French Set…need help to finalize set.

[Lunarwolf]

sgtwiltani , on page one coach mentions he likes the r-35 for the light tanks. maybe he will change it later

[jim010]

@knp7765:

@Yavid:

I agree that the French Navy is sadly under-strengthed but as we stand right now, I would rather a French destroyer/cruiser combo over the battleship/carrier combo.

I agree with you. I think the French Navy should be better represented than it is. France should get at least one Battleship, but not a carrier as the French Navy hadn’t really gotten into carriers quite yet.

I’m guessing that Coach is making these pieces with his game more in mind than AAG.  He likely has more French Navy represented there.  I know that World War II in Europe certainly has more French Navy in it.  A BB would be welcome in those games.

[Gargantua]

A French Battleship got placed in one of the tournament of extra death and pain games. :P

It’s busy sinking Japs in the south pacific.

[jim010]

@Gargantua:

A French Battleship got placed in one of the tournament of extra death and pain games. :P

It’s busy sinking Japs in the south pacific.

:lol:

[DrLarsen]

@Imperious:

France just lasts one turn and you got a few infantry left to bother with.

In point of fact, one of the biggest post-fall-of-France issues of the early war was what would happen to the French fleet.  Note that it would NOT have been such an issue if the French fleet wasn’t significant either quality or quantity-wise.  The French fleet was every bit the equal of either Germany or Italy (which makes sense, as all three had been theoretically treated limited to approximately 1/3 the size of the RN until Hitler repudiated the AGNA and war broke out, ending the constraints of the Second London Treaty, events which had happened in fairly rapid succession, fleet-building-wise… and the Richelieu was a good match for the Bismark or the Littorio; meanwhile, the Dunkerque was a match for the Scharnhorst and for the rebuilt Italian BB’s…)

Anyways, point being that if you compare BB/ CB/ CA line-ups between Germany, Italy, and France, you get three fleets that are each pretty much a match for each other.  (Yes, the Jean Bart wasn’t finished when war broke out, but neither were the Bismark class ships…)  Factoring in Jean Bart, and the Bismarks, and you get 2 modern, 15"-gunned ships for each (Italy, France, & Germany) and a varying list of modern battlecruisers, updated old BB’s, “pocket battleships”, treaty cruisers… all of which added up to roughly equivalent fleets for each of the three continental powers!

Getting in a Richelieu, or at least a Dunkerque, is a must in HBG’s first French set, IMHO!

[Imperious Leader]

The French setup does not have more than a few ships. Historically of course, they had a large navy but in this game they don’t and most people are buying them for games.

[DrLarsen]

Yes, but this section of the forum is the place where all the “customizers” hang out; I’m thinking Global 1939, and I’ll be customizing my set-up to probably include a larger fleet for the French so that it can be an issue for those “Vichy or not” negotiations;  I imagine that others might find such an idea interesting to experiment with… But it’s just not the same if the ship you’re negotiating over is that monstrosity of a WotC Gangut class ship that could barely pass for itself, much less a Richelieu or a Dunkerque…

[Yavid]

I completely agree the french navy is sadly under represented. as is the german navy for that matter but i would much rather be buying pieces that are going to get used than buying pieces that are going to sit around collecting dust. it’s why i haven’t bought any of the neutral sets. All i want from them is 14 inf. for strict neutrals, 4 for pro-axis, 3 for pro-allied and 3ish? for mongalian.

[Imperious Leader]

Yes, but this section of the forum is the place where all the “customizers” hang out; I’m thinking Global 1939, and I’ll be customizing my set-up to probably include a larger fleet for the French

Yea that is true enough. My own Europe 39 setup has alot more French ships, but id rather see the British out before France because they are more important.

France has to be like on the bottom of the list IMO.

[DrLarsen]

Well, I admit to being a “piece junkie,” and I leave it to all an sundry to say what their own top buying priority is, because I want HBG to make money on these things.  My key point though, is that while he’s doing the French, he’d be missing an opportunity if he ignored the only branch of the French armed forces that was worth anything, their navy, which had some great ships!  T-34’s could almost pass for Somua-35’s at a distance at this scale, but, as I said before, those ridiculously oversized Gangut class pieces can barely pose as themselves!  They certainly bear no resemblance (passing or otherwise) to a Richelieu (which went on to serve as a highly-valued component of the British Pacific Fleet, late war, btw, illustrating the importance that French ships can have in someone’s custom game version…)

[knp7765]

Yeah, when the new Russian ship pieces first came out, I was really stoked about them because I was tired of Russia simply using all of Britain’s ship classes. I still like the Kirov Class Cruiser and Gnevnyi Class Destroyer. However, the Gangut Class Battleship, while definitely a Russian ship design, is too dang big in our pieces. They have it as big if not bigger than the Japanese Yamato when really the Gangut was much shorter, probably more along the lines of the Royal Oak.

