Fixing Sea / Air Unit Issues (Strategic Bombers and Cruisers)


  • Great thoughts Baron. I like what you did there - it’s simple.

    Still have an issue with the power and range of Strategic Bombers though. Have you experimented with anything on that front?


  • Thinking something like this:

    Strategic Bombers:
    Attack: 3 (Land) / 2 (Naval); Must target Ground/Naval units first.
    Defend: 0
    Cost: 10
    Ability: Strategic and Tactical Bombing, in SBR A1. 1D6 +2. Can be taken as casualties in defense.

    4 just seems too high on offense with their range. Having a hard time getting past that. That punch should be reserved for Battleships who are quite appropriately costly. A big fleet of bombers getting hit by Cruiser anti-air and then fleet fighters would be eviscerated in real life; should be reflected.


  • I agree that attack of 4 is way too high, they just weren’t that effective (or should I say accurate) against moving units (land or sea).

    I would propose simple change of Attack 2, but as with Battleships, they can sustain 1 hit of damage - this is repaired at an airbase.  For strategic bombing raids, if a StrB takes an AA hit and was undamaged, then
    the bomber aborts the mission.  If it was damaged before the AA hit, then it is destroyed.

  • '17 '16

    @piscolar:

    Great thoughts Baron. I like what you did there - it’s simple.

    Still have an issue with the power and range of Strategic Bombers though. Have you experimented with anything on that front?

    Thanks.
    Sorry, I did not try anything for StBs.
    I suggested a way to reduced their range but nobody reply.
    So, it is probably too much calculations and creates some issues for carrier operations.
    It was simply formulated: for each plane making a combat move over a SZ, it costs 2 move points, non-combat move remains 1 point per TTy or SZ.

  • '17 '16

    @piscolar:

    Thinking something like this:

    Strategic Bombers:
    Attack: 3 (Land) / 2 (Naval); Must target Ground/Naval units first.
    Defend: 0
    Cost: 10
    Ability: Strategic and Tactical Bombing, in SBR A1. 1D6 +2. Can be taken as casualties in defense.

    4 just seems too high on offense with their range. Having a hard time getting past that. That punch should be reserved for Battleships who are quite appropriately costly. A big fleet of bombers getting hit by Cruiser anti-air and then fleet fighters would be eviscerated in real life; should be reflected.

    An A3 StB probably change things and allows to rebalance and keep StBs in their more historical role.
    Even if you lower the attack to 2, it remains a game mechanic aberration when a flight of StBs only launch an assault on a few boats with scrambling Fgs or Fgs on Carriers.
    It is difficult to figure how it is possible that some planes can be taken as casualty.
    OOB, you can get, during finale sequence of battle, a few StBs attacking @4 vs Fgs Defending @4.

    I don’t know if it is possible to bend rules somehow so StBs cannot hit other planes over SZ in naval combat.

  • '17 '16 '15

    @Baron:

    … I don’t know if it is possible to bend rules somehow so StBs cannot hit other planes over SZ in naval combat.

    hmm… that sounds interesting. You’d probably have to have naval fighters and Tacs that couldn’t be hit by bmbrs.
    @piscolar:

    …4 just seems too high on offense with their range. Having a hard time getting past that. That punch should be reserved for Battleships who are quite appropriately costly. A big fleet of bombers getting hit by Cruiser anti-air and then fleet fighters would be eviscerated in real life; should be reflected.

    A fairly simple change I used a while back was make bmbrs A3 +1 w/ftr  D1 M6 +1w/AB C12. Also gave CAs 2 AA shots.


  • Taking most of Baron’s suggestions to heart and will be trying them out. To maintain balance, I’ve counted the IPCs lost in unit value from starting countries and given them those IPCs back to redeploy more units of their choice in any of the territories whose units were affected (up to 30IPCs, to avoid excessive stacking).

    Additionally, I’ve given Cruisers and Battleships Tactical Bombardment which means they may damage facilities (except industrial complexes) in bombardments. They do, however, get fired upon by the facility’s battery - sort of like anti-air. So people won’t abuse the move, especially now that naval units are appropriately the most pricey.

