AARHE: Phase 3: land Combat

Well, it could add some interesting flavor to the endgame, but if you’re down to two territories, then you’re not purchasing much of anything anyway, so there won’t be much tactical difference.

One of the strongest two-territory combinations is Moscow + Caucasus, which are often worth about 12 IPCs. So, instead of 4 regular infantry, you buy 6 citizen-soldiers…but they’ll defend roughly as well. 6 hit points and 6 defensive pips vs. 4 hit points and 8 defensive pips? It’s kind of a wash.

Even if you get the design of the citizen-soldier unit right, having the rule kick in when you’re down to only a couple of territories doesn’t quite satisfy the itch I’ve got, which is to punish countries that repeatedly over-produce infantry. The idea is that if you pour out the blood of your armies like water, well, then, eventually you run out of blood! But with the two-territory rule, you could build nothing but tanks and fighters the whole game, symbolizing your anxious concern to avoid risking any more lives than you absolutely have to – and then still wind up “running out” of infantry in the endgame when your enemies push you back to your capital.

There’s nothing wrong with designing custom units, and in fact I think your citizen-soldier unit is quite well-balanced, but I don’t think the “manpower tracking” problem can be solved with any kind or kinds of custom units. It’s just not that sort of problem.

I found a post which say that SBR AAA kill ratio was 10% max:

What Larry says have flaws, and contradict to to base mechanic.

It should be like this:

1. Attacking fighter escorts roll dice, each 1 is hit, and defender move casualties to casualty zone.

2. Defending AA-gun roll dice, each 1 is hit, and then defending fighters roll dice, 2 or less is hit. Attacker choose his casualties.

3. Surviving bombers roll SBR dice against factories.

In real world, the attacking airfleet would first face the intercepting fighters, and then the escort fighters would do dog-fight. Later, the bombers would face AA-fire at the target. This AA-fire killed historically less than 10 % of the aircrafts. Using Larrys rule where AA-guns target bombers, you could be lucky and roll two 1’s and kill both attacking bombers, and get an unhistoric result of thousands bombers killed and no harm to the factories. Since its an abstract game, let the attacker pick a fighter as casualty to represent a % loss, and still have bombers survive to SBR.

http://harrisgamedesign.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=1706&start=8
He is talking about an older version of SBR (AA50 Anniversary).

@Daedelus:

Maybe this would unbalance the game, but Franco’s Spain had been a close ally of Germany in the 1930’s and this could represent Germany’s constant nagging to repay the favor.
[…]
Thoughts?

It could be an interesting game option.  Historically, though, Hitler did try nagging Franco but got nowhere with him, for instance in the discussions over the projected Operation Felix (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Felix).

Italian starting navy

1 Battleship
1 Cruiser
1 Destroyer
1 Submarine
1 Transport

recommend: 1 dd or 1 CA, plus transport

German navy
1 Battleship
1 Cruiser
2 Destroyer
3 Submarine
1 Transport

recommend: you buy lots of subs

British starting navy ( in europe area)
2 Battleship
2 Cruiser
3 Destroyer
1 Submarine
2 Transport

Note: They will buy whatever they have lost plus carrier and transports, but if you look weak they will build cruisers and destroyers and take you out.

on the basis of this and the fact that the German player must make as many attacks on UK naval with sea and air elements, i really don’t see how this is happening unless:

You have the tools to make the british player hurt for like 3 turns, during that time you need to use your naval to attack and you need to buy subs and other naval to keep the thing going for a while, while you get the land build up for the Soviets.

I agree that the current method of defender choosing casualties is simple, so perhaps it should stay, but in war, the casualties were much more random, so here is my suggestion.

Custom create a Battle Board sheet. (A Microsoft Word table will do just fine.) Here is an example.

Battle Board
          Attacker’s Units
1   2   3   4
5   6   7   8
9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20

Defender’s Units
1 2 3   4
5 6 7   8
9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20

Now, when a battle is declared, place the units on the board on a number in any order begining from the number 1 position.

Roll the Attacker’s dice as normal, for example there are 6 units defending, 4 Infantry on #'s 1-4, a Tank on #5, and a Fighter on #6.  You get 3 hits, so now you roll 3 6-sided dice to see which units were hit. For example, you roll a 2, a 2, and a 6.  Now you re-roll the second 2 and it is a 4, so the defender lost 2 Infantry and 1 Fighter.

You, the attacker, attacked with 4 Infantry, 3 Tanks, a Fighter, and a Bomber, so you place your units on the Attacker’s side #1-4=Infantry, 5-7=Tanks, 8=Fighter, 9=Bomber.  The defender only hit twice, so he rolls 2 10-sided dice. (If he rolls a 10 or the same number, then he just re-rolls until he hits a valid target)  He rolls a 5 and a 9, so he hits a Tank and a Bomber.

After casualties have been removed, then move the survivors down to the lowest numbers and use smaller-sided dice as needed.

Continue the battle until someone wins, or the attacker retreats.

Of course, you would need to have multi-sided dice such as, 4-sided, 6-sided, 8-sided, 10-sided, 12-sided, and 20-sided, but you can find these relatively easy at a hobby or gaming shop.

This system would seem to be fair, easy to use, and a bit more historical than the current system.

Of course there could be an occasion where you attack a fleet and happen to hit his 2 fully loaded carriers on the first turn, so you decide to retreat, which results in the 4 Fighters being lost at sea, but as we say, “Them’s the breaks!”

Using this system to assign Sub hits (to make sure that it’s not on Air units) would actually not be that difficult.  You would just have to roll them separately, and if the Sub hits an Air unit, then just reroll the die until it hits a valid target.

What do y’all think?

So, DD & SS are separated out from the rest combat and this warfare is accomplished first.  Then Air Combat.  Then fleet warfare.

yes and its on your naval combat sequence player aid.  sub interaction,then survivors allocate air units and they fight concurrently with ongoing naval actions.

in the end is this kind of attack reasonable?
considering the AA batteries are scattered and not easy to spot?

yeah not much to be said here
nothing “new”