House Rules and Interpretations
Set forth below are the current house rules and rules interpretations being used by our WIF group or which have been used by our WIF groups in the recent past. All are designed for WIFFE RAW 7, and each rule includes a rationale behind the ruling as well.
Building ahead is not allowed under any circumstance.
Rationale:
The advanced building rule causes so many problems in game balance, and for no real benefit. The units in the game are already numerous enough to provide one with a great many strategic choices regarding production. Usually players use this rule to build specialty units, such as HQs, CVs, Marines, etc. - whose value is emphasized by their small force pool.
German Auxilliary Cruisers (CX) are not subject to the restriction that a German naval move must be used to move them out of a neutral port. Germany can now use naval moves to move other naval units even when a CX is in a neutral port.
CX are subject to "In the Presence of the Enemy" movement penalties, but do not, themselves, generate such a penalty against enemy units.
In surface naval combat, except against CP, ASW, TRS or AMPH, all D or X results generated by a CX are converted to A results. A single D or X result is converted into a single A result.
Rationale:
CX did not regularly engage capital ships, and when they did they lost. An abort result represents the CX sinking or damaging some destroyers and possibly damaging the capital ship. But given the fact that, often CX will be in a high seabox section and escorts in the zero section, too often with plenty of surprise points a CX will sink heavy cruisers and even battleships, which we consider ludicrous. These rule changes give the CX more flexibility by dropping the bizarre naval move requirement for the German player but also makes CX a threat only against unguarded or very lightly guarded convoys.
Carrier planes may not fly any missions from a land hex except for a rebase mission.
Rationale:
Carrier plane counters were meant to be operated from carriers, and their scale is not equal to that of a land-based counter. They are too cost effective to be allowed to dominate the land based air portion of the game (such as the CW using CVP Swordfish as uber-convoy escorts). This rule forces the players to build planes for specific purposes and does not result in a flood of cheap planes covering the map.
The following changes take place with regard to China:
1. All Chinese units suffer attack weakness (including Communist units).
2. Chinese resources outside of Occupied China can only be used by China.
3. There are no Chinese victory hexes outside of Occupied China.
4. All Chinese factories outside of Occupied China are blue.
5. For every Chinese city outside of Occupied China captured by Japan, the Chinese partisan # is raised by 2.
6. Chinese units may not move outside of China (including Occupied China), except that the Stillwell HQ unit may move outside of China and a number of Nationalist land or aircraft units equal to Stillwell's reorganization value may enter the same territory or nation as the HQ (treatm essentially, as Foreign Troop Committment).
The definition of "Occupied China" is that portion of China controlled by Japan at the start of the Global War campaign.
Rationale:
The Chinese front should be a stalemate. Historically, Japan saw no reason to press further in China, so we wanted to reduce almost every incentive for her to do so in WIFFE. In addition, the Chinese Communists never effectively attacked Japan beyond what could be terms partisan activity.
The Chinese GARR units from WIF5 are used. These cost 2 build points to build and take 2 turns to produce. They have a movement of zero and may only move by rail movement or advance after combat. They are treated as MIL units with regard to their eligibility to be built and their reinforcement capabilities. They form their own production pool.
Rationale:
Rationale: Anything that helps to stalemate the Chinese front is a good thing in our opinion. These units are defensive and help to accomplish this.