    Finally, I’ve added Fortified Positions and Fortified Zones. Details below, but these facilities act as extra protection for defending units. This is necessary now, as planes don’t provide the defense they use to.

    Strategic Bombers

    Attack: 3 (Land) / 2 (Naval)
    Defend: 0
    Cost: 10
    Ability: Strategic and Tactical Bombing, at A1. 1D6+2. Can be taken as casualties in defense. Heavy bomber tech, roll two dice in an attack, take the best result.
    Notes: Cannot target air-units.

    Tactical Bombers

    Attack: 2, 3 with combined arms (only if ground/naval units are present)
    Defend: 2
    Cost: 8
    Ability: Tactical Bombing, at A2. 1D6.
    Notes: Must target ground/naval units first.

    Fighters

    Attack: 2
    Defend: 2
    Cost: 7
    Ability: Intercept/Escort Strategic and Tactical bombing at A2/D2. Fighter Tech increases Defense in regular combat and intercepting/escorting to 3.
    Notes: Must target air units first.

    Cruisers

    Anti-Air Ability: Cruisers have anti-air ability, functioning exactly like an AAA gun on a ship. Each Cruiser in the Sea Zone may fire up to three shots against attacking planes, but each attacking air unit may be fired upon only once. Anti-air rolls do not stop cruisers from defending that round. Cruiser anti-air fires only once, after submarine sneak-attacks and before the first round of regular combat. If a Cruiser is sunk in a submarine sneak attack, it does not roll for anti-air. If anti-air hits, the attacker chooses which unit(s) to remove before regular combat begins.

    Tactical Bombardment: Cruisers may now fire on Naval and Air bases as well as Fortified Positions and Fortified Zones. If they survive the Defensive Battery, they roll 1D6 damage on the facility. A Cruiser participating in a Tactical Bombardment may not participate in any other combat that turn. If there are any ships excluding submarines and transports in any Sea Zone touching the facility, Tactical Bombardment may not occur.

    Carriers

    Extra Space: Carriers can now fit three fighters/tactical bombers on them; if damaged they can still carry and field one.

    Battleships

    Tactical Bombardment: Battleships may now fire on Naval and Air bases as well as Fortified Positions and Fortified Zones. If they survive the Defensive Battery, they roll 1D6+2 damage on the facility. A Battleship participating in a Tactical Bombardment may not participate in any other combat that turn. If there are any ships excluding submarines and transports in any Sea Zone touching the facility, Tactical Bombardment may not occur.

    All Facilities

    Defensive Battery: All facilities are able to defend against the tactical bombardments of their facilities by Cruisers and Battleship with their defensive battery. Before regular combat but after Bombardment has been declared, each facility under attack will have their defensive battery roll one die per ship. If it hits at 1, the bombarding ship will suffer a hit before bombardment. If sunk, it will not roll for bombardment. Advanced Artillery technology makes these Coastal Defenses defend at 2.

    Fortified Position

    Cost: 4

    Ability: Up to five infantry, mech infantry, and/or artillery units in a territory with a Fortified Position have an increased defense +1 (defend at 3). Fortified Positions can be built on any territory controlled since the beginning of your turn. You may only build one Fortified Position per territory, however, it may be upgraded to a Fortified Zone for an additional 4IPCs. 

Fortified Positions, like air/naval bases, can be damaged by tactical bombing and bombardment (additionally, like these units they roll for anti-air and shore battery in defense). Fortified Positions have 10 possible damage points; they cease to be operationally effective immediately after sustaining 5 or more damage points. Fortified Positions can be repaired during the repair-units phase of a turn. They are not destroyed when a territory is captured. Note: Tanks and Mech Infantry may not blitz through an unoccupied Fortified Position.

    Fortified Zone

    Cost: 7

    Ability: Up to ten infantry, mech infantry, and/or artillery units in a territory with a Fortified Zone have an increased defense +1 (defend at 3). Fortified Zones can be built on any territory controlled since the beginning of your turn. You may only build one Fortified Zone per territory.

