NWB 12/31/2001: Invasion: America Rules interpretations, information, clarifications & Errata ... and a Justification Portions of this document Copyright 2001 by Gary Christiansen and Copyright 2001 by Chris Fawcett. General: These are observed issues, which have been raised during recent games. This is not an 'Official' errata as published by SPI. The Map: (Commentary) It is evident some "oddities" exist in the Map, however any real changes to it would alter play balance. So the absence of Miami and San Diego while noticeable are to be considered justified in the 'alternate history', something such as San Diego was nuked out of existence so even the port is gone, and riots or fires in Miami reduced it to rubble. (Errata) Hex 2715 on the heavy stock paper, should be Rough, not urban. (If you look, the hex is not colored in as round, and is not a named city as all other urban hexes are. A close look at one of the hard backed boards printed later shows the hex as Rough) (Clarification) Hex 3145 has just enough forest to be a forest hex. Rules: [3.0] (Information) Units inventory (count graciously provided by Skip Franklin): One of the SAU infantry counters in the original publication had a misprint on the untried side, showing "2010" instead of "2?10" as it should have. The tried strength was 2-10. SAU # units Armor 6-10 4 4-10 4 2-10 2 Mechanized Infantry 5-10 5 3-10 8 1-10 3 Infantry 3-10 9 2-10 5 1-10 4 CAS 3/4-3 4 3/2-3 4 LRB 6/6-3 2 6/4-3 2 Transports (4) 4 Amphibious 8 3 Supply (4) 3 Total 66 ESC # units Armor 10-6 3 8-6 6 4-6 3 Mechanized 8-6 4 5-6 8 3-6 4 Infantry 6-8 6 4-8 10 2-8 4 Hovercraft 3-5 6 CAS 4/4-4 5 4/2-4 5 LRB 6/7-4 3 6/5-4 3 Transports (6) 6 Amphibious 12 3 CV 6-6 6 Supply (6) 4 Total 89 PAL # units Mechanized 5-6 5 4-6 5 3-6 2 Shock 20-4 4 Infantry 8-6 8 5-6 8 2-6 4 Hovercraft 3-5 3 CAS 4/4-6 4 4/2-6 4 LRB 6/6-6 2 6/4-6 2 Transports (6) 6 Amphibious 12 3 CV 8-6 3 Supply (6) 3 Total 66 USA # units Armor 4-8 6 6-8 8 8-8 4 Mechanized 3-8 8 5-8 8 7-8 5 Infantry 2-8 5 3-8 12 4-8 5 Militia 0-4 8 1-4 8 2-4 16 3-4 8 CAS 3/3-4 6 3/5-4 6 LRB 10/6-4 8 10/10-4 8 Railroad RR-60 4 Total 133 Canada # units Armor 4-8 2 6-8 4 Mechanized 3-8 3 5-8 3 7-8 2 Infantry 2-8 2 3-8 4 4-8 2 Militia 0-4 2 1-4 2 2-4 4 3-4 2 CAS 3/3-4 2 3/5-4 2 Railroad RR-60 2 Total 38 Additional units: Game-Turn marker 4 SAU blanks 2 Canadian blanks 1 ESC blank [4.2] (Errata/Clarification) Supply units, considered land units in all other senses, load or unload from Amphibious units only during the Naval Movement Phase. Loading for other land units occurs during their respective movement phases. [7.2] (Clarification) Supply units are loaded or unloaded during the Naval Movement Phase and taking the entire naval phase for the Amphibious unit to load or unload. This does make them useful the turn they've unloaded. [7.22] (Clarification) Naval units cannot go into a coastal hex containing enemy units, except for Amphibious Assaults (see 5.23). Supply units cannot be on an Amphibious unit conducting an Amphibious Assault. This includes Amphibious Assaults of empty beach hexes. An Amphibious unit may stack with another Amphibious unit conducting an Amphibious Assault if the hex has no enemy units, though it may not unload. Even an empty beach hex must be invaded before a supply unit can be unloaded on it. The Aggressor must control the beach hex before a supply unit can be unloaded. An Amphibious unit could carry other units and unload them the same turn as the Supply unit, within the requirement the hex be controlled by the owner of the units. [13.3] (Clarification) Terrain effects are completely negated for combat by the use of supporting air units. (see 14.16). [14.16] (Clarification) The negation of defensive terrain effects includes the Beach Hex multipliers. This does contradict 15.13 which says the defenders always get the benefit of the multiplier even if combined, but from context it seems apparent 15.13's intent is to provide for other supporting adjacent ground units. (Commentary) This will only affect anything if the US player has neglected to provide air cover from out of range of air superiority attack. [14.42] (Clarification) Air units suffer all Combat Results as any other units, including retreats, whether attacking or defending. [14.5] (Justification/Commentary - Gary Christiansen) Most contentious of the Invasion America rules is the Air Superiority rule preventing use of air power unless all LRB and CV units of the enemy force in range of the defending hex are attacked first. This is not a simple matter because the range of US LRB units is 10 and are able to reach the Aggressor nation's air units, while the Aggressors range is limited to 6, permitting the US air to remain out of range to simply prevent the use of Aggressor air in ground support. It gives an erroneous appearance Aggressor air power is useless. One proposal to give the rule more basis in "reality" involves any additional attacks on those LRB & CV units in range of the attacked hex occur at the attacked hex, since this would represent contesting the air superiority where the dogfights would occur. This idea is not supported by the rules, and may unbalance play since for the purpose of air attacks on enemy air units it effectively extends the range of all LRB and CV units to 16 hexes. In looking at rule 14.16, without the Air Superiority mechanism the beach hexes cannot sustain their increased defense strength to protect the beach. The US forces become far more brittle with Aggressor air support negating front line terrain benefits. Aggressors need the air units