Posts made by Bud Tarentine

Thanks cb4 for your affirmation. We love history and historical accuracy, and we think that a version that encapsulates that more would be an interesting variant, even if it looks quite different from the original.

We are determined to write rules that explain things clearly with examples. But that project is Phase II. We’re on Phase I really. Phase III is to play-test and adjust rules. Phase IV is to enjoy it for years to come.

But our time is extremely limited right now. That’s the main problem!

Perhaps not… I don’t know any more. It’s inspired by Axis and Allies and Global War 1939… I guess it just takes things even further. Maybe in ways Axis and Allies players will find unrecognizable.

Global 1939. Didn’t want to invest in Global 1936. We looked at it and it had the same issue anyways…

To all those who wanted rules for an alternate version of this game, we’ve hit a wall. We’ve play-tested it several times but arrived several conclusions:

1. The map, in our view, requires so many alterations that players in the community might not want to go through all the trouble. It’s a decent map but spaces = distances is so distorted that it makes things ridiculously artificial. We have used scotch tape and a marker to add new territories and sea zones (we think the Pacific Ocean is just too small, for example, and that Africa should have more territories to simulate its enormous size geographically).

2. The units, like infantry, tanks, planes - just doesn’t really reflect reality enough for us to continue using them. We’re developing a more realistic set of military units (see below).

Our other rules, about terrain, weather, leadership, strategic and tactical phases, the monthly pace/turn, initiative, offensive and defensive posture during battles, combat supply units, strategic assets, etc. do work. They work well. We even set up the game again, thinking to play-test one more round, but the above 2 issues, especially #2, just made it impossible to continue.

We’d like to make a new map and publish that, but we don’t have time to do all the work. So, we’re going to “fix” the map we have. It’s not a bad map…it just could be better! :-)

As for the military units: we’re developing 5/8" counters - like old Avalon Hill strategy games - of division-sized units (a few regimental and brigade units too). This is an enormous task. We’re currently researching every division in World War II for every nation - and adding extra ones in case a player uses more than what was actually used (like the U.S. - who had 90 divisions give or take but the War Dept. at one point had a plan to raise 255 divisions should the war have gone badly). It gets complicated. Some divisions were re-organized and some were deactivated - we’re going to make some command decisions regarding those. Also included will be combat supply units. We realize that the Soviet Union, Germany and China had enormous armies - that Soviet divisions were smaller than German/American/British divisions - their scores will reflect that.

Every unit will have scores or levels for attack, defense, hit points (how much damage they can take), AAA score, cost, stacking points (how much logistically cumbersome it is) and training level (A-E, A being very well-trained, E being more or less auxiliary units). We’ve also made planes and ships too as well as counters for Corps (1-6 divisions), Armies (7-20 divisions) and Army Groups (21+ divisions). Those Corps, Armies and Army Group counters are what actually goes on the board during game play - the actual divisions are hidden from other players in trays - so you don’t know what the other guy has until you either a) fight him or b) recon or c) espionage. The fog of war… It’ll be like that for ships too - Task Forces and Fleets… If you want to attack a fleet in a sea zone you have to “find it” first during strategic combat with reconnaissance aircraft.

I’ve developed a combat system that is based on a Combat Results Table. Damage depends on the amount of combat power being thrown at the enemy. If you have 1 division and the enemy has 6 divisions being thrown at you, you’re not going to destroy all of them by a long shot. But you might hurt them badly enough that it turns the battle in your favor - or gives you more favorable odds. Battles can last several rounds sometimes - so several rolls of the dice - each round players have to roll initiative. The system is complicated but it looks like it’ll work. Battles will take a while to resolve. You get to be the commander, decide which divisions will suffer damage, which ones you should withdraw out of the territory, what you’ll do if you gain the initiative… You’ll have to manage how you’re going to bring in replacements to bring units back up to full strength when damaged. Sometimes your units might just get wiped out entirely - and that’s it for them. Terrain and weather will modify dice rolls, as well as commanders. The CRT has columns and odds: 1-4 all the way up to 7-1. It’s dangerous to attack an enemy when you only have 1-1 odds (your attack factor in total from all your divisions vs. his total defense factor from all of his). Damages are from 1/16 to 1 - 1 being 100% of your combat power effects the enemy (a really good hit). Rolls are determined by the D12. So, it you have an attack of 90 and you achieve “1/2” against the enemy, they take 45 hit points of damage - spread across their army as the defender sees fit. That’s the idea anyways. Sometimes the result will be that you suffer no damage but the enemy does, or vice versa.

Aircraft: we’ve determined that each aircraft unit (Fighters, Fighter Bombers) are about 100 planes. Can 100 Fighter Bombers destroy and entire SS panzer division? We’re not sure. It can certainly damage it. But planes, although effective, won’t be able to just strafe anything on the ground at will and destroy it. It’ll be more realistic.

