Simple Play Test- Tone vs Boise/Atlanta

[Porter]

Just for those who are interested, we ran 4 Sample matchs between these ships. We did so becasue the Tone at 23 points s/b roughly equal to the Atlanta and Boise at 25 points combined.

The Setup:
It was mostly a paper exercise, but, all ships were 2 sectors away:

This allowed the Tone to have three attacks (Main, Secondary and Torpedo)

While the Boise had two (main and secondary) and the Atlanta main only

We also determined that the Boise would use her "Rapid Fire" At the Start of the Game in Turn One:

What We Expected: A fairly even fight.

What Actually Happened:

In all four Matches the Tone was Sunk and did not last psat the third turn in any match.

In One Match the Boise was Sunk, and in another Crippled, in two other it was untouched.

The Atlanta, wasn't even fired upon.
Torpedeos were ineffective at range 2. No Hits at all
Secondary guns only hit at that range ( 2 sectors) if you can roll at least 1 six, or your target is crippled.

Why did this happened?
In Simple Terms the Special ability of Rapid Fire on the Boise. This one shot extra attack of two dice allowed the Boise to Roll 10 dice 2 sectors away, it allowed the Boise to hit the Tone once for 10 hits and another for 9) breaching the vital armour and just blowing the Tone to smithereens. Even if it didn't breach the vital armour it allowed a sure hit in the Opening Slavo. Do not underestimate the value of the 2 success 6 die roll!!!!

If the Atlanta hit directly after this barage, the Tone would end up crippled by the end of turn 1. Leaving it in no shape to fight.

The Boise is cheap only 13 pts and yet is tougher than the Tone( vital armour of 10 vs 9), At 2 sectors away its rapid fire capability gives it an opening fire power (10 Dice) greater than what the Tone has sector at 0 sectors (9dice). However granted the Tones 3 dice torpedoes would be lethal at 0 sectors.

The Boise sure earned our respect in these sample matches.

It appears that this ability is a strong opening attack, and imagining a fleet with two Boise's could in its opening shots, destroy larger, and more powereful ships is a concern players should be aware of.

Granted this analyses did not take into account airplanes and the what not, but we did find it interesting.

For those who are interested, a similiar test for the Myoko versus the Atlanta/Boise will take place later today.

Any errors or oversites in the application of the rules is mine and I apologize for it up front.

[XAos]

Had you used 2xBoise against Tone. I'd have expected that result. I'm a little surprised by Boise+Atlanta being enough. Atlanta is well below par (cost-effectiveness) against anything except aircraft (which it's well above par against)
The Boise is cheap only 13 pts and yet is tougher than the Tone( vital armour of 10 vs 9), At 2 sectors away its rapid fire capability gives it an opening fire power (10 Dice) greater than what the Tone has sector at 0 sectors (9dice).
That sounds as if you were using 1 rule incorrectly. Tone's Scout ability can apply to it's own guns. So it actually has 10 dice at 0 sectors (and 9 at 2 sectors).
In theory Tone should become playable, in a fleet with enough ships/bombers benefitting from it's "scouting" ability. But that means a 200+ point fleet, not Tone on it's own.
Myoko also looks over-costed. It is about as much more effective than a single Boise. As Enterprise is more effective than Shokaku. Enterprise pays 5 points for all it's advantages. Myoko pays 11 points.
I won't be playing Myoko, and I doubt I'll ever play Shokaku. The previews of this game to date have not come close to convincing me it's balenced...

[Richter von Manthofen]

The problem of two ships vs. one is that it takes double the number of hits to kill it. So even if the offensive capabilitys are equal I bet my money on the side which has more ships (Thats why 3 Shermans are better than a Tiger or even two Pz IV are better than a Tiger Or three shermans are better than 2 Pz IV. Numbers count in this game. Units seem to be balanced if you make combined arms builds but most are helpless against most one-dimensional builds.

[Joisey]

Thank you for this thread, it is quite interesting.

Have you considered that the Tone was under-utilized, however, because it was not able to give it's dice modifier ability to any allied ship? Perhaps as part of a squadron, the Tone will fair better.

[Der Leiter]

In all four Matches the Tone was Sunk and did not last psat the third turn in any match...

The Atlanta, wasn't even fired upon.
Torpedeos were ineffective at range 2. No Hits at all
Secondary guns only hit at that range ( 2 sectors) if you can roll at least 1 six, or your target is crippled.

