• Does anyone have or remember the Destroyer Escort rules from Gamers Paradise? cost/attack/defense?

  • Customizer

    No, I am not familiar with Gamers Paradise, but I had some ideas for Destroyer Escorts.
    How about 2-1-2-6 with the same ASW capabilities as Destroyers?
    Or, are Destroyer Escorts better on defense? So, 1-2-2-6.

    Now with the 41 and 42 2nd Ed games, USA and Japan have two distinctive types of destroyer pieces. UK too if you want to count the original US class. So, why not use one as a destroyer escort? You really don’t need one for Russia or Germany. With Russia, they didn’t have that big of a naval presence to worry about distinguishing DDs and DEs. As for Germany, they tended to build their ships heavier and stronger within the same class as other navies so they didn’t really have a light destroyer escort.  All of their destroyers were pretty much full size and strength destroyers.

    For USA, I would use the new Sumner class as a full DD and the older Johnston class as a DE. I would also use the new sculpt for the British destroyer as a DD, with the older pieces as DEs.
    For Japan, I would use the older Fubuki class as a DD and the new Akitzuki class as a DE. The new destroyer sculpts for Japan are just so small.


  • I completely agree that the “smaller” of the pieces should be the DE. As for what the stats should be I was thinking 0/2/2/5 and it negates the surprise attack from subs but not the rest of the abilities. Just have them something small you can put with your transports to give them alittle protection. And go sub hunting with full sized DDs. But I would like to know what the Gamers Paradise rules were so they can be kind of a guide.


  • Gamers Paradise escort rules. unit is  1-2-2-8 .  Special ability: The convoy rule; escorts defend @3.                         
    when there is at least one friendly transport for the first escort, and thereafter at least two friendy transports for every other escort defending in the same seazone. in other words, if you have 5 friendly transports and two friendly escorts defending in the same seazone, you can apply the convoy rule.
    1)  Transports defending against naval vessels- All navel vessels must try to sink all transports in first round of combat, then transports escape, except with aircraft.
    2)Transports with escorts can not escape from naval vessels, and escorts defend until all escorts and transports are sunk, or naval vessels retreat. transports must be used as casulties first before escorts.
    UNESCORTED TRANSPORTS RULE;  Subs and Battleships attacking unescorted transports attack with 1 die @ 4 for each transport, maximum 2 die per sub.


  • @lnmajor:

    Gamers Paradise escort rules. unit is  1-2-2-8 .  Special ability: The convoy rule; escorts defend @3.                           
    when there is at least one friendly transport for the first escort, and thereafter at least two friendy transports for every other escort defending in the same seazone. in other words, if you have 5 friendly transports and two friendly escorts defending in the same seazone, you can apply the convoy rule.
    1)  Transports defending against naval vessels- All navel vessels must try to sink all transports in first round of combat, then transports escape, except with aircraft.
    2)Transports with escorts can not escape from naval vessels, and escorts defend until all escorts and transports are sunk, or naval vessels retreat. transports must be used as casulties first before escorts.
    UNESCORTED TRANSPORTS RULE;  Subs and Battleships attacking unescorted transports attack with 1 die @ 4 for each transport, maximum 2 die per sub.

    Ok with all that in mind how about 0/2/2/6 and have the convoy rule so it’s two transports support 1 escort defensively like art. supports inf. offensively. I would like to do something were putting them in a SZ with convoy marker to protect against convoy raiding not a total protection just alittle something like AA fire during SBR. but i want to get the basics down on it first. and revisit that idea after I know i have a working unit.

    and on a side note I had this nice long post written explain the whole thought process on how I got to that but hit a wrong key and poof it was gone.


  • I like 1-2-2-7 better as stats.  They weren’t as capable as full-sized destroyers, but they weren’t entirely neglibible on the attack.  (History reference note: the counter-attack of the DE’s in the Battle off Samar at Leyte Gulf was very effective and helped save the whole Taffy 3 Task Unit; though in a strategic-level AA game, this would still be a defensive situation, it nonetheless illustrates the capabilities of the type.  If I recall correctly, I think at least one even successfully torpedoed a Japanese Heavy Cruiser, and one, the Samual B. Roberts if memory serves, was given a Presidential Unit Citation and was declared “the Destroyer Escort that fought like a battleship.”)

