• '14

    In a D12 system a Battlecruiser:
    cost-    15
    att-    7 or 8
    def-    5 or 6
    move      2
    only takes 1 hit to sink.


  • 3-3-2-15 takes 2 hits, SB @3

    Special possible move: moves 3 in NCM

    Reason: these are faster cruisers


  • Would like to see tech pieces before this heavy bombers,rockets,etc.

  • Customizer

    I like IL’s idea.
    First, I think it properly represents the characteristics of battlecruisers which basically is some aspects of a battleship (2 hits to sink) and some aspects of a cruiser (hit @ 3).  Plus the special movement is an interesting idea.
    Second, it sticks with the D6 format.  I know a lot of guys like the idea of incorporating a D12 system into A&A, but I prefer the D6 system because it is simpler and I use FMG Combat Dice exclusively.  I don’t think they will come out with D12 Combat Dice.  Probably too expensive.

  • '14

    I understand about the D6, but remember with all the new pieces that are comming soon some units will be left out. A D12 system isn’t complicated, and it will allow for all new pieces to have a role in any AA variant. In a D6 system why would u buy a TD or SP artillery if it att/def the same as a tank?

    Remember a Battlecruiser outgunned the cruiser and smaller ships but it didn’t have as much armor as a battleship. The BC mission was to hunt down cruisers, destroyers, and shipping vessels. It wasn’t a fast cruiser it was actually a fast battleship. 30knots was the max for most battleships other ships had 30+knot speeds. I think you give the BC the attack of a BB and the defence of a cruiser for a few IPC’s more than a cruiser. Then 2 hits to sink if not in battle with a battleship.


  • Oztea had an interesting house rule for German pocket battleships. Crusiers take 2 hits to kill. Just thought that would be helpful.


  • A D12 system is definitely coming but i feel we need both systems. many people just prefer D6 and we cant lose them at all.

    SO make both D12 and D6 by all means.


  • I don’t know, maybe it’s me, but I don’t like the Battlecruiser idea. If for no other reason, they were historically a total failure. Can anyone say Hood??


  • Scharnhorst & Gneisenau, Kongo, Alaska, etc. All BC

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlecruiser#Pacific_War

  • '14

    @C_Strabala:

    I don’t know, maybe it’s me, but I don’t like the Battlecruiser idea. If for no other reason, they were historically a total failure. Can anyone say Hood??

    The Hood went against the Bismark! The Scharnhorst and Gneisenau sank an aircraft carrier! I don’t think they were a total failure just not very many of them were built. I’m thinking of any way to expand the naval units for a more advanced AA experience. why would you have a PZIII if there is a PZV on the board, or a Tiger? I think it would be a cool piece to have especially for Germany who may not be able to field a Bismark but might be able to build 2 or 3 Scharnhorsts by turn 5 or so. By the way the Hood was classified as a Battlecruiser but it actually Displaced 12,000 tons mor than the OOB Battleship! Just sayin! You could have a new piece and play how you want with it!!


  • @Imperious:

    A D12 system is definitely coming but i feel we need both systems. many people just prefer D6 and we cant lose them at all.

    SO make both D12 and D6 by all means.

    Sure why not.  Not playing D12 here though.  I don’t own a D12, to begin with.  Unless someone gave me 20 for free, I doubt I ever will.  I have no use for them and don’t play A&A enough with d6s as it is.

    The nice thing about D6s is that there are only 4 hit options and this game is essentially a beer and pretzel game.  Using d12, there’s so much gradation possible that 4 dice colors isn’t an option.  and it takes longer to throw.  and count.  etc etc etc.

    D6 for me.  4 colors, all in one (or two, if it’s a huuuuuuge battle) throw.  That’s the way to go.

    All you need to do to shorten the game is assign one color to each hit condition.  Whites 1, Blacks 2, Red/black 3, black/red 4.  Throw all the dice and EVERY UNIT is covered in one throw.  The only time it doesn’t work is subs (but they often fire first anyway but just give them another color) or AA hits (which are fired against each plane anyway).

