@commando-brado Players choose their own casualties.
Shore bombardment is different
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Compared to other A&A games shore bombardment is different in AAZ:
Every battleship can bombard against enemy land units (not limited to number of seaborne units).
Enemy units do not fire back. -
I don’t quite understand your point. Land units typically don’t get to shoot at the boats, do they?
Or are you saying that the bombardment rules were revered to the Classic/Revised style, where bombardment casualties are removed before the main battle begins (i.e. the units killed by the bombardment don’t participate in the main battle at all)?
If the bombardment rules were revised, it may be worth looking into whether the retreat rules for amphib battles were also reverted to the Classic/Revised styles. IIRC (I don’t have a rulebook in front of me so I could be wrong on this), in Classic/Revised, non-amphibious land units COULD NOT retreat from an amphibious assault (in later additions non-amphibious units land units COULD retreat, leaving the amphibious units to their fates).
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I don’t quite understand your point. Land units typically don’t get to shoot at the boats, do they?
Or are you saying that the bombardment rules were revered to the Classic/Revised style, where bombardment casualties are removed before the main battle begins (i.e. the units killed by the bombardment don’t participate in the main battle at all)?
I am addressing two aspects here.
First: In other editions the number of shore bombardment shots is restricted to the number of land units offloading from transports. For example if four battleships support an amphibious assault with two offloading land units, you get only two shore bombardment shots. In AAZ “each battleship fires”.
Second: Different from other editions the AAZ rulebook does not elaborate on shore bombardment when it comes to explain the amphibious assault rules.
Because of this the rule that bombardment casualties fire back during the land battle is not present in the AAZ rulebook either.All we get regarding shore bombardment is stated under “Appendix B: Units…. Battleships”. Here it says:
@rulebook:Shore Bombardment: In an amphibious assault, your battleships in the same sea zone as the offloading transport can conduct shore bombardment.
Each battleship fires once during the opening fire step against enemy land units in the territory being attacked. (The enemy units do not fire back.)
A battleship cannot conduct shore bombardment if it was involved in a sea combat prior to the amphibious assault.Unfortunately the AAZ rulebook does not define an “opening fire step” (that we know from older editions), nor does it contain a rule that bombardment casualties may fire back.
(I can not completely exclude that I might have overlooked something when reading the rulebook, as I only have the original paper version (since yesterday) and not any searchable PDF. I will edit this posting in case I find something else.)If the bombardment rules were revised, it may be worth looking into whether the retreat rules for amphib battles were also reverted to the Classic/Revised styles. IIRC (I don’t have a rulebook in front of me so I could be wrong on this), in Classic/Revised, non-amphibious land units COULD NOT retreat from an amphibious assault (in later additions non-amphibious units land units COULD retreat, leaving the amphibious units to their fates).
No, that has not changed. Attacking seaborne units may not retreat, while overland units may. (Zombie-related rules have been included, though.)
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Good catch. I didn’t even realize the rule was changed.
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Thanks for the clarifications, P@nther. I never knew that bombardments were limited by the number of combatants before. It’s not something that typically comes up in a game, since Battleships and Cruisers are rarely if ever actually purchased.
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I took the parenthetical to mean that enemy units dont fire back at the battleship, not that they don’t get to fire back at the other units in combat. Seems unclear, though first striking bombardments would go against the existing editions.
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I took the parenthetical to mean that enemy units dont fire back at the battleship, not that they don’t get to fire back at the other units in combat. Seems unclear, though first striking bombardments would go against the existing editions.
Agreed. All in all this issue needs a clarification from AH. The clause is mysterious as it refers to an “opening fire step” that does not exist either.
Stay tuned!I have added the issue to the Q+A Thread
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