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War games: Using the reduced side for a different unit type.

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Fri, 09/27/2019 - 16:02
larienna
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The setting is a fictionnal WW2 game

In many war games, certain units have 2 steps. When it receives a hit it gets flipped and when it receives a second hit on the flipped (aka reduced) side, it dies. Later reduced units can be reinforced and flipped back to the original size.

I was thinking if each side could have different units with different stats. Here is an example:

Infantry - Tank: On the reduced side you only have basic infantry, but on the full side you add armors and other vehicles to the lot. When it get's damaged, it reverts back to basic infantry.

Fighter - Bombers: On the reduces side you can have fighters that can defend an area or support adjacent area in offense. On the full side, bombers can now make strategic bombing in adjacent areas.

Other ideas:

Battleship - Carriers OR : Light carrier - Carrier, Heavy cruiser - battleship.

In overall, the goal is to reduce the amount of tokens to play the game. Or have so few types of tokens that all of them are used.

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Fri, 09/27/2019 - 16:22
#1
X3M
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I heared about reduced stats,

I heared about reduced stats, like less accuracy or speed. But never about different types.

I don't really see the logic.
Unless infantry leave a destroyed tank.
Or parachute out of a crashing aircraft.

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Sun, 09/29/2019 - 00:09
#2
larienna
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Maybe I failed to mention

Maybe I failed to mention that the "reduced" unit is included in the "full" strength unit.

So either you have a basic infantry, or infantry supported with armored vehicles. Each side would have different stats, for example to roll less equal on a D6:

Infantry: Att 2, Def 3
Armor: Att: 4, def: 3

In many games, bombardment from plane or ship can only reduce units, in that case it would be explained as "the vehicles got destroyed, but the infantry remains".

Reinforcing a unit will be explainable as sending vehicles to the target unit. It could be possible to swap vehicles between 2 infantry units as non-combat movement ( 1 half and 1 full units: both tokens flip).

One thing that I realized is that I could use only 3 unit types making some sort of semi-abstract game. There would be:

LAND: Infantry -> Infantry with Armor
AIR: Fighter -> Fighter with Bomber
SEA: Battle Fleet -> Battle fleet with Carrier fleet

I could even abstract marines and be part of the naval unit like planes could be part of a carrier. That would allow naval units to capture land spaced by themselves. Naval units might be able to move 2 space by sea. Air units will have the advantage of covering adjacent regions. And land units, maybe they can take advantage of terrain or supplies/support. Not sure.

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Sun, 09/29/2019 - 10:15
#3
X3M
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I do like that idea

You could have different classes of infantry.
Those with an attack of 2, and with an attack of 3.
Adding armor would be +2.
And if the lower class of infantry can give the armor to a higher class of infantry, that would be better for 1 on 1 combats.

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Mon, 09/30/2019 - 15:46
#4
pelle
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I can not think of a game

I can not think of a game that does it quite like that. This thread caught my attention because last week I finally tried to play an old game called Test of Arms. That game makes the most of limited number of counters by printing completely different units on the two sides. It is a nightmare. I came here to tell you not to do that. But then I saw that was not what you had in mind. Good. :)

Can not think of a game that does exactly that thing with changing the type on different side because of losses/reinforcements.

Tactical Combat Series does the opposite. Platoons are destroyed by 5 hits. But even after 4 hits they are not reduced in combat power, because it is assumed that the remaining soldiers will still be manning all the machine-guns and automatic rifles, so they will not have significantly lower firepower even after taking heavy losses (the losses do make it more difficult for them to pass morale rolls though, so in practice they will be very weak in close combat and easier to suppress by fire).

If you knock out an armed vehicle in ASL there is a chance that the crew escapes and becomes a (weak, half-squad size) unit on the game board. There is even a chance with some vehicles that they manage to scavenge a machine-gun from the wreck. But they are printed on their own counters anyway and not on the back of the tank counters.

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Mon, 09/30/2019 - 18:34
#5
let-off studios
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Stacking Simplified Unit Types

larienna wrote:
One thing that I realized is that I could use only 3 unit types making some sort of semi-abstract game. There would be:

LAND: Infantry -> Infantry with Armor
AIR: Fighter -> Fighter with Bomber
SEA: Battle Fleet -> Battle fleet with Carrier fleet

Might you be able to get away with printing only the three different types of tiles, and then stack them on one another to show an upgraded/improved unit? You can simply remove a token/tile from the stack and the unit is then understood to be the basic form of that unit.

Could you then list the vital statistics elsewhere in plain sight of all the players (like on a game board)?

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Mon, 09/30/2019 - 19:30
#6
john smith
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let-off studios

let-off studios wrote:
larienna wrote:
One thing that I realized is that I could use only 3 unit types making some sort of semi-abstract game. There would be:

LAND: Infantry -> Infantry with Armor
AIR: Fighter -> Fighter with Bomber
SEA: Battle Fleet -> Battle fleet with Carrier fleet

Might you be able to get away with printing only the three different types of tiles, and then stack them on one another to show an upgraded/improved unit? You can simply remove a token/tile from the stack and the unit is then understood to be the basic form of that unit.

Could you then list the vital statistics elsewhere in plain sight of all the players (like on a game board)?

That sounds like a good idea. A large Cardstock sheet placed near the board could be referenced by all players

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Tue, 10/01/2019 - 02:50
#7
pelle
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One of the benefits of using

One of the benefits of using cardboard counters is that you can print the information you need right there on the unit , where it is the most convenient to look up.

Even if you stack counters to modify them, very many wargames do that already by printing modifiers on the markers you place on the unit. In some cases this is done to show smaller units being added to a unit, like adding a platoon of tank destroyers to an infantry company. More commonly of course it is about status effects like a unit being pinned. But it works well enough to just print the modifiers on the markers. Better to have to look through a stack of a few counters to sum up values than to have to refer to some card elsewhere on the table.

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Tue, 10/01/2019 - 12:05
#8
larienna
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Quote:Can not think of a game

Quote:
Can not think of a game that does exactly that thing with changing the type on different side because of losses/reinforcements.

Somebody on BGG suggested

https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/125977/cataclysm-second-world-war\

Apparently that game also have submarine and fortification tokens. The rest is non military.

Quote:
You can simply remove a token/tile from the stack and the unit is then understood to be the basic form of that unit.

I understand your idea but it could become messy if multiple units can be present on a tile. And yeas it's easier to have the stats on the token.

The only advantage is that if there is 3 tokens, Instead of 1 weak + 1 full unit, I could consider the unit to have "tank" strength until only 1 token is left to get "infantry" strength. Instead of getting 1 tank and 1 infantry unit.

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Wed, 10/02/2019 - 17:58
#9
john smith
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Ill never understand why

Ill never understand why there is such a massive aversion to glancing at a sheet of paper. Its not at all time consuming even if done multiple times. What is a drag is having to hunch over a table scanning a map for info on a half inch counter.

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Thu, 10/03/2019 - 10:46
#10
larienna
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I think the problem is the

I think the problem is the cross referencing. I know a lot of people dislike cross referencing and try to avoid it at all cost.

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