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    Topics created by Azrael

    • AzraelA

      Facebook group to connect more axis and allies gamers together

      Player Locator
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      AzraelA

      The group has grown quite a bit and has a large player database if your looking to find some local opponents and/or discuss axis and allies

    • AzraelA

      Azrael's WAS house rules

      War at Sea
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      AzraelA

      Probably easier to do it this way then updating a bunch of different threads

      Order of Battle 2.0

      http://aaminis.myfastforum.org/about36047.html

      Azraels Ice/icebreakers, weather, terrain house rules

      http://aaminis.myfastforum.org/about39191.html

      Richard Bakers advanced facing rules

      http://aaminis.myfastforum.org/about37840.html

      Warmachine alt was ruleset ($100 contest runner up)(A more strategic then tactical alternative)

      http://aaminis.myfastforum.org/about36534.html

    • AzraelA

      Nation Pure etiquette format for regular play and tourny's (like a bid system)

      War at Sea
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      AzraelA

      This is inspired by seeing how the online nationals work

      There is 3 tiers of nations

      Usn/ijn {Top tier}

      Uk/km

      Italy/france/russia {Bottom tier}

      (If someone plays a minor ex Dutch or whatever force it ranks below the bottom tier)

      The player with the weaker nation/tier gets to choose the match conditions (example a year limit, whether it’s night or day etc).

      Matches played on equal tiers are open year regular matches (unless you have a mutually agreeable match format or want to use this situation to play out a tournament theme you had predetermined beforehand)

      In tournaments you would have to build some fleets on the go but that’s only 10mins and you could implement a game turn limit to compensate. That way you could play more of a variety of things and it balances the nations.

      If conducting this as a tournament format the variety of match types skews the points results therefore while points are used to determine a win they aren’t tracked overall for the tournament.

      Wins are the deciding factor with a new twist for tiebreakers; the nations you defeated are worth points , top tier is worth 3 pts each, middle tier is 2 pts each and bottom tier is worth 1 point each.  ( If someone is crazy enough to play a minor nation pure they are worth 0 pts in this tiebreaker format).

      This adds alot of strategy to the nation you pick with it not being a no brainer to select the best and allows you to play a variety of match types on the same level.

      We actually played a tournament using this format http://aaminis.myfastforum.org/about39873.html
      it was pretty good the only thing is its very time intensive if you have players who aren’t hardcore was players with the builds.

    • AzraelA

      Concealed Cover WAS alt rules ( ex clouds) (antithesis to night rules)

      Miniatures Scenarios
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      AzraelA

      Similar to night rules, this represents an element of concealment whether cloud cover or what to give an edge to attacking units allowing a scenario like Taranto to more easily play out.

      Uncertain objective: after both fleets are deployed roll a die on a 1-2 place an objective marker on the center left, 3-4 in the middle, 5-6 on the right (optional).

      Covered approach:  Ship anti-air rolls -1 on each die   Â

      Spread out CAP: defensive fighters must make a search check and succeed on a 3+

      Target located/lit up: units roll +1 dice against damaged units

      Disorganized attack: aborted air units get +1 rearming tokens.

      http://johnsmilitaryhistory.com/carriertactics.html
      The above provides some historical insight into this, if you view this as cloud cover you can combine it with the current “twilight” rules to represent changing battlefield conditions.

      Having an antithesis to a night match has alot of potential so im open to feedback and will probably change it over time.

    • AzraelA

      All team neptune cards

      War at Sea
      • • • Azrael
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      AzraelA

      @hkytown1:

      Gotta keep up the good fight here at the ORG Az, nice job…got 2 decks myself.

      Ironically a few of my threads here like my strategic warfare scenario I did for the forumini contest (that I finished second in ) and my collection photos almost have as many views here as they do on the forumini so somebody is looking.

      War at sea is an amazing game its good to spread the word, i was lucky to come across it rather happenstance .

    • AzraelA

      Azrael's arctic/baltic ice + icebreaker rules

      War at Sea
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      AzraelA

      Ice sheet/floe /iceberg rules:  Use either instead or in addition to schoals/islands etc.  Place evenly either as scarce or generous as you like.

      Limiting sides to 1 icebreaker each per 100 pts if playing without much ice or icefree objectives is good balance of facing the hazard of ice and having a little bit of protection.

      If playing with a bunch of ice including ice covered objectives probably 2-3 icebreakers per 100 pts would work well in balance.

      Having 2 forms of ice adds to variety and can work

      Iceberg: (use island terrain from starter or litko token) works exactly like a regular island would the icebreaker CANT move through it.  Adjacent sectors are treated like mines.