    I would gladly trade my combat dice in for a set of nicely design Hit Dice, with a hit or miss marker behind the pips.

  • '14

    @Imperious:

    A D12 system is definitely coming but i feel we need both systems. many people just prefer D6 and we cant lose them at all.

    SO make both D12 and D6 by all means.

    Thats fine, I’m partial to the D12! I started using it last year and it is so much better. I know people don’t like to change but going to a D12 would be for ther better


  • @kcdzim:

    I would gladly trade my combat dice in for a set of nicely design Hit Dice, with a hit or miss marker behind the pips.

    Now that’s a neat idea!! Has anyone manufactured such a die?


  • Correct me if I’m wrong but a battle crusier is basically a mini-battleship or a super-crusier.


  • It has smaller guns than BB, but more like a Jr. Battleship with the speed of a cruiser, but with the armor plating of one as well.

    They were first introduced in WW1 and used for long range cruising. They outclassed any cruiser and could run with them and could have the same range.  Otherwise Cruisers would just outrun the slower battleships and avoid battle or the range of bigger guns


  • Considering that most true battlecruisers were either up to or close to battleship standards in armament but not armor, I’d say it makes more sense to make them 4-4-3 units that can only take 1 hit!  With 11" being the smallest BC gun and 8" the largest cruiser gun, and the typical battlecruiser being 2-3 times the weight of a cruiser (Indeed, BC’s actually tended to be a little bit LONGER than battleships of the same design generation.)

    If dropping down to 1 hit makes them a deal-breaker… Well, welcome to what caused BC’s to fall out of favor!  Of course, with most folks now playing with 2-hit aircraft carriers, maybe it makes more sense to elevate battleships to 3 hits, as BC’s were armored at about the levels the levels of an aircraft carrier, give or take.

  • Customizer

    Very interesting idea, Dr Larsen.  Push battleships up to 3 hits and have carriers and battlecruisers at 2 hits.  Boy, that would really make you think twice about attacking any fleet with a battleship in it.  Get some bad dice and it could be a long battle for you.  I think we should implement this idea if we do get a battlecruiser piece.  OR, we could even use WOTC battleships to represent battlecruisers once we get the new FMG battleships.
    By the way, did you know that British ACs had armored decks?  They were a real asset to the Allies in the closing months of the Pacific campaign because they could better withstand kamikaze attacks.  That just makes me wonder if that should be represented in the game somehow.  Like maybe only British carriers should take 2 hits to sink.  Or should we leave it for all nations’ carriers?  Just a thought.
    Coachofmany has mentioned the possibility of coming out with some naval supplement sets later on.  I had an idea he really liked:  Escort Carriers.  Cheaper than fleet carriers, 10-12 IPCs, same on attack/defense, can carry only 1 TAC or fighter, 1 hit to sink.  I was originally thinking 2 on movement but maybe that could be increased to 3 with battlecruisers.  Escort Carriers were smaller and faster than the big fleet carriers and since battlecruisers were also faster, maybe these two could work in tandem.  Maybe coach will come out with battlecruiser pieces in his naval sets as well.  I would like to see the Scharnhorst and USS Alaska.  I even think the HMS Hood would be great for the British battlecruiser.  Sure, it got pasted by the Bismarck, but it was still a fantastic ship.  It just got outgunned is all.  Plus, battlecruisers aren’t supposed to match up against battleships anyway.


  • A couple of points:

    1. Escort carriers were actually much SLOWER than fleet carriers.  They were built primarily from converted transport hulls.  There was a separate category of carriers that were fast enough to keep up with the main fleet carriers but were smaller.  Those were called “Light Fleet Carriers” (CVL’s) rather than “Escort Carriers” (CVE’s).  CVL’s were typically converted from cruiser hulls (The Independence class CVL’s were conversions from Cleveland class cruiser hulls.)  The primary mission of Escort carriers was ASW, which is why they didn’t need much speed, and since you can never have enough convoy escorts, they wanted their CVE’s to be as cheap as possible… It is for much the same reason that the Destroyer Escorts (DE’s) were a little slower than top-of-the-line fleet destoyers: they needed to be faster than a slow convoy or a sub, but not fast enough to keep up with a fast carrier attack force.

