Thanks for the comments and support guys! :-D
Thank you for your feedback Argothair! It’s always good to have experienced players providing constructive opinions. I always find that when people create mods and house rules will always tend to think of their game play liking first and think of the community second. I hope after reviews and game testing I will have a satisfactory product that will be liked at least by my game group.
@Argothair:
Some early thoughts on your mix of units:
- Many of your units are quite similar to each other mechanically, especially on land. E.g., a tank destroyer is C5 A4 D4 M2, whereas a light tank is C5 A5 D4 M2 – do you really need two different units whose statistics are within one point of each other? Another example is Mech. Inf. (C4 A2 D4 M2) vs. Armored Cars (C4 A3 D3 M2). With d12 dice, these small differences will only matter once every 12 rolls. Consider whether your players will want to buy extra minis, carefully squint at the setup, etc., so that they can enjoy the result of these small differences.
I though of this long and hard. I love to have a choice of many different types of units for every situation. I own most of the HBG sculpts so I figured why not.
Light tanks hit chance is 8.3% more than a tank destroyer but at the same time a tank destroyer has armor selection at 2 or less (16.7% hit chance). If you were Russia and Germany is coming at you with 10 tanks, as a defender of mother Russia would you throw in the mix a couple of tank destroyers or light tanks? In the same token been in the offensive with Italy or Germany attacking Russia I would rather build light tanks than tank destroyers to attack. Same goes with m. infantry and armored cars. Bear in mind I just finished creating the Technologies that can be researched. The same Technology will benefit one type of unit like armored cars and another like m. infantry completely different.
- Your naval structure looks very similar to OOB rules for Global 1940, but it’s widely agreed that cruisers are overpriced at 12 IPCs – do you disagree? Do you think players will purchase your cruisers, and, if so, why? Also, your light carriers look relatively inefficient – I could imagine Italy buying one to support operations in the Med, but otherwise you’re really not getting much bang for your buck – a light carrier plus a fighter combined only defend at 8 and cost 19 IPCs. For one more dollar you could get a battleship, which lets you defend at 8, gives you the ability to soak a free hit, and gives you a better bombard than the lone fighter.
100% agree with the cruisers. I might increase their attack and defense to 7 or give cruisers and battleships AA capabilities. Haven’t decided yet… As for light carriers + a fighter = two hit points, just like a battleship. Making the light carriers cost 8 will make the air craft carriers obsolete costing 16.
- It’s not obvious that the “choose your target” ability is very useful, because so many of the units are of roughly equal value. At sea, the carrier and battleships take two hits each, so it’s not clear that you want to target them unless they’re already wounded. On land, I guess it’s nice to kill a 6 IPC tank instead of a 3 IPC infantry, but if you’re choosing between a tank destroyer and an artillery piece, good luck figuring out which will hurt your opponent more. Most of the units have special abilities that are very situational.
Not many unit types have target selection. In fact the only two that have this capability is a tank destroyer and the tactical bomber. So not too many dilemmas of what to purchase. As an example if I am USA and fighting Japan in the Pacific I will prefer TB;s over medium bombers. At the same time if I am UK I would rather build more medium bombers than TB’s.
- How exactly do the coastal guns and fortifications work? I assume the coastal guns only score hits on a roll of 1? And I assume the fortifications don’t roll dice at all, but simply boost the defense of infantry? Do the fortifications still work when they’re partly damaged? Fully damaged? Is there any way to destroy or capture a fortification?
Coastal guns work just like anti-aircraft guns. Here is the updated description on the reference chart’s that I made few days ago: ‘Roll 1 die for each (max 3) attacking sea unit including transports on a 2 or less (first round only)’
Here is the updated description on the reference chart’s for the fortifications: ‘+1 defense of up to 5 infantry (every round of combat). Can take up to 10 damage. For every 2 damage support 1 less unit (round up)’ I thought that wasn’t good enough so I also gave them a defending value of 6 that fires every round.
Coastal guns and fortifications are destroyed when captured. They cannot be taken as casualties (unlike AA guns)
- Your factories produce income when they’re not damaged, which gives players an incentive to send a ‘harassment’ bomber to annoy every opposing factory. The first bomber targeting a major factory is much more valuable than the second bomber. You don’t really have a ‘harassment’ bomber available, though – the smallest aircraft that can do a strategic bombing raid is the Medium Bomber, which costs 12 IPCs. How do you want this to work? Does a factory still produce bonus income if you repair it at the start of your turn, or do you only collect the bonus income when you start your turn with a damage-free factory? Do you want players to be able to easily disrupt each other’s factories, or is the extra income meant to be a more-or-less permanent bonus?
Very observant Argothair. Repairing of the facilities is done at the beginning of the turn. Collecting IPC’s happens at the end of the turn. This means if you want to collect bonus income you must repair your factories. I introduced the bonus income factory feature as I thought facility bombing doesn’t occur as often as I would like in the other A&A games. Also if you bomb a factory in A&A and you roll a low number it doesn’t really change anything as what’s the difference if a factory can produce max 10 units or 9 or 8. I am hoping this will make players think bombing actually hurts more than just factories producing less units