Uncle Sam's House Rules for A&A 1940 2ndEd

@panther

Thank you! Anyways, this is a bit redundant as I have a topic discussing a massive change to make The Captain’s house rules more historically accurate:

https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/37504/let-s-make-the-axis-and-allies-global-1940-expansion-rules-even-more-accurate

@Imperious:

Unit on both sites are drawing board, partially developed, or fully developed naval and air units. The LZ-135 was never built, only drafted on paper and in this sense it was real.

A fair point, though it should be remembered that some on-the-drawing-board concepts are less real than others.  Germany’s proposed H-Class battleships began as realistic designs in 1938 or 1939, and one or two of them were actually laid down.  When the construction work was suspended, however, drawing-board work continued on-and-off until 1944.  The design kept getting upgraded, and kept getting more and more unrealistic; from about 1941 onward, these designs can be regarded as purely paper studies, with zero chance of being built and thus little need to keep practicalities into account.  But at least they were being designed by competent naval architects, in contrast with Hitler’s propensity for sketching battleship designs on the back of envelopes.  (This fondness was an odd one, in view of his land-warfare orientation, but wasn’t entirely out of character: he believed that he knew more about warfare than his professionally-trained generals, and he similarly felt that he could come up with better battleship designs than professional naval architects.)  Hitler once proposed building a battleship armed with 800mm guns of the Gustav / Dora railway artillery type; in a rare example of common sense winning over Hitler’s fondness for gigantism (as illustrated by the 188-tonne Maus tank), an admiral managed to talk him out of the idea by pointing out that no existing German harbour was large enough to accommodate a ship big enough to carry guns of that size.

@Bob77:

Would this be at the beginning of game turn or each players turn?

Each players turn.

Looks like Japan built a Labor Camp in Korea

camp 1.jpg

Because the western Allies can more easily project power and gang up against Japan or Germany, while the axis are too far apart to help each other. Italy is really not much help. They can pile up in Spain and really easily make that a base to attack France, or even do a 2 to 1 in France. Go play it and find out. I did a few times over the years.

After a year break we played a game according to these rules yesterday.
Japan heavy navy focused getting Honolulu, Sydney, Rio de Janero and even San Francisco! Leading to a land war on the American continent.
Meanwhile Russia and Britain heavy focusing Germany, with conquering the whole of northern and eastern Europe (Oslo, Kiev).
But then, Germany seized an opportunity of taking London after Britain player overcomitted and did some bad rolls.
Axis win the game.

It was very confusing, and we did a lot of bad mistakes. But it was fun, and we really had a game with battles at totally new battlefields.

After Russia and Britain both starting very defensive, Germany and Japan player decided to play an altrenative strategy, attacking US. It worked at least partially. Germany forced to play defensive on land, losing total whole of east and north Europe (but defensive Russia took quite a while). Japan using heavy Navy and invading Australia, South America and finally even US west coast. Land war on the American continent between Japan West coast and US East coast (and Canada a bit). Few action in China at all…all players were turteling after the initial clashes. Money was needed elsewhere and infantry could hardly attack alone. Tank war in Africa between German Egypt and British South Africa. Both players had minor factories in africa, pumping tanks. Great navy clash in the northern Atlantic between US+Royal Navy and the German navy. To some bad rolls, British and US player losing atlantic fleet. Germany lost as well nearly whole fleet, but was able to invade exposed London and win the game. Maybe one turn later, the Russian steamroller would have taken Berlin.

The changes in Navy Balance (increase offensive power by chaper Battleship and Cruiser) as well as the alternative start setup allows for totally new strategies like “Kill US”. We are still not sure if this setup is balanced, we did only 3 games with this so far. I’d be happy about any feedback.

@Uncrustable:

I think you should play some games of G40 on here before making these assumptions.
I do, and I see many SBR involving fighters.
Germany sometimes will send 5 or more bombers on Moscow alone, where Moscow has 2-3 fighters to scramble. Odds are better that Russia will lose a fighter before Germany loses a bomber in the air combat. And  Il trade a German bomber for a Russian fighter, Russia can’t afford it.
I also see many games where G2 Germany sends 2 bombers 2-4 tac bombers and 2-4 fighters to London where there are sometimes up to 5 fighters that can scramble.
Italy will also heroically send its lone bomber to London in an attempt to disable the airbase on London before Germany’s turn.

Even with interceptors SBR is a touch too powerful in G40.
This is mainly because bombers are getting +2, meaning 1 bomber auto disables bases and minor facilities once past AA and interceptors.

I would propose taking away bombers +2, while halving tacbombers damage.
Bombers SBR at 1D6
Tacbombers SBR at 1D6 /2. Rounded up.

Now I better see why you wanted to give defending interceptor D2 instead of D1.

Attacker have the advantage of picking which units will go SBR and to concentrate firepower on a single IC.

The defenders are overwhelmed by the sheer number.
In addition, on defense you have often more than just only 1 IC to protect, and you cannot keep all the Fgs in the same territory, have to split them usually.
D2 interceptors can counterweight the advantage of attacker and hindrance of defense a bit.

Reducing attacking bombers to only 1@1  for the whole group is also a way to preserved the defending fighters against destruction by a large number of StBs. But we both know, that is not A&A standard rules, each unit usually get 1 roll…

…unless you treat StBs/TcBs the same way as AAA!!!. :-o
So each defending Fgs can never have more rolled against them than 1A@1, if there is at least the same number of StB/TcBs vs Fgs.

It can be rationalized to get an historical accuracy somehow in the way:
intercepting fighters are not able to attack all groups of StBs/TcBs flying over the territory but only one unit (flight group) at a time.
When interceptors fly around StBs they are under an intense and concentrated AA fire coming from the flying fortress. But all others group of StBs are not chasing actively Interceptors, they are just flying toward the IC/AB/NB target.
So if interceptors are overwhelmed by the StBs/TcBs, it will be in essence 1:1 combat.
1 TcBs A1 vs 1 Fg D2, all other additionnal StBs/TcBs cannot shoot anymore.
In fact, all intercepting Fgs are already busy, other StBs/TcBs have pure and simple an open road toward IC or NB/AB.

What do you think of this one?
When StBs/TcBs attack fighters on SBR air combat, they get A@1 for each StB/TcB or intercepting Fgs wichever is less.

Escorting fighter attack as usual, 1 unit get 1 roll.
Based on 1942.2, I will keep @1 First Strike
Based on G40 rule, if Interceptor has D1, then A1.

(I really wonder why I haven’t think about it, even back in the old thread about StB spam strategy. :?)
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=31373.0

For any game with tech research in it, I like the tech being more likely to be discovered the more money you put into it. Instead of needing to roll a 6 on one die to discover the tech, you roll two dice and need to roll a 12, but for each previous roll, you get +1 to your current roll. So on the second roll you would succeed on an 11, on the third roll on a 10, etc. The average number of rolls needed to get the tech is about the same, but the variation is much lower. You’re much less likely to get it on your first attempt, but also much less likely to need 10+ attempts. To keep track of how many rolls you’ve made, place a die (or an airplane movement marker from Revised) on the tech chart where the control marker would go.