Can you calculate when to concede (or call "check" on your opponent)?

Imperious Leader, SS, and myself have been discussing “Call Shots”, or as I (still) think of them: “pick the hit unit on 1”, in my thread about adding Heavy Artillery to Classic A&A. I pasted in the full transcript below. I thought I would break this out to its own conversation.

So far, what is being discussed as a Call Shot is when a player rolls a 1 when attacking with Battleships, Tactical Bombers, or Heavy Artillery, the player who rolls the one picks the unit taken as a loss.

I am very skeptical of Call Shots. I will admit that I haven’t played with such rules so I don’t have any personal experience. And while I wouldn’t call it game-breaking to give certain units special powers when I roll a 1 for your attack, it just doesn’t sit well in my mind.

So I thought I would make this a separate topic so that others could chime in. I’m willing to be convinced and admit that I do need to try it out. But I also doubt that I’m the only one for whom the thought of my opponent picking my losses leaves a bad taste in my mouth…

-Midnight_Reaper

Full transcript:
@SS:

@Midnight_Reaper:

@SS:

@Midnight_Reaper:

@Imperious:

1 on Attack roll you pick the target with no return fire

Try it one of two ways:

what we call a “call shot” pick land unit as loss alternatively if you roll a one, defender chooses loss and that unit cant fire back

you will like one of these options

I would have to try them out before I could give a full opinion of them. My question to you is: why the emphasis on ‘pick the hit unit on 1’ rules? Is this a new addition to the meta of house rules here? Submarines have pretty much also fought this way, but I’ve previously seen proposed house rules for Tac Bombers to ‘pick their hit on 1’. Is this becoming a thing?

Should I start a new thread to ask about the popularity and usefulness of ‘pick your hit on 1’ critical strike rules?

-Midnight_Reaper

I have in my WW2 40 game Tac (Dive) bombers  D12  A7 D4 M4 C10 roll a 2 or less on A and D can pick target with no return shot for ground and naval. The 2 or less roll hit is for more of a accurate shot on a piece. So I use the Tac as a 2 different scenario.

Also in one of my 39 games there are Dive Bombers and Naval Figs that can pick the target on a 4 (Dive) or 1 (Fig) but the defender still gets a return shot while the attacker gets to pick the piece.
Pretty much these pieces are in just the 39 games and anybody that has housed ruled there game (G40 OOB) but just a few if any. From what I’ve seen posted on site anyway.

It must have been your Tac Bomber rules that I read. It just seems like the idea of “He shoots, he scores, he crits, he picks the casualty!” has become something I’ve noticed of late. As I’ve said before, I’m not a big fan of that idea in the abstract, but I will admit to really needing to try it out for real before I can truly say that I don’t like it at all.

-Midnight_Reaper

The main reason for Tac Bombers to have this call shot is for both ground and naval attacks plus it gets the Tac Bomber more involved in the game. There like the Cruiser. Nobody really buys them. Thats also why my Cruiser is (D12)  A7 D7 M2 C9. (but you need to lower your destroyers 1 value in A and D). So Destroyers would be A3 D3.  Its a good boost for Anzac, FEC and Italy. As I stated before you need to play test everything.

You could try with the defender at least gets a return shot if you have your doubts.

@SS:

@Imperious:

My question to you is: why the emphasis on ‘pick the hit unit on 1’ rules?

This again is what we call : Call shot

Having something that breaks up the idea that the loser of the unit can choose whatever he wants as a combat loss is a good thing. The artillery units generally carpet bomb whole areas of the battlefield, and Heavy Artillery doing the most damage. Second having such a unit makes it very valuable in the game, by playing you will find out. Thirdly its really fun and i would further suggest the Battleship have this capability. Reason: because the BB has the guns of the greatest range and can shoot targets before they can fire back as they need to be closer to even have a chance.

Oh great IL. Now I got to add this to my Battleships in games !  :-D

Death Heads plays by me and he wanted the no return shot from Battleships and Cruisers  for 39 game and we played 2 games that way but the rest of guys in group didn’t want it. Go figure. I can at least see the Battleship Bombardment hit gets a no return shot. its like pulling teeth with some people but what it is is what it is.  :wink:

I am trying the rules I posted above and it appears to be balanced. One change I want to make is that you SHOULD place the standard units in southern France to prevent Germany from taking all of France G1

@Yavid:

2-2-2-5 supports inf., supports mech inf, Blitz with tank.

Looks like the best idea. Attack on 3 essentially would make it a tank at 1 IPC cheaper. Nobody would buy tanks anymore.

In fairness to the Japanese planners:

“After the initial salvo at long range (20,000 meters), the four Kongo Class battleships and 17 Class A cruisers detailed to the night attack force were to break through the American screen–suicidally if necessary–and clear the way for the force’s two torpedo cruisers and the light cruiser and 14 destroyers of a destroyer squadron to expend the remainder of their ready torpedoes in a close range attack from as little as 2,000 meters.”

