Hills

[Bastion]

I mentioned this once before mixed in with other tidbits and it didn't get much attention (and I showered that week too). So I'm gonna try it again.

I thought that hills got a little short changed in AAM. Do they hold strategic value beyond just cover? Certainly aircraft may have changed the value of holding a hill.

How about a +1 range modifier or an extra dice to roll if you are shooting downhill?

[Autarch]

Or maybe a negative modifier for a unit attacking an enemy unit on a hill.

[Krulos Rulon Warlord]

i think that cover is enough of a bonus if all you can become is disrupted.

[Dr.Cornelius]

The developers worked very hard to strike a balance between historical accuracy, realistic mechanics and playability.

In my experience the infantry & armor units (with a few exceptions) are well balanced, and having a bonus for hills may have thrown off the unit balance or made it more difficult to balance the generic scenarios.

It would be cool to have a little more "fluff", but I don't think the game is any worse for having relatively simple terrain.

Get a dozen or so games under your belt, then think hard about what aspects of the game that you liked and didn't like, and which mechanics could benefit from tweaking. I don't think generic hills will be anywhere near the top of your list...

[Herbavida]

I'm with you Bastion. In real combat, gaining the high ground gives a huge tactical advantage that is not adequately reflected in this game. It's not just about cover either, extended range, better visibility and camouflaging opportunities (among other things) are conferred to the holder of the high ground. I don't think merely giving a cover roll does this advantage justice, especially when the advantage is negated if the hill unit attacks another in a forest, town or swamp.

I haven't playtested this but I think giving the unit +1 attack die when attacking a unit on lower terrain seems fair. If both opposing units are attacking eachother from hills they would get no bonus die (but still get a cover roll). After playtesting it a little I'm thinking of making this a house rule.

[Dr.Cornelius]

Be careful- if you make the hills too good, then the player that wins terrain intitiative has a potentially unbalancing advantage in being closest to the choice hills.

The maps configurations are reasonably good, but some of them definitely have a "good" and a "bad" side.

Your proposed change has a big impact on Map Config 3: Higher Ground and Config 5: Hill 107 as well as the North Africa scenarios.

[Herbavida]

Like I said, Dr.C, "after playtesting..."

I'm not trying to break the game -- just to make the taking of a hill a little more tactically substantial. If you think that giving an extra attack die is too much what do you suggest? I think +1 on dice rolls probably is too much of an advantage, but I also don't want some unprecedented, supercomplicated way to work this out, especially when the simple precedent of adding +1 die to modify an attack is used elsewhere in the game to no apparent ill effect.

Will +1 attack die on hills change the game? Yeah probably, but that's the point.

[Dr.Cornelius]

Sorry- I can't think of a bonus small enough that it does not make hills too powerful. Hills are important for cover saves and are the primary terrain features on map configurations 3 & 5. Adding a bonus for being on a hill is a cool idea, but I worry that it will give too big an advantage to the player who happens to get his units on the key hill first- which is generally only a function of the terrain initiative roll.

Personally, I think that AAM would have been a better game if hills provided a +1 die bonus against units not on hills- but the game was not playtested and point balanced with the bonus.

For example, the MG 42 rolls 7 dice at long range versus 6 dice for the Vickers. In my experience just that one extra die makes the MG 42 much more effective at long range, since it is more likely to get 4 successes to disrupt a typical soldier unit. Adding a high ground die changes the balance between long range support weapons and infantry. Think about how much harder it is for rifle infantry to assault a MG with a +1 hill bonus.

[Bastion]

It seems natural to give hills some form of advantage that differentiates it from forests a little more. A +1 range modifier may help reduce the German range advantage, although I certainly recognize that they too would have access to these hills. Advantagous terrian of this nature makes it that much more imperative to control it. This will create interesting dynamics in the game that may reflect their real life counterparts.

On the other hand, Dr C, I don't disagree with you. I'm sure these concepts must have come up during play testing and presumably (though I won't give too much credit here) they chose to ignore these concepts for a reason. I have found however, especially in games of this nature that the desire for simplicity and speed of play too often overides good rule-making.

[Tannhauser]

It seems natural to give hills some form of advantage that differentiates it from forests a little more.

They already do: vehicles have to roll a 4+ to enter a forest, but they don't have to roll to enter a hill. :)