So that’s what we’re working on. We’re sorry that the version we’ve been working on for a while just didn’t pan out. We just don’t want to play with figurines anymore. It doesn’t make sense to us. It isn’t all that interesting. If we’re going to spend hours playing a war game, we figure it might as well be interesting.

@SS:

Bud, I’d be interested in your rules and setups to. I know the group wouldn’t play but a buddy or 2 might. I’m hopin to setup a 3rd gaming table were I could pretty much change out games, keep setup for certain games for a period of time.
I do have 3 HBG G39 maps.

Have you thought about having ships move only 2 spaces from a naval base and if no naval base, can only move 1 space for the whole map ?
Then you wouldn’t need the blue dots.

Also agree with your comment about time and space.

The blue dots in the Pacific seem to be fine. We’re not sure about the Atlantic. If we decrease the mobility of ships then it won’t be historically accurate at all. It took about 15 days of sailing from Virginia to Morocco. We have to make sure that’s possible in our game - i.e. to be able to do that in one month of the game. Therefore, we eliminated SZ35 and gave the US “Improved Naval Bases” along with the UK (which is reasonable).

As for the long game, we figured people play Xbox or PS4 and “save” the game and come back to it later; or role-playing games that people spend months even years on a campaign - playing once a week; or a TV series that progresses over a season. So, we wanted to introduce that concept to a WW2 game…

It might take a conceptual adjustment at first on how one can play a board game… The most important challenge besides setting time aside once a week or so is having a dedicated place to play. That’s the real challenge and we know that won’t be possible for many people. That’s the only real drawback I guess.

@Chris_Henry:

Sorry Bud, I should have clarified what I meant. It was more the land combat than anything I was referring to (I completely agree about ship movement realism). The idea of Burma falling quickly always bugged me, short fights in Africa, fighting in Italy etc. Essentially saying I agree with you on a way to simulate the longer drawn out battles. I had always thought of a map that had Burma split into two or three territories for example, but your version is more practical (as you’re right, it would take a ton of time to make a map!).

I agree. Having huge tank battles in the jungles of Burma never made any sense to me. It was an Infantry war. We made Burma’s terrain difficult (jungle and a river area), which will be a real challenge to the Japanese (I have to figure out a way to dislodge the British there).

Terrain, specifically, we’ve determined, has the following ramifications (jungle/forest, city, mountainous):
Mechanized forces have less combat power
Infantry get additional rolls in it when in the Defensive Posture
Aircraft have less of a chance to hit targets
Terrain also reduces the number of combat rounds a battle will have (normally it’s 0-5 rounds, but terrain will reduced this by 1) - which means - since combat units have 2 steps (full strength and damaged), initial invasions can turn into long, drawn-out campaigns over months in a contested area - with both sides pouring in troops to try to dislodge the other player(s)…

Then there’s the monsoon season in Burma, which virtually stops combat operations or limits them to a huge degree…

@Munck:

Do you have your current rules written down? Would love to see where you are at this point.

Are you looking for feedback or help from other people, or are you doing this ‘locally’?

The new map should be a better version of 1939 revised. They have made more changes since the Facebook post, so I don’t know the current lay-out. How have you made your revisions to the 1939 map? Have you scanned the HBG one or are you using ‘pen & paper’ ?

Another question, how many hours do you envision a game will take?

Again, keep up the good work  :-)

Munck,

We have the rules down in draft form with additional charts for easy reference. We’ve received some feedback on this board. For map revisions:
new countries/sea zones: scotch tape, black marker for a new border - it isn’t permanent but it looks decent
IPC changes: we made little red and black squares with numbers, like you see on the map, printed at Staples on a single adhesive sheet (I forget the Avery number) - then we simply cut those out and peeled them off and put them on the board. Looks great. We made our own terrain markers this way as well. And we made some 1/2" square chips for RR, Defensive Lines, Weather - we also use HBG stuff and Axis & Allies stuff too, and counters from other games. But you can virtually make any type of chip you want.

The game will take months - literally months. I’m the Axis this time. My associate, who happens to be my brother, will play the Allies. He’s a really good player. I’ve somehow got to find a way to beat him.

BTW, we changed the Axis victory cities to 12, not 10 - it forces the Axis to essentially eliminate a major power - i.e. a major competing political system at the time - either communism or liberal democracy. That’s really what World War II is about as far as the Germans are concerned. Social Darwinism on a national scale - a global scale. We put all of that in the game as accurate, historical background, because we think it’s fun to also learn about history as you play the game…

Chris_Henry,
Thanks for the feedback and question. As for the new map, I’m not sure if these rules would be compatible. You’d have to adjust a few things I suppose. We’re not in a position to get the new map right now. Plus, we like the 1939 revised map.

