Martyn Potts
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Hello Roger,
I can’t say it has ever bothered me, maybe because I always have the counters orientated the same way. I’ve just checked and you are right. I played Blitzkrieg a few years ago and that has a high counter density in the West and I recall it being fiddly. I usually don’t have any air units on the map either as they are invariably in off-map holding boxes which also makes it easier to keep track of their status.
Interestingly, I recently picked up GMT’s Battels for Rhode Island and Newport in a sale and remember reading on BGG whilst I was deciding whether or not to get it that someone thought the hexes too small for the counters. I have it out on my games table at the moment and again, I haven’t really noticed it to be a problem. I liked the system so much I have got some more in the BOAR series and those earlier games do indeed have bigger hexes! I guess it is what you get used to.
There is a forum here for each game in the TSWW series but if you have something that isn’t game specific there is a general forum at the top – ‘Anecdotes, Enquires and Support’.
Martyn
Hello Guy,
Tow W is still the person to contact regarding Vassal.Most activity takes place in the Facebook Group and someone is writing up the Coral Sea scenario from Day of Infamy on ConSimWorld at the moment. Yahoo Groups is no more.
Martyn
Hi Bob
“Does the problem with the US OB in the PTO affect the Singapore module?”
No. There aren’t many US ground units in Singapore – mostly engineers and logistics building the road into Burma. Lots of USN and USAAF though.Regards
MartynHello Steve,
Airbases in TSWW don’t have Organic AA.
There might be some Positional/Static AA listed in the OB, but a quick look reveals there are no counters for these on the Merkur counter sheet so probably not.Martyn
“Does the Peleponnese count as Greek mainland?”
Yes. Despite their best efforts to cast it adrift with the Corinth Canal!“Is the Greek mainland and / or the Peleponnese counted as friendly territory to the Axis? I understand friendly to include own, allied or surrendered enemy territory. If both are friendly, then presumably the Axis can trace an LOC over the rails and roads all the way down to Neapoli (0433)?”
Yes. The Germans had won the war on the mainland by the time op Merkur took place.“Presumably the 7FK Corps HQ must be within 6 MSR of the ST to provide offensive supply?”
Yes, unless it is sitting on GSPs“When tracing an MSR over non-road and rail hexes, does the terrain effect how many hexes you can trace?”
Yes. See the MSR Weather Modifiers chart on page 8 of the Merkur charts. You will find a more comprehensive version in later versions of the rules (MSR Terrain & Weather Modifiers chart in v1.6).Martyn
Yes it will. But it is not just ZOIs that can block the tracing of the LOS. Rule 15.A.30:
“Line of Supply (LOS): An unlimited uninterrupted overland route to units through friendly owned territory from an ST or the National Supply Source, or, on the Overseas System, to a friendly controlled port of any size. It may not be traced through prohibited terrain or through an EZOI unless negated. The LOS may also include a river element and an air element via emplaced River QMs and Air QMs respectively. Units on islands can trace a LOS via an operational ferry route to a Great or Large port on the Continental System or a Great or Large port with an ST on the Overseas System. The LOS is used solely to determine isolation.”
And Rule 15.A.31:
“Isolation: Isolation is defined as not being able to trace a LOS.”Armour Shock Effects. See Rule 10.L.1.a. and the Armour Shock Effects Chart on page 12 of the charts.
Martyn
I assume you are referring to the Coastal Defence counters. The numbers refer to the CD Level of the counter and its long/short range gunnery. See Rule 4.A.3.a.i.
Martyn
Hello Andre and welcome to the TSWW series.
First off, have a look at the bottom of your rules set that came with the game. It should say v1.3b. Let me know if it doesn’t.
Secondly, the TSWW series has a unified and backwards compatible rule set. This means the same rules are used for all theatres from Europe and North Africa through the Middle East and out to the Far East, and you can use the latest version of those rules with older games. The rules that come with Balkan Fury are 9 years old and there have been many improvements, amendments and updates since then. In particular, the Air Combat rules were revised and since v1.4 a new naval system has been implemented. The current version of the rules is v1.6 and you can download those from the Barbarossa Forum here. Also be sure to check the Balkan Fury forum for the errata etc, and the Downloads Forum for Generic TSWW player aids. The pdf version of the rules from I think v1.4a onwards are also bookmarked to make it easier to navigate around.
I would strongly recommend that you use the latest version of the rules as I think it will answer many of your questions. For instance, later version of the rules have two Appendices, one lists all the abbreviations used in the game and the other lists all the charts and which page to find them on. The charts themselves also often cross reference the relevant rules. You would need v1.6 of the rules to go with v1.6 of the charts. If you are planning to play other games in the series, then it would certainly be worthwhile leaning the latest version of the rules. Note that when using the latest rules with earlier games you will still need the original rules for the P&E section and certain tables from the original games such as the weather ones and naval SMA tables as these tend to be game specific. This is, for instance, no list of Italian naval vessels in the v1.6 charts.
