Axis and Allies Revised Varient ( historical edition)

Do you have time to playtest the house rules for victory cities and infantry placement? All my work on that has been pencil, paper and calculator based. I need someone to play it out at least once and I’m not going to have the time to do it myself. I think those couple rules will solve many major problems, but if for whatever unseen reason those need to be modified we need to know about those problems before we add more rules on top of them.

I think if we just add the turn sequence fix we talked about and a sub interdiction fix and change air units movement/strategic bombing that should be all the real basic rules that need fixing, right?

You’ll see that I posted a much more concise and cleaner version of the victory city house rules in that topic. Use this for your playtesting. Also, let me know of any typos or sections that need elaboration if you see any. I will eventually be posting the same thing for a house rule submission here and in the house rules forum at Larry’s site.

I think the basic problem with improving realism is that the basic game is so incredibly un-realistic that sweeping changes are needed to make it even vaguely correct.

For example, it takes a whole move (3 months) to get from NY to the UK. The problem is that even ROWING BOATS can do it in less than two months in real life!

So according to A&A, a destroyer at top speed can do nothing more than look wistfully at a couple of guys in a rowboat as they speed past them……

I think the Shermans used at 2nd El Alamien left the USA just 3 months (1 move) before the battle. In the game, they would take 4 moves - a whole year.

But the slow movement doesn’t compensate for the lack of supplies, as the UK and Japan can still keep churning out weapons at full speed, even if they are blockaded by battleships and carriers six deep all around them. There’s no great drama if the UK loses the battle of the atlantic - the only thing that scared Churchill and a real possibility (unlike Sealion which was not really possible in real life yet is easy in the game).

On the other hand, many impossible moves are permitted - you can just wander into the Baltic with a transport. There is no terrain effect so you can drive a tank just as quickly through jungle, over mountainrs or through undeveloped un-supplied areas just as easily as you can drive through the steppes in the summer.

You get upgrades for jet fighters (which had only minor effects, due to allied tactics, reliability problems, armament which made them vulnerable to fighters, etc etc) and get to use kamikazes (again, really a minor effect on the war) but you don’t get to really use war-winning weapons like Liberty ships, ASV radar, escort carriers, or the vast improvements in ASW capacity.

Many of the major events of WW2 would either be impossible or not worth it in A&A, because of some fundamental features (lack of logistics, supply, terrain, speed/distance problems) and therefore maybe we need either massive change or to ignore the problems.

It could still be interesting to make a realistic set of rules, but there are going to have to be some massive changes.

You make a ton of really great points. I agree there is no way that you are going to make the game totally realistic, as is the case with any model. Thankfully, there are varying levels of realism and ‘realism’ is a relative term. All we can hope for is to come up with a few rules that have a profound effect on enhancing that realism. As you probably already gathered from this topic, it’s our goal to come up with a set of rules that fix a lot of those problems you addressed, but at the same time doesn’t overwhelm some of the less diehard history buffs with a bunch of rules that they have to sit down and memorize for hours on end. We’re hoping to come up with a set of concise rules, hopefully no more than 4-5 pages long, that will really fix up the game a lot. When that’s done, we can begin work on the next phase of rules to delve a little deeper into making an even more realistic game for those who want more. After that, yet another phase, and so on…

I’d be interested to hear anything you have to say about any ideas addresses so far in this topic or in the related topic of house rules for victory cities. Any ideas for rules to help us out?

I think I have the blueprints for possible ideas to fix the issues we need in phase 1. I got some basics for strategic bombing, air unit movement, sub interdiction, lend-lease, and defender retreats. I’m keeping out of NAs and even techs for now. I don’t like those much anyhow, but I just feel strongly that the NAs should all be worth about the same value. I’ll keep on doing my calculations to make sure there are no loopholes in these new rules and probably get back to you soon. If anybody can just playtest those victory city/infantry placement rules in the last post of that other topic, the feedback would help me out tremendously for what I’m working on now. Besides, it’s not like playtesting is work anyhow :-D

Just some ideas to support your work here, on the airplane issue. Note these are not play-tested, just some ideas from my earlier World in Flames where I loved the aircraft names on counters but hated the countless hours needed to play the game… Just like in that game, fighters now only shoot at other aircraft. Carrier air still is combined naval bombers/ fighters.