I think the size of the maps are okay actually - What we thought the problem was that ships - if the timetable is 6 months - would be able to move much, much farther than is allowed. And planes even more. It took about 15 days of sailing for American troops to reach North Africa from Virginia. Given loading a ship and disembarking, we figured that the US should be able to invade North Africa from the US in a turn - 1 month - not 6 months. So, we had to adjust the map by eliminating SZ 35 around Gibraltar, give the US “improved Naval Bases” that add an extra movement point during combat movement (i.e. ship 2, +1 for naval base, +1 for improv. NB = 4). But we added some extra sea spaces between the US and France by placing blue dots in certain SZs in the Atlantic so that the US couldn’t simply invade France from the mainland of the US - it’s a bit fictional. We may or may not do this and actually remove the blue dots…All in all, we didn’t want to make our own map - we didn’t have the time and we liked the revised version of the 1939 map (we bought the largest one)…

Hi Munck,
We plan to keep everyone informed of its development - for those who want it. I am aware about the new version coming out in November. The map looks really interesting, although I’d personally want some modifications to it (I think Africa is too small and the Pacific is too small). We actually like the revised map HBG put out a couple of years ago… We just had to make modifications, including adding extra Sea Zones, placing a blue dot on certain Sea Zones to count for 2 movement points, adding terrain, adding territories (mainly in Africa), and changing IPC values for some territories. We also changed set up to reflect a historical approach - so we made set-up charts for all the nations. We didn’t change everything though. If it was historically accurate, we kept it. We based units on the board according to combat power and not number of troops/tanks (the Russians had about 19,000 tanks in 1939, but they don’t have a massive stack of tanks on the board).

Anyways, we’ve abandoned the idea of each turn lasts 6 months approach. That approach makes it more playable and faster (and maybe more fun?), but we just couldn’t reconcile it with actual historical events and ship and plane technology. Their movement points don’t coincide with history at all. Our one-month-per-turn will be a slow, grinding game - but we’re going for more realism. As a player, you get to make the strategic and tactical decisions that are difficult: we’re trying to lessen “game” aspects and heighten realism. Obviously it is still a game. But we’ve introduced things that will make the game more fluid: weather, terrain, leadership, logistics, somewhat complex rules for actual battles (with initiative, number of phases in a battle, offensive and defensive posture, retreating, amphibious evacuation, surprise and surrender), politics, an events chart and partisans, different training among nations and their armed forces, some new Weapons Developments. But most of all: changes in strategic and tactical turn order every month. Who went first in last round may not go first in this round. It’s random but there are modifiers that give you a better chance of acting before your enemy does. You’ll never play the same game twice. You don’t know what the weather will be like. And, of course, you might radically alter what the Axis or Allies actually did in the war. It’ll be like a game that you “save” and come back to later. Some people might not be able to do this, and that’s okay. But for those who want a more historical approach to World War II, we’re going to offer it as an alternate version.

Thank you John Brown. I’m back…

Additional rule changes:

8. Destroyer screens: Destroyers can try to intercept attacking subs before they reach the rest of the fleet (kind of like the way a Fighter scrambles to intercept an attacking bomber) - but on water. A submarine/anti-submarine warfare phase always goes before surface warfare (right after the Air Battle phase in Air-Naval Combat).

9. Weapons, Technology & Research Development: certain nations can acquire most of these; some nations are restricted to a few. We researched who had what technology or was “working on it” so to speak. Some countries start off with a few WTR developments at the beginning of the game too to reflect reality.

10. Politics. We know some people might not like political complexity to this game, but we had to make it realistic. And if Germany decides to start the war in Europe by attacking someone else besides Poland, that option is available. But, we want to remind players that World War II has already begun in a sense - Japan has attacked Nationalist and Communist China, the latter entities are supported by Britain, France, the Soviet Union and the United States (historically, anyways).

11. We lowered Italian overall IPC levels a bit. We did change how the United States would enter the war too. They start at 0, and do not roll to add to their national production until January 1940 (provided they are not attacked). They’ll roll IPCs until they reach 30 and will be capped at 30 until November of 1940, in which the US begins rolling 2-7 IPCs per month (plus bonuses). It signals the change in the Roosevelt Administration after the November 1940 election. The IPC level will also increase every turn by certain events on the board as a reaction to Axis aggression, including Axis occupation of Atlantic convoy zones. France has a similar slow start - because although France boasted of having 5,000,000 reservists, they couldn’t call them up easily. And this reflects French political leadership and their unwillingness to fight an offensive war. The French player can certainly attack the Germans, but it’s really risky because they won’t have much in the way of reinforcements during the Fall of 1939…

12. We really boosted the US strategic infrastructure. The US will be fully mobilized at 92 IPCs plus a 20 IPC bonus. Lend lease has been changed. The US can give up to 18 IPCs to Allied countries per month. The British can give 5; the Soviet Union can give C. China 1-2 IPCs per month.

