1.4 Rules suggestions / Questions

after playing a Carrier Battle yesterday we have some suggestions / Questions regarding the Rules.

1. Search phase: we put our Tokens for our Fleets on the Table. Do those tokens move in the move phase or do they have to remain static unless they are pushed by some revealed ships.

2. Search Tokens....are they able to move? what´s the difference between a Search squadron of Carrier AC and a Search token which is generated by a carrier.

3. Why do cruisers and BB´s which historically had Search planes don´t generate Search Tokens?
This will result in more Search points...so a exchange rate for search points to search tokens would be needed but we like the idea that Seaplanes contribute to the search effort.

we felt thatthe whole fleet search schould be played out on a seperate map/table....maybe a simple hexgrid map with the coral sea for example...

4. do subs search on the play area as a sub miniature or as a search token?

5. Is a carrier able to launch 1 Squadron as Search planes every Turn or could just 1 and only 1 Squadron per carrier be launched as Search Squadron?

6. Multiplane dogfights are a bit strange. If you have more planes you can pick your highest dice result ...but we felt that one additional seperate dogfight would be more effective. Better odds offer only a slight advantage.

7. Yesterday we shot down not a single Aircraft....only break offs. Aircombat seems not to be lethal enough.

8. AC attacking a ship have to move in a straight line. Is it possible to fly over a target ship and attack with some planes from the other side of the target..to gain a pincer attack.

9. Are AC waves formed at the moment of launching planes from a carrier or are they freely formed while on the move?

10. Can moving fighters deliberately attack enemy AC if the are escorting a bomber wave?

11. Are Patrolling AC able to concentrate on 1 Attacking AC to get higher odds?

12. Is it possible to reveal a fleet in the search or movement phase even if it has not been spotted...to hunt for a sub for example?

13. We felt that more examples for Aircombat are needed.

We had a really good game yesterday....and enjoied your rules really very much.

Wow! sorry for the late reply, it seems I've missed some notifications! I'll try to answer the questions ASAP.

Thank you very much for giving me hands-on feedback on your games! This data is really essential for me to circumvent my designer-bias. I’ll address each point. Some are just Q&A, some require me to reword or rephrase bits in the rules and others may be plain oversights on my part.

Here we go:

No, the tokens are static, unless a revealed squadron gets to close to a search token (as mentioned in the ‘moving into other contact tokens’ part)

The thought behind this is that the table space in this scenario is very limited, for that reason and to save time, the contact tokens are static.
I grouped these together since the answer covers them all:

Actually, I might need to rearrange the order in which I list the scouts in the rules. There are scout planes (model), search planes from carriers (model), submarines (model) which are all deployed on the opponents part of the table. Since there are some models which have the scout special rule like the Tone class cruisers, use a token to represent their search planes. So the token is only a fill-in for models with the scout rule that cannot be placed in the opponents part of the table. You can choose to have a flight of seaplanes represent these aircraft for instance. Because carriers have actual flights that can represent their scouts (and I actually want to have them use a flight for it since it will immediately effect air operations once a contact is made) you don’t have to use a token for them.

The suggestion for the cruiser float planes is something I will keep in mind, currently I just went with the existing game and special rules to prevent me from making a boxload of special rules to cover this scenario. I might add a ‘searchplane’ special rule though (with like 2x or 3x searchplane ships add a scouting token).

The separate map was certainly considered, but it would conflict with my aims to be able to play the game in a pick-up fashion. I really want the entirety of the game played out on the gaming table. Of course, this might be different in a campaign setting.
I’ll look into this one, but the main consideration here was balance. Since not all fleets have equal access to air cover, I did not want to give too much an advantage to players that would just go all-in on fighters.
That is quite surprising. Ofcourse I haven’t had the chance to thoroughly test the change to the dogfighting mechanic, but I calculated that a 4+ should be enough to balance kills and breakoffs.

Edit: LOL, I feel a bit stupid. I reviewed the numbers and with a standard dodge score of 4 and a standard dogfight Power of 7 the roll is actually 3+ to save. My bad. I’ll adjust the dodge scores. This also works for the surface AA, how come I never noticed this!?? I might have just played a 4+ from my head in my games.
The AC waves are formed only when the air attack activation is ordered. So you are free to move planes around the target during the air movement activation to get a pincer attack going. Watch the CAP though since it is quite hard to escort such a dispersed force…
They can, but they would not be escorting anymore.
Yes they can, but they can still engage only two aircraft during a turn, so if there are more attackers you might find this unhelpful.
The rules don’t quite cover this (yet), but I would imagine that if there are DD’s heading out to a sub to place some depth charges there would be little doubt if the contact is a real one. So I’d say yes in this case.
Noted. The examples are quite time consuming to make, so I want to make sure the rules are solid before I make any more of them.
Great! Thanks for taking the time to write all this down. I hope your questions are answered. If there are more or new ones, don't hesitate to write them down. I’m still holding my fingers crossed for some AAR’s from you guys

Thank you for your fast reply.

One more quetion to see if i understood how to handle AC.

At the start of my Aircraft Attack activation i have let´s say 4 SBD Dauntless and 2 TBD Avenger Bombers on the left side of a target ship. I assume that they are all in range of the target.

I now form 2 Waves each one with 2 SBD and 1 TBD to attack the ship.
Wave 1 attacks from the left side...wave 2 flies over the targe ship and attacks from the right side.

Is this correct? or has Wave 2 to move in the Ac move Phase to the right side if it wants to attack in the Attack activation from there?

Quick reply from my mobile: The second option. Air attacks are made in the direct activations phase before air movement in the indirect activations phase. So you need to prepare for the attack in de previous turn.

Hello Makulator,

I've uploaded a new Fleet builder with the new Dodge values, that should help to shoot some more planes down . I also updated all the OOB's that were already there and also finished updating the Dutch East Indies OOB. All in the folder...