Air combat: if there is a bomber and at least one ftr in a land combat, there is a round of air combat before each land combat round. Naval combat w. carrier air on both sides always includes an air combat round. When there are no fighters on either side, the air combat round is skipped. Fighters are never subject to AA fire. Only bombers are attacked by AA and only after the first air combat round. Bomber hits always hit fighters, may not hit other bombers. Every second (fourth, sixth etc) fighter hit is designated by the attacker. When an air unit is hit in air combat, they may avoid being destroyed by rolling a dogfight roll. This is equal to the air combat value for bombers, for fighters it is different for each fighter type. Attackers that win this roll retreat, defenders continue to fight.

Fighters- Standard fighters: 3/4 air only, range 4, cost 8 IPCs. When defending in non-air combat rounds, ftrs do not participate until they are the last units remaining when they may be taken as losses. If only ftrs are remaining after a non-air combat round, they may retreat to any adjacent land area that was not attacked this turn (SBR doesn’t count). If no such area exists, they are destroyed.

Carrier air- fighters bound to the carrier, but can be killed in the air combat round or be killed in the naval combat separately from the carrier. When bought they are placed directly on carrier next to a friendly land area. Fighters mat be converted to carrier air for 4 IPCs, or vice versa. Have 3/4 in both air and naval combat, cost 10 IPCs. Also 2/2 land bombing on islands only (note UK and Japan are not single-sea zone islands), they are too small aircraft to influence a major land campaign.

Bombers/special fighters- here I think you could use the different pieces in Revised and 2nd A&A, w. these air units for each nation:

Germany:
AA2nded fighter- standard fighter (Messerschmitt Bf-109). Dogfight: 2/3.
AAR fighter- Junkers 87 Dive bomber, 4/2, range 4, cost 10 IPCs, 1 in Air combat, no SBR.
AAR bomber- Junkers 88 Medium bomber, 4/3, range 6, cost 12 IPCs, 2 in Air combat, half SBR. May be used as night fighter: then 3/4 in air combat.
AA2nded bomber- standard bomber.

Soviet Union:
AAR fighter- standard fighter. Dogfight: 2/2.
AA2nded fighter- Sturmovik IL-2 bomber, 3/4, range 4, cost 8 IPCs, 2 in Air combat, no SBR.
AAR bomber- standard bomber.

USA:
AA2nded fighter- standard fighter. Dogfight: 3/3.
AAR fighter- P38 Lightning, 3/4 fighter, range 6, cost 12 IPCs. May not be carrier ftr. Dogfight: 4/3 (also represents P-51 Mustangs).
AA2nded bomber- B-25 Mitchell medium bomber, 4/3, range 6, cost 15 IPCs, 2 in Air combat, half SBR.
AAR bomber- B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber, 4/2, range 6, cost 18 IPCs, 2 in Air combat, SBR +1.

UK:
AAR fighter- standard fighter (Spitfire). Dogfight: 3/3.
AA2nded bomber- Mosquito light bomber, 3/4, range 6, cost 12 IPCs, 2 in Air combat, half SBR. May be used as night fighter: has 3/4 night ftr.
AAR bomber, Lancaster heavy bomber, 4/1, range 6, cost 15 IPCS, 1 in Air combat, SBR +1. No naval bombing.

Japan:
AA2nded fighter- standard fighter. Dogfight: 2/2.
AAR fighter, Mitsubishi A6 “Zero”, 3/4 fighter, 4/3 naval bomber (no land bombing, exc. if carrier ftr, islands at 2/2), cost 12 IPCs, costs only 2 IPCs to convert b/w ftr and carrier ftr. Dogfight: 3/2.
AAR bomber, standard bomber.

Standard bomber: 4/2, range 6, 1 in Air combat, 15 IPCs, one die of IPC damage. Bombers can fly night bombing: reduce SBR damage by one, all air units fire on one less (except Ju88/Mosquitos used as night ftrs). Lend-lease restriction: UK and US may only send ordinary ftrs to base in Russian home areas due to Soviet lack of training for advanced aircraft. Jet fighters: 4/5 air only, 12 IPCs, need tech. Dogfight: 4/4.

Starting forces: Each ftr unit on land, replace w. 1 standard ftr and 1 bomber, the latter Ju87s, Sturmoviks, Mitchells, Mosquitos. UK and US bmrs at start: Lancaster and Flying Fortress. Exception: Germany replace one Ju87 w. a Ju88, US replace 1 ftr w. a Lightning. Japan: one of carrier ftr and the ftr in Japan are Zeros, but only 1 bmr at start in Japan.