13. Vichy rules. Simplified rules. Corsica remains Free French. All other French territories automatically become Vichy. Units on those countries may join the Axis or disband. Ships might be scuttled, join the Axis or the Allies. French troops in Allied controlled territories might remain Free French or disband.

14. Partisans and Axis Auxiliary troops. We’ve made an interesting chart that outlines potential Partisan uprisings and Axis Auxiliaries at certain times.

15. A general Events Chart is rolled every month that could affect one or more players - inflation, industrial fires, civilian volunteers, economic surges and also problems…Roll D30.

Anyways, these are a few things. We don’t know who will play this version. Perhaps no one will want to. That’s okay with us. But, what we’re going to do is play a few months of the war and then present the rules. The rules will be long and somewhat complex - I’m going to try to write them in such a way as to provide clarity and consistency throughout. Right now it’s about 55 pages long. It’ll probably end up being a little longer than that. Charts will be in the rules and also in an appendix for quick reference. We’ll also include a list of all units needed to play and our suggested map revisions. Those map revisions do not have to be “permanent” - just use scotch tape and a marker. We made our own terrain markers but one can just go to Staples and buy 1/4" colored dots (red=urban; yellow=mountainous; green=jungle/forest; blue=river or in a sea zone to account for 2 spaces to expand the Pacific Ocean since we think it should be bigger).

I don’t know if anyone is still interested out there, but we’re play-testing the final version of the rules for this. Some significant changes have taken place as we have thought about World War II. They are the following:

1. Using a D20 for combat (along with the D6 and D12 for other things too). Buying D20 dice is easy if you don’t have any - they’re fairly cheap to get at your local game store or on-line. The D20 system allows for more variance between national armies, which is number 2) below. Ground units, for example, have a TH OFF POS score, which means a “to hit, offensive posture score” - i.e., let’s say a German Infantry in the Offensive Posture has a score of 17. The player needs to roll a 17 or higher on the D20 to hit. I basically converted the percentage ratios of the D6 into the D20. So, needing a 1 on the D6 now could mean a range of 17-20, depending on your unit/nationality and other stuff.

2. Variance of national armies. What I have done is make a series of reasonably easy-to-read charts for all the units and their capabilities by nation. Germany Infantry are better than Italian Infantry. You will be able to see the differences.

3. Terrain and weather: I’ve updated our weather chart based off of world-wide seasonal weather patterns. It took some time, but I think it’ll work (there were a few problems with our earlier version). Terrain: we’ve added Rivers to certain territories - most territories have rivers, but we’re only concerned with large rivers and delta areas - places that could impeded military progress significantly. It’ll affect combat in the first round of a battle and give defenders bonuses.

4. We’ve reworked strategic bombing damage on factories. It’ll probably take months of sustained strategic bombing to really start affecting the war. But it will. Major Ind. Complexes don’t have negative production capacity until after 20 points of damage, for example…

5. Limitations to industrial production: Major ICs can produce up to 6 mechanized units, planes or ships per turn; Minor ICs 1 mech. unit (i.e. Light Tank, Medium Tank, Heavy Tank, Self-Propelled Artillery, all planes, all ships). There are no limitations for Infantry, Auxiliary Infantry, AA Guns, Artillery or Paratroopers) - except one’s normal production capacity. We found it unrealistic that South Africa could produce so many tanks.

6. We’ve split the economies of Canada and South Africa.

7. UK-London, British Empire Far East, Canada, South Africa and ANZAC all go at the same time for strategic and tactical combat.

8. Destroyer screens during naval combat.

More to follow… I have to run at the moment!

@Der:

How far can your ships move during non-combat movement? That’s interesting to me.

And what are the details of your railroads? I’m trying to work the trans-Siberian RR into my AA 42 variant map. I have it able to send 2 transports worth of land units from Moscow to Vladivostok during non-combat.

For non-combat movement, ships can move 3 spaces, 4 if it is from a port, and 5 if it is from a naval base. For railroads, we said that 3 units could be moved through a rail system per turn. If a rail is damaged, then less (they have 3 points, so if a RR takes damage - like 1 point - from a strategic bombing raid - then it has 2 points remaining - and therefore 2 units can move). Certainly this can be adjusted - we could make a RR system move 4 units instead of 3…

Fog of War: because this is a strategic level game, the fog of war is difficult to implement. So, we made more variables in tactical combat to introduce more fluidity in the game: rounds of combat per offensive (0-5), surprise, surrender, initiative, retreating. Plus, what is on the board is not actually what’s “on the ground” in the strictest sense: what’s on the board is troop types in a general sense more than actual numbers - because a unit on a strategic level is about relative combat power. The great equalizer in the game is the battle board and dice. Yes, a D12 system provides more variance, but we stuck with the D6. So, the Russians at some point had 400 divisions in their army. Some of these divisions were so understrength that they would amount to a combat brigade in the US Army - 3,000 men. Russian divisions were organized smaller than German divisions. If you have a German infantry unit on the board and a Russian infantry unit on the board, they have equal combat power. But “on the ground” they are not equal number of troops at all. In the beginning of the war, that Russian infantry unit might be twice as many actual men with rifles than its German counterpart.

