Hey Kreuz. Thanks for the great analysis and suggestions! You’ve given me some stuff to chew over for sure.
Let me see if I can address your main points. (Please let me know if I’m missing anything)
Order of how hits are applied: Wow! I didn’t even think about this. For simplicity’s sake, I intended for the Attacker to apply any “combined/selectable” hits first. Then the defender can apply the remaining hits as desired.
However, I really like your ideas for TAC Bombers and Dive Bombers. This really is the motivation for the Naval Air Attack rule. A squadron of Avenger’s or a flight of Stukas hammering down on a Battleship or Carrier is going to make the captain drop a load of his own! …. Regardless of how many destroyers, Cruisers, or whatever else he has useslessly bobbing around in the nearby vicinty!! … But there is simplicity and balance to consider … Therefore, I simply propose that any Combined rolls are first chosen by the attacker, then the remaining hits are chosen by the defender as normal. Let me know if you agree and I’ll specify this in the rules with your credit.
Bombers and Risk to Gain Reward
I really nerfed the Strat Bombers against ships. …. As they should be! Bombers should not be used to target fleets. Instead, Fighters and TACs should be used via the new Naval Air Attack capability. Bombers cruising by at 20+ thousand feet and dropping a load of bombs was easily (and frequently) outmaneuvered by the ships. … I understand your concerns for the Bombers only attacking@2 … Why should they even bother attacking at all for so much risk and so little potential gain?? Well, now the ships only defend against them @1 with the AAA. So let’s do an example:
- 15 Bombers are attacking a group of 10 destroyers (now cost 7ipcs) and 10 Cruisers.
- 1st: Defender Rolls 15 dice @1 for their AAA defence. (Each plane can only be targeted once … So the remaining 5 ships sit and do nothing). … Any hits immediately removes a bomber. Let’s say 3 hits are made … Defender got a little bit lucky. (Attacker is out 36ipcs)
- 2nd: Remaining 12 Bombers roll @2 or less. … Las Vegas should plan for 4 hits! :) If Bombers hit @3, it would have been SIX hits! … The defender should have listened to that “crazy” new admiral who was always pushing for more Cruisers to be converted into escort carriers. :-D. Anyway, the defender is out only 28 IPCs … Lesson: don’t attack ships with only Strat Bombers, do it with Fighters and TACs. If this battle would be re-rolled with a mix of 15 fighters and TACs the result is going to be TOTAL DEVISTATION for the planeless defending fleet!! …. Also, this is going to eliminate the “Dark Sky’s” problems where mainly Germany was simply spamming Strat Bombers to gain Naval supremacy.
… The Naval Air Attack is powerful! But it should hand power to only Fighters and TACs. For game balance, Bombers need, and should, be nerfed against Naval units. … They also can’t combine hits like fighters and TACs
<<edit>>. Hey Kreuz … I have been thinking more about your ideas on TAC Bombers/Naval Bombers. What if instead of combining 2 rolls of 2 or less for fighters and TACs to create a hit where the Attacker selects the casualtie. What if we instead change it to:
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A roll of 1 by a TAC bomber in a Naval Battle results in the Die-Roller selecting where to place the hit.
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Hits above 1 are treated as normal.
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Hits of 1 are applied first by the die-roller. Remaining hits are then applied as normal by the player receiving the hits.
This both SIMPLIFIES the rule and gives some added realism! It also doesn’t change the game balance when you run the numbers. Both ways still basically result in a 1 in 6 chance of gaining a selected hit. …. But now it is only for TACs, so only 1/2 the amounts of rolls are made.
Think about it and let me know!</edit>