Getting back to the topic. Perhaps in the interest of simplicity, a commander unit should be as follows.
0 Attack - This unit may never attack (even an undefended territory) without another land unit also attacking. This unit may not capture a territory. If all other attacking land units were destroyed, then the commander unit must retreat.
0 Defense - This unit can stop tanks from blitzing the same as an aa gun can.
4 Movement Points - This would be overland movement points only. (Commanders could always get to battles quicker than armies.)
8 IPC cost - (You are limited to having a maximum of 3 Commander units on the board at any one time.)
If this unit is involved in a land attack or defense where other units from the same country are attacking or defending, then on the first round of combat only, all of the air units and non-aa land units from the same country as the commander unit gain a +1 modifier to the applicable attack or defense value. This modifier is non-cumulative. (i.e. if you have multiple commander units involved in the same battle, then only one +1 modifier applies, not multiple +1’s.) This unit must be the last unit taken as a casualty, and if attacked with no defending units present, is automatically destroyed in the same way as transports.
The nations would begin with the following commander units in the following locations:
Germany
1 in Poland
1 in France
Japan
1 in Manchuria
1 in Japan
Italy
1 in Italy
Soviet Union
1 in Karelia
UK
2 in Great Britain
US
1 in Eastern US
1 in Western US
China - I know that this gives the Allies 6 starting commanders to the Axis’ 5, but the Chinese one will probably be destroyed on J1 and can never be replaced.
1 in Yunan
The side effect of this abilty and placement would be to make a G1 attack on Karelia VERY difficult, if not impossible, and Japan would have to dedicate more units to be able to take out the Yunan fighter. I see both of these things as a good thing. I almost put the second starting UK commander unit in Egypt, but I finally decided against it.
What do y’all think?