War at Sea Rulebookhttp://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=ah/aam/WaratSeaA supplement to the rulebook has been released by Avalon Hill making sweeping changes in the game, including moving surface torpedoes into the surface attack phase, giving a penalty to strafing fighters, and adding rules for harassing submarines. It also clarifies some oft mis-understood rules. It is available here:
http://www.wizards.com/avalonhill/rules/War_at_Sea_Clarifications.pdfWAS FAQGunnery and Bomb attacks:These attacks must be rolled one at a time. Attacks from multiple units at the same target, or attacks by multiple gunnery values from the same ship (main, secondary, etc) are all rolled by themselves and are never added together.
Example: Rodney is attacking an enemy vessel at range 3. It may target that vessel with both its main and its secondary guns, but each attack is rolled seperately. Instead of one attack of 18 dice, Rodney gets one attack with 13 dice and one attack with 5 dice.
Note: The rules also state that torpedo attacks should be made seperately, and it is good practice to do so. This is despite the fact that rolling torpedos together gives no advantage to the attacker, unlike stacking gunnery attacks.
Capturing Objectives:Objectives are captured at the end of each turn by a player who has a ship in an objective sector where no enemy ships are local or adjacent. Submarines are unit type submarine, not ship. Therefore, submarines do not keep a player from capturing an objective even if they are local or adjacent. Ships with the No Sea Control SA cannot capture objectives. However, because they are unit type ship, they do deny the capture of an objective which they are local or adjacent to.
Smoke Screens/Concealment:Smoke screens come into effect immediately, despite the fact that action during a single phase is regarded as being simultaneous. All units within a smoke screen have concealment, including aircraft, which gain a concealment roll against any attack made against them. Concealment rolls, if successful, nullify one entire attack, whether it be gunnery, bombs, or a salvo of torpedos. Note that if multiple torpedo hits are scored in a single salvo, the concealment roll is for all of these hits.
Aborted FightersFighters are aborted just as any other aircraft during the Air Defense phase. However, all attacks are considered to be resolved at the same time. Therefore, the SA's of the aborted fighter (such as Escort) remain in effect for the rest of the Air Defense phase. Additionally, the fighter may still attack enemy air targets during this Air Defense phase, so it is entirely possible for two fighters to abort each other during a single Air Defense phase.
