Hi,
I haven’t been into Global for too long, in fact I have only recently begun playing it, but after a few rounds of it I kind of grasped what is useful and what isn’t.
For instance, when it comes to pieces, you are fine with the stuff that comes in the box and are definately able to play. However, depending on your playing style, there are some things that will greatly faciliate your gameplay.
So far we did not need additional units, so you should be good there.
As for the dice, in theory 1 single dice would be sufficient, but then bigger battles would take forever. That said, the more dice, the easier and faster it gets. But what you want is not only many dice, but different dice. There are 4 different values for a successful attack/defense, which is the max value on the dice you roll for that unit. So if you do an attack with different units, you probably wanna roll for all of them at the same time to speed up the battle. Same goes for the defenders…
So group up your troops to units that attack at 4 or less (Bombers, Battleships etc), 3 or less (Tanks, Fighters etc), 2 or less (Artillery, Destroyers etc) and 1 or less (Inf, Mech Inf) or if you are defending, do so accordingly with the defence values, and use different dice for them all in one roll.
So yes, get some dice, but get some that are different to those that come in the box.
For example, for those huge infantery battles in Russia, we use the small dice from A&A 1914, and there are many of them ;)
One more thing that is really more than nice to have is paper money. Get the Battle Bucks from HBG, they are nice. FMG also has nice paper money. Tracking IPCs with pen&paper sucks.
I am also really not fond of the cardboard markers for the factories that A&A 1940 comes with. They are ok for air&naval bases, but for the factories, I tend to overlook them. I much more prefer actual factory pieces, which are also available at HBG from earlier A&A games. You will need pieces for both minor and major factories, which are not available. But you can go ahead, buy a bunch of the same pieces and then mark or paint some of them to represent minor or major ICs, as you wish.
Something we also did from our 2nd game on was to use little pieces for those victory cities, also available at HBG. We use black ones for axis cities and red ones for allied cities. They go onto the board at the start setup and once they are conquered by the enemy, that enemy takes them in his possesion so it is instantly visible how many victory cities already have been conquered by both sides. As this is what determines who wins the game, and in our first game we overlooked it for a while when the game actually already was over, we felt that it was very useful.
Other than that, be aware of the fact that the rules are very complicated for new and unregular players, as there are so many things to be observed, many little extra rules, many excemptions from the basic rules etc.
To keep those in mind, unfortunately there is nothing out there that you can buy.
However, gladly enough, there is material made by the community and published in this board that you can download for free, print, cut and maybe laminate, which will greatly help in not loosing track of all those rules.
A good example is to have cards for the National Objectives, which are available from a few guys on this board.
There are also custom game boards which you can have printed that already have additional info boxes for turn sequence, combined arms rules etc etc…
I also plan to use setup cards in the future like those made by Minor Threat.
I also do have a custom rulebook that merges the rulebooks of Europe and Pacific to a version that omits the single rules and focusses on the Global rules, but it is in German (thanks to the German A&A Club). However, people like Young Grasshopper are already on it and might release such a rulebook in the future. It does greatly help in getting all the rules, because as it is now, you practically have 3 rulebooks (Pacific, Europe and the Global section in Europe) from which you have to extract those complex rules. That results in almost constant uncertainty about the rules, the size of the 1940 Global FAQ on this board tells it all. I think that a dedicated Global rulebook is the key to better understanding the rules.
These have been the most important points in my young experience. There are a few other things that can be purchased or done that either help with gameplay (like remaining-movement-markers for planes or IC damage markers), with clarity (like using actual infantery pieces for Neutrals) or which just beautify the game (like using little blast markers for damaged capital ships instead of laying them to their side), but all of these are optional by all means.
Last but not least, you need to carefully study the rules. As reading a rulebook before even playing does not really promote comprehending those rules, you are much better off if you watch some of the tutorial videos on Youtube, especially those by Young Grasshopper. They are more than great and can be found on his channel “The Cliffside Bunker”. It will take a while to watch those, but it is well worth it. Watch the first video, then read that section in the rulebook, then watch the next video etc.
You will both learn what is meant by what is written in the rulebooks and also where to find that rule in those 3 above mentioned rulebooks.
Ok, I think that’s it. Sorry for the long text, I hope you got to this point. I am sure other people have other things to add, as my experience as mentioned above is still premature.
Best wishes and enjoy this great game!!!