      Ice sheet: works just like a schoal(use schoal from starter or litko ice floe tokens) except torps can’t go though it, sectors adjacent to it are treated like they have mines.  The icebreaker can escort ships through ice floes at speed 1.

      Icebreakers:  In lieu of current icebreakers use aux’s as icebreakers.

      Ice breakers don’t take ice damage adjacent to ice sectors and protect friendly ships/subs in the same sector from ice damage.

      Icebreakers have close escort and may escort friendly ships/subs onto or through sectors with ice without hazard.

      Icebreakers are limited to speed1 while protecting themselves and other units from ice damage rolls, units that ignore this are subject to ice rolls.

      Icebreakers  may  not be attacked until at least one other friendly ship in  their sector has been .

      Units whose icebreaker gets sunk are stranded if on an ice sector until a friendly icebreaker can come rescue them but may still fire normally.

      If mines are laid adjacent to ice , the effects stack and both rolls must be made.

      Using icebreakers you may in your game want to cover some objectives in ice for fun.

      –--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

      My original post regarding this

      One element of WW2 units that haven’t shown up yet in WAS is the icebreaker something that was frequently used in the baltic/arctic theater.

      Which means a couple things among which we need a proper icesheet mechanic for the game rather then the typical schoals if you happen to use the litko ice tokens. � Perhaps schoal like mechanic but mtb’s can’t move over them (the ice is impassable, but � does it block Los? ) and moving adjacent to the ice sheets you risk hull damage like mines.

      Then you need Icebreakers who can interact with the icesheets in the game, perhaps like mine sweepers where on a 3 or more (something like that) it can remove a sector of ice. � Or what I like best perhaps something less outright where an icebreaker can escort another unit through the ice sectors.

      Then you may want Icebreakers to have a more abstract function in the context of a WAS match in the form of Sa’s. � Perhaps forward deploying with a smaller unit even such as a sub and allowing it to fire on turn 1 (icebreakers cleared paths for subs). � Or allowing forward deployed units to grab objectives on turn 2 (as opposed to turn 3) if with an icebreaker to abstractly represent the icebreaker clearing the way to the objective, forward deployed units are usually target practice and lots of units can grab objectives on turn 2 and this could still be contested easily on turn 2 if not outright destroyed so it makes a SA of sometimes limited use (forward deployed ships) a tad more useful.

      And for the Ice breaker I would like to see the most
      Predreadnought Battleship Hessen converted to Icebreaker/target ship in ww2. � Adds more variety to the game which is great and more surface ships for Germany which is always nice you could even use holstein as a proxy.


      converted to a icebreaker/target ship

      in its former life as a battleship

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_Hessen

    • AzraelA

      Azrael's island/shore support rules

      Miniatures Scenarios
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      hkytown1H

      I have 2 buddies playing a convoy scenario today about 850 miles from me.  I forwarded this to them so hopefully they get a chance to try it out.

    • AzraelA

      Players in kitchener/waterloo/brantford/cambridge area?

      Player Locator
      • • • Azrael
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      AzraelA

      Anyone around those areas? I play the boardgames and the miniatures.

    • AzraelA

      Richard Bakers Advanced War At Sea Rules

      War at Sea
      • • • Azrael
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      AzraelA

      (This was a 2012 blog post of his, I don’t think it made its way around all the communities so I thought I would post it here, it looks pretty good I want to try it out soon)

      Today I think I’m going to step out of the theoretical ground of the last couple of posts, and muse about something more specific: What do I wish I’d done a little differently with War at Sea (aka Axis & Allies Naval Miniatures)? Overall, I’m pretty happy with the outcome of that design; it’s fast, fun, and serves as a good skeleton for layering on as many house rules and mods as you might want. But I still think I could have done a little better.

      The first thing I wish I’d included in the game was a simple facing system. The classic naval tactic of “crossing the T” doesn’t appear in AANM because of the relatively high abstraction of ship movement and position. The reason we didn’t include this early on is because initial design drafts contemplated far more abstract versions of the game, where ships might be grouped into Task Forces fighting in an area of maybe 200 miles by 200 miles. Playtests of this approach showed us that ship dispositions were pretty boring in a large-scale game: You wanted your TFs together, so you wound up with “100 points in a box.” The shift to a more tactically focused game came relatively late in the process. Anyway, here’s a simple implementation of facing rules we could have used:

      ·        Draw a game map using large hexagons, say 5” or so.