An example of the fog of war or variables in combat: Last week, I had 3 British Heavy Bombers attempt to pulverize Axis ground units at Tobruk. They were going to conduct a one-time saturation bombing of ground troops. The only problem: I rolled a ‘0’ for the number of combat rounds to take place - which meant that nothing happened. In the ‘real world’ several things could have been the cause for why this bombing raid failed: perhaps the bombers got lost, had bad intelligence and couldn’t find targets, had maintenance problems, logistical problems - who knows… You can do a little role-playing here if you want. Whatever happened, the British failed (which is really bad right now for me - really bad).

We’re playing tomorrow night and Weds. morning. We want to get rules out ASAP. But we want to play-test it thoroughly. The writing of the rules will be the most important. We will spell everything out and provide examples - as if the reader has never played Axis and Allies in their life (even though many will have). The introduction will give the reader a rationale for the game and the change in mentality needed to enjoy it - to be in it for the long haul.

I agree with Tigerman77: this game will take days even weeks to play - even longer - depending on how much you play per session. We are going to introduce building times. We’ve determined that units you buy are already in some ways sort of on the books - that they’re not created from scratch completely - especially ships. Normally, a battleship took 2-3 years to build; a cruiser 1 year - we reduced it to 4 turns. Infantry is 1 turn. So, if you buy an infantry unit in March 1940, you can put it into play the following turn (April 1940) during place new units - essentially 2 actual months: beginning of March you buy - training takes place; April comes - training and equipping - at the end of April it can go on the board during place new units. Replacements, however, in which damaged units can be repaired, are repaired during phase 1 of a turn provided they are at an IC or a Forward Supply Base. This assumes that there are replacements and new equipment in theater already.

I’m finding out that in the old AA versions, I didn’t have to think through things too carefully at some point. After playing for 20 years+ I found few surprises in the game. That’s why we embarked on this advanced version. You really don’t know all the variables - it’s too fluid - you have to really sit down and think what you’re going to do, what your opponent might do, and prepare for a catastrophe because it’s going to happen. I think variable turn order had changed the game in such a way that it is impossible to play a similar game. You have to think to yourself: What if the Germans go first this round in tactical turn order? Are you prepared for that? The war moves at a slower pace precisely because of this. It took the US and British six months+ to dislodge Rommel from North Africa - from November 1942 to May 1943. In our game, the British are hanging on by their fingernails, trying to defend Cairo. The Americans are not in the war yet (who knows when they will be?). The Axis own the Mediterranean to my detriment. The Japanese own Burma. Their progress in China has slowed some and the Soviets have attacked the Japanese to relieve pressure on the British and Chinese. Japan invaded Western Australia in Feb. 1940 - last month, and ANZAC can’t dislodge them - it’s been contested… The Axis owns the Atlantic and the British can’t really build ships that won’t be sunk. It’s difficult. Thank God the German navy doesn’t have too many transports to attempt a Sea Lion. But I think he might. And he’ll be reading this post so I shouldn’t give him any ideas…

Nashville area.

@rohr94:

Upon seeing this original post I’ve also been trying to create a one month turn, but I have one question and one request.  My question is how do you deal with purchasing units when a turn is one month and most of my military buddies say combat training now a days is about 4 months.  My solution was to buy four turns in advance and each nation would get pre determined units for the first three turns.  Did you do something similar.  My request which also comes with a question is, could you post your setup charts you’ve created, because I’ve found nations like German and France very easy to find but Britain given the size of its empire very difficult to find the exact dispositions of units.  The question that goes along with that is what scale are you using.  For me it seemed most logical to use divisions for tanks and infantry and such, wings for airplanes, and groups of 500 or so for artillery.  I also favor a 12 sided die combat system to allow more variation within units, because its fair to say that in the beginning of the war German infantry would be better than Russian infantry due to more experience and stalin’s great purge.  Also with regards to strategic combat I had the idea to add counter battery fire so artillery can fire to destroy other artillery pieces in current combats or future combat zone.  Sorry for the disorganization and rambling nature of this post, I’m replying on my phone so it’s hard to format this into paragraphs.