    Fortified Zones, like air/naval bases, can be damaged by tactical bombing and bombardment (additionally, like these units they roll for anti-air and battery in defense). Fortified Zones have 20 possible damage points; they cease to be operationally effective immediately after sustaining 10 or more damage points. Fortified Zones can be repaired during the repair-units phase of a turn. They are not destroyed when a territory is captured; however, they are immediately downgraded to a Fortified Position. Note: Tanks and Mech Infantry may not blitz through an unoccupied Fortified Zone.

    Air Bases

    Detail Change: If an airbase is damaged inoperably in a tactical bombing, planes cannot be scrambled from that airbase later that turn to defend in a neighboring sea zone. If planes were assigned to scramble and the airbase was subsequently damaged, those planes are grounded and may not participate in a scramble defense. They may still defend their own territory.

    –-

    Reflecting historical reality, I added at game start Fortified Positions to Southern France, Poland, Slovakia-Hungary, Bessarabia, Eastern Poland, Baltic States, Gibraltar, Malta, and Malaysia. I’ve also added Fortified Zones to France, Western Germany, and Northern Italy.

    We shall see how all of this affects gameplay, but I’m excited! So many new tactics to take into consideration - do I use my bomber to attack his fortification, or his units? Can’t wait. :evil:


  • W. E.

  • '17 '16

    This is a lot of changes.
    I hope your fellow players  are pretty much open toward house rules and not too much competitive.
    A lot of your ideas have no small impact over balance.

    From my own experience, even a few tweaks on units with a single paper sheet to summarize all combat values and abilities takes 15 minutes to review and explains changes and selecting which ones are in and which are out.
    Explaining all your changes will take longer.
    I suggest you have small talk the days before with your friends to help everyone  being on same page and have time to debate which house rules will be try.
    Otherwise, a time cunsumming debate could take place instead of playing the game right on while everyone is sat there around the table…
    Have fun. Part of the fun is also talking about introducing HR.

  • '17 '16

    Strategic Bombers

    Attack: 3 (Land) / 2 (Naval)
    Defend: 0
    Cost: 10
    Ability: Strategic and Tactical Bombing, at A1. 1D6+2. Can be taken as casualties in defense. Heavy bomber tech, roll two dice in an attack, take the best result.
    Notes: Cannot target air-units.

    Do you mean planes are immune to StBs hit, same way as they are from Submarines?

    If the case, I rather limit this immunity over SZs, not over TTy.


  • piscolar, I have been messing around with the air line up for the last couple FTF games. I also believe that strats attacking at 4 is over the top, especially now that the tac was introduced in G40. I would also take the advice of the others and scale back some of your changes, and introduce one or two tweaks at a time to see what your group likes/don’t like, otherwise you could end up playing alone lol.

    We originally tried strat bmr attack at 2, def 1 but gave it 2 dice when attacking ground (carpet bombing). This seemed to be ok, but honestly we weren’t all that happy because you just really miss that high roll from strats in the sea battles (range). We then decided to just make it a 3 attack (land and sea), 1 def and revisit the original thought later (kinda like a transitional time).

    We didn’t change the attack/def values of the ftr/tac, but we did give them some abilities that seemed more in line with their duties.

    Ftrs that roll 1 (At/Def)–hit applied to air units first (opponent still chooses casualties)
    Tacs that roll 1 (At/Def)–hit applied to naval or ground units (person that rolled the “1” chooses casualties)

    This gives the ftr some air combat duties, and allows the tac to target w/o changing the entire unit. It does require that you roll your air units separate though.

    We are also looking at reducing all air units by 1 IPC because of attrition.

  • '17 '16

    @Baron:

    This is a lot of changes.
    I hope your fellow players  are pretty much open toward house rules and not too much competitive.
    A lot of your ideas have no small impact over balance.

    From my own experience, even a few tweaks on units with a single paper sheet to summarize all combat values and abilities takes 15 minutes to review and explains changes and selecting which ones are in and which are out.
    Explaining all your changes will take longer.
    I suggest you have small talk the days before with your friends to help everyone  being on same page and have time to debate which house rules will be try.
    Otherwise, a time cunsumming debate could take place instead of playing the game right on while everyone is sat there around the table…
    Have fun. Part of the fun is also talking about introducing HR.

