Lets Talk Commander Units!

I give a player one general per turn to use in one battle ( land or sea)

in this attack the general gives his units +1 in first combat round either attack or defense. ON defense you allocate your general to one battle after the enemy attacks. So even if your under attack by 3 different nations out of all these attacks your getting to place general or admiral once. The general is placed after combat is declared.

Option 2:
Normally we assume each side has equal Leadership points.

Under my house rules to replace bid what you have is leadership points and each point assigned can allow one reroll of a failed combat result.

so lets say axis have 3 leadership points and allies have 5. ( thinking this is 1941 with NO’s) well this means that each turn the axis get three rerolls on misses and the allies get five each turn. This can be spread in different battles and for attack or defense.

option 3:

On defense using the general allows the defender to retreat before any combat round. The attacker just takes the SZ or territory and no combat occurs

On Offense you can attack twice in a row. That is to say you attack and take a territory, and use the same forces ( not more) and attack another adjacent territory.

Option 4:

leadership points are fixed for each nation. Say its 8, so on Germany’s turn, eight land units get a +1 attack or defense to allocate for any one combat.

Option 5:

wait another day and ill get some more.

@Imperious:

in this attack the general gives his units +1 in first combat round either attack or defense. ON defense you allocate your general to one battle after the enemy attacks. So even if your under attack by 3 different nations out of all these attacks your getting to place general or admiral once. The general is placed after combat is declared.

This reminds me of the Castle Risk variant with the Generals and Marshals cards.  using them gave your highest die a +1, but if at any time it was beaten, so was your Gen/Mar. and you lost them.

That was the first thought I had when the commander units were mentioned, that it would give you a +1 whether for a round or more, a type of unit for the battle, or be unit specific–if it were to be Patton, he would always +1 tanks under his command.  If it were Zukov, it would be Infantry, if Yamamoto it could be fleet based fighters.

Well thats another idea:

Each player can choose one commander among 5 choices.

For Germany it could be:

Von Manstein ( lets the defender retreat in one battle)
Rommel ( artillery move two spaces and if they roll a one they hit tanks)
Admiral Donetz ( 2 subs or more attacking the same space now attack at 3)
Guderian ( tanks and artillery can attack capture and attack a new adjacent territory)
Goering ( allows fighter defense if your getting SBR, or on SBR attacks roll twice select best roll)

How about this

each nation has like 5-20 commanders depending on who you are. They each have their own specail abilites ( some could accually even have the same)

then depeding on what nation you are you can have 1-4 commanders in play at a time (for Italy it would be one, Germany four, Russia 2-3, UK-2-3, US 3-4, japan 2-3) then the  commanders ability only effects the units of the territory or attack that he(or she :-D) is in

You can also dismiss a commanders if you need a commander with a new ability, but once you dismiss a commander they are removed from the game

For Italy they would have to start out with all Italian commanders but can then apoint commanders from germany’s commander pool. This could represent leaders like Rommel and Kesseling

also certain countries like russia might be able to increse how many leaders that can depoly over time and for all countries if you lose two many battles that also might have negitive effects on your deployment of commanders

i think this way feels alot more historical

We are including these also…  Sorry I couldn’t help myself…  I’m excited.

@FieldMarshalGames:

We are including these also…  Sorry I couldn’t help myself…  I’m excited.

How will they look? will they be a genric general firgure with his arm pointing to the front or blocks with pictures and names of different nation specific leaders printed on them, or wil you accually have molds of Rommel and MacArthur.

Yea i second that post. What are they looking like?

@Imperious:

Yea i second that post. What are they looking like?

They will be generic officers for each nation in the correct uniform.  To difficult to do specific HISTORICAL people in regards to sculpts.

@FieldMarshalGames:

To difficult to do specific HISTORICAL people in regards to sculpts.

BUT THAT WOULD BE SO COOL!
but seriously I understand, you people are awsome enough with the combat dice and new molds:-D

I also like how they wil be generic officers and not generals, as an army is not lead by one man but a whole corp of officers.

@Emperor_Taiki:

@FieldMarshalGames:

To difficult to do specific HISTORICAL people in regards to sculpts.

BUT THAT WOULD BE SO COOL!
but seriously I understand, you people are awsome enough with the combat dice and new molds:-D

I also like how they wil be generic officers and not generals, as an army is not lead by one man but a whole corp of officers.

Exactly!  The board would look strange with 2-3 Rommels right?  But a generic officer unit would fit in perfectly. IMO

Germany starts with 2 leadership points, Russia 0, Japan 1, UK 1, Italy 0, US 0

The leadership is reperesented my the commander peice which is placed on each nation setup card right next to your tech tokens ( just like in my truck rules). You cannot buy leadership, it is a result of fighting. For every battle you win you roll one die and on a roll of 1 you gain a leadershi point. When you lose a battle you also can gain leadership. Since crisis usaully brings either good or bad change( it tends to be good) on a roll of 1 or 2 the defeated player gains 1 leadership and on a roll of 6 loser loses one leadership. Also battles will have to have at least three units on both sides so that people dont try mine or spawm leadership. For each leadership point you can reroll one die a turn in any battle.

