Worst Rule Distortions and Misinterpretations

[Staples]

Growing up playing Classic, we never purchased units in the first round.  We always considered the original setup as each country’s “purchase” for that round.  Apparently we were wrong  :-D

[LHoffman]

@Staples:

Growing up playing Classic, we never purchased units in the first round.  We always considered the original setup as each country’s “purchase” for that round.  Apparently we were wrong   :-D

Haha, nice. Fortunately that isn’t too egregious since everyone would be on somewhat equal footing.

[Caesar-Seriona]

Issues that stem from us is the fact we started with the original Axis and Allies and all the rule changes that followed in the coming version such as losing the ability to invade neutral nations, we used to keep that rule without researching new ones.

A big issues that seems to come up is a friend of mine who usually plays as Germany can’t seem to get it into his head that you can travel from east to west or west to east on the board and doesn’t understand this is allowed as we are playing a 2D game as if it was 3D.

[LHoffman]

@Caesar:

A big issues that seems to come up is a friend of mine who usually plays as Germany can’t seem to get it into his head that you can travel from east to west or west to east on the board and doesn’t understand this is allowed as we are playing a 2D game as if it was 3D.

Maybe a good thing he plays Germany then. He wouldn’t have as much opportunity to move around the east-west ends of the board.

[CWO Marc]

@Caesar:

A big issues that seems to come up is a friend of mine who usually plays as Germany can’t seem to get it into his head that you can travel from east to west or west to east on the board and doesn’t understand this is allowed as we are playing a 2D game as if it was 3D.

An even more imaginative interpretation of the map wrap-around concept would be to move vertically off the top or bottom edge of the board on one part of the map and re-enter it vertically halfway across the board at the spot corresponding to the opposite line of longitude, to simulate movement via the North or South Pole.  Realism aside (and it’s a pretty big aside), however, this would have little practical value because an Axis invasion of North America via the North Pole would have to be launched from Russia rather than from Germany.

[Caesar-Seriona]

The only reason this game up as Germany as because one of his transports managed to escape destruction and he was basically taking one infantry around the world and annoying the US and UK jacking his loose territories. I play as USSR usually so this is never an issue for me.

[Flashman]

I’ve always played with a single movement phase. A separate non-combat movement phase always seemed silly to me, as well as being more difficult to keep track of.

One of the strangest ideas Larry came up with along with:

Collect money at end of turn
Trains carrying tanks move further than trains carrying infantry
Armoured divisions take up more space on a transport than infantry divisions
Russia and Japan are at war in 1942
Moscow sits atop the Ural mountain range
Brazil is at war in 1942
East Prussia is part of Poland in 1914

[Narvik]

@Flashman:

One of the strangest ideas Larry came up with along with:

Collect money at end of turn

That was not silly, the way the classic SBR worked, it was necessary to keep cash that could be bombed. But now, that the SBR and Submarine convoying mechanic dont need the victim to keep cash, I figure the collect money phase should be moved to the start of a turn, to avoid dubbel dipping, and other gamey tricks.

[Narvik]

Talking about misinterpretations, back in the day when we startet playing the classic MB second edition, there were a lot of confusion, based on the Rulebook was printed in English, and this was long before google translate. As usual, the MB 2 ed was short of chips and short of plastic units. It come with 2 pieces of Carriers, 3 pieces of Bombers, 6 pieces of Tanks, and so on, and we actually believed it was a limit, that you were not allowed to have more than the 3 Bombers in play. Today I know better, since the Rulebook says that if you lack units, just take a piece of paper and wright down what units you want that piece of paper to represent. Not as smooth as an actual plastic sculpt, but it works.

This first misinterpretation made way for the next, namely the dice rolling. We actually believed, that if you attacked with 5 inf, 2 Tanks and 1 Bomber, you should roll all 8 dice simultaneously, and assign all the 1s to the inf, all the 3s to the Tanks, and if there was a 4 it would go to the Bomber. Of course this turned out to be wrong, according to the rulebook. But, in my opinion, this way was better than the correct way, since it favored combined arms. A mix of inf, tanks and aircrafts are stronger than a stack of inf only. Also, this wrong way of rolling dice was faster than the correct way, since you got more hits the first time, and less rounds of combat, and less dice rolling.

The worst rule distortions that comes to mind, was the Revised Battleships bombardment. You could buy like 20 Battleships, then land one infantry, and the 20 battleships would all roll preemptive against the defender. So, for the price of a 3 IPC infantry, you could clean any sea adjacent territory. Luckily, that is taken care of with the current rules

Another bad rule distortion was Trannies defending on 1. You did not need any warships. Just buy a huge stack of Trannies, and all the 1s would sink any attacking sub, Battleships or Bombers.

The use of Trannies as fodder to protect the expensive Battleship was another distortion that is now luckily changed, to a more historical correct rule. To buy Trannies to protect a Battleship, really looked like children, women and VIPs sacrifice themselves to protect the Bodyguard. If that was not a distortion, then nothing is.