Why did this happened?
In Simple Terms the Special ability of Rapid Fire on the Boise. This one shot extra attack of two dice allowed the Boise to Roll 10 dice 2 sectors away, it allowed the Boise to hit the Tone once for 10 hits and another for 9) breaching the vital armour and just blowing the Tone to smithereens.

It sounds like the Boise was extremely lucky twice, getting 9-10 hits on 10 rapid fire dice. It also seems the Tone was rather unlucky since odds are at least one torpedo should have hit and destroyed it's target.

The Tone really isn't a front line cruiser, it's better as a support unit (of course you can say the same for the Atlanta). The Myoko probably would have been better suited to this; the main difference being the torpedoes which would have given twice the number of rolls so it's pretty significant (I see you are trying the Myoko next; results should be interesting).

Even if it didn't breach the vital armour it allowed a sure hit in the Opening Slavo. Do not underestimate the value of the 2 success 6 die roll!!!!

Very true, and this often makes those long shots at least worth attempting. "My CL can't hurt that BB normally... unless I roll a few 6s." Still it's somewhat rare to roll more successes than dice.

Granted this analyses did not take into account airplanes and the what not, but we did find it interesting.

Submarines, aircraft, and battleships can make short work of cruisers before they can even close in, but in a simple 'stand and shoot' scenario it's hard to take into account. For what you know and the ships available I think what you did is reasonable. I do think that you'll find the Myoko could make a huge difference in ship-to-ship combat as long as at least on torpedo hits.

It's an interesting exercise, and though it doesn't take into account tactics, aircraft, etc, it's reasonable given that the rules for them aren't out yet. The torpedoes make things interesting; they rarely hit but if they do they can have a big impact. It also demonstrates that unlike AAM where unit X can't hurt unit Y, in WAS most units have a chance, even if it's not a good one.

[Pasalades]

I'm gonna add my own two cents here. The cruisers that we have seen for the IJN tend to be prey for other cruisers on a point for point basis. However, both the Tone and the Myoko have the ability to really put the hurt on ships cruisers normally can't touch. I wouldn't even attempt to go after a BB with the Boise or Atlanta unless I was truly out of options. Odds are reasonable that before it sinks to the bottom a Myoko is doing 2-3 hp of damage, maybe more. I contend that the Tone/Myoko combo will be one of the most competitive bases for a build to start (it would need solid AA and AS support). I definately believe that neither are overcosted.

[polar]

Interesting reading but still, why did you expect a fair fight?

Two ships versus one ship with approximatly the same fireing-power with approximatly the same protection, obviusly two ships will win.
Looking at the stats, the two light cruisers are obviusly a better choice in your senario.

Regarding torpedoes: You know that on the roll of 6 you completly destroy enemy cruisers. It is unlikly that with 1 die that your torpedo hits, but if it does, it does huge amount of damage. Thats a nice ability, but don't expect to see it happening so often.

Also the Tones scout ability is an extremly powerfull ability, but not if it is alone in the battlefield. Probably the scout ability is worth 10 points alone, but
in your test this ability is a waste this ability.

Your test says very little about the balance of the game.

Try the tone+the other heavy cruiser versus one of the battleships.

[Stealth]

Interesting reading but still, why did you expect a fair fight?.

Considering that AANM, like most WOTC collectible games is point driven, I would at least expect two approximate point values to have a 50-50% chance of winning a straight up fight. Now, maybe they didn't play enough times for a true sampling, but I would expect a heavy cruiser valued at 23 points to put up a good fight against 2 CLs valued at 25 pts. An expected result would be the Tone sunk, and 1 CL sunk with the other damaged. A somewhat rarer situation would be Tone damaged, 2 CLs sunk.

The Tone did after all have 8" guns vs the 6" guns of the CLs. Now while they have a higher rate of fire (and more of em), the Tone should be able to 'shrug off' a percentage of the 6" shellfire while almost all 8" fire against a CL would be expected to do signifigant damage.

[Autarch]

Interesting, but inconclusive. I look forward to the posting of the rules in order to run some battles usuing A&A boardgame ships with unit stats released to that point.

[TheFoeHammer]

I see two issues.

The points are not evenly matched here. 2 points when you only have 25 points of ships is 8% of the force size. If this were a 100 point game it would be the equivalent of 100 points versus 92. The difference just seems small because "its only 2 points".

