• @Wittmann
    Ya I’ve played with US Transports and destroyers cheaper once at War. But is that still to late for tourney play ?


  • From what I’ve heard Japan waits as long as possible in tourney play to keep US out of game even longer.


  • @SS-GEN Good to know it has been tried .


  • Just thoughts.

    1. US not at war.
      Destroyers C6
      Transports C6
    2. US at War
      Destroyers C5
      Transports C5
    3. US at war
      Destroyers C6
      Transports C5

  • @SS-GEN Well, in G40, the main effect of making transports cost 5 IPCs for Japan is that Japan could buy 5 transports on turn 1, which I guess would make J3 attacks on India virtually impossible to resist…although to fill all five of those transports, you’d wind up stripping northeast China almost dry, so maybe you’d see more Russian invasions of Korea/Manchuria.

    Sea Lion would also become a much more powerful strategy for the Germans, but that probably just means that the UK typically buys either 8 inf, 1 art in London or 6 inf, 1 ftr on UK1. That might not be very interesting; it makes the first turn a little too scripted.

    On the flip side, the Americans can reach Italy with overwhelming firepower on US4 – with cheaper transports, two turns of purchasing should be enough to crush Rome unless Italy keeps all its forces very close to home. That’s also somewhat less interesting.

    So, yeah, 5 IPC transports might be disruptive to G40. You might need to stick with 6 IPC transports for G40. I think 5 IPC transports would work well in Anniversary 1941, though. Cheaper transports could make an Australian factory more useful to the Allies (if you can actually afford to build a transport there, then it threatens the money islands), would help the UK get off to a faster start in the opening in the Atlantic (they’re often short just one or two IPCs to build the fleet they want), and would help the Americans get off to a faster start as well (ditto). Meanwhile Japan has all the transports it needs, and Japan is short on men / build slots. Germany might be able to try a 1941 ‘sea lion’ with cheaper transports, but it would still be an oddball, suboptimal strategy.

  • '21 '20 '18 '17

    As I’ve said before about BM, putting units on non-transports isnt functional because of two rules; 1) you cant bombard and land troops 2) you cant combat and noncombat. Because the bombarding ships especially have other duties, the Marines or whatever woudl end up trapped on those ships alot of the time because they have a more important duty (Cruiser can choose 1–fight, bombard, or land 1 man–you’d choose one of the first two in many situations).

    In any event, its unrealistic. Soldiers were transported on large combat ships, but this affected their combat readynesss, and the troops were rarely deployed like that into direct combat. If they were, it was with the clothes on their backs (the slot/tokyo express)

    This feels like trying to mess with one of the most interesting things about the game—the large difference between the teams. Each team values different units, and some are forced to use strategies that others cannot. USA’s high income (and the difficulty of destroying it) is offset by the fact that they have to buy transports to take land. However, the USA can’t grab much money by taking land, other powers can also help, there remains a perfectly rational strategy where USA buys few or no transports or troops, and puts all that $$ (in global) into warships. Those dynamics keep alot of choice out there. And still, with 200+ IPCs over 4 turns, you can build a pretty big fleet of any composition…

    A reduction of 1-2 IPC wouldn’t be game breaking, alot of those savings would just go directly into the cost of building more troops to fill more transports. Taking them down to 5 would make them more viable to sacrifice, it’d help the Axis in the early and late game, and the US in the mid and late game, alot. I don’t think it would balance the game much, though it might change it.

    Probably an even more historical and effective way to deal with this would be Lend Lease–the US can convert its resources down ratio to its allies, say 2:1. Whether this is in units, money, or convoys would be up for grabs.

    It still doesn’t really address the key problems to the playout though, which is that russia is too weak and the 3 Axis together are too strong. That’s why the balance is in when Russia falls, not if.


  • @taamvan I am afraid I can’t agree with your statement about America’s high income. The problem with most A&A games is that its income is not high enough, considering where it needs to go and how it has to get there. In most games, Japan or Germany can make more and this is the problem.


  • I like what I have in my game. Shore Bombardment. D12
    Battleships - 4
    Cruisers - 3
    Destroyers - 2

    Part of the problem is the D6 dice in the game. Cost and AD values not correct. Some to strong some to weak.
    Probably help a lot if G40 went to D12 but heaven forbid on that !!!
    I don’t know why nobody does anything with Russia but just talk about it.


  • You give Russia more things and allies don’t need to send figs to Moscow, now you can use all those figs elsewhere.
    That’s a copout.

    By the way what is the transport rule in G40 ?


  • My Transport rule suggestion. I do have most of this for my transports.
    D6
    A0
    D@1 plane only.
    C6
    M2
    ES @1
    Any planes in a naval battle with defending transports.
    Can take transport as a causality but loses the D@1 against a plane.

    No planes in a naval battle can’t take transports as a causality.

    Lone Transports against Ships and planes. The attacker has to kill the transports .
    Non of this cop out crap with lone transports all dead. WTF. They can escape.
    This will prolong the battle at most 5 mins. This only happens 1-4 times in a game.
    A transport gets a D@1 plane shot if killed if there is planes in battle.
    No planes then the ship or ships have to kill the transport.
    Now the transport only gets a escape roll if he survives the round of attack.
    No escape roll for a sub FS.
    2 Dest and 1 Sub attacking 3 lone transports.
    Attacker rolls for 2 dest a 4 and a 5. both misses.
    1 sub rolls FS shot of a 1. I killed transport. No escape.
    Now the 2 transports roll for escape and get a 1 and 6.
    1 transport escapes to another sz or stays in same sz and then next round of combat
    the attackers only get to attack 1 transport.
    Works great in my game. We ave 2-4 transports surviving per game. But it gives you more options to use transport
    in naval battles.

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