    If you follow this link, you get all my special rules and 2 word files which describes units and starting set-up to balance for changes made.
    Once download, you can rewrite all what you need to adjust for your own HRs, including set-ups.

    http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=36833.msg1469053#msg1469053

    About TcBs SBR, I have made possible to TcBs bombing raid on IC.
    However, damage is only 1 point no more no less.
    TcB must submit to IC’s AAA fire before allocating damage.
    That way, TcBs can always be part of any SBR even if there is no naval or air base, make things simpler.
    So, they can be use as fodder for StBs but still at risk of being shot down for 1 meager damage point.


  • Thanks to all of you for your thoughts and help. My opponent is my brother-in-law who has never played this version before and is easy going enough to just play for fun. Not competitive or intense. So he’s a good person to try it all out on.

    The rules are not 100% set in stone yet and I have some time to experiment on my own. Tweaking Cruiser and AAA anti-air (I like the once per turn shot at least for AAA after the initial attack Baron, makes sense, though will have to downgrade the initial volley to 2). Also content to give Strategic Bombers the ability to hit air units but only at 1 (and can only target them after all ground units are extinguished). To make sure this doesn’t get too complicated (like it isn’t already) I made it explicit how you should roll for combat:

    On Land

    Anti-Air (Pre-emptive first round)
    Air (Fighters)
    Air (Bombers)
    Ground

    At Sea

    Submarines (Pre-emptive every round without opp Destroyer; if present move to Naval)
    Anti-Air (First round only, pre-emptive)
    Air (Fighters)
    Air (Bombers)
    Naval

    Finally, changed up fortifications because the format didn’t work properly. Running the math I had to make them very cheap to make them worth purchasing, and I don’t want them to be cheap (I do NOT want fortifications all over the map). So I changed it to this:

    Fortified Position

    Cost: 12

    Ability: A Fortified Position manned by at least one infantry, artillery, and/or mech infantry may take up to 5 hits from an attacking force before units inside begin to suffer casualties. Note: This does NOT protect tactical bombers and fighters being targeted by attacking fighters (Strategic Bombers are considered grounded and are not involved in air combat). Every hit on a Fortified Position in combat puts a hit on the facility up to 5 (see below however: tactical bombing and bombardment can reduce the facility further). A Fortified Position containing no infantry, artillery, or mech infantry units does not defend or sustain damage. Fortified Positions can be built on any territory controlled since the beginning of your turn. You may only build one Fortified Position per territory, however, it may be upgraded to a Fortified Zone for an additional 10IPCs.

    Fortified Positions, like air/naval bases, can be damaged by tactical bombing and bombardment (additionally, like these units they roll for anti-air and battery in defense). Fortified Positions have 10 possible damage points; they cease to be operationally effective immediately after sustaining 5 or more damage points. Each damage point a Fortified Position sustains in bombing or bombardment removes a defensive hit the Fortified Position can absorb for units within.

    For example, a Fortified Position with 0 damage points before combat will be able to sustain as many as 5 hits in combat. A Fortified Position with 3 damage points before combat will be able to sustain 2 damage points in combat. A Fortified Position with 7 damage points before combat will be able to sustain 0 damage points in combat and combat will not reduce its damage points further (only tactical bombing and bombardment may do that, up to a total of 10). If the owner of this Fortified Position wants to make his Fortified Position operational, at the minimum he must pay 3IPCs to allow it to sustain 1 damage point in combat. A Fortified Position that has been taken over by force (meaning there was at least one infantry, artillery, or mech infantry garrisoned in it) will inevitably be handed over to its new controller with at least 5 damage points on it.

    Fortified Positions can be repaired during the repair-units phase of a turn. Damage on a captured Fortified Position sustained in combat must be repaired for the Fortified Position to become operational. Note: Tanks and Mech Infantry may not blitz through an unoccupied Fortified Position.