The fixed range denies some strategy that would be a factor. Picking Range 2 gives the US ships 4 attacks versus the Tone's 3 attacks. At Range 3 the US only get 1 attack and the Tone gets 2. If I were going up against this force with my Tone I would work to keep the standoff range at 3 to up its odds and reduce its chance of getting hurt. Sometimes I would succeed and sometimes I would fail. But if you played the whole battle at Range 3 it would more than likely come in favor of the Tone all the time and look unbalanced the other way, which also would not be a true reflection on the US ships. The point being that "fixing" the range helps one side and hurts the other.

[Jaels]

Considering that AANM, like most WOTC collectible games is point driven, I would at least expect two approximate point values to have a 50-50% chance of winning a straight up fight. Now, maybe they didn't play enough times for a true sampling, but I would expect a heavy cruiser valued at 23 points to put up a good fight against 2 CLs valued at 25 pts. An expected result would be the Tone sunk, and 1 CL sunk with the other damaged. A somewhat rarer situation would be Tone damaged, 2 CLs sunk.


First, the point has been made that in that engagement it would be to the Tone's advantage to keep the range at 3, so that it only has to exchange fire with the Atlanta. The first exchange between the ships should take place at range 3 at the very least, as the ships usually would have to close the range to fire. With its Scout Cruiser ability, it can match firepower with the Boise, and add torpedoes to the mix.

In addition, simple probabilities tell us that the Tone will sink an enemy cruiser on turn one once out of every 6 battles (if engaging at range 2 or preferably 3), creating a very bad matchup for the remaining one. However, the small odds of this happening will cause a wild swing in results if a small sample of skirmishes is taken. This not happening, coupled with some very good luck on the American side, gave you the skewed results you see.

[Almirant Campioni]

See this thing, boise have the same main cannons than the camberra, the same AA value, no have torpedoes but have 2º cannons, and have 1 point more in armor and Vital armor. Finally have one hability, AND cost 2 points less.
Why?? :( .

see you.

[polar]

To be clear:

if you run a battle with 2 anti-aircraft guns versus one air unit, guess what, the anti-arcraft guns will win.

If you send in a force designed to destroy tanks, guess what, your tanks-destroing army will win.

Likewise, two light-cruisers versus the tone, looking at the stats, the tone loose.

yes the armies are of approximatly the same strength, but no, it does not HAVE to
make a fair fight for all ships being balanced. As said earlier the scout ability combined with something is an extremly powerful ability. However if you do not
combine the tone with anything, guess what... Yep you guessed it.

A good strategy game should allow for multiple play-options, but not all builds should be equally good. A good strategy game should allow for different builds to be more effective than others. The balance of the game should be that there exist multiple effective strategies. Also no units should ALLWAYS be stupid to use, and no units should ALLWAYS be smart to use.

But some units should be smart to use sometimes and some units should be stupid to use at other times.

Two light-cruisers versus the tone: tone loose. So what. That does not mean it is an unbalanced game. If the 'tone' is ALLWAYS stupid to use whatsoever, then you can start arguing that the game is unbalanced.

But versus a battleship, I don't think the tone is such a bad choice.

[TheFoeHammer]

See this thing, boise have the same main cannons than the camberra, the same AA value, no have torpedoes but have 2º cannons, and have 1 point more in armor and Vital armor. Finally have one hability, AND cost 2 points less.
Why?? :( .

see you.

Actually, Canberra has one more die on the main cannons at Range 1. And the Canberra has torpedoes instead of secondary guns. Torpedoes can be pretty powerful in that they ignore your armor and go straight to hull damage if you hit.

So these two are not identical ships by any means.

[XAos]

The problem of two ships vs. one is that it takes double the number of hits to kill it.
That problem is precisly what the points cost of the units is supposed to correct for. If 2 cheap cruisers can easily kill one expensive cruiser in WaS then that means A/H arn't using the correct formulae for the points cost.:(
Play testing could correct some initial errors. But is unlikly to catch every possible variation.


yes the armies are of approximatly the same strength, but no, it does not HAVE to make a fair fight for all ships being balanced. As said earlier the scout ability combined with something is an extremly powerful ability.

A valid point, Tone is sub-par on it's own (because of Scout)
Except that Atlanta is also sub-par V's ships (AA specialist)
So both forces are understrength (ship-2-ship) for their cost. Which means this comparisson should be a valid indication of the points cost inaccuracy.:rolleyes:

[Sean-Khan]

Tone is supposed to support larger amount of units, and if default fleet size is 100 points, it uses only 1/4 of it's efficiency in this test - maybe less. Wouldn't boise +3x Atlanta have similar efficiency against 2 tone's (which again pay extra), as 1/4 of the US force is optimized against opposing force and other's won't work at full capacity?