Rohr, I’ve thought about that. Taking turns to mobilize units… It would be more realistic - you are absolutely right. For Infantry, you can assume that the training has already been done and when you ‘purchase’ new units they are then mobilized. However, you’re correct about the timeline. So, we’re going to work on this. Making a battleship takes time. All of this depends upon a country’s infrastructure too. Great question and point!

For set up - funny - we were just having this conversation… We used number of troops as a baseline - but a unit on the board includes more than just numbers (1 Infantry = 30,000-50,000 troops): training, equipment, communications, leadership, and combat power. All those factors go into set-up. So, for example, in 1939 Germany had I believe about 2000-3000 tanks maybe - 6 panzer divisions entered Poland in 1939 out of 63 divisions. The Russians had about 19,000 tanks. Russian tanks in 1939 were not very good - the German tanks weren’t much better, but: they had communications equipment in their lead tanks, better tank officers who understood tank warfare (although the Russians had just as good tank theorists as the Germans - i.e. Tuchachevsky - but he was killed by Stalin). So, we give the Russians 5 tanks in 1939. They have more tanks but probably the same amount of combat power… Set-up is difficult.

The French boasted that they had 5,000,000 reservists and fielded about 900,000 men in the field in 1939. But, essentially, this was a World War I army. It was ‘larger’ than the German army at the time - but on the game board the French won’t have more troops than the Germans because the Germans were a better army.

The other reason why we shy away from a strict ‘numbers of troops’ ratio to game board pieces is because the Russians later in the war were moving around 400 divisions. We can’t have 400 infantry on the board - or anything close to it. So, we decided to make infantry represent more and added other factors.

I have set-up charts but they’re not quite right. We tried to stick to the set-up charts of other versions and make adjustments, but we did have to change. For example, the Russians may have had a battleship in 1939, but was it the equivalent to a German or American battleship? No. In terms of combat power it was a cruiser - so that’s what we gave to them…

The counter-battery idea is interesting. I’ll talk to the other game designer. It certainly happened in WW2 but the question is how effective was it on the strategic level. Could an artillery battery really take out another artillery battery during a battle - with pin-point precision? In a large territory - hundreds of square miles? Maybe. Aircraft can certainly select artillery units - we do have that in the game… Maybe the Weapons development ‘Advanced Artillery’ can do something like that - or at least select targets they want to fire at in a battle. That might work… Thank you for your post. You bring up some good ideas. This is precisely the reason why we posted this thread.

To all interested readers: game development of alternate rules has resumed (I was overseas in the summer conducting research and have returned). We’re play testing the rules and the game thoroughly. It is an advanced version of Axis & Allies for the serious, long-term gamer. Since each turn is a month of the war, the game lasts a long time. It’s impossible to play the game in a single afternoon or even a weekend. The obvious disadvantage of a game like this is that some players simply do not have the time or space for this type of game. It requires a space for the game to be set up and remain set up for weeks or even months. We play once a week for three hours at a time (we’d play more but that’s just not possible). We set up the game in a game room and it remains set up week after week. The advantage of a game like this, however, is that you will 1) never play the same game twice - because we introduced too many new variables; 2) it is based on realism; 3) it’s really fun but requires a lot of thinking and planning - a high level of strategic thinking - much more like World War II.

Someone asked about strategic shelling. Strategic shelling is when a battleship or a cruiser moves to an enemy port or naval base and shells it during strategic combat - to destroy it.

We did alter the map a little bit. We added some territory in Africa. Basically we put down scotch tape and drew a new border with a marker to make Kenya and NE Congo. We wanted to make Africa larger because it is actually a HUGE continent and without railroads it takes a long time to get from South Africa to Cairo. Railroads are really important in this new game. Troops from eastern Russia can actually go west and fight Germany if need be - which actually happened.

