Blockhouse Talk 101

@Adlertag:

Blockhouse: attack 0, defend on 4 or less, move 0, cost 6 IPC

This fit right into the A&A line of simple units. No mumbo jumbo of opening phase fire or targeting specific units. Thank you.

This is quite a bit worse than two infantry.  For the same price, the only advantage of the blockhouse is that it averages slightly more hits against a single attacking unit.  The two infantry have the advantage that they absorb twice as many hits, and can actually move and attack!  Any devoted defense unit would have to be substantially better than its attack capable counterparts from a strict cost vs combat value analysis (giving consideration to hit absorption).

@Imperious:

…we need some defensive unit with teeth.

Do we though?  Remember the Gamemaster edition?  Infantry on defense was the more efficient by far than any unit on attack.  This lead to very long games with huge walls of infantry such that neither side could attack.  Since then we’ve seen the innovations of artillery pieces and the 3/3/2/5 tanks, much to the game’s improvement.

When it’s more efficient to build a defense force than an attack force, you require a much bigger economic advantage in order to successfully invade.  This can lead to long lags of all building and no fighting, or worse yet a complete stalemate.  I do not wish to see a strong defensive unit.

This can lead to long lags of all building and no fighting, or worse yet a complete stalemate.

This is your central point. It will definatly lead to fewer invasions where double collection occurs which causes both sides to buy more units, hence more dice rolling, hence longer game.

With the blockhouse people will make sure they have enough to take the spot from counterattack, which leads to a quicker result, rather than piecemeal attempts to secure the same territory over and over again with NO RESULT. I feel the game will have a quicker result.

Please play it out and come back to the table.

Blockhouses 0-4-0-6 and if you want more teeth add this rule:

Defending blockhouses fire first before attacking pieces and casulties are immediately removed and thus get no attack roll.

There is no limit to how many blockhouses you can place in each territory.

How is that for teeth.

Its like having a defending shore shot from a BB.

So its one roll and if you got the blockhouse and 2 infantry vs. 5 infantry and 5 tanks landing you got no any difference to mention.

Its just one roll and it may miss. It will not scare anybody away.

But to have the potential of one roll free at 2 or less for each INF and ART , MAY prove a method to thwart the enemy from double collecting.

it may or it may not. Thats kinda nifty right?

Don’t you like the idea that it can scare the enemy away?

Thats what Hitler intended to make of his Atlantic wall.

How about treating blockhouses as we treat anti-aircraft guns, only for land units. One shot at 1 or 2 or less equal to the amount of landunits invading.  Also, place them during set-up where they were located historically (can’t be purchased). Only fired during opening round of combat, can’t be destroyed.

6 ipcs for a Blockhouse that fires 1 out of 6, and 6 more ipcs to upgrade to one that fires 2 out of 6.  so that is 12 ipcs for the full version.

1 hitpoint and can not be captured (just dies if the controller loses that territory) [could also do zero hitpoints, just like AA gun, and still would not die unless territory is lost]

fires a 1 or 2 out of 6 (depending on normal or upgraded) before combat begins on all attacking land units, up to a maximum of 10 land units more than the total number of defending units (just like shore bombard, the casualties may fire their casualty shots)

once in place, it is pointing at a certain territory border and only defends against attacks coming from that border (the border can be land or sea, and therefore does not matter if it is amphibious or regular assault)

is built in place, but can only be built in territories that contain an IC or are adjacent to a territory that contains an IC.  Only one blockhouse per border.

yes thats it. play that.

You guys are trying to create a piece that is way more effective in the game than it performed in the real world. Why dont we just make a Godzilla piece that stomps all the invaders to death on a roll of 5 or less, gets 2 rolls per attacker and any surviving attackers only get to participate in one round of combat before messing their pants and retreating. That would make people think twice about attacking also.

Thats a good idea!

Give it to Japan as its new tech

LMFAO, I knew you had a good sense of humor.

Actually don’t laugh. I play games with Godzilla in them.

We call it berserker AA.

You play any AA game normally, then add in south Africa Godzilla. It moves randomly by placing dice 1-6 in each adjacent space, then you roll the die and it moves to that territory. It can never move in the same territory twice. ( use blocks to track its movement. Each turn it moves 3 spaces. For each factory it overruns it can move one additional space from that point forward.

In attacks it has 10 points to allocate as follows:

It can roll 4 dice at 2 or less, or 2 dice at 3 or less, plus one at 2 or less…. it can even allocate its points to additional movements at the cost of 2 points per movement point but at a minimum it moves 3 spaces and this does not count against its points.

The thing can only be hit with a roll of one and it takes 10 ones to kill it.  Each hit reduces its hit points from 10 to 9…etc… It really adds alot of laughs in games and this is best played with 4-6 players.

I can tell you that its really fun.

We do the same thing with giant ANTS taken from the concept from the movie Them!, but this uses the fortress America map.

LMFAO, You’re killing me, IL, you’re killing me!

Holy crap you have seen them! Man I have not seen that in a while, I wonder if it ever got released on DVD……

IL I almost hyperventilated.  I am ridiculously tempted to try that out.

pull the trigger. Start with Godzilla and have a go at it. Its really fun with lots of people because they could be forced into fighting the monster and it could wipe them out. You can get in a situation where all 5 players have to stop attacking and just fight Godzilla. This is a left curve that changes the game but makes it fun in a different way.

We have this thing we call it the “doomsday chicken” which is some painted chicken from a childrens game. I prefer to use it for the fun factor, where you lose your entire army to some 1,000 foot chicken.

I have a hard enough time getting people to play a serious game of A&A

Well a ‘doomsday chicken’ should liven it up a bit right?

Who knows that might just work.

What if blockhouse just supported artillery, and not infantry since infantry already get an defensive advantage and build fortifactions for themselves anyways. Usually armies put artillery in blockhouses, so it just seems to make sence.

The idea would have to be a 3 or less preemptively on first round for each artillery, which means the free roll would actually be the replaced with this roll as their defense and which the cost of BK would have to go down to something around 6.

1. shore bomberdment fire first–-remove loses
2. blockhouse fires ( all artillery defending fire at 3)–remove loses
3. attacking units fire
4. remaining defenders fire
5. remove loses from 3 and 4

like above?