Recently there's been some interest in GDW's old _Avalanche_ at 
ConsimWorld, and when I pulled out my copy I found some rules 
clarifications that are not currently at Web Grognards.  In this 
message I'll transcribe some rules questions that I obtained directly 
from GDW and a subsequent message will deal with an article that 
appeared in THE GRENADIER while it was still being published by 
GDW.


ALLIED UNIT IDENTIFICATION CHART

U.S. artillery HQ's are wheel-mobile.

RULE 5, ZONES OF CONTROL

A unit's zone of control extends across impassable terrain hexsides 
such as rivers.

RULE 7, MOVEMENT

When a unit crosses a lateral slope in which both elevations are 
higher than the terrain the unit occupies, the movement cost is the 
sum of a frontal and lateral slope.

RULE 8, COMBAT

Terrain additions to defense are per attack and not per unit.

A unit fired upon in defensive first fire cannot be fired upon in 
subsequent simultaneous fire.

RULE 10, SPECIAL FUNCTION UNITS

A support unit may add its combat factor to a friendly unit for 
defensive first fire even if the support unit itself is not eligible for 
defensive first fire against that unit.

Die roll modifications for combat are determined only from adjacent 
opposing units -- non-adjacent support units do not count.

RULE 11, NAVAL GUNFIRE

A single hex can be shelled by at most two ships, which must be 
stacked together.

Neither friendly artillery nor air points may be added to naval gunfire.

If German artillery fires on stacked ships only one or the other can 
be attacked, not both.

When ships return fire in the Allied artillery segment, only those 
ships which were attacked may fire back.  In this case, there is a +1 
die roll modification if the German artillery is not spotted.  Also, all 
units in the stack are attacked even if only some fired on the ships.

RULE 12, FLAK AND ANTI-AIRCRAFT

Clarification:  Those German flak units without an SFC cannot fire in 
the combat segment after moving adjacent to an enemy unit, and 
can only affect air points used in the same hex.  Those with an SFC 
of "S" cannot fire after moving adjacent to the enemy, can function 
as support units, and affect air points in the same or adjacent 
hexes.  Those with an SFC of "T" can fire after moving adjacent to 
the enemy, cannot function as support units, and affect air points 
only in the same hex.

RULE 14, SUPPLY

Supply is judged for both sides at the beginning of the Allied 
movement seqment of the AM turns.  Unsupplied units are 
resupplied at the beginning of any movement segment in which a 
valid supply line can be traced.

RULE 17, DEMOLITIONS

An engineer unit can create and/or clear more than one demolition 
per turn.

RULE 19, NEW UNITS

If an Allied unit occupies the road German reinforcements are 
scheduled to appear on, the reinforcements must wait a turn and 
apear on the closest road on either side of the scheduled road 
(provided it is unblocked) -- they cannot appear in map edge hexes 
adjacent to the blocked road.

German reinforcements have the option to delay their appearance 
whether or not the scheduled road in blocked.  They can delay two 
turns and appear two roads away, etc.

RULE 25, OPTIONAL, TRANSIT ATTACKS

A transit attack can be conducted on enemy units withdrawing 
completely from a zone of control as well as on units moving 
"through" zones of control.

When a transit attack is conducted, the enemy stack may be fired 
upon in any manner the non-moving player wishes.

RULE 29, OPTIONAL, SCENARIOS

In #2 ("German Units Released from Northern Italy"), the II/55 
artillery battalion should actually be the II/53.  Also, the 3rd Pionier 
bn (3 units) should be added to the units appearing on the Night 
12/13 September turn on the North map.

Continuing from the previous message, I found a photocopy of an 
article that appeared in THE GRENADIER #9:  "Avalanche:  Some 
Considerations" by Winston Hamilton.  I had always been under the 
impression that it was merely a quickie review piece, but now that I 
read it more closely I found that it contained semi-official rules 
addenda.  The relevant parts of the article are copied as follows:


LANDINGS:  When the Allied player lands initially there are certain 
penalties for overstacked partial beach hexes.  For every 
overstacked battalion on the beach subtract one from the die roll 
when firing at that hex with artillery.  Treat partial beach hexes as 
value 1 terrain instead of value 2.  When a combat occurs in an 
overstacked beach hex the Allied player may only have one 
battalion fire (his choice).

BRIDGES:  When constructing bridges both the Americans and 
British may build one per turn.  When destroying enemy bridges you 
must move across the bridge and expend two additional movement 
points to destroy the bridge, with one exception:  engineers may 
destroy enemy bridges by moving adjacent to the bridge and 
expending two additional movement points.

TERRAIN:  This is the hardest problem to face.  Understandably the 
rules state that when a unit or units are in a hex with multiple terrain 
features you will use the lowest elevation.  Considering the 
complexity of this problem will show you why this particular rule was 
written.  However, this game is so beautifully constructed that this 
rule jars the potential and lowers the overall game.  I want to offer a 
different rule that will change this consideration.

Try this for terrain:  The defender is always assumed to be in the 
highest terrain for the purposes of combat.  This little sentence can 
cause a lot of problems as you can see when you view the map (for 
instance, hexes 2534[N], 2422[S], 0320[N], and 3420[S]).  Hex 
2534[N] has a small amount of terrain of one value and the vast 
majority of the hex is another value.  Hex 2422[S] has the same 
problem, three-fold.  Hex 0320[N] has small amounts of high terrain 
with the lower terrain containing the road.  Hex 3420[S] is a hex with 
two levels of terrain, the higher split in half by the lower.  So the 
problems seem to need justifications of the rule when only small, 
roadless amounts of terrain exist at higher elevations.  For instance, 
if a unit has just enough movement points to get to hex 0320[N] but 
not enough to move off the road, how can the higher terrain defense 
value be justified?

If this were an operational game I would not be bothered by these 
considerations.  But Avalanche is a tactical game and movement 
points are much more important.  The rule can be justified by 
applying common sense and a little grease.

1.  If the defender has been in the hex for more than one turn then 
the problem ceases to exist.

2.  If the defender reached the hex with some movement left (even 
a fractional MP), then the problem should not exist.

3.  The rules state that in a hex containing only one building, only 
one company may utilize that building for defense.  Thus, when 
more than one unit occupies a hex with fractional amounts of high 
terrain, only one unit may be considered on the higher terrain.

4.  Except for 3 above, when a unit is attacked, it defends as if it 
were on the most advantageous elevation present in the hex.

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|   Dave Bieksza   |   bieksza@erols.com   |
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"The Net is vast and limitless."
   - Motoko Kusanagi, _Ghost in the Shell_