We’ve added a few more new developments to combat: Surprise (which the game had already but needed to be improved) and the number of combat rounds per offensive, which is 0-5 (we bought special D6 dice that range from 0-5, but you don’t necessarily need this - as you can just roll the D6 and subtract one as a base score). For the latter development, we thought about situations in which armies would make little progress for months on end (like in Burma) but huge gains in other areas (like the Russian offensives of 1944). We asked why. One factor is terrain. Burma is a rough, jungle area. The British were still fighting the Japanese there in 1944 - while the Russians by that time had overtaken huge sections of their country back and were on the Polish frontier. In Africa, for several months there was essentially a stalemate. In Italy, the Casssino line held for months. So, we introduced the number of combat rounds per offensive. These are modified by terrain, weather and whether you have a commander in the operation. If a player ends up with a 0 for combat rounds, there’s no actual combat: the territory becomes contested. They move in the territory, but there’s little violence. A number of factors could be the cause 1) supply problems; 2) communication problems that make coordination difficult; 3) unwillingness of troops or commanders to engage the enemy; 4) the enemy avoids contact. While we don’t have rules to tell you what actually takes place (this is a strategic level game, after all) - the result is that no substantial combat takes place over that month at that location. Each battle, before it begins, rolls to see how many rounds of combat takes place. This prevents the unrealistic dimension in the game before: that battles last as long as one side either retreats or is destroyed or surrenders. The 0-5 rule gives us an idea of the level of violence an operation had. I think, in the end, if we look at the German offensive in the Battle of the Bulge, we see that the Germans attacked - but they only had - in game terms - maybe 1 or 2 rounds of attacking. They couldn’t sustain a long-term offensive like the Russians did on the eastern front. Naval engagements would also last 0-5 rounds. Sometimes it’s just not possible to find an enemy fleet in a vast ocean. We found the Japanese fleet at Midway almost by luck (we did send out PBY planes, but it took a while to find them). The British hunted down the Bismarck and it took a long time. If a battle is unresolved then it becomes contested - we have rules for what that means and how subsequent combat movement and combat occur in such territories. You lose the IPCs if it is contested, although the other player doesn’t get them either…

We also changed lend-lease rules - a maximum of 16 IPCs may be given to an allied player or players. It’s unrealistic that half a nation’s income can be given to another player. Congress just simply would never allow that under any circumstances.

We’re still working on the rules. We are going to write them down in readable form (they are written down, but it’s still in development). We’re sticking with a D6 system but there’s no reason you can’t convert it to a D12. My associate wants to move to a D8 system, but I’m not sold on the idea. I hate the D8 dice. Never liked it.  :-)

We’ll keep everyone updated with developments as we go along. Hopefully by Christmas this war will be over. But it’s only March 1940 in our game. War has already began between the Germans and the Russians; Japan has invaded Australia and is fighting in Burma. The Italians are in Somaliland causing the Commonwealth and the British in Cairo huge problems. But the British are on the verge of taking Tobruk, and that is key. America isn’t in the war yet, but getting closer. The Axis control the Atlantic. France has fallen. It’s a dark time for the Allies. But China is fighting hard. Really hard.

@billcallaway:

I can’t believe I’m one of those people that complain on message boards. Regardless, I’ve played this game more than once. I just don’t think a game should be released until the rules are clear. Game balance is secondary. Clear rules are what matter. I can’t even tell what the rules are exactly. No 7.0. Just fix what you got now. It’s been long enough. No one wants to play with house rules in most groups. We just want to play with clear rules. Don’t release anything new until this is fixed. I hope Amerika and Midway have better rules than this. Can’t wait until this fixed so we can start playing it again. It’s ridiculously fun until rule snags.

I agree with you wholeheartedly Bill. With all of the house rules circulating, and all the message boards, it’s difficult to figure out what rules to use and what rules not to use. I love this game but want clarity!

I agree Bill. Which is why my brother and I have decided to develop our own rules months ago and thoroughly play-test those rules and base them in historical reality. I really appreciate everything everyone has done to develop the rules for Global War 1939, but I gave up trying to figure out all the rule changes on all the discussion boards with all the questions, which seemed endless.

We also changed the map because Africa is too small so we added a few extra territories with scotch tape and a marker. It looks good.

Sorry if this post is off-topic.

JB, we’re using somewhat standard units (Infantry, Paratrooper, Motorized Infantry, Tank, Heavy Tank, Artillery, Self-Propelled Artillery, AA Guns and Partisans - for ground units). We’re not going to get into ‘elite’ units because this game is a strategic level game, and one infantry guy on the board represents approximately 20,000-50,000 actual troops - and realistically not all those troops could be elite - so it balances out. The scale of the game makes ‘elite’ units less relevant. You probably could add units to the game though without a problem.

You could use D12, which gives you ways to add differences between units. But we found other ways to add variables to combat rolls. Infantry roll extra dice in the Defensive Posture in rough, city or jungle/forest terrain. Bombers conducting Saturation Bombing roll an extra ‘shock’ roll. Fighter Bombers attacking ships roll an extra Strike Severity against ship targets, allowing the possibility that they can sink an aircraft carrier (which we did at Midway) or a battleship (which the Japanese did at Pearl Harbor).

Our basic approach is this: what actually happened in World War 2 must have the possibility of occurring in the game - at least to some extent. Equally, rules must be grounded in realism. If an infantry unit invades a territory and there is a bomber defending it, why does the bomber defend on a 1? What, is he surprised by 35,000 troops coming into the country and couldn’t get in the air before then? Couldn’t he just fly away or bomb them? We fixed that problem. Or the problem that Fighters attack everything on a 3 and defend on a 4. In actuality, Fighters weren’t good at attacking ships at all, were not great attacking ground troops, but were the best thing to use in shooting down other planes (which is what they were designed to do primarily). They can attack railroads for a strategic strike however. Fighter Bombers are what you want against ships and for close air support.

