Alpha+.2

[Percy0715]

Bombing Gibraltar as Germany OR Italy now shuts down Gibraltar on the US turn, eliminating their ability to get deep into the Med with transports, or up to W/Germany, Denmark, or Norway.

There arent very many other times to bomb a facility, Egypt has been bombed once or twice just as an economy sink for UK. As well as everything is India. A solid SBR campaign against India, combined with a sub or tow, can shut that economy down utterly.

I rarely see the allies bomb ports and airbases though. Actualy, almost never. And I think the reason is they want to get their hands on them intact so they can use them, another reason is there is really no tactical reason to.

The allies simply use these bases more, to more of an effect. So at least the axis doing it has some negligable use.

Might be useful to take out the NB in Hawaii, if you're Japan.

We've discussed this in another thread. I think the solution is as simple as moving the repair phase to the beginning of the mobilize phase. The affected power would not be able to use his/her bases for movement during his/her turn, but would not be crippled (think Italy, UK, Japan) by not being able to place units, since he/she would be allowed to place them in a newly repaired factory.

[WILD BILL]

Maybe we are looking at this wrong. If the repair was moved to the beginning of the mob phase, you could essentially shut down a targeted base each round through SBR (rendering it totally useless for movement) is that what we want. SBR even in the old system (before ftr/escorts) was a tool to cost the enemy ipc's, and limit new units. As the attacker you now have the option to cost them even more ipc's (attack secondary targets in a tt) once you get through the dog fight and you have the extra fire power. You can send up your escorts/brmrs (and tac's when there are also bases in the targeted tt), so the enemy may not even scramble his interceptors because you could have air superiority. Yeah any secondary target would expose you to an AA gun, but AA guns have always been part of SBR (I like that there are no free-bee's because someone moved his AA gun out).

You can still shut down bases so his allies can't use them for movement or repair because of turn order (as oz pointed out), or so your allies can attack fleet w/o air cover in regards to AB. If you SBR multiple facilities in the same tt it will cost the enemy more ipc's, but at a higher risk to you. I tend to go into SBR with excess bmr/tacs to make sure I will get through, so in most cases I can split my forces after the dog fight. If you have an enemy on the ropes they will have to choose between repairing their bases or repairing the IC to mob units. The bad part is that you will most likely have to repair stuff yourself if you take control, but I'm a believer that any facility that turns over should have some kind of damage regardless of SBR.

Edit: If the repair phase was moved I think I would lobby to move it to the beginning of the NCM. With this you couldn't use extra movement to attack, but could use it to repair your ships (if they started at port I guess?) then move them 3 spaces only in NCM. That way your damaged ships are not stuck at port round after round. I would be ok w/limiting +1 movement (in combat), but if you move repair to the beginning of the mob phase you are essentially not allowing the enemy to move his damaged ships if he wants to repair them.

If the repair phase is moved to either the beginning of NCM, or mob (later in the turn sequence) you still have the thought of if I attack a sz to clear the enemy that happens to be next to a NB that I have owned from the beginning of the turn, do I get to repair my ships in the same turn, or would my ships need to be there when my turn started? This clouds things even more when you consider the ramifications on game play w/o SBR involved (auto fix right after combat would be a step back IMO)

[MarkVIIIMarc]

Moving the repair facilities phase is A GREAT IDEA! Makes it more a strategic choice. I would love to see this installed.

Edit: I would just have the repair take effect in the place units phase.

[aaron91]

I think you could really increase the usefulness of SBRs if you allowed them to actually destroy the things they are bombing. I don't see why an air base or an industrial center cant just be completely leveled.

[Imperious leader]

I say if you want the SBR damage to be repaired so you can use the placement points in the same turn, you should pay double the cost to do that. Otherwise the cost is 1 for 1 damage point. Now it will be possible to bomb a player into bankruptcy, or close to that.

Also get rid of the SBR "bomber +2" thing. Its not clean rules and it looks like an arbitrary fix to model SBR. The problem is to find a way to limit placement by SBR showing that damage can build up and effect production. The most direct way to model this is to make a solution that effects placement somehow, and +2 is very marginal because you could roll a 1 or 2 and you really didn't do anything to effect placement.

[Percy0715]

I say if you want the SBR damage to be repaired so you can use the placement points in the same turn, you should pay double the cost to do that. Otherwise the cost is 1 for 1 damage point. Now it will be possible to bomb a player into bankruptcy, or close to that.

Also get rid of the SBR "bomber +2" thing. Its not clean rules and it looks like an arbitrary fix to model SBR. The problem is to find a way to limit placement by SBR showing that damage can build up and effect production. The most direct way to model this is to make a solution that effects placement somehow, and +2 is very marginal because you could roll a 1 or 2 and you really didn't do anything to effect placement.

I'm liking this idea. But, would it affect the UK too greatly in London?

[JamesAleman]

Regarding base bombings.

I suggest a compromise that both permits the game to play as it has, and also permits players to utilize base bombings as an effective tool.

It is slightly more complicated, but I propose a two tier repair structure:
The owner has a choice, pay more to use it this turn as normal for combat moves, or pay less to repair it cheaply for non-combat moves.

Since it takes 3 damage to knock it out and the cap is 6, the most you will have to pay at anyone time to use a base is up to 4 points to make it operable. Example, if a facility has 6 points of damage, and you repair only 4 points, then the facility still functions while it has 2 damage remaining. If on the low side, it has 3 damage points, the most you have to repair is 1 to bring it to operable status since 2 damage does not prevent it from working. So if you follow me, the range of repayment to just "use" the base this turn is going to be from 1-4 points of repair. (By not repairing it fully, you are limiting the damage it can receive next turn to 1-4 points, so there is little use in full repair).

Proposal:
To use the base during Combat Move operations:
Tier 1 repair cost would be 4 IPCs for a typical max cost of 4 damage @ 4 IPCs = 16 IPCs. The minimum repair cost would be 1 damage @ 4 IPCs = 4 IPCs. In essence we will see $4, $8, $12, or $16 IPC costs to utilize the factory repair (during its normal repair phase) in order to use the base for combat moves.

To use the base during Non-Combat Move operations:
Tier 2 repair cost would be 1 IPCs for a typical max cost of 4 damage @ 1 IPCs = 4 IPCs. The minimum repair cost would be 1 damage @ 1 IPCs = 1 IPCs. In essence we will see $1, $2, $3, or $4 IPC costs to utilize the factory repair (during its normal repair phase) in order to use the base for non-combat moves.

Note: If 4 IPCs is deemed too excessive, alternatively you can use 3 IPCs or 2 IPCs.
Examples:
$3,$6,$9,$12 @ 3 IPC per damage for Combat Move Phase use.
or
$2,$4,$6, $8 @ 2 IPC per damage for Combat Move Phase use.

I feel 4 IPC per point is useful as it will take either sustained bomber efforts to max out the damage at 6, or very lucky dice to keep the base at 6 damage tokens. In other words, with just 1 bomber you are likely to only need to repair 2-3 points to use the base, but if that 1 bomber hits it round after round or they use more than 1 bomber/tactical bomber, then you might see the max of 4 points needed.

[turner]

Larry has been awfully quiet lately.

Larry are you there?

Any thoughts on Alpha +.2 yet?

Are you busy making new Italian Navy Sculpts?

Is your house completely buried by snow and you are still digging out?

Are you looking for those swedish office girls?

Help! Larry dropped the new Italian Navy Sculpts in the snow and is trying to dig them out with the help of the Swedish office girls!!!