Vichy rolls

You just pick them up and move them there. Basically you just get a choice to leave them where they are or move them to your own port. Do it before the German turn ends when you did all of the Vichy rolls.

Sorry, but don’t understand @GeneralHandGrenade‘s answer with what the Vichy National Reference Sheet (v.3.1) states:

« The Axis players can decide to let ships sail to their Home Country under the French Flag. Thus, they can pass any ships belonging to a nation they are at war with once per game (or immediately). »

How is immediately moving the Axis rolled ships compatible with these ships sailing home and possibly passing enemy ships? Why mention the French Flag at all?

By comparison, Vichy rolled ships are clearly instructed to be moved immediately to sea zone 49.

If this is indeed the correct interpretation, then this is a case for the FAQ sheet or a correction of the Vichy NRS. It could simply say that the Axis repositions its ships immediately to a sea zone next to their Home Country.

@noneshallpass I was going by what it says on page 61 of the Rule Book. It doesn’t say anything about waiting until later to send them home. I would think that would be problematic because there could be some dispute over which ships came from the French navy and which didn’t later in the game, which in real time could be a day or 2 later.

As far as sea zone 49 that refers to ships that rolled Vichy. The question asked here was about the ships that rolled German. Those stay where they are or go to their home country.

Stating that they can send the ships home under the French flag just means that in real terms that this is the justification for moving them to your home country without being intercepted by the Allies (known as a Flag of Convenience), and that you’re not moving them with magic or something stupid like that. You don’t actually have to move them along the board until you get home while making little steamboat noises. You just pick them up and move them after replacing them with German ships. You can move all of the ships that rolled Axis, some of them, or none of them.

Hello @GeneralHandGrenade,

I mentioned zone 49 because it is an example where, by comparison, the rules are very clear that no matter where the ship is when Vichy rolls (even across the map in the Pacific), Vichy ships are all moved to zone 49.

In the case of Axis rolled ships, we put an Axis model (i.e. Germany) and a Vichy roundel under it to indentify it as flying the Vichy flag until it reaches the German Home Countrty, but the player actually needed to bring it home under normal non-combat rules.

Since Vichy is not a war with the Allies, those that are at war with Germany cannot attack or block movement of these ships, but they could be attacked by Free France since they are flying the Vichy flag.

This could explain why it is specified in the NRS and rule 14.4.2 that the Axis player can let the ships sail to their Home Country under the French Flag. Thus they can pass any ships belonging to a nation they are at war with.

I’m not saying that your explanation is wrong, but it’s hard to account for the very different wording between Vichy rolled ships and Axis rolled ships, thus my suggestion that this rule should be clarified.

@noneshallpass said in Vichy rolls:

I think its logical to assume that when it says sail, it means it, in effect teleports to Axis home country or Vichy. To say otherwise, as if they have to move 3 spaces per turn brings up some unfortunate results.

For example, if we said they had to actually move back one turn at a time, the french player is just going to move the fleet to the south pacific so that it takes years for them to get back.

Nope I absolutely disagree with Grenade on this. Once again, I am going to beat this dead horse until it gets into the head of the people who wrote the rule book. If you wanted the player to auto move French ships converted to Japanese/German, you would of put it in the rule book. You didn’t, you used the term “sail”. My group basically requires these ships are untouchable by the enemy until they A: return to the new owners home port or B: they engaged in combat and as result, removed their French flag shield.

@caesar-seriona I agree with you and we play almost the same way, but we do not give the Axis the option to remove the French flag until they reach home port and they can also be attacked by Free France since they are at war.

In the current rules, the word “sail” does not make sense for teleportation and neither does “once per game (or immediately)” for passing enemy ships. If the other interpretation is the correct one, then the rules should simply say:

“Once all the naval units on the board have been reassigned, the Axis players can decide to relocate any or all of their converted ships to their Home Country by placing them immediately in sea zones 13 or 15 (for Germany) and sea zones 38 or 56 (for Japan). Ignore all normal movement restrictions.”

That means what it says and says what it means.

@noneshallpass said in Vichy rolls:

“Once all the naval units on the board have been reassigned, the Axis players can decide to relocate any or all of their converted ships to their Home Country by placing them immediately in sea zones 13 or 15 (for Germany) and sea zones 38 or 56 (for Japan). Ignore all normal movement restrictions.”

That means what it says and says what it means.

I second this.

@hbg-gw-enthusiast 3rd. Should specify which sea zones to teleport to, if that was the case.

Players who are new to the game in Version 3 and didn’t learn to play in Version 2 might not understand the significance of this rule. In Version 2 what the French player would do is sail their ships off to the ends of the earth so that the German player would, if they managed to acquire some of them, have to sail them all of the way home and be sunk along the way. The change in rules in V-3 was to do away with the means by which a player would mess around and do something that is unrealistic like sailing his navy to the middle of nowhere just so they could game the opposition. Realistically, the French had no idea that they were about to get steamrolled by Germany and would never have considered sailing their navy away to keep them out of the hands of the Germans if they “rolled” the wrong way. This problem was fixed by allowing the Germans and Vichy to simply move their newly acquired ships to their home countries. It no longer made any sense to sail the French ships somewhere they don’t belong.

There is no need to list the sea zones they can move to because it is already clearly stated where they can move. You can change the rules if you want to and make them sail their way back to their home countries like they had to in Version 2, but just know that at this point you are playing by house rules and not the official rules. There’s nothing wrong with that as you and your friends are free to make up any rules you like. If you’re the French player don’t forget to sail all of your ships to Tasmania or the Bering Sea beginning on turn 1 though. You know, like France did historically.