We also reduced shore bombardment for cruisers and battleships. In World War 2, we just do not see the type of devastation that could easily occur in the game. It wasn’t as effective as it looked to be at all. We bombed and shelled Iwo Jima for days and when Marines got there, the Japanese weren’t badly damaged. Same with Tarawa. And D-Day.

Carrier combat. In the air-naval battle sequence, we’ve included an air battle phase - because planes reach ships before ships reach ships; ships don’t fire at planes that are not attacking them; planes generally select their targets; planes cannot fire at subs without anti-sub capability. The ocean is just too large.

I’ve been playing Axis & Allies for over 20 years. When my brother got the Global 1939 map we thought it was absolutely amazing (there are only a few problems with it which we had to fix). When the rules came out we decided to develop a D6 version and have continued to do so since because we liked the D6 version and we liked much of what Larry Harris has developed already. But we had to make some changes too because we thought the basic combat rules of Axis & Allies could be improved to make the game more historically realistic. After extensive research on how combat actually occurred in WW2, we decided to introduce some major changes or adjustments to the combat rules and other rules.

For the set-up we started doing research about what nations actually had in 1939 and made some adjustments based on training, logistics and numbers of available troops to be mobilized. We didn’t change everything.

We had to make a major overhaul to Turn Order and what each round of play looked like. War is fluid and complex, and we wanted to try to simulate that. So, each turn has a Strategic Combat Movement/Combat phase and a Tactical Combat Movement/Combat phase, and every round of play will be different because you roll initiative for those phases. In Strategic Combat a player can do missions like Strategic Bombing Raids, Strategic Shelling, Espionage and Combat Air Patrol. In the Tactical Combat Phase players can do any number of combat operations that we see in Axis & Allies (amphibious, land combat, naval-air combat, airborne ops, etc). But each phase has a specific turn order decided by an Initiative Roll. Although a player may go first during Strategic Combat, he/she may go fourth for Tactical Combat. And each round of play will be different - you’ll never ‘play’ the same game twice. Ever. The winner of initiative can decide when in the sequence he/she wants to go in the turn order. In the first round of play, we do give Germany and the Axis Minors (we call them Fascist Minors) the initiative during Tactical Combat. In the game we’re playing now, my brother elected to go last on the first turn to start WW2. The Allies couldn’t react to anything he did (which they didn’t).

We also decided to add realism by saying that each turn is one month of actual time, and the game begins in September 1939. This certainly affects how naval and air units move on the board, especially during non-combat movement. We increased naval and air unit movement points during non-combat movement significantly. For example, I was studying how long it took ANZAC troops to travel to Egypt during the early stages of WW2. It took about 18 days, and they stopped in Ceylon on their way. The way the game is set up, that’s impossible, so we had to increase movement during non-combat movement (for combat movement we did not change much, because combat operations take planning and moving logistics in place in order to go into combat). We also added modifiers to Strategic and Tactical initiative. Non-belligerent nations always go last during the turn order. Industrial capacity matters on who goes first.

One of the biggest changes is Tactical Combat. We introduced ‘steps’ to ground units. Ground units have 2 steps: full strength and damaged before they’re destroyed. We bought these little red 1/8" dots and placed them on ground units (and ships that can take more than one hit) when they were damaged. Their attack and defense are degraded. Land combat consists of three phases: Initial Assault, Attrition and Breakthrough, all including an Air Combat Phase. Attrition and Breakthrough require initiative rolls, which allow a player to take the Offensive Posture or the Defensive Posture. Offensive Posture means that your forces are not ‘fixed’ on the battlefield, which means you can attack or retreat. We looked for real world examples in World War 2 and put them in the game. For example, in Operation Market Garden, the Allies were initially in the Offensive Posture (Initial Assault) but soon found themselves in the Defensive Posture during the Attrition phase (especially the British in Arnhem itself) and during Breakthrough, they got the initiative again and retreated out of Holland. That’s what we’ve tried to simulate in the game. Battles are fluid and complex and players have to make good tactical decisions in order to win or survive. We’ve also introduced Forward Supply Bases to reconstitute damaged units.

Additional rules include Retreating, Surrender and Terrain (we added mountain, jungle/forest and city terrain by simply placing a 1/4" colored dot on the map). We changed some National Objectives too. We added some Weapons Development as well and railroads. Railroads are especially important for Russia. During WW2, Russia moved thousands of troops to their fight with Germany from the east - and they did it quickly. Railroads allow that. Otherwise, with a movement of 1 it would take forever, and that is not actually what happened in WW2 at all!

These are but a few of the rules. If you have any comments, questions or show any interest, perhaps we can actually put it down in a written form.