      ·        Ships and submarines move by a) entering the hex directly ahead and can change heading by up to three hexsides when they enter a new hex, which counts as 1 movement, or b) remain in their current hex and choose any heading. This basically means you can’t make any real distance going “south” on a turn you begin facing “north.” Destroyers and PT boats might be able to start with a course change, and would have more ability to maneuver.

      ·        Ships and submarines have arcs of fire: Ahead, Astern, Broadside. These basically correspond to shooting “out” of the hexside in front of you, behind you, or the two hexsides on your port or starboard.

      ·        Submarines can’t make Broadside torpedo attacks (some older subs did have trainable torpedo mounts outside their pressure hulls, but maybe that could be handled with a special ability).

      ·        Ahead or Astern Gunnery attacks take a penalty of -1 per die. This is an easy way to model reduced volume of fire from a limited number of guns bearing dead ahead or dead astern. Sure, we could present exact Gunnery dice for ahead/broadside/astern attacks for each different ship, but we’re talking about a simple patch we could add now to the game.

      ·        Some ships (say, Rodney or Richelieu) would gain a negative special ability to the effect of “no Astern Main Gunnery attacks allowed.” Richelieu might also get a special for “no penalty for Ahead Main Gunnery attacks,” I suppose.

      There you go – pretty simple, really, and you’d add some fun positional advantages and disadvantages to your War at Sea games. You could force your opponent to choose between moving toward the objective or guarding against having his T crossed, for example. However, be careful, since this makes Initiative really important. Whoever moves second gets a big advantage by being able to see exactly where enemy arcs of fire lie and moving accordingly. And submarines suffer from their non-broadside attacks.

      Here’s another one: Delayed Torpedo Resolution. Our initial design wanted to make a stronger distinction between gunnery attacks and torpedo attacks for surface ships but really punished destroyers, so we relented in the errata and reprint and moved destroyer torpedo attacks to the same phase as their gunnery attacks. But torpedoes really should have run times of 5 to 10 minutes even at pretty close ranges, which is pretty close to about one game turn. So here is an alternative I wish I had thought of at the time: To simulate the run time of a torpedo attack, when you make a Torpedo attack against a unit, don’t roll the attack on the turn your unit fires its torpedoes. Resolve the attack on the following turn. Here’s how this would work:

      ·        When a unit fires Torpedoes at another unit, place a Torpedo Attack chit on the target unit.

      ·        Roll a d6 for each Torpedo Attack chit on the board at the end of the Movement Phase.

      ·        Torpedo Attack chits “hit” on a roll of 5 or 6. However, a unit can degrade a Torpedo Attack to “hit” only on a 6 by choosing to evade torpedoes instead of moving in the Movement Phase. You could indicate this at the moment the ship evades by flipping the chit to a “degraded” side.

      ·        Units evading torpedoes do not move. They remain in their hex. (If you use facing, too, the unit must change facing by 2 or 3 hexsides to evade.)

      ·        Torpedo damage could be randomized—say, 1 to 3 points normally, or 1 to 4 points for a Long Lance attack. It bugs me that destroyers are always killed by torpedoes even though they often survived being torpedoed.

      This doesn’t really change the timing of torpedo attacks from surface ships—when you fire the torpedo, it’s on its way, and if you’re blown up in the current Attack Phase, you still get to roll your dice next turn from beyond the grave. This does weaken torpedoes a little bit in that a torpedo attack in Turn X doesn’t affect the claiming of objectives in Turn X, but instead in Turn Y. But it makes torpedo attacks much stronger in that they’re much more likely to hit unless the targets choose not to move. Many times in real battles ships turned away from real or imagined torpedo attacks, and this rule creates that behavior in the game.

      Both these systems are all about increasing the simulation value of War at Sea. Whether or not they’re worth the added complexity, well, that’s up to you. But if you’re inclined to tinker under the hood with your War at Sea game, maybe these will spark some ideas for you.

    • AzraelA

      Strategic warfare alt was rules

      Miniatures Scenarios
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      AzraelA

      The contest poll is up if you like my alt rule idea support azrael’s strategic warfare http://aaminis.myfastforum.org/about36958.html

    • AzraelA

      Order of Battle 2.0 (WAS)

      Miniatures Scenarios
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      AzraelA

      modified the OP this is the revised version the original needed some tinkering.