    Fortified Zone

    Cost: 20

    Same as above except it can take 10 hits out of a total of 20.

    –-

    Know this is extreme but it’s all fun to me. If it doesn’t work out well I’ll scale back as you guys said (sound advice), but since I’m not worried about drama with my partner figure why not go all in. Won’t have the opportunity for such a laid back partner for awhile, and we’ll be able to get at least 2 games in over the holidays.


  • @piscolar:

    Thanks to all of you for your thoughts and help. My opponent is my brother-in-law who has never played this version before and is easy going enough to just play for fun. Not competitive or intense. So he’s a good person to try it all out on.

    Just a suggestion, but being that your brother-in-law hasn’t even played G40 yet I would defiantly go OOB for a couple games. Global is tough enough to play w/o the laundry list of changes you are proposing (just my thought).

  • '17 '16

    Another possibility  is to play Pacific 40 or Europe only, and make some try

  • '17

    I think the fortified position/zone needs some work. Too long and complicated. Echoing Baron and Wild Bill, keep HR changes/ideas very simple.

    I’d rather pay 12 IPCs for 4 Infantry that can fire back over 12 IPCs for 5 “free hits” of a fortified zone. I think you were on to something earlier with the idea of fortifications increasing defenders’ hit roll ability like infantry Defend @3.


  • Yeah, I vacillate on it. I liked the simplicity of the other concept better, but increasing 5 infantry/mech/artillery to +3 would need to price it at 4IPCs. Some may find that fine, but since you can build them anywhere you control I’d expect them all over the map at that price and I don’t want that. When I think fortification I think the Rock of Gibraltar, the Siegfried Line, the Leningrad Fortified Zone… extensive, massive projects that were as living and breathing as the USS Yorktown and the Bismark. I want these places to matter in the gameplay; I want them to be tactically bombed as part of strategy. Maybe 10IPCs and 18IPCs - 20IPCs is better, but I’ll figure out something that works. It will 100% need testing.

    Alternative idea would be my original one, just take away the cap: a generic Fortification where all infantry/mech/artillery get +3. Issue is just figuring out pricing, since that gets complicated based on the situation.

    Open to suggestions.

  • '17 '16 '15

    NWO uses a “bunker” unit. A0 D3 M0 C6 is two hit. May only place one bunker per TTy per turn.

    Might not quite be what you’re looking for but NWO has been around a long time and it seems to work for them.


  • Good thoughts Barney, thanks for sharing. Never played NWO (actually just looked it up now). I considered something similar in my initial brainstorming but I really want to involve the tactical element: thinking of Fortifications like bases for ground units, rather than ground units themselves.

  • '17 '16

    @piscolar:

    Good thoughts Barney, thanks for sharing. Never played NWO (actually just looked it up now). I considered something similar in my initial brainstorming but I really want to involve the tactical element: thinking of Fortifications like bases for ground units, rather than ground units themselves.

    One old idea to make AAA unit more interesting was this little tweak, which can represents fortified hardpoints, is to make it a 2 hits unit:
    Anti-Aircraft Artillery
    Attack 0
    Defense 0, 1 @1 preemptive, up to three planes, 1 per plane max.
    NCM 1
    Hits 2, auto-repaired after combat
    Cost 5
    In addition, if no combat unit is with it, then it is auto-destroy, per OOB rule.

    For 15 IPCs, you get 3 regular hits, 3 buffer hits, and up to 9 preemptive strike @1 on aircraft.
    With Infantry, it is 5 hits and 10 defense points, but you loose 3 units on first casualties.

    An additional ability to figure Atlantic Wall and Siegfried Line can be that when attacked, you may roll 1 defense @1 of preemptive fire on ground unit attacking per AAA unit.

    Another possibility can be this:
    Anti-Aircraft Artillery as Fortifications
    Attack 0
    Defense 1, up to three preemptive roll @1, against up to three units, ground or plane, 1 per attacking unit max.
    NCM 1
    Hits 2, auto-repaired after combat
    Cost 5
    The one time preemptive roll can simulate the fact that once fortifications are overwhelmed, they can no more use their defensive weapons.

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