Global 1943 Expansion, Revised

@The-Captain

Great way of putting it. It applies to pretty much all Axis and Allies games.

You got me thinking on how now to force attacker to take a bomber instead of a fig in SBR dogfights. Thinking if interceptor rolls a 1 it forces attacker to take a bomber casualty. This way don’t have to raise defense on a interceptor. Just thinking here.

May add this to land naval combats to

Hello, I have been scrolling threw the HBG website and have found many interesting custom units with either no rules, or a rules pdf that is no longer available. I had a few ideas, and I would love feedback/more ideas.

Mercenary’s - 1IPC/turn/infantry, max 3. This could be cool feature if you need temporary forces in a certain area you could hire mercenarys for 2-3 turns, but if you just left them there it would cost you way more money then they are worth.

Assassins - Infantry that cost 5 IPC, get a target select on 1 on a D12 against a commander (Commanders expansion set)

Military Police - I was thinking they could increase rail transport, and decrease partisan activity. or they could allow transit on damaged rail.

I would love feedback, and more ideas.

Resource token values.
Worth 1 Icp each. Built in AA D@1
WHEAT
OIL DERRICK

Worth 2 Icps each. Built in AA D@1
COPPER
RUBBER
IRON
REFINERIES Built in AA D@2

Worth 3 Icps each Built in AA D@1
URANIUM
If you have an AA Gun in theses territories with tokens you can D@2 but not use both AA guns.

These all can be SBRed up to 3 damage each. Lose income for them until repaired
and refineries up to 6 damage. Don’t repair refineries
suffer a -1 movement for ground or naval or planes or nothing.
Have a chart for this.
Also all of these can be convoy raided up to 3 also.
This represents all transporting vessels at sea.
Remember most of these resource tokens are in normal territories too.

Start out slow with this. You don’t want to keep chasing it.

Pill box counter ? Can SBR them ?

Need to take this to a new topic thread for resource stuff.

The split sea zone in the Adriatic is a good idea for both reasons you mentioned.

While the convoy any territory is interesting I wouldn’t be a fan of adding NO’s to convoy ability of the territories. Probably a better approach would be to add a few more convoy zones or just add to convoy ability to zones that contain a capital. Change the die roll to 1-4 or keep the same value and add a die in a capital convoy zone.

There’s always options.

@CWO:

@taamvan:

I am not sure what the British government’s back up plan was anyways if Sea Lion was successful.

The British government may not have had an actual “backup plan”, in terms of something serious and concrete and specific.  My impression is that Britain’s civilian and military leaders were focussed on preventing an invasion in the first place, and on defeating it if it did actually occur, and that they were sufficiently confident that they could accomplish one or the other of those goals that they didn’t need to give any detailed consideration to what to do if Britain ended up facing defeat.  Hitler, similarly, didn’t give serious consideration to invading Britain until he was forced to admit that Britain wasn’t going to come to terms with him after the defeat of France.

It’s quite possible that British government considered the possibility of setting up a government-in-exile in Canada (or elsewhere), but “considering the possibility” isn’t the same thing as preparing a functional contingency plan.  And in fact, there would have been two good reasons NOT to work on such a functional plan.  First, it would have taken up time and resources that could have been better used elsewhere, even if it only amounted to a small number of staff.  More importantly, preparing such a plan – even in secret – would have been politically very dangerous.  Churchill had famously been proclaiming in the House of Commons that “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”  If word had somewhow reached the public that the same Churchill was secretly preparing plans to decamp to Canada, it would have had two very serious negative effects: it would have told the public that Churchill believed that Britain genuinely risked being conquered by Nazi Germany (which would have been very bad for morale) and it would have convinced people that Churchill was hypocritical on a monumental scale (which would have ended his political career).  It would also have destabilized the British government, which was the last thing Britain needed at that time.

No, I completely understand why Churchhill did that, he was a very ballsy man and someone who was needed for UK but you’d still think you want some kind of back up just in case. I am sure his staff and the Royal Family would AT LEAST retreat to Ireland if need be.

@phd_angel

Thanks so much! Sorry for the delayed response here. I was on parental leave with my son, so I wasn’t online much the last few months!

I definitely appreciate the feedback. I’m with you, my hope for any houserule is to keep a semblance of realism while working out whatever game play issues there were that made the houserule pop up in the first place!

The uncertainty of allegiances pre-battle is quite interesting. But I try to minimize dice randomness. IRL (in real life), Vichy troops (just like Italians) surrendered as soon as seeing enemy superiority: thus, in the game, if Allies send more land + air units than defending Vichy units, there is no battle but surrender. Or, make it unlikely that a battle would ensue (for example, need to roll a 1).

I definitely agree overall here, I think this one got away from A&A mechanics the most. Part of me didn’t want to make it completely against the Axis, but I think something like you suggest on bringing more men (or maybe twice as many), would void any combat.

IPC system, however, is historically inaccurate (as in most, if not all, Vichy mods I’ve seen): IRL, Nazi Germany profited handsomely on Vichy which had to quite richly sustain 300,000 German troops stationed in Northern France! So, in the game, Germany should actually gain IPC bonus, whereas Vichy and Free France gain nothing. How much, certainly 3 IPC, at least.

I also get your point here. However, the main goal for me in creating the Vichy France rule was an overwhelming thought by players that the Axis has too great an advantage. By creating Vichy in this scenario it weakens the Axis some by taking away from them, as well as adding to the Allies by adding the Free French. I think if we were to give the Germans more IPC’s, it takes away the point of creating the rule in the first place (which again, was to try and help weaken the OOB Axis advantages).

Finally, Germany never fought Vichy. IRL, with Operation Torch, Germany simply occupied Vichy in 1942, with no resistance whatsoever. Vichy units were disbanded. That can be also the case in the game.

I also agree that combat did not really happen, at least on a large scale. I suppose I don’t know enough to understand every potential action that might have happened, no matter how small. This was again something designed to make the German player think twice before just invading the Vichy territories. It’s going to cost them a bit. Again, just a device to hopefully help balance.

I personally don’t like the idea of bids at the beginning of a game. We try and either house rule to help change, or just deal with it how we can. But yeah, the main hope/goal here was to have a somewhat realistic scenario, while also hopefully tipping the scales a bit away from the Axis, while not ruining gameplay and design too much.

Thanks so much for your input! Hope 2021 is treating you well!

Chris

If you can save like $10, you will find German pieces on eBay from the original 1984 set.