To address your questions above:
“As an example: Air night missions can be flown by N type air units. Air units without the N designation may fly night missions: see Political rules.” It never did tell you anything in the P&E rules. This was fixed in later versions of the rules. The answer is that air units without the ‘N’ designator may not fly at night, with one exception not relevant to Balkan Fury.Naval Cooperation Missions. Air units are committed to this role in the Initial Phase by both Players. There are two types of spotting missions which are referred to as Patrol Zone Spotting (Rule 7.C.7g on p38 of the BF rules) and Naval Area Spotting (Rule 7.B.7.c.iii on p34) from v1.6 onwards to help distinguish between the two. Patrol Zone Spotting will be best if you are protecting Taranto. Once you fly your air units on spotting missions, which is one of the first things that happens in the Movement Phase, you can attempt to spot any enemy naval units that come within range of them. As an enemy task force moves if you successfully spot it with anything any of your naval coded bombers may attack it as soon as it comes within range. You are not restricted to only attacking when it is your NMS.
When the RN attacked Taranto, they did it at night because the FAA trained to operate in the dark and they knew the Italians didn’t have any night capable fighters available, so they couldn’t be intercepted. The weakness of the Swordfish was its range, meaning the carriers had to come within range of Italian bombers to launch their air attack on Taranto. As soon as they do and if you have spotted CBG the Italians can attack with their bombers committed to NC.
There are Night Naval Combat rules in other versions of the rules and from v1.4 onwards Naval Interception, so the Italian fleet in Taranto has a chance to come out and meet the RN at sea.
MartynSorry Ron, I didn’t know you had posted again. I look at the time information in the Last Post column to see if there is anything new in the forum, but this doesn’t pick-up new activity in existing posts, only new posts.
When I said “In this case their normal replacements would have been a total of 1 SRP made up of infantry and artillery” I didn’t bother to explain how I had arrived at that 1 SRP because it is exactly the same way as I had set out in the previous paragraph.
“Should it be 3 divided by 4 which would be .75 infantry and then 1 divided by 4 for the artillery which would be .25. Is this how you got 1 SRP for the two reduced divisions? Then the one would be times .25 which would be .25 SRP? Is this correct.”
Yes.A Stacking Point is the unit of measurement used to define how big a counter is.
A Stacking Replacement Points are the units of measurement used to define how much of a resource you have.
1 SP = 1 SRP.
You can pick up an SP off the map, it is a physical counter, you can’t pick up an SRP because they are typically recorded on paper or a replacement track.The two Unit Replacement charts, one for divisions and one for non-divisional units, tell you the composition of units. If you have a brigade of motorised infantry you have a unit that is 2 SP in size and if you wanted to know what made up that brigade you would see from that chart it is 1 SP of infantry and 1 SP of armour. That information is only useful to you when it dies in combat because you need it to calculate any combat replacements due. When it is in the dead pool and you want to buy it back you will need 1 infantry SRP and 1 armour SRP.
When playing, any counters lost in combat that are eligible for combat replacements I place in a pile and at then end of the turn (Rule 6.3.g) I calculate the combat replacements by type – armour, infantry and artillery – and note them down (or use the replacement track). The counters then go into the dead pile. However, you can’t do this with units that are reduced rather than eliminated completely as their counters are still on the map, so in this case I record their combat replacements as I go along. You also need to be careful, especially in a big game with potentially lots of casualties in a turn, that you don’t just chuck eliminated counters that have a reduced side into a pile as you need to know when you calculate combat replacements if they were eliminated at full strength or when reduced.
I don’t calculate the number of SPs in a hex unless I need to – such as for combat. Unless you are in mountains or on a limited land mass the stacking limit is quite generous.
Martyn
This is the third sentence of rule 7.A. It says units or a stack can “…move into/out of the hex…” which allows them to do things in that hex or head off in a completely different direction, either individually or as a sub-stack of the original stack. It doesn’t say anything about units moving into or joining the stack, or a stack picking units up as it passes through, because that would contradict the previous sentence which says “…units that start a movement or pursuit phase stacked together can be selected and moved as a stack.”
Rule 7.E.3 is about overruns. If you have three divisions each in their own hex and all adjacent to an enemy unit it is likely to be very risky for any one of them to attempt to overrun the enemy unit by itself, but together the odds would greatly improve in their favour. A player might wonder if he could overrun simultaneously from all three hexes or gather all three divisions together in one hex and then perform the overrun. He can’t because:
1) The overrun rule says all overrunning units must enter from a single hex, and
2) Rule 7.A says that units that start the movement or pursuit phase together may move as a stack, and these three divisions did not start the phase stacked together.
