AARHE: Rule files

AARHE 4.0 Technology:

Semantical problems again.

Rules concerning tech states “Each die hits on a 2.”  When I originally read this, I thought “Wow!  There is going to be a lot of tech in the game with free rolls”.  However, the interpretation became “it ONLY hits on 2”.

I had to scratch my head on that one, and promised to ask.

Does tech now hit ONLY on a 2 or is 1 & 2?

Thanks,

• Bierwagen

AARHE:  Combined US/UK assaults.

• Do submarines gain “Wolf Pack” by using both US/UK submarines.  We chose “yes” based on “when the number of friendly Submarines exceeds”.  Is this the intent?

• Can US/UK AP transport each others units for Amphibious assault, or does it follow the old rules of having to wait a turn between loading and offloading.  We interpreted that the APs were interchangeable and as long as there was enough capacity you could send either US/UK units and could even mix and match (e.g., one UK INF & US ART).

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AARHE 4.0 & LITE:

Really need some clarity around repairing capital ships at ports.  Do you toss them onto the country and out of the SZ to indict they are temporarily out of action?

Someone wanted to shore bombard into Norway with a UK BB while “repairing” in SZ 3.  The argument was that they technically hadn’t “moved” and thus could repair.

Is this a correct argument?  Or does combat constitute movement even if you didn’t move?  My interpretation on the intent was that you are inactive for an entire turn (e.g., no retreats, moves, combat).

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Building mistakes:

How do you handle mistakes if someone accidentally builds more infantry or units than they can deploy?  Do you give them a refund, force them to throw it away, or help ensure they can deploy everything during build phase?

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AARHE 4.0:

There seems to be the intent to not allow troops to sit at sea in a transport (e.g., must be offloaded in combat phase).

Is this to do away with the silliness of Japanese AP’s doing a quick end run from the Pacific around S. America to capture an unprotected Brazil (e.g., SZ 41-> 42 -> 25 -> 22)?

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AARHE 4.0 Technology:

Semantical problems again.

Rules concerning tech states “Each die hits on a 2.”  When I originally read this, I thought “Wow!  There is going to be a lot of tech in the game with free rolls”.  However, the interpretation became “it ONLY hits on 2”.

I had to scratch my head on that one, and promised to ask.

Does tech now hit ONLY on a 2 or is 1 & 2?

They hit on a 2 or less. Also you cant front load the techs and can only develop successfully one tech one level per turn. So you cant do that silly thing like spend all your rolls and get lucky and develop 4 successful levels of some minor tech on turn one.

So you got a 33% chance of getting one tech up one level. The strategy is to spread the rolls across different techs, like everybody is in some race to reach the finish line.

Also, note the procedure of increasing tech is just like diplomacy rolls except that uses the integers -1-2-3 etc…

AARHE:  Combined US/UK assaults.

• Do submarines gain “Wolf Pack” by using both US/UK submarines.  We chose “yes” based on “when the number of friendly Submarines exceeds”.  Is this the intent?

• Can US/UK AP transport each others units for Amphibious assault, or does it follow the old rules of having to wait a turn between loading and offloading.  We interpreted that the APs were interchangeable and as long as there was enough capacity you could send either US/UK units and could even mix and match (e.g., one UK INF & US ART).

part one yes. The allies work together to help each other. You need to count the total ALLIED ASW units in the SZ to determine if you got some wolfpack candidates.

Yes they are interchangeable. They cannot load on Soviet transports and vice versa.

AARHE 4.0 & LITE:  DAS

If your territory is under attack, can your planes still fly out to provide DAS to an adjacent territory or are they stuck in combat in their current location?

It states that “after all combat moves are declared you may declare Defensive Air Support.” – it didn’t qualify if your territory was under attack or not.

Then a discussion ensued about Counter Air (CA) Missions.  If you send in CA does a dogfight ensue, or do you both just lose that air capacity this turn while they are tied up with each other.

If you CA a country you are currently attacking it means they can’t leave to assist an adjacent country with DAS (n.b., on a 1-1 basis), but does it mean those CA’ed FTRs can’t defend the country they are in?

It quickly became confusing.

If this were the case, then I’d just send in CA to tie up FTRs so there could be no Air Supremacy and I wouldn’t have to worry about bad odds with my FTRs (e.g., Dogfight ATK 2 vs. 3 DEF).

Any help sorting this out would be appreciated.

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AARHE: Neutrals

When a Neutral finally reaches +/- 5 and it’s troops deploy, is there a certain SZ that naval units are to go in or does the owner get to choose?

Example:  Spain could put them in SZ 12 or 13 or both?
Turkey has the same issue with SZ 15 & 16.

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AARHE:  Air combat

Our assumption with air combat is that during an attack with air units, defender FTRs and BMRs scramble to engage enemy air in mortal combat over the skyies of the battlefield.

