Blockhouse Talk 101

Hence my suggestion that Artillery defend against Sea and Air threats, in addition to supplementing ground offense, while Infantry provide for more general defense against Land threats.

The artillery replaces the blockhouse is a bad idea. It does not model the french situation with the Maginot line, not account for the various pill box islands that japanese made, nor account for Gibraltar or Malta or even Singapore or Sevastopol. If you just replace the idea with artillery you have given the french countless artillery and littered the islands with stupid artillery pieces all over the map just to symbolize fortified zones with extensive defensive works.

The solution is a new piece so it can model the various types of defensive emplacements and reflect a real psychological and real desire to avoid possible bloodshed.  The thing has to convey the dismay of even attempting to attack places with have these units but make them very expensive. It cannot be some silly “your artillery just do this magically and latter go back to normal”

If you guys just play out the 2 or less against all invading land units free shot first round (  rolls = with matching defending INF and ART) and cost 12 IPC, you got a sure winner. I will now have to bring in like 10 land units to over come 3-4 and the result is i hold and take the territory, rather than just making a joke about landing taking income you retake, landing taking income then you retake, landing taking income then you retake. Surely the game can be better than that.

You wont keep doing this little number, and the pleasure will cost me 12 IPC

Okay - I ran a dozen or so mock battles last night to test the Blockhouse/Fortress unit, and found it to be very powerful. The attackers mainly consisted of 5 Inf, 1 Art, 1 Tank, 1 Ftr, 1 Bmbr. The defenders mainly consisted of 4 Inf, 1 Tank, 1 BH. In most battles, the attacker managed to capture the territory with just the tank remaining! I liked the BH having the Surprise Strike at 3 as it gave a it 50/50 chance of knocking out an attacking enemy land unit, before that unit even got to fire.

However, I looked at the scale of the main game and compared it to A&A D-Day, where the official BH piece was first introduced. In D-Day, the BH fired upon the beachhead spaces with a targeted attack (the BH picks the enemy unit to be destroyed), and hit on a 1-3. However, that was done during a special step in the game as D-Day was not played within the regular phases of the main game. But when the BH was involved in a land combat in its own space, it defended on a 1. So, I started to consider reducing the Surprise Strike down to 2, in order to simulate that not all fortresses have a height advantage. I did not like the targeted attack as I felt this was just too powerful, but am still open to the idea so long as the strength of the defence roll is reduced… How about that?

Also, I was testing the outcome of battles where the BH could not be hit by air units. This worked just fine for the defenders. But I thought that this still made the BH a bit too strong. So, to counter this I thought: ‘hits from attacking air units cannot be assigned to a defending BH unless there is a land unit(s) friendly to the air units present in the battle.’ By this I implied that fighters and bombers needed land units on the ground to spot the BH, enabling it to be fired upon by the aircraft. That could work… making a combined land+air strike all the more worthwhile.

I also tried out giving the BH ‘two hits to destroy’ and found this worked very well indeed! It kind of made the ‘chosen last’ ability a bit redundant (as most players would want to keep a unit that gets surprise strike every round and can take two hits in the battle, for as long as possible). It came to my attention that the BH could now defend a territory all by itself against a small force; and in that case it wouldn’t necessarily need any friendly units to help defend the BH, but obviously the more the merrier.

So where does it all leave us? Time to look at the Pros and Cons…

Pros…

Defend: 2?

Surprise Strike: This unit rolls its defence die during the opening fire step of every combat round, and on a roll of a 1-2, a casualty is selected (targeted?) from the invading force and removed from play. Combat then resumes as normal, with the attacker rolling for all their units first, etc.

Cannot Be Hit By Air Units: Hits scored by attacking air units cannot be assigned to a BH unless there is a land unit friendly to the air units involved in the battle.

Two Hits To Destroy: This unit takes to hits to destroy.

Cons…

Cost: 10?
Move: 0
Attack: 0

Cannot Hit Air Units: Hits scored by a BH cannot be assigned to attacking aircraft.

Cannot Hit Sea Units: This unit cannot hit sea units as they are not placed on the battleboard in a land combat. This unit cannot be chosen as a casualty by the owner as a result of shore bombardment.

That’s where we are for the moment. I look forward to reading your comments and observations. Thanks everyone!  :-)

Okay - I ran a dozen or so mock battles last night to test the Blockhouse/Fortress unit, and found it to be very powerful. The attackers mainly consisted of 5 Inf, 1 Art, 1 Tank, 1 Ftr, 1 Bmbr. The defenders mainly consisted of 4 Inf, 1 Tank, 1 BH. In most battles, the attacker managed to capture the territory with just the tank remaining! I liked the BH having the Surprise Strike at 3 as it gave a it 50/50 chance of knocking out an attacking enemy land unit, before that unit even got to fire.

I assume the number of rolls is limited to the number of defending INF and ART? if so this is the correct result, invasions cant be done with even forces… you need a 1.5 to 3 to 1 to have a measurable success. This is the whole point… to eliminate these stupid “Lets land just enough to steal the territory with zero intention of actually holding the territory… just to trick the rules and claim double income”

How about this for blockhouse units:

Grant defending inf and art +1 on all defensive rolls.  No movement, 10 IPC cost, destroyed when invaded, can be placed in any territory next to or containing an industrial complex.

To try and eliminate trading with the blockhouse unit is impossible without other serious problems in a game where you collect income at the end of your turn.  It is impossible.  The easiest way to eliminate the trading of France is to make it not be next to germany, which is already happening.  Sadly it will still contain a factory next to the beaches, which will result in it being traded, alot.

I still like the idea of a blockhouse piece improving the defense of units in a battle. I still say that you buy a blockhouse and it improves the defense of a combination of 2 infantry or 2 artillery. Only one blockhouse per territory so we can hopefully quell huge stacks and dead zones, those are not realistic at all.

Grant defending inf and art +1 on all defensive rolls.  No movement, 10 IPC cost, destroyed when invaded, can be placed in any territory next to or containing an industrial complex.

Great then the french Maginot line is nothing but a paper thin wall. The Gibraltar fortress, Tobruck, Sevastopol, Singapore, etc are basically nothing, The pacific islands which are full of tunnels and pill boxes are not represented because no japanese player will spend 10 IPC for a one tier unit.

Why would +1 for infantry cost 10 IPC? I would rather have a real unit like 2 tanks that can move around. The allies will have no trouble invading and nothing was solved. Great.

2 tiers.

5 ipc each tier.

1st tier all defending INF and ART get a free shot at 1 after SB

2nd tier all defending INF and ART get a free shot at 2 or less after SB

IT IS A PIECE

NOW you got something representing various types of fortifications and effects that match it

Blolckhouse defends at 3, fires before attacking pieces, but after shore bombardment in amphibious assault, all casulties are removed immediately w/o attack roll. In an amphibious assault w/ shore bombardment blockhouses can choose before rolling if it wants to target naval pieces which participated in shore bombardment or attacking ground forces. No special rules for aircraft, in other words can hit or be hit by aircraft if either is selected as a casulty by owning player. Only takes one hit to destroy.Attack 0, Move 0, Cost 6. There is no limit to how many blockhouses that can be built in any territory. If you want a 2-hit piece then simply increase the cost to 12. Test this piece out.