I was only allowed to post 2 pics so Rommel comes here
Posts made by Razor
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RE: Generals for AA games
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RE: Generals for AA games
I am intrigued about the idea to have a Commander unit, a tiny plastic Rommel on the map, chancing the outcome of a battle. I know it has been tried in A&A lookalike games like http://ww2wargame.com/ and http://thewargame.com/ and many more.
Many of the Commander house rules are far to complex, and don’t fit the KISS level that Axis & Allies represent in game terms. The best suggestion I have seen so far, is a Commander that re roll misses. Germany attack Moscow with a huge stack of 30 infantry, 10 artillery, 8 tanks and 2 bombers, all under command of a plastic Rommel. He roll 20 hits and 30 misses, so the Rommel figure must re roll the 30 misses, and get 5 more hits. Of course Rommel must re roll in every round of combat. The benefit of this simple system is a faster combat resolving. Of course we must assume that the defenders of Moscow are lead by Zhukov, so this battle is fair. Both sides get re rolls, as long they got a Commander.
I am not sure if a Commander unit can be purchased for a certain cost, and what should that cost be ?, or is something you get for free if you win a battle, in which case the map will soon be covered with leaders, or should each nation get a set number of leaders, like the WiF hex and counter game.
I think a good idea will be if Germany start with like 4 Generals, and Sovjet start with 1 leader. After all, the military education of officers in Germany was the cutting edge in the world. They had more skilled leaders than the rest of the world combined. And in Sovjet had Stalin purged and killed more than half of the officers in the Red Army just before WWII started, and only Zhukov survived of the skilled leaders, because he worked in the Sovjet Far East at the time of the purges, far away from Moscow and Stalin. There are no doubt that Russia did some poor dice rolling in the attack on Eastern Poland, Finland and the Baltic states, and more poor dice rolling when they got attacked by Germany. Actually, in the Red Army of 1939, the General was not in charge, but had to listen to the political commie commissar and the union leader of the privates, and that explains a lot of the poor effort and no re rolling of dice early in the war in the Europe theater. Meanwhile, general Zhukov did beat the Japanese in the battle of Khalkin gol in Manchuria 1939, so obviously there was a lot of re rolling there
For balancing, I suggest the combined total of leader disbursement must be equal among the Axis and Allies players.
Germany start with 4 leaders, Japan 1, Sovjet with 1, UK 2 and USA 2, since this will model the real world most historically correct.
Maybe they can play the game with that, because if they get more generals every turn, the game will no longer be A&A but the Commanders gameOh, and attached are pics of the leaders from the Struggle, the Wargame, and a plastic Rommel that I want HBG to make me
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RE: ICs on islands.
Why is there the rule that industrial complexes cannot be built on islands, even if the island meets the IPC requirements? You should at least be allowed to build minor ICs on islands.
I used to follow the alpha discussion on the designers message board when this game was made, and you cant build factories on islands because of balance. The designer want you to ship all your infantry from USA, and not pop up on any island, except Japan, Britain, Australia and New Zealand, which is too big to be islands. The same with China, no factories there too, and that is because again the designer in this case did want to see infantry pop up in any territory without factories. On the bright side, the designer gave Norway a value of 3 IPC and the possibility for a major IC, even if the real world Norway was then, and still is, a cold mountain range inhabited by 3 million hillbillies with no railroad nor industry what so ever. And that too is because of game balance. So get the clue here and start looking at AA as a game and not a historic simulation
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RE: Best spot for US to land?
…Well, Germany will have easy access to Sweden and Turkey if you attack Spain.
OK, so Germany get a one time disbursement of 6 Swedish and 8 Turkish infantry. But USA get something better, they get Spain.
As you know only amateurs talk tactics, the professionals talk supply. Of course, if you play against a kid and Germany is free of units, you can use tactic and take Denmark with US and next UK will sail into Baltic and land one inf in Germany and game over. But in 99 % of the time, a game is won by the guy that can shuck a big stack of infantry the fastest way to the enemy capital. Its all about speed, tempo, momentum, effectiveness etc.
The map is designed so a tranny with inf need two turns from USA to UK or France, but only one turn to Spain. Now that is half the time, and you need half the trannies to move a unit into Europe. Same with fighters, they land in Spain in one turn, but need two turns for UK or France. And when in Spain, a tank reach Italy the next turn. There are no other routes on the map that shuck US units to Berlin and Rome as fast as the Spanish highway.