So, during one of these defensive scramble both sides had air flying headlong into each other in Opening-Fire.

Then, ID opened fired and decimated the attacking FTRs during Opening-Fire:  Phase 1.  This left nothing for the defending Air to shoot at in Opening-Fire:  Phase 2.

So, the defender tried to argue that since his planes didn’t “engage” he was allowed to use them as Air Superiority FTRs in the Main-Round phase of combat.

We argued that this isn’t the case because both sides started the Combat Cycle with air units – regardless of what phase they got shot down in.

Who interpreted this correctly?  It seems to be a semantic issue over cycle, phase, and round.

Any insights appreciated.

AAHRE 4.0 & LITE:  Air Supremacy

Once Air Supremacy is achieved, do FTRs & BMRs still attack during the Opening-Fire phase?  We thought they did, and when we started removing casualties before Main-Round a nasty howl went up.

So, the question is:  When does air fire once Air Superiority is achieved?

Allowing air to basically have a sub pop-up attack before the casualties fire back in Main-Round seems to be pretty overpowering.  Especially since they are already giving +1 to ARM.

AARHE 4.0 & LITE:  DAS

If your territory is under attack, can your planes still fly out to provide DAS to an adjacent territory or are they stuck in combat in their current location?

they are stuck in that battle. This is known as pinning.

It states that “after all combat moves are declared you may declare Defensive Air Support.” – it didn’t qualify if your territory was under attack or not.

In areas where you have air units that are not under enemy attack, those planes can assist other territories under attack. The strategy is to have an air umbrella over different areas you control to facilitate DAS missions.

Then a discussion ensued about Counter Air (CA) Missions.  If you send in CA does a dogfight ensue, or do you both just lose that air capacity this turn while they are tied up with each other.

Yes counter is basically the idea of attacking enemy air fields but its one round. The DAS missions can occur over many rounds, but the advantage is really to both sides. If your the attacker you may want to use CA as a means to pinning down the enemy air units, The benefit is limited because you only get one chance to attack the defender with CA. This works better when you have a smaller air force and your defending because you get to limit your loses.

To answer the question CA prohibits the defender from allocating his planes that hes defending with against your counter air mission. So he cannot use DAS to support battles.

If you CA a country you are currently attacking it means they can’t leave to assist an adjacent country with DAS (n.b., on a 1-1 basis), but does it mean those CA’ed FTRs can’t defend the country they are in?

You cannot CA a territory your already attacking. CA is for territories that your NOT attacking with ground units and ONLY by air. If your attacking a territory in conjunction with land units thats ground support mission AND a battle for air superiority occurs concurrently with the land battle each round as long as you have ground units. So the air battle is occurring separately while the land battle is going on. The air units of one side must either retreat or be destroyed BEFORE they can start attacking land units. Once either side retreats in the land battle, the air battle is also ended.

If this were the case, then I’d just send in CA to tie up FTRs so there could be no Air Supremacy and I wouldn’t have to worry about bad odds with my FTRs (e.g., Dogfight ATK 2 vs. 3 DEF).

its not the case see answer above. NO CA in territories where your attacking with land units.

AARHE: Neutrals

When a Neutral finally reaches +/- 5 and it’s troops deploy, is there a certain SZ that naval units are to go in or does the owner get to choose?

The owner gets to choose but they must be deployed adjacent to the neutral or its colonies ( if using 1939 map)

Example:  Spain could put them in SZ 12 or 13 or both?
Turkey has the same issue with SZ 15 & 16.

either is possible candidate for deployment.

AAHRE 4.0 & LITE:  Air Supremacy

Once Air Supremacy is achieved, do FTRs & BMRs still attack during the Opening-Fire phase?  We thought they did, and when we started removing casualties before Main-Round a nasty howl went up.

YES, your starting to figure this out. Once Air Sup. is concluded all planes hits go on land units beginning on the round following the last air combat.

So, the question is:  When does air fire once Air Superiority is achieved?

on the round starting when one side no longer has air units

Allowing air to basically have a sub pop-up attack before the casualties fire back in Main-Round seems to be pretty overpowering.  Especially since they are already giving +1 to ARM.

Armor does not get the +1 boost in combat until that round when Air Sup is achieved. When the fight for Air Sup is going on NO modifier for Armor.

AARHE:  Air combat

Our assumption with air combat is that during an attack with air units, defender FTRs and BMRs scramble to engage enemy air in mortal combat over the skyies of the battlefield.

Yes all defending planes defend for air superiority, however, bombers do not perform DAS mission. that is to say they don’t fly over to assist with defending territories.

So, during one of these defensive scramble both sides had air flying headlong into each other in Opening-Fire.

