Why not allow the defender to retreat?  In my FTF games the defender has the option to retreat after the first combat round.  Attacks are always more concentrated because you want to destroy the defender before he retreats.

We’ve tried a breakthrough rule: If the defender is destroyed or retreats after the first combat round then tanks, aircraft, & mech inf can attack again after all other combats have been resolved.

I not quite sure a breakthrough rule would work well in AA50 or AAR for that matter.  It fits better when you play AAP & AAE combined.

Its just been my experience that the defender being able to retreat fits with what I think you’re after just in another way.

A couple of years ago the guys at the Avalon Hill A&A website combined A&A Europe & Pacific and then created scenarios for all the battles.  People fought the battles with the miniatures submitted their results and the results were applied to the board.  This was done every week.  I’m wondering if anybody here participated or has tried to do the same thing?  The guys who organized this mostly explained how they did this but not entirely.  If anybody has tried this how did you do it?  Just wondering cause I want to organize something like this.  Thanks for any feedback.

A couple of years ago the guys at the Avalon Hill A&A website combined A&A Europe & Pacific and then created scenarios for all the battles.  People fought the battles with the miniatures submitted their results and the results were applied to the board.  This was done every week.  I’m wondering if anybody here participated or has tried to do the same thing?  The guys who organized this mostly explained how they did this but not entirely.  If anybody has tried this how did you do it?  Just wondering cause I want to organize something like this.  Thanks for any feedback.

I wanted to study your rules a bit before I commented it’ll be awhile before I can playtest them.  Here are some thoughts though.

I like the setup, especially 1 fighter, 1 bomber for Russia & UK forces in Borneo, New Guinea, and East Indies.

I like the Baltic Sea rule, I have a similiar rule in my house rules.  Did you decide to drop any ideas concerning Gilbraltar & Turkish Straits?

You & I have been talking about SBRs, your escort fighters attack @ 3, interceptors defend @ 4.  I’m sure you’ve come across SBR rules that have the attack & defense values reduced.  The most common one I’ve come across is escort fighters attack @ 1, interceptors defend @ 2.  The people I play with decided to have it escorts attack @ 2, interceptors defend @ 2, bombers dogfight @ 1 before bombing run.  I’m just wondering if you’ve tried it, if not it might help with increasing SBRs.

I like the ‘shipping lanes’ rule how does it play out for you?  It reminds me of something vaguely similiar proposed by a gentleman by the name of Jim Lee.  His post is in these house rules much further back, I’m just not sure how to find it & attach it to this post.  He suggested not using the paper money, place coins on the board for income & a nation had to move the coins to factories to purchase units.  That’s how we’ve been playing up here in the chilly, wet north country.  Anyway, you gotta do some extra planning to get your supply lines & convoys organized and once organized you gotta protect them pretty hard cause any disruption can lead to 1-2 turn setbacks.

We used a dogfight rule like yours, except for the first round strike on grounded aircraft (I don’t think I could sell that part to the other guys).  We decided to drop the dogfighting to streamline the combat round.  Now we use random casualties.  If interested in that let me know.

Your techs are more like National Advantages.  There is nothing wrong with them but I prefer techs that are available to any nation.  Is the Atomic Bomb designed to be a game ender?  If not, then maybe roll 2d6 or 3d6 and the total would be the number of land units destroyed.  However, the defender does have an opportunity to intercept & shoot down the A bomber.  Anyway I like it.

Emperor_Taiki is correct to a point however, the Germans were nowhere near as far as the Americans were with atomic research and the German A Bomb was totally screwed after the heavy water plant in Norway was bombed and what remained of their heavy water was sunk on a ferry in the Baltic Sea by commandos, I’m a little fuzzy on the details, its been awhile since I saw that on the History Channel.

All in all your house rules are nice work. :-)

Let me know how it turns out, I’ll give it a try in my house rules.  Sadly, it will be awhile before I get any games in, gotta work outta town for 6 weeks :-(  But need the money to support my Axis & Allies habit  :-D

Do your heavy bombers add both dice just on SBRs?  I like your line of thought probably better then an ipc bonus to the nation conducting SBRs.