to cover their front line to prevent the terrain from being negated as well. Once either side ceases to have their front line covered to prevent enemy air support from taking away defensive terrain multiples, the line can be attacked far more easily, though by no means is a defense without air cover impossible. The rules as they stand work properly for game balance and play reasonably well as a game mechanic. The sudden negation of terrain effects by ground support causes a serious impact on defensive play for either side in the game. The US player will spend the early part of the game trying to crack the Air Support of the Aggressors while trying not to give up too much ground. This is a difficult task for the US player to accomplish, and gives a lot of benefit to the Aggressors for having air power at all. Complaints about the Air Superiority rule seem to come from a (aggressive) desire to fling units that are more suited to providing a protective defensive umbrella to the ground forces into offensive battle. This implies the term LRB (Long Range Bomber) is a misnomer. These units do not represent B1 and B52 bombers as the name implies, but more, including fighter resources. CAS (Close Air Support) units are basically the helicopter gunships and short-range tactical bombers like the A-10 or perhaps the Harrier loaded just for ground support. The air defenses over the front would be sufficient to impose a serious barrier to such assets if not significantly supressed. The actual function of LRB units is Strategic Air Assets (to take a broad swipe at explaining the multipurpose of these units). Air Superiority is provided by preventing them from being able to deliver interception over the target hex, though not by beating them in dogfights at the target hex. To do this, any interception force has to be diverted to concentrate elsewhere. Air escort and protection through dogfights over the target hex doesn't necessarily guarantee all defenses will be suppressed. This is a 'justification' for a game mechanic necessary for play balance. This is not a rules change or any intent to dismiss 'reality' concerns! [15.13] (Errata) Air support negates the beach hex multiplier, support from other adjacent ground units does not. (Commentary) This will only affect anything if the US player has neglected to provide air cover from units sitting out of range of air superiority attacks. [15.15] (Clarification) Even landing on an unoccupied beach hex is an Amphibious Assault. [19} (Clarification) See 18.31, the Aggressors always set up first. [19] (Errata) Scenarios suffer from a problem with victory point totals. There are only 376 VPs total to the map, yet Scenario II and III call for the US to retain 400 points, rendering a US victory impossible. Following reflects adjustments based on Chris Fawcett's analysis of the distribution of VPs assuming the original basis was to have been 450 VPs total in the game. (Chris's excellent commentary included at the end of this file) This sets VP for all scenarios more fitting to those available actually on the map. [19.16] (Errata) Victory Point requirements: 282 [19.26] (Errata) Victory Point requirements: 339 [19.36] (Errata) Victory Point requirements: 339 [19.46] (Errata) Victory Point requirements: 207 [19.56] (Errata) Victory Point requirements: 76 [19.66] (Errata) Victory Point requirements: 38 Chris Fawcett's VP analysis for Invasion America: I think the VP values of the hexes got adjusted late in development, and the changes didn't make it to the scenarios. The solution I came up with was to estimate what the designer (JFD) may have had in mind for acceptable territorial loss levels that the US might accept and still claim "victory." I then applied these levels to the actual number of VPs on the map (US/CAN/CAA only), and revised the victory levels accordingly. Here's some new stuff from my overactive brain, concerning the whacked-out victory condition levels for the scenarios. I did a careful count (and recount, and re-recount) of the victory point hexes on the map. Here's what I came up with (by region): Region Supply Urban Resource Point Value Canada 2 2 9 43 CAA/Mexico 0 1 3 12 US-Alaska 0 1 1 6 US-East 7 13 6 92 US-Plains 2 5 17 76 US-West 3 5 9 57 14 27 45 Point Value 70 81 225 376 (5 ea) (3 ea) (5 ea) This number is not consistent with the victory conditions in the scenarios. I don't know what happened, but changes were made somewhere between design and publication, and there are no published errata for the game. I took a look at all of the victory conditions for each of the scenarios, and came up with a revised set of victory conditions that would take into account the true number of victory points available on the map. This is what I came up with: Scenario Old VPs % of Original Adjusted % Revised VPs 3-Pronged Invasion 340 76% 75% 282 Early Assault 400 89% 90% 339 European Invasion 400 89% 90% 339 Inland Campaign 240 53% 55% 207 Inland Campaign II 80 18% 20% 76 Partisan Revolt 50 11% 10% 38 "Old VPs" indicates the number of VPS required for US/Can Player victory in the rules as written. Note that this number often exceeds the number of Victory Points available on the map. "& of Original" gives the percentage of Old VPs as compared to an assumed value of 450 VPs. While this number of VPs (450) is just an assumption of what the total VP count may have been at one point in the game's development, it does work. "Adjusted %" rounds this number to more even values. "Revised VPs" is a calculation of the actual VPs on map (289) multiplied by the Adjusted % value for each scenario.