Veteren Forces Rules (VFRs)

@ando101

I wasn’t saying that your idea was bad.

But yes, that makes sense.

@djensen Yes, the old forum software allowed to somehow cluster the mass of top categories, so they appeared more sorted and compact. Now the new theme had them all showing up in a somewhat endless list, that’s why categorizing appeared to be a valid solution to us.

Obviously categorizing (top and sub) is not the best way to give categories/forums a logical structure by clustering forums that thematically belong together. As de-emphasizing or hiding has never been our intention.

So instead of breaking the idea of having reasonable groups of forums - are there maybe other supported tools that allow us to group our categories reasonably, preventing from “top and sub, de-emphaszise and hide”?

No the AAA’s ability to reduce aircraft attack power does not stack, but having two AAAs will allow you to reduce the attack value of up to 6 aircraft.  Also, the controlling player (attacker) chooses SBR casualties.

From our limited experience, one fighter usually isn’t enough to deter a SBR.  Remember that there are no longer any AA shots on attacking planes during a SBR so fighters are the only thing the defender has to inflict damage on the attacker.  If he chooses not to intercept due to escorts, the attacker will inflict bombing damage with no losses.  Escorts were used more to take hits from the defending fighters so the bombers would continue to do damage.  A territory defended by an AA gun and a stack of fighters is a hard target and usually not cost effective to bomb unless you have a massive air force.  Germany needs to use it’s full airforce if it wants to SBR England effectively.  Russia needs to actually build fighters or ask for allied fighters if it wants to defend it’s factories.

We could increase the max damage a facility could take to increase the potential damage of a SBR.  We’ll have to play more games with this to see how changes things.

Good point in the last paragraph, a turn does encompass multiple months and you would expect some sort of naval engagement if both forces were conducting active operations and not sitting in home port. Adding a dice roll to determine if a naval battle occurs adds too many variables for the moment. But I’d certainly like to add a retreating rule in my next home game. I think this would create a much more aggressive game if the risk of losing your entire fleet on one bad round of dice was limited.

Does anyone have any experience with this? How did you do it? What did you do with transports? etc.

@der-kuenstler For some reason I’m just finding this thread now. I mostly agree with what others have said. The only thing I want to add is that if you want to play with more than the simplest of house rules, you should feel good about creating play aids to support those rules. Seriously, go out and print your new rules, in full color. Put some thought into how to design and lay out a chart or a cheat sheet that will help players remember and use your rules. Cut them out so they’re the right size, and then laminate them or print them on heavyweight cardstock. If your rules involve any special pieces, buy sculpts for those pieces or use some paint or something to convincingly alter the closest available piece; don’t just slap a chip underneath artillery and say “OK, now it’s a self-propelled artillery.”

If you’re not willing to put in that work to make things easier on your players, then why should they put in the work to test out your house rules? It can take 8+ hours for a single playtest; if you invite 3 friends over, that’s 24 hours of other people’s time. You should be willing to put in at least 10% of that (2 hours) on creating play aids to improve that experience. If you’re not, maybe that’s a sign that you’re having so much fun imagining new rules that tickle your fancy that you’re not really thinking hard about whether those rules will be fun to play with for others.

@The11HP20:

I guess this is where things get complicated. These are the types of units I want in each force. How many of each should I have to ensure I never run out no mater what I’m playing. Obviously I have some house rules in mind.

Light inf
Heavy inf
Mech inf
Light arty
Heavy arty
(Possibly) sp arty
Armored cars or light tanks
Med tanks
Heavy tanks
Fighters
Tac bombers
Bombers
Transports
Subs
Destroyers
Cruisers
Battleships
Carriers

Many of these items are available from HBG although you’re going to be playing the waiting game for a bit for every nation to have a full range of sculpts.

Yes, I am quite insane  :-D

As for how I got it all to fit, I typed it into a Word document, and then copied and pasted.

I plan to playtest these rules and modify them as needed.  I was trying for as much historical accuracy as I could with the starting forces, while making the minimum number of changes to the official rules.  I got the idea from World in Flames, which is a great game, but, practically speaking, unplayable.  Even if you read and understand all the rules, finding one or more opponents who also have read and understand the rules is pretty much impossible.  You can, however, play Axis and Allies while you’re drunk (Been there.  Done that.  Got the T-shirt.)  But I like the idea of having the same basic problems, options, starting forces, and deployments the real military and political leaders of the time had to face.

Now, I’ll admit that the Vichy France rules are a bit more detailed than most A&A players prefer, and I understand why the game disigners decided to just leave them out.  But, if I was going to give the French a realistic starting fleet, I had to have the Vichy option to keep the combined French and British fleets from blowing the Italians out of the water on turn one.  It also gives the Allies the same uncertainty about what the Vichy French forces would do if their territories were invaded.  Historically, it was a major concern for the British.  Remember that they actually bombed the Vichy French fleet in port in North Africa, killing, IIRC, a couple of thousand French sailers , because they were afraid of having it fall into Axis hands.

AARHE didn’t have fuel. AARHE 1939 map had though.

To save you the trouble here’s that list.

Balkans, Caucasus, Kazakh, Saudi Arabia, Persia, East Indies, Borneo, Venezuela, Eastern United States, Central United States.