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RE: Russia escalates things
But if Russia and EU sign a deal, Crimea will accept it.
The deal would be that Ukraine enters EU, but not NATO. If the deal is broken by Ukraine entering NATO, Crimea should have the option to leave Ukraine.
I live in Europe and my impression is that EU don’t want poor states like Ukraine and Turkey to join the union. We have enough problems with the Eastern Europe and Balkan states, and some of the rich countries like Schwitzerland and Britain want to bail out already. I was told that EU offered Ukraine a poor trade agreement, and Russia offered a good trade agreement, and the Ukraine leaders choose the Russian deal. Then a very few people, less then 1 % of the population, start a riot and overthrow the president. And this is the situation today. Russian forces moved into Crimea to protect their military bases and the ethnic Russian population there, and the neo Nazi party of Western Ukraine want NATO to liberate them and later get member of the EU, so they get rich and don’t have to work in the grain fields no more, but can sit home and get welfare benefits from rich EU. Now it all depends what the clown Obama can do
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RE: FINLAND
found the answer… neutral status pervents Russia from attacking
Now that was gamey even if the Rulebook says so. Nothing prevented Russia from attacking neutral Poland, Finland, Latvia, Estland, Lithuania and Persia in 1939, so I figure the rules are derogatory. I guess it would be a more fun game if Russia did not have status as neutral, and could be allowed to attack any one from turn 1. Actually Russia was allied with Germany from day 1 in the real war, and did actually attack a long list of minors. We need to make a houserule, because its too crazy that Germany can empty all territories adjacent to Russia because they know that Russia cant attack before turn 4. In the real war Germany had no guarantees for that, so why should they get it in this game, uh…
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RE: FINLAND
@wittmann:
I like to pile a few units into China after declaring war on Japan. I find that allieviates the war monger in me.
And how exact are you able to move into China when you are playing on the Europe map only ….uh.
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RE: Best spot for US to land?
I figure that the ultimate spot for US to land is true neutral Spain.
Get reinforced by UK, then build a naval base next turn. Now you can chuck units from USA to Europa in one turn, so you don’t need many trannies. And with airbases in both Spain and Portugal, you can scramble 6 fighters into seazone 91 and don’t need to spend money on a lot of warships for protection. Since Spain is adjacent to 5 different seazones the 30 IPC you will spend on airbase and port is put to good use. Maybe build a minor IC too.
From seazone 91 you can reach everything north to Norway and east to Italy, and from sz 92 every territory adjacent to the Mediterranean sea. From Spain your army will easily liberate France, threaten both Berlin and Rome, and for sure deny Italy 15 IPC worth of NOs.
the only but is that every other true neutral in the world will turn against you, and join the Axis evil cause. But don’t worry. South America is easily taken, the 8 infantry in Turkey are far away, and UK can block the sz 125 convoy, take Sweden and deny Germany the 5 IPC NO.
Based on this facts, I will say that Spain is a strong strategically spot for further US operations, if you want to win the game
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RE: Russia escalates things
If the White house was run by McCain and Palin today then Russia would never dare this, so I blame this on the americans
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RE: Russia escalates things
Then its time to ask, what would we have done in the Ukraine with a MK 2 ……\
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RE: War with the True Neutrals.
I agree well said Razor.�  I think the mechanic for true neutrals is there to provide a consequence to attacking one.�  Not necessarily historical.
I like your idea of breaking up Turkey into two territories and having it border Bulgaria.
Yes its obvious that the true neutral rule is designed that way to keep players from attacking them. But I would rather give Spain, Sweden and Turkey a much stronger army so they could defend themselves, without dragging neutral South America into the war. Based on the numbers of units that France and Italy start with, I figure that Spain should get at least 10 infantry, and maybe even a tank and a fighter. That would be a bigger discourage than the possibility of getting neutral Chile against you.
Yes, when considering the size of the countries both Spain, Sweden and Turkey should be cut in two territories, Turkey maybe three. Maybe in next edition
Spain is also adjacent to 5 different seazones, so an airbase or port here will unbalance the game, so there is no doubt that Spain need to be cut in more territories, if only just for balace
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RE: The Great War 1914-1918: Clash of Empires
@Imperious:
Go make one and use the images i have provided. One reason is we don’t have a firm date and BGG is full of games that didn’t get released when they said they would.
