

1942.2, 1 TcB can scramble from an Air Base/Victory City.

SBR/TcBR Attack @1 first strike,
Allowed to do escort mission of Strategic Bomber without doing Tactical Bombing Raid on Air Base or Naval Base,
Bombers (StB or TcB) are the first targets destroyed by interceptors.
Cannot do interception mission on defense,
TcBR damage: 1D6.
Can hit submarines without Anti-Sub Vessel.

Strategic BOMBER A4 D1 M6 Cost 10
All “1” rolls are allocated to any aircraft OR ground units of your choice.

Strategic Bombing Raid (SBR*)/ TBR : Attack @1 first strike against up to 2 fighters, whichever the lesser, similar to AAA.
SBR/TBR damage: 1D6+2 on Industrial Complex, Air Base or Naval Base
Bombers (StB or TcB) are the first targets destroyed by interceptors.
Can hit submarines without Anti-Sub Vessel.
Re: Rethinking Air Units
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=34502.msg1331015#msg1331015

SBR/TcBR escort and intercept combat values:
Fighter: Attack 2 Defense 2
Tactical Bomber: Attack 1 first strike Defense 0
Strategic Bomber: Attack 1 first strike , as AA gun against up to 2 Fgs, Defense 0
Bombers (StB or TcB) are the first targets destroyed by interceptors.

I would allow 2 types of defensive maneuvers for aircraft.
DEFENSIVE MANEUVERS allowed for 2 or 3 types of aircraft:

Aerial Retreat for attacking planes (all aircrafts can retreat while letting ground units pursuing battle),

Limited landing in a just conquered territory (which includes at least 1 ground unit): 1 plane (either Fighter or Tactical Bomber), as long as each unit can provide 1 extra movement point for this special landing.

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=36833.msg1469276#msg1469276

Cost is reduced to 8 and 10 because of the higher attrition rate with on going air combat.
According to this rule, a stack of fighters can destroy a stack of StBs with a lot of Infantry in the same TTy and left untouched the Infantry stack.

oooo I like the options the germans get with swapping the bat for an acc.

That’s got to come in handy!

In my version the oil tanker is the only new unit added.  Well, apart from Radar installations and Rocket pieces.

But then one key rule I introduce is that all ships must refuel every turn, tying them to friendly land areas.  With tankers it becomes possible to carry out long range naval operations, but the pieces themselves are expensive and have no combat value.

I’m not convinced that cruisers are anything more than a piece for the sake of having a 3-3 ship, with destroyers becoming 2-2, but we’ll see what LH has come up with in Guadalcanal.  Eventually.

The problem with cost reduction is that you might create naval cannon fodder units bought in vast quantaties just to soak up hits.  A ship costing 4 IPCs and having no combat value would probably be a good buy.

when you feel happy with the infantry placement rules just tell me and I’ll paste them into the main document

I hope you’ll repost in table format though  :wink: