AA50: House Rules

@Imperious:

It makes no sence whatsoever to have a technology the better coordinates Artillery fire for Infantry at double the efficiency, unless we are talking modern warfare with guided missile/projectile technology. Its really like they made this Technology out of thin air with no correspondence to the actual war. It would be a much better thing to allow tanks a boost with planes present in battle and acknowledge that battlefield doctrine of warfare, than to assign this bogus mystery technology that didn’t exist.

Twice the effectinvess does seem quite a bit, but then if you compare American artillery and German artillery - it could be said to be twice as effective. Forgetting that US artillery was mobilsed and German guns were mostly horse drawn, the US introduced forward observers - better co-ordinating their batteries to front-line units. Guns could respond to fire missions much quicker than German batteries, and generally the US were pretty much using a modern system of combining guns and infantry - look at the number of germans killed by artillery compared to other means in the Bulge and you get an idea of just how advanced the US was at this system. The calibre of the guns was not strictly relevant, what matters is rate of fire, accuracy and speed of response - how much weight of fire you can dump on an area in a five minute interval is key.

The Soviets also took a similar approach, and by the end of WW2, almost half the Red army combat strength was artillery - one could argue that the MRLS system they had constitutues that combined fire-power. Certainly the Germans couldn’t match that level of fire power. Now, whether in the Russian case this is better represented by simply buying more guns or adding a new tech to represent doctrine changes is a debate.

But I did see sense in the technoglogy itself, and I recommend an article in the ‘Bitter Woods’ rule book which compares German and American artillery fire control systems.

But then this is Axis and Allies, so in a way it doesn’t have to be so tied to history - you have to invest in technology boosts, so it could represent all that funky stuff the Germans were developign such as SAMs and guided anti-ship missiles.

That said - your idea of boosting tanks and planes is a better way forward, and more in the character of Axis and Allies.

@Imperious:

and sacrificed realism.

:-D  Which can be said for much of Axis and Allies!!!

But then that is where AARHE comes in - I’ve just been ploughing through your rules and really like them. I much prefer the idea of pre-battle air-fights like in GMT’s AWAW, so there is no longer the possibility to hid precious planes.

They constitute a nice bridge between more complex wargames and A&A.

@Imperious:

Ideas from elsewhere under consideration:

Bonus: When defending a victory city (that has never fallen), you can choose one round (per battle) where your infantry defend on a three. (dig in and hold to the last man).
-or-
When defending a victory (that has never fallen), on each round of battle after the first, you may add a virtual infantry to the fight (If you control at least one infantry and not a virtual infantry already). This one makes them much harder to kill if you don’t bring in a significant force. I really like the Stalingrad effect on this one.

Penalty: When you lose a victory city that has never fallen, for your next turn, all your units have an attack factor one lower than usual (ones still hit). This one seems brutal, but really interesting. Talk about codifying national despondency.

How about an idea stolen from some other games where you have some sort of national morale? When you lose a victory city that you start the game with you lose 2 national morale points, lets say. When you capture one back you gain 1 morale point (the city has been devastated). You also get 1 national morale point for capturing an enemy objective and lose 1 if you lose it again. Each nation has a track and when their morale drops below a certain point their nation sues for peace and leaves the war.

The point is over time your national morale would drop if you weren’t defending your home territory very well, and eventually your nation would withdraw from the war. This is more or less what happened historically, after all we never did invade Japan. Given the ahistorical balanced setup of the game, if the real war had been more like that severe war weariness would have been much more likely to set in and the war would have been more likely to end in a settled peace. Even many of the Allied economies were shattered by the end of the war, let alone the Axis powers.

This would force players to defend victory cities “to the death” because they can’t afford the drop in national morale. If you wanted to flesh out the system further you could add addtional effects after morale has dropped below certain points but before a nation has left the war, similar to the situation with Italy at the start of 1943 where its troops had virtually no motiviation to fight anymore.

I love this one    +1

I am thinking, wouldn’t it be nice to reward players for buying destroyers for their transports?

Perhaps a Destroyer paired with one or two transports should defend at a 3 or less?

Well, it isn’t really “so powerful” because we are just restoring it to the defense value it had in AAR.

What I am thinking is that a destroyer + 1 or 2 transports (not sure how many would be required to up it’s defense rate, I am leaning towards 2) would be acting as a convoy escort.  So you are not really rolling the destroyer’s defense, you are rolling the entire convoy’s organized defense (the destroyer AND the transports acting in concert.)

Meanwhile, of course, transports without a destroyer telling them what to do and organizing them, would be hopelessly lost. (0 defense.)

And destroyers without the added firepower from the transports (and they had SOME firepower, not great firepower, but they did have a gun I believe) wouldn’t have the added fields of fire and would fight at a reduced defense power. (2 or less.)

Notice, this is only their defense!  Attack would still be 2 or less.  Though, I’d be open to a suggestion it should be lowered to attacking at 1 regardless of what ships are with it!

Lower the destroyers attack to 1 and bring on light cruisers

then cruisers should be renamed heavy crusiers and light cruisers can not shore bombard

also should all crusiers movement be increased to 3 as well as carriers, they were faster than battleships and stuff

I thing escort ships are to small to be part of the axis and allies fleet

but what about escort carriers

cost 9 or 10 move 2 or 3 attack 0 defend 1 or 2, can carrier 1 fighter

they would be good in the atlantic for defending, while the fleet carriers would still be good in the pacific for their greater long range firepower

what about escourt carriers?

@Emperor_Taiki:

what about escourt carriers?

Encompassed in giving Destroyers a boost in defense when coupled with transports.

Basically, Transports (2) + Destroyer = Fleet Convoy (Destroyers, Escorts, Escort Carriers, Fighters with Sonar to hunt down submarines, etc.)

Weaker Escort Carriers for 10 which can only hold 1 Fighter?  Why would anyone every buy them?

What the game really needs for naval warfare is a cheap “fodder” piece to defend against air fleets since the Sub can no longer be used as fodder and Bombers are cheaper.

That said, I would agree with making destroyers a 1 on attack and a 1 or 2 on defense for 5 or 6 IPCs.  This would allow you to have the Light Cruiser piece.

If one doesn’t want to alter the OOB pieces, then add an escort destroyer with a 1 on attack and a 1 on defense for 5 IPCs.

We have a cheap fodder piece against air units.  The Destroyer.  It’s the submarine of AA50.

Perhaps the escort carriers could cost 8 IPC, Att 0, Def 1, Carry 1 Fighter, Move 2.

Can’t have mechanized infantry, it’s a technology.

I’d replace that idea with Commandos:

Call them marines, commandos, stormtroopers, whatever.

Idea:

Cost 4
Attack: 2
Special Attack: 3 First Round of Amphibious Assault
Defend: 1
Move: 1

With technology they could move 2 when coupled with an Armor (Mechanized Infantry)

Treated like Infantry in regards to Paratroopers and Transports.

@Cmdr:

Can’t have mechanized infantry, it’s a technology.

Well that depends on how much is going to be changed, is their going to be a whole new tech chart?
having a mechanized infantry peice i think adds alot, but i think tech changes should be agreed upon before changing other things,

also, commandos are such a small scale unit, you could argue marine corp, SS, or Guard units should be in the game but not commandos/rangers

I was reaching for names.  That’s why I said we could call them Marines, Commandos, Stormtroopers, your SS, Russian Bears, whatever.

I’m gunna start putting together a beta AA50e (enhanced) this weekend, maybe even finish it off tomorrow.