@GeneralHandGrenade, I think that everyone on this forum is trying to play by the rules as they are written, but in this case the wording simply does not match what you say is the correct interpretation. Your explanations are clear but the rules are not. They should either clarify them or add it to the FAQ.

@noneshallpass Don’t bother. That’s the message I’ve been beaten into people both on these forums and on the Facebook page for Axis and Allies. I do not care at the end of the day what the rules says, if the rules says X players must do Y task. I’ll do it because it’s the rules. The fuc$ing problem is that who ever wrote the damn rules book are either refusing to word the rules exactly as it needs to be are too stupid to do it and try to justify using “historical context” to clarify a rule when I can take apart 1936 rules and regulations on $hit that ISN’T HISTORICALLY ACCURATE. So we have rules that are not following history and yet are being justified “well if it doesn’t make sense, use historical context”. I will use an obvious fake rule as am example of what I’ve personally been deal with.

“when France surrenders, the Béarn cannot go Vichy or German” Okay, you read that and go it makes sense to me. In someone else’s game, they get a situation where they might encounter a possible reason it might go Japanese but the rule does not clarify exactly if this is legal so they will ask if it can.

The reasons to a situation like this is that use historical context on what to do with the Béarn.

Well in real life, the Béarn sailed to the United States and surrendered. It did not answer the question but that’s the answer you’re getting.

Ouch! Guys, let’s dial it down a little. Even if we disagree, we can treat each other with respect. I get feeling frustrated. We don’t have to tear into one another. We have a small community and I’d like to see it grow.

Remember, there’s nothing stopping people from house ruling whatever they want. That’s the way I’m handling this rule for now. Maybe it will change to exactly what Noneshallpass has suggested. Maybe it will be similar to what Noneshall pass has suggested, minus the specific sea zones (the General Hand Grenade version of the rule). Or, maybe the rule will be like Caesar-Seriona suggests, where they fly a French flag and maintain their movement range and can move turn after turn across the map until they engage in combat or reach the new owner’s home port.

No one’s holding a tournament so we can play with our own interpretation for now. I do agree this merits a FAQ discussion and perhaps an example added to the rulebook.

@hbg-gw-enthusiast But that’s the problem with the rules. The entire community is frustrated with the response we’re getting about the rules to the point that the solution has been house rules which is fine but the problem with that is if a game is reduce to house rules, then it isn’t the game that is intended. I want this game to be successful to the point that a tournament can happen but that means that the rules need to be purged and clarified. The rule book in the nicest way I can say is a complete and udder Charlie Foxtrot.

I don’t know how much experience you have with rules editing, but it can be an arduous process. Let’s say you feel the Victory Points aren’t currently working right. Changing that might require a lot of testing. I’ve seen some games where they change the rules too frequently. That can be a nightmare because some people have the rules from 6 months ago and didn’t realize they changed 3 months ago. I used to play a game called Star Fleet Battles and if you had a question about the rules, you’d have to look up the rules, then look in multiple other places (like the back of the Annual magazine for the last several years) to see if there errata for that specific rule.

I would like to see the design team act slowly and deliberately when changing the rules or issuing errata. However, if they have a clear understanding of how they feel the rules should be interpreted, then I would encourage them to be more speedy in updating the FAQ. The fact they are hesitating on the Vichy Rolls signals they might be worried about the potential for players to game them and want to get it right. We don’t need to resort to calling the designers “too stupid” to word the rules exactly as they should be. I like Noneshallpass’s approach, which is to actually outright suggest the wording of the rules.

Yes, the Vichy National Reference Sheet now reads (according to the Errata) :

“The Axis players can decide to let some or all of its newly acquired ships sail to their Home Country under the French Flag. Thus, they can pass any ships belonging to a nation they are at war with. independent on which sea zone they are in, they can make this move in one turn. This must be decided after the rolling has ended.”

I guess that closes this topic.

@caesar-seriona said in Vichy rolls:

@hbg-gw-enthusiast But that’s the problem with the rules. The entire community is frustrated with the response we’re getting about the rules to the point that the solution has been house rules which is fine but the problem with that is if a game is reduce to house rules, then it isn’t the game that is intended. I want this game to be successful to the point that a tournament can happen but that means that the rules need to be purged and clarified. The rule book in the nicest way I can say is a complete and udder Charlie Foxtrot.

We put the rules out to the community long before the rule book was written so that everyone could ask for clarifications and to point out any discrepancies. We understood as well that previous versions of the rules were hard to follow so we gave the entire community a say in what went into the rule book. For you to start whining after the fact that the whole rule set is wrong is beyond disingenuous. You had your opportunity to speak up then but you chose instead to wait until after the rule book was published so you could make yourself look like a crusading hero out to right all of the wrongs visited upon your community.

We’re still listening to all of the feedback and making changes as we can. You can provide that feedback while at the same time being respectful of the people who volunteer to take this responsibility on (no, we don’t get paid we do it for the love of the game) or you can continue to act as though you alone have all of the answers and the entire community should bow to your brilliance. We take everyone’s comments into consideration and don’t put any more or less relevance on yours no matter how you conduct yourself.

To everyone else who ask questions and seek clarifications, we thank you for your patience and your input. Your love of the game and passion is the same as ours and drives us to further the entire community’s efforts to create the best WW 2 game in the world. It takes years and a number of versions of any complex game to get it perfected. I’ve had a sneak peak at the next version coming out in a few years and I can attest to the fact that this game will get even better than it is now.

I know I’ve been promising you all that I would create a video rule book to help clarify the game but I’m having some serious health issues and I’ve just found out that they won’t be resolved. It took me a whole week to make my last video when I used to do it in a few hours. I will start this week on that video series though and I hope that will help clear some things up in regards to the rules.