Here is another idea:  For every consecutive SBR after the first a player adds +1 to the die result.  The consecutive SBRs must be against the same nation.  For example, if UK bombs Germany 3 turns in a row on the 4th turn if the UK player bombs Germany again the UK would add +3 to the die result. 1st = 0, 2nd = +1, 3rd = +2, 4th = +3, etc.  I think there would have to be a cap on the bonus, say +4 or +5.  The bonus would be applied to the total die result of the bombers performing the SBR, not the die result for each bomber.  If a nation would choose during its turn not to sustain its bombing campaign then the bonus would reset to zero and the nation would have to start over.

I never do CAP, mostly because I don’t think about it.  The few times I do I don’t want to risk my fighters.  I’ve never seen it done in any games I’ve played.  I do think it could be useful so I’ve thought about adding it again to my house rules but I am striving for simplicity right now.

Germany should have a reasonable chance to stop them or just have Germany cough up 16 ipc as soon as the Allies take NW Europe.  The way you have it set up Germany runs the risk of losing the fighter (10 ipc) just trying to stop it.  It adds up to alot of cash.  Maybe reduce the ipc amount lost 5-8 ipc.  I know that doesn’t seem like much but the amount of money Clint Eastwood & Telly Salvalus (sp  :-() were after was alot for a relatively small bunch of guys but would be maybe 10 ipc at most.  The money represents millions of working man hours not gold reserves.

I’m not trashing your idea, nothing wrong with it.  You could expand this thought to a Commando rule or Commando unit, drop them by bomber or transport to sabotage an enemy factory kinda like a SBR.  Enemy infantry could be the security for the factory and would have a chance to stop the Commando raid, if security fails its roll then Commandos do their sabotage & then retreat.  The Brits did alot of commando raids after Dunkirk just so they could hit back at the Nazis.

Hello Bardoly & Trisdin

I like your idea about bombers rolling an extra dice & picking the better of the two, the same concept is in LHTR for heavy bomber tech & I use it in my house rules for heavy bomber tech.  You’re suggesting it for regular bombers which would work.  Would heavy bombers roll three dice & pick best one of the three?

I would just like to see more SBRs, heck I’m guilty of not doing many SBRs.  Some kind of incentive or reward for conducting certain amount of SBRs.  Maybe a 1 ipc bounty paid to the player for every enemy fighter shot down during an SBR (just throwing out ideas no matter how dumb).  Or possibly 1 ipc paid to a player for every SBR the player performs during the player’s turn.  Reducing the enemie’s production isn’t always enough incentive.

First I want to say that I’m a greenhorn when it comes to forums so I don’t know if I should be responding as a new topic.  Anyway, Trisdin & Upsidedown Turtle I have read both your house rules and I like them, as for playtesting right now I am trying to get my house rules organized, coherent & playtested, however I like both your ideas and if you don’t mind will probably try using some.  Couple of comments, first Nukes are cool but Turtle you are right about implementing them in the game.  The way I see it Nukes is basically a game over thing, if you water down nukes what’s the point of even trying to get them.  I tend to avoid having nukes in my games.  But if you’re striving for the historical feel gotta have nukes.

As for destroyers doing shore bombardment, I agree with Turtle, why not?  During D-Day there was an American destroyer that came in very close to shore to provide desperately needed fire support at Omaha Beach.  HOWEVER, in my games I don’t allow DD shore bombard simply because I want a little extra incentive to buy battleships & cruisers.

Now for A&A miniatures, its alright but I hate the random crap, I want to buy what I want & in quantities I want.  But I have been buying them.  The other drawback I feel is that the miniature game is extremely dice heavy, this just isn’t the thread for me to get into game mechanics.  What is really cool is the A&A War at Sea miniature game that lets you fight fleet battles.  If you are thinking about miniature wargaming check into Flames of War.

Finally the reason for me posting all this as a new topic is because I have been wondering about players performing SBRs during their games.  I’ve have come across many, many house rules concerning escort/interceptor fighters for SBRs and use it in my house rules.  My question is, do you see more or less SBRs conducted during games when using escort/interceptor rules.  My experience has been SBRs are drastically reduced.  It seems in our games SBRs are resorted to when a player is desperate to slow down the enemy and attempts to do this buy going after income.  The only other time I use it is when I’m attempting to try and knock out the Lutfwaffe.  My opponent caught onto this right away so he wouldn’t challenge me in the air until the SBRs got to painful.  However, due to some bad dice rolls on my part & unbelievable good rolls on his part I suffered heavy casualties, oh the growing pains of the 8th US AirForce.  In short, are there more or less SBRs in your games?  Just wondering, sorry if this was too long  :|