Advice needed on which supplementary products to buy.

[hendriks]

Today is father’s day, and as always I am late to the party, but me and my brothers still want to give him a gift. So here is the situation: my father has always been an enthusiastic board game collector and player, especially the A&A franchise. Today, after first doing some research in which A&A game are out there, I checked the attic, and the only A&A games which he didn’t have were the new one of the first world war, and the 1941 edition, he even got the anniversary edition, which is quite special I noticed.

But here is the kicker even though my father isn’t even that old, (58 last I checked) the years haven’t been kind for him, and thus he isn’t able to play any regular long lasting game of A&A anymore. He know the traditional rules, like the order of each turn, and the attack and defence values of each unit, and most of their special abilities. But any new rule introduced by the specific game we would be playing, like kamikazes, researches, additional conditions to gain extra ics, etc, just won’t stick with him anymore. And besides that the game duration and size also have become very taxing for him. He can’t really focus for more than 1-2 hours, after that he needs quite some rest, and keeping track of large armies has also proven very difficult for him. So sadly the regular games of A&A which normally would already take 1-2 days to play are no longer feasible for him. Maybe I didn’t need to tell you this, but a bit of sympathy is always good when you want to request something from someone.

so when I found out about the existence of A&A 1941, I thought to myself: this is perfect for my dad; there are no additional rules besides the core, and the smaller board state makes it less straining for him to manage an army, and he didn’t even have 1941 yet. Later I found out that that probably is because the collectors value of it is rather… lackluster. This ties in with the request I am about to make. 1941 is precisely what my dad needs, but the lackluster quality of its contents makes it for a rather crappy gift in and of itself. So I want to upgrade it with new units, new stacking markers, maybe even a few additional dice, just about anything to make it the best right out of the box experience he could get out of this game.

TL;DR:

And in picking these is where I need your help, I have noticed that there is an site which sells additional figurines for A&A, (I forgot it’s address, but that’s nothing a quick google search can’t fix) and I know my dad would very much appreciate historical accurateness, and good quality in the figurines, but I myself don’t really have enough expertise in that are to know what would be best. Nor would I know how many I should buy, because by now I sure as hell know that the quantities that are included in the standard box aren’t enough. So if anyone could give me advice on which figurines would be best to buy, (considering both playability, historical accurateness, overall  beauty and quality) and how many of them I need to buy, I would be ever grateful. My budget for this endeavour is at most 50 euro (excluding the € 20-30ish price of the game itself).

[Private-Panic]

Hi Hendriks

I am sorry to read of your Dad’s situation, no doubt particularly as I am of a similar age.

1941 could be ideal for the circumstances you describe. Typical playing time is perhaps two and a half to three hours. Quite a few in our A&A community dislike the simplicity of 1941 (I am not one of them) but that will probably be one of the attractions for your Father.

Personally, I am not into the historical accuracy of the figures, so am not the right person to advise you. However, another member of this forum is both enthusiastic about 1941 and knowledgeable about units types and so on - Wolfshanze. If he does not reply to this thread you could send him a personal message from this forum saying that I had suggested you contact him. I am sure he will be pleased to help.

Cheers
PP

[Wolfshanze]

Ya, I just saw this thread, and I got some running around to do… if you want to replace 1941 units with the “correct” ones, I can come up with a list… it would actually be somewhat vast, because how they did 1941 was the following…

All Allied Tanks (US/UK/USSR) are Russian models… so both the US and UK would need new tanks
All Allied Planes (US/UK/USSR) are US models… so both the UK and USSR would need new planes
All Axis Tanks (Germ/Japan) are German models… so you would need new Japanese tanks
All Axis surface ships (Germ/Japan) are Japanese models… so you would need new German ships

So on and so on. You see the pattern here… each type of unit was just chosen at random to be one nation and used for all other nations on that side, so there’s a LOT of units in 1941 that would need to be replaced if you really want to be historically accurate on the models.

The simplest way (what I did) was to simply also purchase/use 1942SE units and merge them with 1941… keeping things like 1941’s Soviet tanks, America’s planes, Germany’s tanks and Japan’s ships and tossing all the things that don’t match (like German tanks for Japan… I tossed those).

I can give a proper run down on what’s wrong or right in 1941 unit-wise… I tossed a LOT of units from 1941 (but kept a lot too, every unit that is the correct unit [like Germany’s Tiger tank] is a new unique unit not found in other A&A games)… I’m just at work right now, so it might have to wait a few hours, but I wanted to get this info out to understand the scope you’re talking.