Strategic bombing: IPC damage capped at half cash at hand. AA hits are aborts, roll an extra die, only on a 1-2 is bomber killed, only killed on a second ‘1’ if bomber has Air combat: 2. Note you must fight one air combat round if intercepted, before AA fire. Escorting fighters are designated before interceptions but are not subject to AA fire.

Defensive use of air units: you may reinforce air units to adjacent land or sea areas under attack, if these air units are not defending against another attack (including SBR). They take part in the first round of air combat and the first round of land or naval combat with one less in defense value. After that they are returned to their area of origin. This gives the defender a much needed advantage since the attacker can draw air units from his entire front. It also gives island bases in the pacific a greater historical use as air bases. Note that Pearl Harbor and the British and German Home fleets now become much, much harder to attack!

/Lynxes, swedish gamer, now waiting to play “Europe Engulfed”

Well, the big thing to decide is whether you have combined fighter/bomber units as in Axis & Allies or separate them as I propose.

Even if you decide to combine them, defense reinforcement and interceptions of strategic bombing can be used to improve the game. The problem is that US or UK fighters can’t reach Germany from Britain- that’s why I have Lightnings and Mosquitos, it’s NOT just chrome… =)

/Lynxes

Ok, here’s the “Light” version, some ideas in any case;

Dogfights: one round before SBR and land & naval combat, if defending fighter(s) choose to intercept. Fighters fire at ‘2’ and bombers at ‘1’. The max number of fighters that may intercept is the number of enemy aircraft. The first loss in dogfights is chosen first by defender as usual, but the next by the attacker, and so forth. This is to force bomber losses.

AA: divided into fixed and field AA, fixed AA are the normal pieces and fire at every incoming bomber in SBR raids only. But in normal land combat only Artillery units may fire, each fire on a ‘1’ on one aircraft taking part in the land combat up to a maximum of one roll per aircraft. All AA hits cause the hit air unit to abort and return to base without taking part in combat or SBR.

CAP: in your turn, you may in your Combat Movement put fighters on Combat Air Patrol in an adjacent controlled land area or sea area without enemy units. Place CAP fighters on the border between areas to show they haven’t moved there. CAP fighters takes part in any dogfight combat(s) in enemy turns in the area, but may not take part in land or naval combat. At the start of your turn, all fighters on CAP land in that area or any adjacent area and then move as normal in Combat movement. They are not destroyed if the enemy captures the area, but if they have no adjacent area to land in in your next player turn they are.

SBR specials: UK may choose to conduct night bombing, bombers then can’t hit in dogfight combat and fighters hit only on a ‘1’. US fighters increase their range to ‘6’ when escorting bombers that SBR.

I agree, the simpler the better. How about these changes:

1. When determining the range for fighter movement, the combat itself counts as 1 move. (Alternatively, the rule can be stated that fighters moving in the combat move phase must automatically subtract 1 movement space.) For example, if a fighter starts in W. Europe and the player wants it to conduct combat in E. Europe, then the fighter moves the 2 spaces to E. Europe add 1 more for the actual combat, and then the fighter can only move 1 more (not 2) in the non-combat move phase. This is a very simple rule that I think accomplishes a lot. Fighters can still move from US to UK and from UK to Russia (only in non-combat), but fighters in W. Europe can’t attack naval units in SZ 8 and return to W. Europe.Â

2. Any fighter that started its turn on an aircraft carrier must finish its turn on an aircraft carrier, unless either the fighter or carrier is destroyed in combat. This rule is to make it so we still only need 1 type of fighter for every nation, but player’s aren’t using carrier and land based fighters as interchangeably. Since I like the idea of giving players some sneaky options I think we should keep it that a fighter on a carrier can land on another carrier without the first carrier needed to be taken as a casualty. I made the rule about fighters on destroyed carriers being able to land in territories because I also think that fighters should be able to land on a neighboring island if the carrier is hit so you don’t necessarily have 3 casualties for 1 hit on a carrier.

Hey Imp, did you ever get to play out a game with the victory city/infantry placement rules??

Geez, why cant you guys just play by the out-of-the-box rules ?

I’m thinking we should hold off on adding interceptors/escorts until phase 2. What do you guys think? I know eventually having them is important for realism but I don’t think we absolutely need them for phase 1 as long as we reduce the probability of AA hits to about 1/10, like Imp said.

I definitely agree. I didn’t mean to imply that we shouldn’t discuss interceptors/escorts, just asking if we should hold off introducing them until phase 2. All ideas are always open for discussion.