IF they had ever actually gotten the massive fleet battle at night (without radar, which they couldn’t plan for, since they didn’t know about it), and acually managed to get a significant number of cruisers and destroyers to 2,000 meters or less, they might have had a chance of achieving the 15% hit rate.  But a lot of their planning DID involve timing their actions to coincide with Mr. Murphy’s annual vacation  :lol:

Well, we finished Round 7 last night and here is the situation:
England is pretty much stuck on their island, although the Canadian factory is helping put destroyers in the water. UK’s factory and both bases are maxed out in damage.  Germany has surrounded Moscow and Stalingrad, both of which factories are also maxed out on damage.  Gotta love those SBRs.  Japan has taken all of China, Mongolia and eastern Russia.  Still no action in the Pacific or SE Asia as the Axis have been very careful not to provoke America, which is still neutral until next round.  America has built up a monsterous fleet, most of which is by the Philippines.  With that and the few ships out by Hawaii, I think they out number the Japanese fleet.  The Japs have gotten a few more warships, but had to mix that with land units to hit China, Russia and get ready to go after Allied positions.

America also has a modest fleet in the Atlantic but is stuck on the East Coast since London hasn’t fallen and nobody has attacked them.  Italy has swarmed all over Africa and the Middle East and is currently on Calcutta’s doorstep in West India.  Only British assets left are on the UK itself, Canada and SE Asia.  I’m afraid that by the time the USA can do anything, the Axis will have all the Victory Cities in Europe, Asia and Africa.

Unfortunately, my weekend is wrapping up.  Got to go back to work tonight.  We might squeeze in a round or two before going to work sometime this week, but more than likely this game will have to wait until next weekend, which for me is Mon/Tue nights.  I will post how it ends, but at this point I’m almost sure it will be an Axis victory, unless USA is able to pull a pretty big rabbit out of their hat.  I’m pretty sure Moscow will fall next round and after that will come Sealion.  Don’t think that UK will be able to do much to stop it either.

True.  A typical division in most armies will have its own artillery regiment/brigade.  A corps might have an extra brigade or two of corps level artillery in adddition to the artillery units assigned to its infantry/tank divisions.  Soviet Shock armies were basically leg infantry with a buttload of artillery (a buttload being an echelon or two above brigade) attached.  But, at the scale of Axis and Allies (with each playing piece representing an army - the echelon between corps and army group), independent artillery units would rarely be large enough to be represented by their own playing pieces.  But they are.

AA scale for destroyers is approximately 1/2400, 1" equals 200 feet.  On that scale an Iowa-class battleship would be almost 4.5" long, rather than the 2.25" it actually is.  Scale for the battleships runs from about 1/3600 for the UK Royal Soveriegn to about 1/4700 for the Iowa.  The Yamato is about 1/4200 and the Bismarck is about 1/4300.  The scale for the aircraft carriers ranges from the Wasp at about 1/3500 to the Shinano at about 1/4200, as all of the carriers are the same length, 2.5".  The two cruisers are about 1/3700 scale.  The subs range from the German Type VIIC at about 1/1400 to the Japanese I-15 class at about 1/2400.

If you buy 1/3000 scale ships, which is 1" equals 250 feet, an Iowa will run about 3.5 inches, considerably larger than the destroyers in the game.

Quote from: oldsalty on September 01, 2008, 07:17:52 am
That appears to make sense from the few pieces I’ve ordered to compare size and quality.

What is the difference between 1/2400 and 1/3000 in inches?  Looks like the 1/2400 is an USA scale (based in ft/in).  Is the 1/3000 the European scale based in meters?

Side by side, would a 1/2400 piece actually be 20% smaller than a 1/3000 scale piece?

A 1/3000 scale ship will actually be about 20% smaller than a 1/2400 scale ship.

I will post the scales for the aircraft once I finish measuring them.

Thats a complete waste of time…. The only scales for small inexpensive metal ships THAT IS ACTUALLY CURRENTLY IN PRODUCTION IS 1/2400 AND 1/3000…SO THE ONLY REALISTIC OPTION IS TO BUY 1/2400 SCALE WHICH ARE OFFERED FROM NAVWAR AND SKYTREX, WHILE 1/3000 SCALE IS TOO LARGE.

The scales are the same regardless representing objects 1/3000 or 1/2400 times smaller than original. Its not a Metric vs. English system.

Axis and allies uses 1/700 scale planes and 1/285 armor and 15 MM infantry ( or to convert you use HO 1/87 plastic or 1/72). These are the scales your looking for and i already posted the order sheet in another thread.

I agree the simple version is better. I’ll try to talk my buds into trying it.

Yup, HBMRs outa Russia (RUS) is one of my favorite moves. The problem is that you need to leave 1 INF there and maybe 1 ARM to cover it.

The possiblity of BMRs in RUS is why I build an IC for Japan in KWA if I do at all(about 1/3 of the time.)

A funny story: The first guy who tried that on me had moved 2 UK BMRs and 1 US BMR to Russia without protection by the end of UK2. On G2 I flew 1 BMR and 2 FTR to Russia, lost 1 FTR on the way in, and destroyed his BMR wings!!! Glory! Glory! Glory!