    2. Actually, BC’s would make more sense as fleet carrier escorts than slow BB’s, since fleet carriers were faster than “standard” battleships.  (Of course, this only goes for the older generation of battleships, as the newer battleships were much faster than the old ones.)

    3. The main secondary role that CVE’s undertook was amphibious support… which interestingly tended to be the role to which old battleships ended up being relegated.  Thus, if you check out the Order of Battle for the Pacific Fleet at Leyte you see two fleets:

    3rd Fleet: essentially the “Blue-Water Strike Fleet,” which included CV’s, CVL’s, new/fast BB’s, CA’s, CL’s, & DD’s

    7th Fleet: essentially the “Brown-Water Amphibious Fleet,” which included CVE’s, old/slow BB’s, DD’s, DE’s, and transports.

    I don’t think that the US had any of the Alaska-class CB’s operational yet, but when they did, they became part of… you guessed it, the fast strike fleet, not the slow invasion fleet.


  • @knp7765:

    Very interesting idea, Dr Larsen.  Push battleships up to 3 hits and have carriers and battlecruisers at 2 hits.  Boy, that would really make you think twice about attacking any fleet with a battleship in it.  Get some bad dice and it could be a long battle for you.  I think we should implement this idea if we do get a battlecruiser piece.  OR, we could even use WOTC battleships to represent battlecruisers once we get the new FMG battleships.
    By the way, did you know that British ACs had armored decks?  They were a real asset to the Allies in the closing months of the Pacific campaign because they could better withstand kamikaze attacks.  That just makes me wonder if that should be represented in the game somehow.  Like maybe only British carriers should take 2 hits to sink.  Or should we leave it for all nations’ carriers?  Just a thought.

    Well, that’s a thought, especially if BC’s are stripped of the 2-hit sink advantage: having BC’s take the same # of hits as standard fleet carriers makes sense, seeing as about a third of the top-notch fleet carriers in service at the beginning of the war were built on BC hulls.  If British CV’s get an armor advantage, though, they should have a penalty in aircraft capacity, because that was the trade-off: in order to build a carrier within treaty limits you basically had to sacrifice either the armored deck or the aircraft capacity…

    Maybe coach will come out with battlecruiser pieces in his naval sets as well.  I would like to see the Scharnhorst and USS Alaska.  I even think the HMS Hood would be great for the British battlecruiser.  Sure, it got pasted by the Bismarck, but it was still a fantastic ship.  It just got outgunned is all.  Plus, battlecruisers aren’t supposed to match up against battleships anyway.

    Well, the Hood was a special case.  A more representative British CB would be the Renown class.  The Hood was actually armored almost up to battleship standards and was, in fact, larger than any BB built until the building of the Bismark… but the standards for deck armor had changed based on changes in gunnery tech and research between the wars.  She was actually, rather ironically, scheduled to be up-armored  but never quite got it in time… Though some still argue about whether it really was a deck-armoring design-flaw or a lucky shot… or even whether it was a fire cause by hits from the Prinz Eugen.  Historians also still argue about whether the Hood should really have been classed as a BC or as a fast BB.  It seems that just about everything about the Hood ended up being rather controversial!


  • BC didn’t have the same firepower as BB. These were stronger than cruisers but still having lower caliber guns. If they carried larger guns they would need more weight and become larger and lose speed.

    Their defense was their speed because armor plating was poor due again to the need to keep the ship lighter so it can catch or out run Cruisers or Battleships.

    ships should not goto 3 hits and 2 hits. Its not KISS.

    If you don’t give the BC a special ability like a speed bonus, the advantage of adding another warship is not adding anything to the game. If anything the only new warship should be escort/jeep/light carriers.

    People barely buy cruisers as it is, to have a one hit 4-4- unit or 2 hit 3-3 unit is really like just cutting a pie into more slices. Your not really creating anything new and not adding more to the game

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