Notes for Invasion of Malta, 1942 Please see the module wiki on www.vassalengine.org for update/version history. General Notes ------------- Invasion of Malta, 1942 is a bonus game originally packaged with Avalon Hill's Air Assault on Crete wargame. Though it shares counters and rules with Crete, Malta is a completely separate wargame in its own right. The wargame depicts a theoretical invasion of the island of Malta by Axis forces in May, 1942. The invasion never actually took place, but a number of plans for the operation existed throughout most of the war and an invasion was very close to becoming reality several times. Not invading Malta is considered one of Hitler's greatest mistakes of WWII, if not THE greatest. This is a VASSAL module to play this game. It requires v3.0 or better of the VASSAL engine (www.vassalengine.org). It is NOT necessary to have or run the VASSAL Air Assault on Crete module to play the Malta module. Due to differences between the games and other technical reasons related to VASSAL, Malta is a completely separate module, not an extension to nor upgrade of the Crete module. Notes Keyed to Specific Rules: ------------------------------ **Rules specific to MALTA (pg 11-12): (A.3) Substitute Counters This rule states that German Airborne Battalion substitute counters are NOT to be used in the Malta game and German airborne battalions drop and drift AS battalions. However, a truncated version of the Battalion Substitute Chart and appropriate substitute counters have been included in the module. The reasons for this are threefold: 1)The notes for EX and AL results on the CRT state Axis Airborne Battalions may break down to cover losses incurred by these results and rule A.3 does not explicitly address CRT results, 2)an article appearing in Vol. 15, No 3 of The General speaks explicitly about protecting German battalions "forced to break up...due to combat results", implying that battalion breakdown could be allowed for CRT results at least, and 3)players may wish to experiment with allowing Battalion substitution (for CRT results and/or drop and drift) as a variant scenario. Players should agree on whether substitute counters can be used and under what circumstances prior to play. IMPORTANT: If substitute counters ARE allowed, please read the notes for rule section (G.3) below! (G.3) Casualty Points There is an Inventory Window in place to automatically calculate Axis Casualty Points for all units placed in the Eliminated Axis Units box. Individual units are listed for cross-checking results. NOTE: If players agree to allow the use of substitute counters for German Airborne Battalions, the BATTALION counter MUST be placed in the eliminated box instead if the Bn HQ and sufficient component companies for an airborne battalion are in the box in order for Casualty Points to be correctly counted. The points given for airborne HQ units and airborne companies do not add up to the value of a full German Airborne Battalion (13 vs 21) as they do in Crete. Italian Airborne battalions are not affected by this since they do not break down vis-a-vis German units. **Rules shared with Crete (pg 1-11): (III.B.4) The Organization Cards for both players are set up as private windows. This enables the Allied player to conceal his setup by inverting his counters (see V.M) before dragging them to the main mapboard. In like fashion, the Axis player can conceal his convoy markers before placing them on the Time Record Card, which has been separated from the Axis Organization Card. (V.L.1) Convoy Markers: The counters indicating the turn of arrival for Axis convoys and the destination markers are located on the Axis Organization Card. Each has a menu command to send it back to its start position from the TRC. (V.L.4) Convoy Units: After the axis player rolls on the Sea Movement Table, if the result indicates some units are to be eliminated, the Axis player should Flip his convoy units on the Axis Organization card, then move the inverted units to the mapboard. The Allied player may then Flip over the required number of counters to be eliminated. (V.M.1) Inverted Allied counters were created using the Mask property so the owner may Peek to see what his units are without revealing them to the Axis player. (V.M.5) Decoy units have been given the Allied prototype attribute to make them appear as regular Allied units when inverted. (V.O.1) Allied units that have a specified start hex have been placed using At-Start stacks. All Hvy AA, Lt AA Battalions and CD units have the Does Not Stack property enabled to prevent inadvertant movement as part of a stack.