From: Carl Fung Subject: PL/PB/AIW Panzer Leader and Panzerblitz supplemented by The Arab-Israeli Wars rules After purchasing AIW, I read the designer's notes and noted the significant changes to the previous PL/PB systems. These include: 1) Reducing Movement Factors 2) New Indirect Fire system 3) New Overrun rules 4) New Weapons Effectiveness Chart (WEC) 5) New Terrain system 6) Morale rules All of these, in my opinion, enhance game play. The designer's cite the various reasons for creating new or tweaking old rules. 1) Reducing Movement Factors Since one cannot physically overwrite the MF on the counters, I devised a little chart to convert the PL/PB MF into AIW MF. All is does is reduce the PL/PB MF by 2/5. Also included is a conversion for Opportunity Fire, since it is now 1/4 of the new AIW MF. PL | 1 | 3 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 14 | 15 | 16 | AIW | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 9 | 10 | OP |.5 |.5 | 1 | 1 | 1 |1.5|1.5|1.5 | 2 | 2 |2.5 |2.5 |2.5 | 2) New Indirect Fire system As the designers stated it, in the old PL indirect fire rule, it was more beneficial to stack units against indirect fire. This does not happen in war, however. Instead, the total indirect AF would be divided by each defending unit. But to do this, all of the old PL/PB AF for howitzers, guns and mortars need to be lowered. I'll get to this in the WEC. I usually don't include the advanced indirect fire rules of AIW, the Neutralization, Destructive, and Interdiction Fire rules, since I feel that its too bothersome and really doesn't improve game play. 3) New Overrun rules In place of physically placing a unit immediately behind an enemy it just attack, the new rule says that after all the participating overrunning units are adjacent to the defending unit, they all simultaneously expend 2 MF and then conduct the attack, but do not exit behind the enemy unit. The designers stated that the old overrun rule made players place trucks and wagons behind potential overrunned units. 4) New Weapons Effectiveness Chart The improvement of the WEC is, in my opinion, the most valuable of all the rules changes. The new WEC is based on the ability to see and effectively fire on an enemy unit rather than the clunky halving ranges and what not. I had to modify the WEC provided in AIW since sighting was more primitive in World War II. As mentioned before, indirect firing units had to be reduced in firepower to be on par with AIW rules. Medium mortars were not affected, and heavy mortars were reduced by about half. Artillery units, however, were reduced by one quarter. Since AIW makes no distinction between H and (H) type units, I had to make different WECs for each. Also, there is a target type for aircraft, in which I usually assign a DF of 12 to aircraft. Type of Target Type of|Weapon| Armored | Non-Armored | Aircraft |Prox&|Modif | Attack | Type | 1-2 | 3-4 | 5+ | 1-2 | 3-4 | 5+ | 1-2 | 3-4 | 5+ |Sight|DR | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | I | N/A | Norm |1/2X~1| N/A | Norm | N/A | | | DF | A | 2X | Norm |1/2X~6| 1/2X | 1/4X | 1/2X | N/A | | | and | H | Norm | 1/2X | Norm | Norm | 1/2X | LOS/| TEC | OP | M~2 | Norm | 1/2X | 2X | N/A | LOF | | | M~3 | 1/2X | 1/4X | Norm | N/A | | | | (H) | 1/4X | 1/8X | 1/2X | N/A | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | M~2 | 1/2X | Norm | N/A | | | IF | M~3 | 1/4X | 1/4X | N/A |Spot | TEC | | (H)~5| 1/6X | 1/3X | N/A | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- OR | All~7| Norm | N/A | Norm | N/A | N/A | Adj,|Die-2,| | | | | | | | +2MP|+1odd | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CAT | I | Norm | N/A | Norm | N/A | N/A | Adj |Die-2~4 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | I | Norm | N/A | Norm | N/A | N/A | Adj | | Air | A | 2X | N/A | 1/2X | N/A | N/A | Adj | TEC | Support| (H) | 1/8X | N/A | 1/2X | N/A | N/A |OnTop| | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Notes: ~1:Only for infantry with astericks ~2: Medium Mtrs only (76-82mm) ~3: Heavy Mtrs only (107-120mm) ~4: -3 with Engineers ~5: Indirect Fire N/A < 1/4 Range ~6: Germans not 1/2X up to 6 hexes ~7: 'I' type weapons cannot overrun armored units 5) New Terrain system The AIW rules include an interesting feature, hull down positions. This is difficult to imagine in PL and PB with hilltops. I simply made it so that any unit defending adjacent to the forward slope of a hill receives a hull die roll modification of -2. 6) Morale Rules The morale rule prevents every unit to become undispersed after every turn. The morale is given to each side with a letter value, from A to D, A being the best morale (eg. SS) and D the worst (eg. Conscript troops). At the end of the fire phase, a die roll is made and the result is matched with the Morale chart to see if the unit is undispersed. If it does become undispersed, then the unit remains flipped, but loses its dispersed status (made possible by AIW providing "Dispersed" counters). Also worthy of note is that the turn sequence now has the Air Phase first followed by the fire phase (indirect then direct). The Morale Chart is given below: Morale | Inf not in IP | All other and | Level | and Forts | Inf in IP and Fts | -------------------------------------------- A | 1-4 | 1-5 | B | 1-3 | 1-4 | C | 1-2 | 1-3 | D | 1 | 1-2 | All of these rules additions are not necessary for play, but some, like the new WEC, would give a much different and better feel for the game.