If you REALLY want to do 1941 right and not have ANY units be wrong (like Japan having Tiger tanks from Germany), you’re going to need to replace a LOT of the models in 1941… either by merging with another unit base (like 1942SE) or ordering a LOT of units from HBG… just a head’s up here… this project would be more than replacing one or two units.

EDIT:
Bottom line, there are 5 major powers/players in A&A 1941… the way they did the units for 1941, out of each unit type (say a Tank or a Fighter or a Battleship), two of the five will be correct (one Axis and one Allied) and the other three (one Axis and two Allied) will be “wrong”. That is multiplied by every unit type in 1941. If I’m not mistaken, there’s a list of what units each type is represented by in the 1941 rulebook… so it may say “The Allied Tank is the Soviet IS-2 and the Axis Tank is the German Tiger-1”… this will let you know the two “correct” units belong to the USSR and Germany for tanks, the other three powers (UK, USA and Japan) all have “wrong” tanks. The only unit type this is not the case is the infantry… each infantry in 1941 does have the “correct” unit for all five nations.

[hendriks]

hi Wolfshanze,

I’m glad to hear you want to help. My current plan is the following: I am going to buy 3 boxes of 1941, and some replacement figurines from HBG.

I figured since I am at it I might aswell buy an extra copy for myself, and the third one I can salvage for parts to divide up between the other two. Next I started out with the country of origin of each unit according to this article I found: axisandallies.org/p/axis-allies-1941-preview-unit-details-and-abilities/ .I then went on to HBG to replace the ones that were out of place. I came to the conclusion that the axis sub of 1941 was probably Japanese and that the aritcle was wrong in that regard, but I am not entirely sure about that.

Anyway in the end I came up with this list of what I am planning to buy: imgur.com/iNgjbpC . Would you maybe be so kind as to double check that the figurenes I am going to buy are historical accurate? I am also not entirely sure what colours would be best for HBG’s custom pieces, (maroon or brown for russia, and dark green or olive drab for US, and probably punking orange for Japan) do you by any chance have any experiance as to which colours would blend in best with 1941?

And last but but least, the unit list for each country would be the following:
12 infantry
±10 tanks
6 fighters
3 bombers
6 transports
5 submarines
4 destroyers
3 air craft carriers
3 battleships

would that be sufficient, or is it maybe even an overkill? i have no playing experience with 1941, so I wouldn’t know. :lol:

[Loose Moose]

I can relate to your situation somewhat.   I  am 65, but do not have difficulty with the most of the games length.  I just do not have “live” players who are interested in the longer games. I guess that is why 1914, and the global editions do not interest me.  I have all the other editions, much like your father has.   I think everyone would agree that 1941 is a little dificient when it comes the quantity of units, chips, dice, etc.  Why not consider using the accessories from one of the other games……either 1942 edition or even the “blue box” Revised edition has just about everything you could want.  If you did not want to pull from the other games, I think I would consider buying a cheap 1942 edition on eBay…it would not be a concern if it was not complete.  There will be more than enough units to supplement the base 1941 game.

[Private-Panic]

That advice from Loose Moose is worth considering.

One of the things that can be most frustrating with 1941 is the little cardboard tokens denoting additional units, whereas 1942.2 comes with very much better plastic tokens.

The problem is that the plastic tokens are too large for the 1941 map, so you then need a larger map, which you can go and get printed using the maps shared on this forum.

All of which gets you to exactly what I did hendriks: 1. buy 1941; 2. buy 1942.2; and 3. print my own larger map.

But it ignores your original concern regarding historically accurate figures, which is why I did not mention it before.

If you do decide on this course we can point you at the map files.

[Wolfshanze]

@hendriks:

hi Wolfshanze,

I’m glad to hear you want to help. My current plan is the following: I am going to buy 3 boxes of 1941, and some replacement figurines from HBG.