Right, BGG is packed with game designers that don’t commit
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RE: War with the True Neutrals.
Its too bad that Bulgaria doesn’t touch Turkey like Razor said it did.� Â
It is my atlas that says Bulgaria is adjacent to Turkey. Just look at google maps, I bet they are still adjacent, even today. I figure the designer made the A&A map with Greece between Bulgaria and Turkey just to add one more space between Germany and the Middle East oil, even if it is historically wrong. I wish he had split Turkey in two territories instead, that would have been more smooth. But with that said, I still love A&A.
I also think the true neutral mechanic, where all other true neutrals join the war if another true neutral is attacked, is far away from how neutrals act in the real world. Neutrals is exactly that because they don’t care. Why didn’t the true neutrals in South America declare war against Germany when they attacked neutral Tzcechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark, Norway etc etc, why would they wait until Germany attacked neutral Sweden …uh…
I believe the current rule act opposite of how the real world neutrals would. All history show that minor neutrals will join the stronger part, not the weak. When neutral Finland was attacked by Russia, neutral Sweden did not go to war against Russia, on the contrary Sweden would help Russia with the blockade and weapons embargo against Finland. And when Germany attacked neutral Denmark and Norway, then Sweden would not go to war against Germany, but help Germany, sell them high grade steel, and let them use the Swedish railroad. And when Germany lost the war, then neutral Sweden would again help and support Russia. And Swedes, Finns, Danes and Norwegians are brothers, and used to be united. So threat are stronger than blood. Even true neutrals like Brazil and Turkey would declare war against Germany in 1945, just to join the winning side, and be allowed to plunder the loser. That is how real world works.
So I guess the rule should be, that if you attack a true neutral, then nothing happens.
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RE: HBG - Axis & Allies Parts/Accessories and Custom Piece Sets Store!
Of course you have them, IL, and you are correct as always when it comes to plastic, but how do you use them in the game
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RE: HBG - Axis & Allies Parts/Accessories and Custom Piece Sets Store!
@ Variable. I think it would be cool to not just have military leaders but also political leaders. It would be fun to blow up a Hitler token on the board. Or take out Stalin while bombing Moscow.
I think Roco already made the political leaders you ask for, only in metal and not plastic
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RE: HBG - Axis & Allies Parts/Accessories and Custom Piece Sets Store!
Paper token Leaders already exist in this game http://ww2wargame.com but they don’t come cheap, man
Real A&A is plastic units.
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RE: HBG - Axis & Allies Parts/Accessories and Custom Piece Sets Store!
@HBG, Have you guys ever considered making markers for leaders and generals? Like a token with a picture of Patton or Rommel ETC. I would imagine these would be a fun item to have in your arsenal.
We have kicked this one around before. I think there may even be some artwork started somewhere. You thinking we need a set? Who would you want to see in it?
I want each of the 8 major powers to get a nation specific leader plastic sculpt.
Rommel, Montgomery, Zhukov, Patton, etc etc
Here is a pic of the Rommel sculpt that FMG never finished, just to show what I am talking about
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RE: War with the True Neutrals.
Anybody that have an opinion about when is the best time to attack the true neutrals….
I figure that if you attack Spain and Sweden in turn 2, then you can close Gibraltar faster, possible by an Italian mech in turn 2, and the airforce you used to take Spain can be used to take Turkey too, if you land them in Northern Italy. But the benefit with a turn 3 attack, is the surprise. And if you have suffered great losses so far, you can call of the attack and play safe.
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RE: In GENERALS !
@suprise:
I know he was not a General, but Yamamoto was one of the best with his invasion plan of Hawaii.
Great thread.Yes, he could have been one of the best if he actually had an invasion plan of Hawaii, but he did not because of lack of trannies. He just had a plan to sink some old obsolete battleships, and he even failed in doing that. Now if he had at least bombed and destroyed the harbor facilities and the huge oil depot, then USA would get one year set back, and the war would end in 1946 and not in 45, but it was no honor in that, so he would go for the old useless battleships. Poor strategy