Then, ID opened fired and decimated the attacking FTRs during Opening-Fire:  Phase 1.  This left nothing for the defending Air to shoot at in Opening-Fire:  Phase 2.

So, the defender tried to argue that since his planes didn’t “engage” he was allowed to use them as Air Superiority FTRs in the Main-Round phase of combat.

We argued that this isn’t the case because both sides started the Combat Cycle with air units – regardless of what phase they got shot down in.

1. how did ID rolls do this?  At most your gonna lost one plane unless the other guy is rolling buckets of sixes?

2. he cannot use planes that were shot down in the first round. He must always wait till the second round to allow his planes to hit land units. Reasoning:  on the first turn he must get air superiority and allocate defending planes against your planes. at this point they are on the air battle board. In sequence you first roll ID rolls, then settle air rolls. If by chance he got lucky and shot down 3 planes by rolling 6 six times in a row……THEN that round he got Air superiority, The next round his planes are committed to attack your land units… NOT THE SAME TURN HE GOT AIR SUPERIORITY.

@Imperious:

1. how did ID rolls do this?  At most your gonna lost one plane unless the other guy is rolling buckets of sixes?

2. he cannot use planes that were shot down in the first round. He must always wait till the second round to allow his planes to hit land units. Reasoning:  on the first turn he must get air superiority and allocate defending planes against your planes. at this point they are on the air battle board. In sequence you first roll ID rolls, then settle air rolls. If by chance he got lucky and shot down 3 planes by rolling 6 six times in a row……THEN that round he got Air superiority, The next round his planes are committed to attack your land units… NOT THE SAME TURN HE GOT AIR SUPERIORITY.

Gah!

We screwed it up again.  Reading your response didn’t make any sense so I went and re-read the rules – we weren’t doing the ID search roles and were just rolling straight kill shots.

On that specific battle he came in with 2 FTR, and the defender rolled double ones (e.g., Industrial Complex)… which really means the planes were spotted and had the potential for a shoot down (1) or retreat (2-3).

Hard lesson… old habits die hard.  Hold over from OOB & AAR.

Thanks for the response IL.  Another night of futility.

@Imperious:

AARHE: Neutrals

AAHRE 4.0 & LITE:  Air Supremacy

Once Air Supremacy is achieved, do FTRs & BMRs still attack during the Opening-Fire phase?  We thought they did, and when we started removing casualties before Main-Round a nasty howl went up.

YES, your starting to figure this out. Once Air Sup. is concluded all planes hits go on land units beginning on the round following the last air combat.

Just to clarify this – ground units that are killed by air units don’t get to fire this round and are removed from play before “Main-round” of combat.

I could have been swayed either way.

@Imperious:

AARHE 4.0 & LITE:  DAS

Yes counter is basically the idea of attacking enemy air fields but its one round. The DAS missions can occur over many rounds, but the advantage is really to both sides. If your the attacker you may want to use CA as a means to pinning down the enemy air units, The benefit is limited because you only get one chance to attack the defender with CA. This works better when you have a smaller air force and your defending because you get to limit your loses.

To answer the question CA prohibits the defender from allocating his planes that hes defending with against your counter air mission. So he cannot use DAS to support battles.

I’m still a bit unsure on this one.  Do combat dice actually get rolled during a CA missions on a 1-1 basis (e.g., 1 round of combat), or does this just tie up FTRs in virtual maneuver?

Just to clarify this – ground units that are killed by air units don’t get to fire this round and are removed from play before “Main-round” of combat.

I could have been swayed either way.

If you got air superiority (which is the round AFTER you last had air to air combat) plane hits are rolled with other land units. The only time planes roll first is during air superiority combat which is only to provide a separate sequence for air combat. Once air superiority is achieved the planes fire with other units. But it is also true that land units cant hit air units.

and this:

When only one side has air units at the beginning of combat cycle, air units’ hits are allocated other land units before Infantry or Airborne Infantry. So the defender must allocate his good pieces as combat loses when the other side has air superiority.

I’m still a bit unsure on this one.  Do combat dice actually get rolled during a CA missions on a 1-1 basis (e.g., 1 round of combat), or does this just tie up FTRs in virtual maneuver?

ok…. You send your fighters to attack some territory that your not attacking with land units (even separated by water). You engage them for ONE round of air combat. Thats it. NOTHING ELSE.

what is the benefit?  In game terms it allows you to foil the possibility of the defender to allocate the planes for DAS mission. Second, it is a way to exchange fighters in battle w/o bringing in land units. So a nation that has a large air force and a small army ( England) can actually take away from of the good German pieces by constantly attacking German air forces. It also gives players the possibility to SBR enemy territories without escorts providing you tie up any enemy air units in range. In historical terms is the only way by which you can have a “battle of Britain”  So to answer your question is a roundabout way, yes your tying up enemy air units which as i said before is like pinning the enemy to a static defense from a dynamic one.