And last but but least, the unit list for each country would be the following:
12 infantry
±10 tanks
6 fighters
3 bombers
6 transports
5 submarines
4 destroyers
3 air craft carriers
3 battleships

would that be sufficient, or is it maybe even an overkill? i have no playing experience with 1941, so I wouldn’t know. :lol:

Hello Hendriks, sorry for the delay, but here’s the list of what comes in 1941 out of the box (unit-type-wise) and what would need to be replaced:

Allied tank – IS-2 (USSR) - replace US and UK tanks
Allied fighter – P-40 Warhawk (USA) - replace UK and USSR fighters
Allied bomber – Lancaster (UK) - replace US and USSR bombers
Allied battleship – Admiral class (Hood) (UK) - replace US and USSR battleships
Allied carrier – Kostromitinova class (USSR) - replace US and UK carriers
Allied destroyer – Sumner class (USA) - replace UK and USSR destroyers
Allied sub – U class (UK) - replace US and USSR subs
Allied transport – Fort class (UK) - replace US and USSR transports

Axis tank – Tiger I (Germany) - replace Japanese tanks
Axis fighter – Fw-190 (Germany) - replace Japanese fighters
Axis bomber – He-111 (Germany) - replace Japanese bombers
Axis battleship – Kongo class (Japan) - replace German battleships
Axis carrier – Akagi class (Japan) - replace German carriers
Axis destroyer – Akitzuki class (Japan) - replace German destroyers
Axis sub – Kaichu type (Japan) - replace German subs
Axis transport – Yamazuki Maru (Japan) - replace German transports (to be honest, a freighter is a freighter, I cheated here and until HBG came out with the swag new German transport, I actually preferred the “Japanese” transport colored black for use by Germany… it just looked more like a freighter than the “real” German one from 1942, but meh, your mileage may vary).

Each country in 1941 includes the following pieces: 8 infantry, 5 tanks, 4 fighters, 2 bombers, 4 transports, 3 submarines, 2 destroyers, 2 aircraft carriers, and 2 battleships in case you’re trying to figure how many of each you get and/or want to replace or have overall.

---

I saw your proposal… you of course can do what you want to do, but let me state the following observation… if you want 1941 because it’s a shorter/faster game, that’s a fine reason to get 1941… HOWEVER… if you realize (and you do) that 1941 has a shortage of units and with many (3 out of every 5 unit types are always “wrong”), buying multiple copies of 1941 only increases the number of units that are “wrong”… you end up with more Japanese Tiger tanks and more American IS-2 tanks that need to be replaced and/or tossed in the trash.

I would suggest instead the following: By going with the above list of “wrong” units that need replacing, you really should follow one of these four strategies:

1) Just buy one copy of 1942 (even if you never want to play it) to supplement units for your copy of 1941 because it simply comes with more than enough units for every nation, supplemented by the “correct” 1941 units (like German Tiger tanks from 1941) to give you a large enough unit-base for every nation… if you buy 1942 to accompany 1941, you get plenty of units, extra dice and those great plastic unit chips instead of the cheap cardboard ones in 1941. If you really, Really, REALLY hate the thought of 1942 even being in your house and will never want to play it, you can throw the board and rules away and just keep all the units (I don’t recommend this, options are always good, but you can pretend you didn’t buy 1942 for 1942 and really just for the units if you want)… This may also be an overall cheaper strategy than option 2 below…

2) Go to HBG and start ordering replacements… the site can list units by nation, so if you know you need Japanese tanks, you can just click on Japan and then tanks and order what you want. Do note there are “official” OOB replacement units you can get from 1941, 1942, 1940, etc, and HBG custom-made units… if you like consistency in scale, I recommend sticking to buying from 1942 or 1940 to add-on… a lot of the HBG units (not all, but there are many) have unit sizes that are bigger or smaller than the OOB units from 1941 (for example, custom HBG Japanese tanks are TINY compared to OOB Japanese tanks). With this method of bolstering/replacing your 1941 unit bins, you can get EXACTLY what you want in the numbers you want… but I think (don’t know for sure) this would probably be the more expensive and certainly the more complicated/time-consuming route.

3) Check E-Bay and search “Axis and Allies replacements” A lot of times people will sell “just the units” from different sets… you might find someone selling “all the German units from 1942” in one bag for like 10 bucks or something. Or maybe someone is selling the entire 1942 game for cheap, you never know… this might be the most cost effective way of bolstering your units, it all depends on what you find and what people are selling on any random day of the week.

4) This option is kinda out there, but might be a cheap way to go, and completely avoids any “wrong unit for nation-x” issues. Just buy 1942SE, don’t even buy 1941 at all… you’re done… but wait… you don’t want to play 1942, you want to play 1941… here’s what you do… you buy 1942SE to get all the correct units for each nation, every nation will get proper unique sculpts and you’ll have more than enough units you need to play 1941… “but what about the map and rules” you may ask… well, you can download and/or print the 1941 rules for free off the internet (the 1941 rules can be downloaded in PDF format for free)… as for the map, as the map that DOES come with 1941 is kinda small to begin with, and others have recommended possibly printing a map, you could just do that… download the 1941 rules, and print the map from the files available on this site… using all the units you need from 1942SE, you have everything else you need and you never bought 1941 but can play 1941 with plenty of units and all the correct sculpts… just thinking outside the box on this option.