    On speed, if you want to experiment with having two speed classes of ships, I went go with a DE, CVE, Old BB, sub, and transport speed of 1 for the small board we were using in my school’s recent tournament, and it worked pretty well overall.  (Yes, it did slow down the action a bit, for the US player especially, which was me by the time it became accute, but added a realistic dimension and a good reason to have separate fast and slow task forces, just like in the real world.)  On a bigger board, I’ll try speeding up the fast ships to a 3 instead and see how it works…

    As far as pieces… My personal opinion is that the differences in appearance between the different AH destroyer types isn’t enough (and isn’t really accurate anyway, as all of the types available are really DD’s.  I recomend Xeno Games destroyers, TT “cruisers” or “Enemy on the Horizon” destroyers.  I used the latter, which fit in well with the classic pieces that I used for transports, subs, old BB’s, and CVE’s.  (This way, all the “slow” ships had a distinct look that were easily recognizable from a distance.)  “Enemy on the Horizon” might be a little hard to find, though; I spent some time on ebay hunting down a couple of copies.  EotH also has great pieces that I still use for my heavy artillery and airborne units, btw…

    I think that until at least all of the 5 major powers have all these options for all 7 of these categories available from HBG and/or FMG, I’m going to continue to use this classic-EotH combo piece set for these 7 types of units, because it really works well!


  • I think keeping the cost down to 6 is important the old rules say subs are 8 and DEs are 8, now subs are 6 so DEs should also be 6. Besides for 7 you can protect against subs or for 8 (DD) you can protect against and go out and hunt them. I’m spending the 1 more IPC everytime.


  • So maybe a 1-2-2-7 “Fast Destroyer Escort” and a 1-2-1-6 standard DE?  Course, that only works if you make a speed distinction for your ships.  The argument against it is that it screws up the game dynamics, but hey, in the real world speed was EXPENSIVE, which is why navies pretty much only made the investment in speed for their serious, first-line warships… and why the whole Destroyer Escort category was created in the first place…


  • @DrLarsen:

    I recomend Xeno Games destroyers, TT “cruisers” or “Enemy on the Horizon” destroyers. […] EotH also has great pieces that I still use for my heavy artillery and airborne units, btw…

    I have all three of those.  The Xeno destroyers are arguably the best units among the Xeno sculpts, which on the whole look only marginal when placed next to post-Classic A&A pieces.  I find the TT cruisers way too small – I think they’re only correctly sized if you use them as frigates.  The EotH pieces are better in quality than the Xeno ones, and the cruiser is nicely sized to be a heavy cruiser unit, but it could use more detail and the sculpts only come in the five Classic colours.


  • @CWO:

    @DrLarsen:

    I recomend Xeno Games destroyers, TT “cruisers” or “Enemy on the Horizon” destroyers.� […] EotH also has great pieces that I still use for my heavy artillery and airborne units, btw…

    I have all three of those.  The Xeno destroyers are arguably the best units among the Xeno sculpts, which on the whole look only marginal when placed next to post-Classic A&A pieces.  I find the TT cruisers way too small – I think they’re only correctly sized if you use them as frigates.  The EotH pieces are better in quality than the Xeno ones, and the cruiser is nicely sized to be a heavy cruiser unit, but it could use more detail and the sculpts only come in the five Classic colours.

    Well, actually, since a “frigate” is basically synonymous with a Destroyer Escort, that is pretty much exactly what I recomended using them for.  Since I’m using the classic set of pieces, at least until there are old BB, CVE, and DE pieces available for at least the “big 5,” using pieces that mesh better with the classic-style pieces than with the revised-style pieces makes sense; this makes all three decent choices, since all three were originally designed to mesh with classic rather than revised pieces, though the EotH destroyer is my favorite of the three, though it is just a bit too big.  I’m not sure what you’re talking about in terms of an EotH “cruiser.”  If you mean by this the destroyer, I can’t agree that it makes a good heavy cruiser; maybe light cruiser, but definitely not a heavy cruiser.  (But perhaps there’s some other EotH set that I’ve never heard of…)


  • @DrLarsen:

    though the EotH destroyer is my favorite of the three, though it is just a bit too big.  I’m not sure what you’re talking about in terms of an EotH "cruiser."  If you mean by this the destroyer, I can’t agree that it makes a good heavy cruiser; maybe light cruiser, but definitely not a heavy cruiser.  (But perhaps there’s some other EotH set that I’ve never heard of…)

    Sorry, I meant the EotH destroyer.  I called it a cruiser because that’s how I tend to use it because, as you mention, it’s rather big relative to the A&A destroyers.

Suggested Topics

  • 4
  • 14
  • 1
  • 3
  • 637
  • 117
  • 65
  • 2
Axis & Allies Boardgaming Custom Painted Miniatures

29

Online

17.0k

Users

39.3k

Topics

1.7m

Posts