Artillery defense support.

I originally designed this unit independent of any other source in the 1980’s when there was only A&A Classic available.
Artillery: move 1 (same as infantry) Attack value = 4 and Defence value = 1. Cost is 6 PF.

Karvajo,

Welcome to the A&A.org forums. You are in luck, I’ve already done the work to figure out how to add Arty to 1941. Allow me to regale you:

While I’m no expert, if I were going to add artillery units from 40 or 42 to my copy of 41, this is how I would do it.

First, use the pieces and rules from 42. Here are the stats for artillery:
@Axis:

Artillery
Cost 4
Attack 2*
Defense 2
Move 1

Supports Infantry: When an infantry attacks along with an artillery, the infantry’s attack increases to 2. Each infantry must be matched one-for-one with a supporting artillery unit. Artillery does not support infantry on defense.

Also, note in the rules section for infantry:
@Axis:

Infantry
Cost 3
Attack 1 (2 when supported by artillery)*
Defense 2
Move 1

Supported by Artillery: When an infantry attacks along with an artillery, the infantry’s attack increases to 2. Each infantry must be matched one-for-one with a supporting artillery unit. If your infantry outnumber your artillery, the excess infantry units still have an attack of 1. For example, if you attack with two artillery and five infantry, two of your infantry have an attack of 2 and the rest have an attack of 1. Infantry are not supported by artillery on defense.

Finally, I would change the initial setup for 1941 to reflect the presence of artillery in armies already on the board. I would think that changing every 3rd infantry in a territory to artillery would be a decent start. If I did that, I would change the setup in some territories and leave the rest alone. The changed territories would reflect the following setup:

Russia: 4 infantry, 2 artillery, 1 tank, 1 fighter*
Archangel: 2 infantry, 1 artillery
Karelia: 2 infantry, 1 artillery
Caucasus: 2 infantry, 1 artillery, 1 tank
Siberia: 2 infantry, 1 artillery

Germany: 2 infantry, 1 artillery, 1 fighter, 1 bomber
Eastern Europe: 3 infantry, 1 artillery, 2 tanks
Ukraine: 2 infantry, 1 artillery, 2 tanks
West Russia: 2 infantry, 1 artillery

Japan: 3 infantry, 1 artillery, 1 tank, 1 fighter, 1 bomber

*Note that according to the FAQ put out after the game released, the territory labeled Russia should start with six infantry. If you haven’t read this FAQ, you should, as it made other changes to the setup of the board. If you swap every third infantry for an artillery, you would get four infantry and two artillery, as shown above.

The FAQ for Axis & Allies 1941 can be found here: www.wizards.com/AvalonHill/rules/AA_1941_FAQ.pdf

Also, this would mean that neither the UK nor the US would start with any artillery as their regular setup have no territories with three or more infantry. Either shrug your shoulders or change their setup as you feel appropriate, perhaps as follows:

India: 1 infantry, 1 artillery, 1 fighter
Eastern U.S.: 1 infantry, 1 artillery, 1 tank, 1 fighter, 1 bomber

The above changes should integrate artillery into a game of 1941 fairly well. The Axis would swap 5 infantry for 5 artillery and the Allies would swap 6 or 8 (with optional UK and US artillery swapping) infantry for 6 or 8 (with optional UK and US artillery swapping) artillery for the setup of the game.

My 2 IPC

-M_R

Source: (https://boardgamegeek.com/article/22682014#22682014) Still me, just the BGG me.

-Midnight_Reaper

@Midnight_Reaper:

@SS:

@Midnight_Reaper:

@Imperious:

1 on Attack roll you pick the target with no return fire

Try it one of two ways:

what we call a “call shot” pick land unit as loss alternatively if you roll a one, defender chooses loss and that unit cant fire back

you will like one of these options

I would have to try them out before I could give a full opinion of them. My question to you is: why the emphasis on ‘pick the hit unit on 1’ rules? Is this a new addition to the meta of house rules here? Submarines have pretty much also fought this way, but I’ve previously seen proposed house rules for Tac Bombers to ‘pick their hit on 1’. Is this becoming a thing?

Should I start a new thread to ask about the popularity and usefulness of ‘pick your hit on 1’ critical strike rules?

-Midnight_Reaper

I have in my WW2 40 game Tac (Dive) bombers  D12   A7 D4 M4 C10 roll a 2 or less on A and D can pick target with no return shot for ground and naval. The 2 or less roll hit is for more of a accurate shot on a piece. So I use the Tac as a 2 different scenario.

Also in one of my 39 games there are Dive Bombers and Naval Figs that can pick the target on a 4 (Dive) or 1 (Fig) but the defender still gets a return shot while the attacker gets to pick the piece.
Pretty much these pieces are in just the 39 games and anybody that has housed ruled there game (G40 OOB) but just a few if any. From what I’ve seen posted on site anyway.

It must have been your Tac Bomber rules that I read. It just seems like the idea of “He shoots, he scores, he crits, he picks the casualty!” has become something I’ve noticed of late. As I’ve said before, I’m not a big fan of that idea in the abstract, but I will admit to really needing to try it out for real before I can truly say that I don’t like it at all.