My personal recommendation is just not to buy more copies of 1941… it’s a self-defeating project if you’re trying to avoid having multiple sets of Japanese Tiger Tanks that you need to replace, ditch or live with (if that doesn’t bother you, but you seem to be of the mind not to have Japanese Tiger Tanks and neither do I). Now if you want multiple copies of 1941 because your dad wants one and you want one, that’s fine, but bolstering the unit sets should (in my opinion) be done by one of the three methods I listed above, not by purchasing more copies of 1941… that’s my advice… if you got any further questions/comments, feel free to ask.

*After thought…
Oh, I forgot to mention your proposed “final numbers” of units… as you see from what comes in 1941 out of the box… if you bought a second copy of ANY game, you’d blow-past the numbers you suggested… if you’re going about the HBG method and buying just a few units here and there to reach your final numbers, i’ll comment on this… as many know, 1941 barely comes with enough units just for initial setup… the 8 infantry out of the box aren’t even enough for the initial setup without using chips (and even then, most nations use all 8 on the setup)… moving up to 12 would be an absolute bare-minimum… you can never have enough infantry… even for 1941… and sometimes if you have two infantry in a zone its just more fun to stick TWO INFANTRY in the zone than one infantry with a chip under it… with 8 to 12 infantry, this will never be an option, even for 1941… I would highly recommend 16 to 20 infantry per nation for 1941, so you always have options (I have 66 infantry per nation, but I’m kinda crazy and also play 1942). Along those lines… yeah… 10 tanks minimum… I wouldn’t go any less than 10… aircraft and ships you recomend should be fine, you don’t get too many of those in a typical game of 1941 (though if you want to be safe, maybe 8 fighters).

**After thought of after thought… I just realized after rereading your posts you did mention a budget… combine that with your statement you want to make your dad happy with historical accurateness of units (like not having Japanese Tiger tanks)… I might want a Lamborghini but only have a budget of $1,000… sometimes what you want and what you can afford don’t always go hand-in-hand. Depending on what’s most important to you (budget/# of units/historical accuracy) you may not get everything you want in the budget you have, or you may have to get everything you do want by going over budget… that’s up for you to decide, but to the best of my ability, I’ve given you a list of what comes in the game, recommendations of what you may want, and which units are historically accurate and which ones you’ll want to replace… you’ll make the best decisions for you of course!

FYI, I keep my units for each nation in its own storage bin (which is really just a small screw-storage bin from the local hardware store)… also Japanese Tiger Tanks and American IS-2s are just so wrong!

[Loose Moose]

Holy Moly, you really gave him a lot to think about ……I just want to know about those country stickers on your parts bins…love to get a set of those…thanks LM

[Wolfshanze]

@Loose:

Holy Moly, you really gave him a lot to think about ……I just want to know about those country stickers on your parts bins…love to get a set of those…thanks LM

Hey, he asked a question and I was bored… bad combo…

Anyways, as for the stickers on my parts bins… nothing special really… but not something you’re going to find at your local Walmart store either… When I decided to setup my parts bins, I wanted WWII flag stickers on them… I spent hours on the net searching… “surely there are WWII flag stickers out there” I thought… if there are, I couldn’t find anything that floated my boat… so…

I just made them myself.

I just searched the net for suitable WWII flag jpgs, went to vistaprint.com, and I used the “Small Product Label - Rectangle” stickers as my choice for the print… all the flags are either WWII national or battle flags… and as some may not even notice, the American flag is from WWII, not current (it had 48 stars instead of 50 and was a tad different). So vistaprint made the stickers and I got them in the mail shortly after that… true story.

[Loose Moose]

Thanks Wolf……they are nice…going to have to look into an attempt to acquire some for myself…ya gonna go for the “new release”?  I have anniversary and have supplemented it with additional units, and replaced a lot of the crapy units that came with it.  I will probably get it, but we shall see it is worth the cost of admission…

[Private-Panic]

Great advice from Wolfshanze. Go with his option 4 hendriks! :-)

[Wolfshanze]

He never responded after my lengthy explanation… I think this happened to him…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_Lnz64vXB8