    • AzraelA

      Why you should play WAS/AAM/A20

      War at Sea
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      E

      I second this thread.  I first got involved in the board games back in my college days.  I then purchased and played several of the variants over the years, though they’ve printed so many variants that I can hardly keep up.  I then saw the Naval Miniatures in the store a few years back and after researching them, decided to buy into the game.  I haven’t regretted it at all.  Much of it comes down to your situation in life and taste in gaming.  My mind is probably more geared toward the strategical complexity of the board games.  On the other hand, the time I actually have to play is more appropriate for the miniatures games.

      If you’re at all interested in the intricacies of history, and many A&A players either start off so or quickly become so, then the miniatures are a great way to get enhance your historical appreciation.

    • AzraelA

      War at Sea , shapeways/repaints (edit have better camera)

      Miniatures Painting & Modeling
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      AzraelA


      CV Sparviero (awaiting deck decals)


      HMS Roberts


      akitsu maru (awaiting deck decals)


      T-2 Tanker

    • AzraelA

      WAS tournament Waterloo Ontario Canada at JBC games

      Events
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      AzraelA

      Date change, I don’t forsee any outside visitors but what the heck it would be interesting if we can draw any.

    • AzraelA

      The invasion of Norway a WAS scenario

      War at Sea
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      AzraelA

      This is a work in progress and abstract in some terms ( historically) for the sake of gameplay this might be able to be revised to do a malta type battle as well.

      There is 2 player sides UK vs Germany as well as a neutral Norway that will come into play.  The UK and Germany will each have 200 pts they must select those 200 pts from the Battle of narvik (1 and 2) as well as the ships involved in the operation.  Some units such as air can be selected as long as the air year limit matches (1940 and older).

      This is my fragmented OOB (a more complete one would be useful)

      Germany

      14dd’s, 6 cruisers, pocket BB, 2 BB’s
      including
      Karl Galster
      Hans Lüdemann
      Gneisenau
      Scharnhorst
      deutchland?
      karlsruhe, blucher
      U-64
      u25
      u46
      u48
      u51

      UK

      Warspite
      Renown
      sub truant
      Glowworm
      4x tribal (cossack)
      Aircraft carrier furious CVE
      swordfish
      x 5 DD hotspur and hardy

      Norway

      Eidsvold and norge each represented by a Vainomenen proxy.

      and a oscarborg fortress proxy/unit if you can put one together.

      If you want to use other norwegian units (there were some DD’s used) you may do so but deploy them similarly and spread them out the same.

      The norwegian BB’s deploy in the center of the map evenly spread out they don’t move and each player can fire them at the opposing fleet once per turn (like how you would normally control a ships guns).

      The UK fleet starting point is on the square A1 and the Germany starting point is on the square G1 (yes the same side of the map!) the fleets don’t deploy there but use those squares as the first point of movement when moving there ships on the first turn and placing them on the map.

      If you use an oscarborg deploy it on the other side of the map on D11.

      The object of the game is to get your ships to the other side of the map which represents the land areas of Norway that you are trying to invade.  Just like how each german warship carried troops for the invasion each ship both UK and german upon reaching the square row 11 (the last water row on the map) may instead of moving declare that they are deploying there invasion forces for a total of 20 victory points per ship doing so.  The nation that has the most victory points occupies Norway and wins the match.

      Because of the deployment the 2 sides will be fighting each other while racing to get to norway first to occupy it and will come across the norwegian fleet that each of them will be able to use (the weapons on them) to attack the other, it should make for some interesting dynamics and hopefully a good game.

    • AzraelA

      Fleet auxiliary scenario (WAS)

      Miniatures Scenarios
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      AzraelA

      Yeah im trying to get the effects added to a Malta naval base card for the next team poseidon set.  Giving a boost to aux’s would be good for the game.

    • AzraelA

      Looking to buy WAS mini's(+A&A 50th anniversary)

      Marketplace
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      hkytown1H

      After Pacifcon I may have some of those pieces azrael…I let you know after labor day, I’ll try to grab you a spare AA50 if I see one also… :wink:

    • AzraelA

      Best WW2 Pacific theater game?

      Other Games
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      CrowninshieldC

      PT - 109

    • AzraelA

      Team poseidon forum mini expansion

      War at Sea
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      hkytown1H

      Yea, WAS has been my vice lately.    It’s an exciting time to be a fan of axis and allies.

    • AzraelA

      How long does it take to play europe?

      Axis & Allies Europe 1940
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      D

      I usually figure half and hour to an hour per round as long as players have a concrete idea of what they want to accomplish and plan during other people’s turns.  So, the fastest game of Europe I have had so far was this last weekend, at 4.5 hours and 5 rounds.

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