@Dad:
I bought AAA1941 for my 9 year old son and we started playing with the help of some youtube tutorials. There are certain scenarios that have occurred during the game about which we have some fairly detailed questions. Does anyone have the time and willingness to offer some help?
Hello and welcome to the forum (and back to the A&A community).
Let me try and answer as best and concisely as I can for clarity. Hope I can help you and your son.
@Dad:
- If the NATIONAL PRODUCTION number-line printed on the top of the board keeps track of IPCs, how come we have to keep track of IPCs on a separate piece of paper?
The chart at the top of the board tracks the INCOME, not your bank account… it’s the difference between how much your job pays you a week vs how much is in your bank account.
If Germany’s income (based on how many territories they control and how much each is worth) is “12”… then each turn, Germany earns 12 IPCs. If you then spend 8… you have 4 IPCs left over, but your income is still “12”… next turn, you would collect 12, which would then be added to the 4 you have left over that were unspent the turn before, for a total of 16 IPCs available to spend (your income is still “12”).
This is why the rules recommend tracking your bank account on a piece of paper… however, most A&A fans use either paper money or poker chips to track how many IPCs each nation currently has… this can be as simple as using monopoly money, play money or everyday poker chips, or for the more hardcore, you can go to A&A on-line stores and order actually A&A paper money and/or A&A poker chips… as you’re new to the game and just getting back in, if you want to keep spending to a minimum till you decide if you and your son are really into the game enough to throw some money at it, I would just recommend grabbing some monopoly money or a $1-tray of play money at your local dollar store. If you and/or your son decide A&A is a favorite game of yours and you really want to “spice-it-up” you can always order some custom A&A paper money and/or Poker Chips at a later date.
A final clarification on the income tracker at the top of the board… in the case of your example of Germany having a 12 IPC income, the only time that tracker moves up or down is based on taking or losing territories on the map that have an IPC value printed on the map… if Germany has a 12 IPC income and takes-over a territory from Russia worth 2 IPCs, Germany moves up to a total of 14 IPC income on the map, while Russia’s income tracker would simultaneously go down 2 IPCs for the loss of the territory… spending your income (or saving it) never changes the tracker at the top of the board.
@Dad:
- In battles: I roll the dice for the Bomber to attack but am I rolling the die once for the Bomber to attack the US Bomber, and then again for my Bomber to attack the US Destroyer, and then again for my Bomber to attack the US fighter, and a 4th time to attack the US Infantry, and a last time to attack the US Transport; and then roll the die for my Aircraft to attack each one of the US units again; and then do the same for each of my fighters and each of my infantry?
OR do I roll the dice for my Bomber to attack just ONE of the US units? And then roll for the Aircraft carrier to attack another of the US unitsso on?
And if so, how do I determine which US unit my Bomber, or Aircraft, etc, is attacking? Or is it only a Bomber fights a Bomber, an aircraft fights an Aircraft, etc?
You’re not the person determining your opponents casualties… you don’t say “my bomber is attacking your bomber”… you simply say “my bomber is attacking”… “my tanks are attacking” and you roll the dice. With each hit, you wrack up a tally of hits… after rolling your bombers, your fighters, your tanks, your infantry… whatever it is, you have a total number of hits… and THEN your opponent decides which units he wants to lose… if you roll a bunch of dice and determine your opponent loses three units, it is your opponent that decides WHICH THREE units are lost, not you.
The only exception to this rule would be if a certain unit can only kill a certain other kind of unit… if you have three subs attacking a destroyer and a fighter, and one of the subs hits, its the destroyer that has to die, not the fighter because subs can’t hit fighters.
@Dad:
- Related to above question, another permutation of battle: If my German fighter attacks 3 US infantry do I roll the die 3 times, one time for each of the 3 US infantry or do I only attack once and if I hit, only take out one US infantry? Conversely, I assume the 3 US infantry has one shot each, which is a total of 3 shots, against my fighter?
Each unit only rolls once, regardless of how many enemies you have… one fighter rolls one time… one infantry rolls one time. So in your example, the fighter would only roll once with a chance to (at best) kill one unit in a single round… yes, all THREE of the enemy infantry would then get a chance to roll against the fighter (so you get one roll of 3 or less vs the infantry and they get three rolls of 2 or less vs the fighter).
@Dad:
- I know a tank can blitz, but if a territory is undefended and empty -has no hostile units in it and no friendly units in it- during a Combat Move can I just fly a fighter in, or walk an infantry in, and put a Control Marker there without a battle at all?
Yes and no… an undefended territory can be blitzed without combat by a tank (claiming the territory), and YES, an infantry could just walk in and claim it with a control marker… however there is a “boots on the ground” rule that GROUND UNITS have to claim a territory… so your question about a fighter is a big fat “NO”… fighters cannot claim enemy territory… you could KILL enemy units in a territory with fighter(s), but you can’t claim the territory with fighters (or bombers) alone… you need either infantry or tanks to do that.
Furthermore, fighters cannot land in a territory unless you STARTED the current turn with that territory as friendly (in other words, you can never land fighters or bombers in territories you just conquered that same turn).
@Dad:
- If the US wants to invade Japan, being an island, how do I offload land units form a transport in order to combat there? It seems I am not allowed to offload land-units onto hostile islands? Am I only allowed to combat hostile islands with air units?
I think the rules are fairly clear about this… reread the rules, but bottom line, if you’re the US and you want to invade Japan, you simply move your fleet with transports that have units loaded on them (infantry and tanks) into the seazone surrounding Japan and declare an amphibious invasion… you would then unload the infantry and/or tanks into Japan (along with any supporting aircraft you may have) and conduct a battle as you would any other battle… the only difference(s) in an amphibious invasion are:
- you need to make sure you clear the seazone of enemy ships first (if Japan has a fleet off the coast of Japan you have to kill them before you do an amphibious invasion, but you CAN do BOTH in the same turn as long as they are declared… like “I’m destroying the Japanese fleet with my battleships and destroyers, then my transports will unload all my infantry and tanks into Japan”). If for any reason you cannot kill the Japanese fleet off Japan, the amphibious invasion cannot happen until the Japanese fleet is removed from the picture.
- once an amphibious invasion is under-way, the attacking player cannot retreat his land forces… its all or nothing for them.
@Dad:
Another permutation of this situation:
If my German Tank is in Gibraltar and I want to combat in North Africa, which us currently controlled by US, how do I get my tank from Gibraltar to North Africa if I cannot offload land units into hostile territory? Do I have to take a circuitous route and go all the way around to invade from an adjacent German-controlled territory?
The German tank in Gibraltar has two options… drive all the way across Europe, down through the Caucasus into Persia and back into Egypt and Africa (yes a very long drive), or have a German transport pick him up from Gibralter and drop him into North Africa, which then becomes an amphibious invasion (much shorter route).
Btw, how did you get the German tank in Gibraltar to begin with?
Oh, and after re-reading your 5th question (and follow-on) you seem to have somehow gotten the notion you cannot unload units carried on transports into hostile territory… not sure where you got that idea from, but that’s not at all the case. In fact, the main function of transports is to conduct amphibious invasions, dumping their land unit cargo into hostile territories.
Anyways… hope that answers your questions… if you have any more, feel free to ask.
P.S.
Never trust PrivatePanic… he’s one of those “British People” (possible inside joke… okay, maybe he’s ok, but he’s still “one of them”).