-Midnight_Reaper

The main reason for Tac Bombers to have this call shot is for both ground and naval attacks plus it gets the Tac Bomber more involved in the game. There like the Cruiser. Nobody really buys them. Thats also why my Cruiser is (D12)  A7 D7 M2 C9. (but you need to lower your destroyers 1 value in A and D). So Destroyers would be A3 D3.  Its a good boost for Anzac, FEC and Italy. As I stated before you need to play test everything.

You could try with the defender at least gets a return shot if you have your doubts.

@Imperious:

My question to you is: why the emphasis on ‘pick the hit unit on 1’ rules?

This again is what we call : Call shot

Having something that breaks up the idea that the loser of the unit can choose whatever he wants as a combat loss is a good thing. The artillery units generally carpet bomb whole areas of the battlefield, and Heavy Artillery doing the most damage. Second having such a unit makes it very valuable in the game, by playing you will find out. Thirdly its really fun and i would further suggest the Battleship have this capability. Reason: because the BB has the guns of the greatest range and can shoot targets before they can fire back as they need to be closer to even have a chance.

Oh great IL. Now I got to add this to my Battleships in games !  :-D

Death Heads plays by me and he wanted the no return shot from Battleships and Cruisers  for 39 game and we played 2 games that way but the rest of guys in group didn’t want it. Go figure. I can at least see the Battleship Bombardment hit gets a no return shot. its like pulling teeth with some people but what it is is what it is.  :wink:

I think Artillery Prep is kind of already modeled by giving a +1 attack modifier to the Infantry.

Artillery Prep was as much to cause the defenders to “hole up” to let the attacking infantry advance as it was to try to KO key defensive positions.

Just my 2 cents anyway.

@Pelanderfunk:

This may have been addressed before, but my opponent and I are thinking about adding defensive retreats as an option.

Basically as a defender, you would have the option to retreat your army to an adjacent controlled territory at the beginning of each combat roll. If you choose to retreat, the attacker would still get an extra roll to inflict some damage on the routing forces.

Obviously this means some heavy adjustments to strategy. You don’t need to be as careful with your advancing armies as long as there’s enough  cannon fodder to cover the attacker’s first roll. It becomes a lot harder to destroy large stacks, unless you have them surrounded.

My question to you guys: do you think this rule adjustment favors one side more than the other?

In our house rules games we allow the defenders to retreat if they have a commander unit only after one full round of combat. FMG will have commander units with their new sculpts. I do not think they will favor one side over the other. Of course that depends a lot on what powers the commander has. Without commander units I would say no it will make the game longer.

The main problem with the reinforcements mechanic is that of the “pinning” trick, whereby the attacker can send a single infantry to attack stack B in order to prevent units defending stack B from reinforcing stack A during that combat phase.

Possible solutions:

1. The defender always chooses the order in which battles are resolved;

2. An attack is not allowed against a force more than 3 times that of the attacker (in total units);

3. The defender is still allowed to reinforce even from tts under attack; this creates other problems, effectively giving the defender a “free retreat” option.

4. Fight all battles in a combat phase simultaneously by round, only allowing reinforcements from tts clear of enemy units.

If you want accuracy, you would need to introduce the concept of units ‘breaking’ and running before they are destroyed.  Squad Leader (Avalong Hill 1977) had this, some squads keep fighting when they are down 50% strength, others ‘break’ and run when damage hits 10%.  Of course each of the existing units when they need variable strengths compared to other nations units.  This would require a switch to dice with a greater range of values, I’d say minimum 10 sides, but lets use 2 10 sided like AD&D.  No way a soviet or german tank unit fights the same way as an allied unit.  The way the allies fought german tanks was using a squad of 4 allied versus a german tank.  It starts like this, the first allied tanks lights up like a torch and the remaining three start to manouver around the german as its turret rotated a bit slow.  So, allied tank #2 then #3 light up in flames and the 4th allied tank gets in behind the german and lets loose at point blank range in the poorly armoured rear of the German and manages to disable it.

New units would not fight as well as vetern units of course so you would have to keep track of the age of each unit then modify its combat values based on just aging and also exposure to combat.  Yeah cool, way more accurate, of course each countries turn would take a few hours and we would have to go back to cardboard units with the 3-4 % values representing the units abilities.  We would need zillions of these units for each combination of values.

In ‘set-piece’ battles the Japanese were getting slaughtered against the US.  Perhaps it because by 1943 the US was producing as many machineguns per month as the Japanese produced during the entire war.  I think the Japs having never faced trench warfare and the futility of charging into massed machineguns had no concpet with this type of warefare.  Moreover, the Japs never seemed to retreat so they had little ablity to learn lessons as nobody came back to HQ with information on what they faced.  I would think for accuracy this would have to be represent also with different strencth units.

Personally, I think AA has found a pretty good balance of accuracy and playability.

I agree 100% art needs a boost defensively to keep its place in the game, especially with the new units introduced.