tech die
it hits on 1 or 2
“hits on a 2” is just trying to be inline with original game terminology “defends on a 2”

we need to reword it to say 2 or less to avoid confusion.

ships in “middle of repair”
the current wording lets you defend and repair at the same thing
feedback/comments required

i think to repair a ship you only have to touch a sea zone thats adjacent to your factory except that UK/ USA can repair in  each others factories. So simply you need to just move into the zone during movement. You can move into the zone and continue to move out ( providing you have MP)

I also think we may consider a cost for repair:  roll d6… that = IPC cost to repair, if you roll a 6 you must combine  the first result with a second result. If we do this we can eliminate the rule where the two hit naval units have to be hit a second time before another BB or CA gets a new hit.

what you think?

DAS when under attack?
yes air units can perform DAS even if its own territory is under conventional attack

No they cant. They cant fly away to support other territories if the territory they are in is under attack. If it says this it must be changed back.

only way to stop enemy from declaring DAS with air units at Germany is to use a sufficient number of CA units to perform CA on Germany

yes thats true but what do you mean ‘sufficient’?

note air units defending from a CA still defending normally (in the same territory), and air missions are resolved before normal combat

wait. huh? CA is done against territories that your not bringing in land units. Otherwise if your bringing in planes to support ground units ( GS mission) you must fight multi round air combat for air supremacy. Their is not such thing is CA missions in this event. CA is only a one round affair where the only units involved are air units.

CA stopping DAS
yes CA stops defending air units from performing DAS, though you need X CA units to stop X defending air units from performing DAS

please elaborate? “x ca units to stop x”  where is this in the rules?

IL: CA prohibits the defender from allocating his planes that hes defending with against your counter air mission. So he cannot use DAS to support battles.
not exactly sure what you mean

CA is only plan on plane battle: one round. You cannot perform CA over a territory that your also performing land combat, because that crosses the line of what GS (ground support mission is) CA can deprive the enemy of using his air units to support other land battles as part of his DAS missions he can allocate as the passive player. Its a way to pin his forces , but you are trying to mix this one round CA thing, with the multi round GS missions where you get air superiority first.

Air Supermacy and opening-fire
the idea is for air units to preempt land units
by the way it is dogfighting that we wanted to be longer and  happen in parallel to land units fighting on the ground but functionally its close enough to have air units fire in opening-fire, to be simpler

IL: You cannot CA a territory your already attacking. CA is for territories that your NOT attacking with ground units and ONLY by air.
actually we don’t that restriction
also CA is an air mission henf resolved before normal combat, one cycle aerial combat and then goes home

That last point is crucial. I think the other poster had a major issue of whether planes are staying to fight against land targets. Thats method makes sence. Make sure its clear in the rules, because i don’t find that line in the rules either.

If this were the case, then I’d just send in CA to tie up FTRs so there could be no Air Supremacy and I wouldn’t have to worry about bad odds with my FTRs (e.g., Dogfight ATK 2 vs. 3 DEF)
CA ties down only the same number of defending air units
and during the CA defending air units still have better odds

ok this makes sence… make sure its clear in all versions . I don’t think its written that way but it should be.

IL:Yes all defending planes defend for air superiority, however, bombers do not perform DAS mission. that is to say they don’t fly over to assist with defending territories.
no this is not in the rules
if you want to revise tell me which of the full list of air units can and cannot perform DAS

all units except bombers ( including jet bombers)… If they are in a territory thats under attack, they can retreat like any other defending unit.

Just to clarify this – ground units that are killed by air units don’t get to fire this round and are removed from play before “Main-round” of combat.
yep, the combat sequence specified when do you remove casualties.

ok i read that wrong.

These air rules are so freaking cool – yet so difficult to grasp.  They look great on paper, until you start moving pieces and rolling dice.

However, they really do spice up the game and make for a very realistic and multi-faceted game, while maintaining some semblance of playability.

So, in order to understand air here’s what I think I’ve heard you all say:

If your territory is under a combined assault (e.g., land and air)

• You cannot provide DAS out of that country
• Additional DAS units from adjacent territories may fly in to assist

If your territory is under CA assault (e.g., one cycle of air combat - air units only)

• You must respond to enemy air units on a 1-to-1 basis with friendly air units
    – “For the same number of attacking CA air units, the same
          number of defending air units in the territory may not perform DAS.”
• Excess units to the 1-to-1 ratio may still provide DAS to adjacent territories

Question:  Can the defender put more than 1-to-1 into the CA-CA mission.

• Attacker sends 1 CA into India with 2 defending planes.  Does India get 2:1 or is it limited to only 1:1?

• Bierwagen