Since FMG has sad they will be suppling three commader peices a chart good be made for each nation that would divide leadership between the three branches of a military, The Navy, Air Force, and Army. Each would have it own leadership rating and only be affected by battles in which its type of peices took part in, and there were at least three of them.

Since rivalry between branches has high in all armies throughout the war, you can only use one type of leadership point in a battle, so you cant use both air force and army leadership rerolls in the same battle.

You could also have speacial rules, like since after a German defeat Hilter usaully made horrible changes and so after a defeat on a roll of 1 Germany gets a leadership point, but on a roll of 5 or 6 they lose one.

Id rather the new sculpt is representing not just leadership in battle, but allocated reserves stockpiled of supplies for the ‘big push’

These would cost a player X ipc to use and have a modifier for combat.

All your attacking units get a ‘combined arms’ modifier for combat for each combo of Infantry,Artillery, and Armor of one free re-roll for each miss. So say you attack with 6 infantry, 2 armor, 2 artillery  you get two re-rolls on misses from any unit that survives the first round ( after both sides remove loses).

Having 3 generals gives you three opportunities to do this each turn for three different combats or if you like just one or any combination of land, sea air… Its just that it costs income to have this and the results are not guaranteed. You could be wasting your money on an unproven general or spending it for an all out attack and going for broke because the more you spend money for this the greater drain on national resources.

For naval admirals you get one re-roll for every two planes with carrier missed, or any combination of one Battleship plus another warship ( either CA or DD)

and air marshals get two SBR rolls ( pick best of two) If using the optional escort rules, then +1 on first round.

Note that these can be used for attack or defense. If defense you must allocate the money for this in advance and use it as a safety belt for attacks against you. This way its like poker in that the attacker may just attack mormally and you have prepared defense with a commander so his attack will not go well.

If you play it out it could work. The trick is how much for this should it cost?

I think its a 4-9 IPC value depending on use.  I don’t like ‘fixed’ leadership costs because thats not really balanced

i dont think leadership should be bought with IPC’s at all. I just dont understand what it would represnet, and advancment in militay education would be to late to make a signifigant differnece in the war.

If you want a peice to represent supplies for the big push, that should be the truck peice.

I just dont understand what it would represnet…

The general is really a HQ…filled with upper officers plus the logistical stockpile of fuel and supplies for large scale offensives.

Armies have a general at all times. Its not like any army is being run by buck privates, BUT in the course of the war nations did stockpile items for the big push. Germany did it in May 1940, June 41, Dec 41, Oct 42, July 43, Dec 44… so to extrapolate this in the game they would have bought 4 land generals, plus 1 in July 1940 which didn’t work and was used for Air.

The British bought one for air in July 1940, and land ones for Aug 42, June 44, and Sept 44

Japan bought one for air in Dec 41 and June 42, for naval in Oct 44, for land in Dec 41

Italy bought just one land in Oct 1940 but wasted it

USA bought numerous in 42, sept 43, June 44, March 45,

USSR bought one in Dec 41,

so its not buying leadership, but buying the logistical requirement for large scale offensives. Usually they only have a potency during the initial period of use.

Now trucks are just nothing but transports to facilitate movement. They have nothing to do with combat.

@Imperious:

so its not buying leadership,

I agree, your buying supplies, trucks carry supplies, movement is combat, the truck peice should be used to represent supplies and logistical advantage.

The officer or commander peice should represent leadership, why should they represent something else? And since we both agree leadership is not bought, a system along the line of the one i stated above might work.

The HQ is the entire apparatus of talent which determines the course of action. It includes reserves, leadership, stockpiles of fuel , ammo.

it moves like any other combat unit only its a small group of commanders and logistical supports. I think it should have an influence.

Perhaps if an HQ is next to your army it will allow you to:

1)Retreat as the defender
2)Modify combat +1 to all units in one battle
3)allow you to possibly move and attack, and if you win, move and attack again with ‘certain units’ perhaps not
4)give you a reroll on a miss or provide combined arms modifications to combat ( left to be determined)

How about the commander peice represents leadership and the truck peice represents supplies and motorization.
that seems the most straight forward.

leadership= is all the officers planning and executing the battle. They are in the field and also in various Army Group HQ’s

Using most wargames as a reference the Leadership is always not “some dude standing around”, but represented by HQ units and the logistical abilities are actuated by this unit. Look at how they do the Block games

truck piece represents supplies and motorization.

yes it does, but the game cant get into ammo and fuel counters because thats a different scale. IN strategic games its assumed under the HQ duty, but motorization is definatly a trucks duty. In this scale trucks are representing railway, and horses as well