[baron Münchhausen]

@Narvik:

@Flashman:

One of the strangest ideas Larry came up with along with:

Collect money at end of turn

That was not silly, the way the classic SBR worked, it was necessary to keep cash that could be bombed. But now, that the SBR and Submarine convoying mechanic dont need the victim to keep cash, I figure the collect money phase should be moved to the start of a turn, to avoid dubbel dipping, and other gamey tricks.

On Triple A, it would not be difficult to make this change. Anyway, you can only purchase at the beginning of your turn.
But on F-2-F, purchase phase and decision can take time. Knowing in advance how much you have seems a way to accelerate things. Don’t you think?

[Der Kuenstler]

@Narvik:

Another bad rule distortion was Trannies defending on 1. You did not need any warships. Just buy a huge stack of Trannies, and all the 1s would sink any attacking sub, Battleships or Bombers.

The use of Trannies as fodder to protect the expensive Battleship was another distortion that is now luckily changed, to a more historical correct rule. To buy Trannies to protect a Battleship, really looked like children, women and VIPs sacrifice themselves to protect the Bodyguard. If that was not a distortion, then nothing is.

This did not work well in classic but it works fine after adding 2 hit capital ships, 6 IPC subs and 8 IPC DDs. This old thread explains it:

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=30618.0

We’ve played with classic transports for years with no complaints. Why do so many balk at transports sinking a battleship but they are still fine with foot soldiers shooting down strategic bombers? Its all abstracted to a certain degree.

[Caesar-Seriona]

I honestly wanted to add a very complex rule where certain units do better against others but it forces the attacker to actually assign attacks during combat. It will slow the game down but make it interesting. For example. Fighters do 4 against other fighters, 5 against bombers, 3 against tanks, 2 against infantry, and 1 against any naval unit.

[Der Kuenstler]

@Caesar:

I honestly wanted to add a very complex rule where certain units do better against others but it forces the attacker to actually assign attacks during combat. It will slow the game down but make it interesting. For example. Fighters do 4 against other fighters, 5 against bombers, 3 against tanks, 2 against infantry, and 1 against any naval unit.

Yeah I tried something like that once but the battle board ended up looking so complicated I was scared away from it.

[baron Münchhausen]

The simpler I got in that direction was to create a Fg Cost 7 with Attack @2 and Defense @2, which target air first.
Allowing TcB Cost 8 Attack @3 Defense @2 to target any ground units.

Fighters work very well if you start rolling planes first.
Adding TcB targeting is manageable too.
Combining both need a bit more focus when rolling dice. It slow things a little.

But now, that I read that TcBs as an Anti-Tank weapon was more a myth than reality, I would keep only Fighter as a targeting unit.
And it is within A&A game mechanisms if you look at 1914 planes.

[Caesar-Seriona]

The only rule I ever got wrong in my life was the rule where you can capture allied territories and claim them if their capital was under control by the enemy. My friend corrected me about this but he did so thinking that should be the rule via logic and didn’t know himself that was an actual rule.

On the other side, he once tried to argue that liberating a territory should be under his control and not return to the original owner. This came up when he once played UK and he liberated several Soviet and US territories back when China used to be US instead of itself. I told him this isn’t the 1950’s.

[LHoffman]

@Caesar:

On the other side, he once tried to argue that liberating a territory should be under his control and not return to the original owner. This came up when he once played UK and he liberated several Soviet and US territories back when China used to be US instead of itself. I told him this isn’t the 1950’s.

:lol:

[Ichabod]

@Der:

We’ve played with classic transports for years with no complaints. Why do so many balk at transports sinking a battleship but they are still fine with foot soldiers shooting down strategic bombers? Its all abstracted to a certain degree.� Â

No. A foot Soldier in the game does not single handedly shoot down strategic bombers. That would be ridiculous. An infantry unit on the board of axis and allies represents an unknown size unit. Due to the size of the territory and battle representations on the board (even dropping 1 infantry on an island in the pacific represents at least the size of a division). Most infantry divisions have organic internal Anti-Air Artillery. So, it’s not like there couldn’t have been an internal capability. Albeit, not as good as the capability of an entire unit of AAA, as represented on the board or in real life.

[Staples]

@Baron:

The simpler I got in that direction was to create a Fg Cost 7 with Attack @2 and Defense @2, which target air first.
Allowing TcB Cost 8 Attack @3 Defense @2 to target any ground units.

Fighters work very well if you start rolling planes first.
Adding TcB targeting is manageable too.
Combining both need a bit more focus when rolling dice. It slow things a little.

But now, that I read that TcBs as an Anti-Tank weapon was more a myth than reality, I would keep only Fighter as a targeting unit.
And it is within A&A game mechanisms if you look at 1914 planes.

Of all the house rules I’ve read on the different forums, this idea of a cheaper, less powerful fighter that targets air units intrigues me the most.  The TcB idea would seem to lend itself more toward naval battles with a division between fighters and dive bombers/torpedo planes, in which case targeting of naval units would make perfect sense.

[Caesar-Seriona]

I tell people to picture land units a battalion size, aircraft as a wing, and naval as itself meaning 1 for 1.

[baron Münchhausen]

@Caesar:

I tell people to picture land units a battalion size, aircraft as a wing, and naval as itself meaning 1 for 1.

Nice distortion.  :-)

But can it lead to misinterpretations?