[CWO Marc]

I’m with DrLarsen on this.  France is the late-comer in the A&A franchise, and compared to the other countries there’s a great lack of pieces for it.  The US, UK, USSR, Germany and Japan have appeared in every global version of the game; every regional version of the game has included either Germany or Japan; the UK has appeared in some of the regional versions; and the US has appeared in every single A&A game ever published.  That’s a couple of decades worth of pieces, with a fair bit of colour and sculpt-design variations over the years, so there are lots of units from which to choose for game variants.

Italy – another late-comer like France, but one that appeared in Anniversary too – has a rather poor selection of OOB pieces for it, but at least it has its own OOB tank and, more importantly, it’s the only country for which FMG’s enhanced nation-specific sculpt set is available, so it’s in good shape.  (It also has HBG’s Italy-coloured Axis Minor pieces as a further expansion to its sculpt range.)

France so far, on the other hand, only has the OOB pieces – which apart from the troop sculpt are all Russian in design.  HBG’s blue Neutrals set doesn’t fill this particular gap adequately: the pieces are Dutch and Polish, the shade of blue used is too pale compared with the OOB French set, and the range of pieces is limited (with the heaviest naval unit being a cruiser).  This lack of pieces is compounded by the fact that France, for gaming purposes, can be seen as being anywhere from one to four different entities: the Third Republic, the Vichy regime, the Free French forces, and the post-liberation Provisional Government of the French Republic.  No more than two of those entities existed simultaneously, however, so having enough variety to distinguish between just two of them is plenty.

[DrLarsen]

@DrLarsen:

Yeah, when the new Russian ship pieces first came out, I was really stoked about them because I was tired of Russia simply using all of Britain’s ship classes. I still like the Kirov Class Cruiser and Gnevnyi Class Destroyer. However, the Gangut Class Battleship, while definitely a Russian ship design, is too dang big in our pieces. They have it as big if not bigger than the Japanese Yamato when really the Gangut was much shorter, probably more along the lines of the Royal Oak.

Oh, if they actually made it to scale, it would be much smaller; it would be too easy to confuse it with a cruiser, in fact, so you can’t blame them for not doing proper scale, per se, but they didn’t need to make it THAT big. � Speaking of keeping ship classes distinct, I’m looking at the FMG Italian cruiser and I’m a little concerned that FMG made it too small, as I’m concerned that it will be confused for a destroyer. � Is it just me, or have others had similar concerns?

[lozmoid]

I also felt that the FMG Italian Cruiser piece was a little insubstantial in terms of superstructure height, and perhaps in terms of general width too, and I mentioned this is the past also. When you compare it to the FMG Battleship piece, the difference is enormous.

[Lunarwolf]

agreed, fmg’s Italian cruiser was a bit smaller then i thought it would be, compared to the battleship. but then again i felt the infantry was to small and the mech and truck were to big

[DrLarsen]

OK, so I have an interesting compromise idea: why not add a Dunkerque class to the French set.  Since presumedly, FMG is going to want to do the Richelieu for the French BB and a treaty cruiser for the French CA, HBG wouldn’t be getting in the way of FMG’s plans.  Make it in-between the WotC Hipper class (which is the largest of the oob cruisers) and Bismark class in size, and players could decide to use it either as a conventional BB, a CB (attack/ defend at a 7 on a d12) or perhaps even a cruiser, depending on what makes the most sense for their own house rules.  Hopefully, the new AA41 CB pieces (since that’s really what they are if they really are the Hood and the Kongo) is a tad smaller than the AA40 BB pieces and then, when added to HBG’s Dunkerque, 7 different players could have a piece in their color that could be used as a CB should they want to experiment with the concept.  (Italy and ANZAC would still be left out, but Italy didn’t have any CB’s anyway, unless you count their rebuilt old BB’s as essentially CB’s in capability, and none of the Commonwealth nations had capital ships of their own by this time…)

[Yavid]

IMHO what is needed from a french set is a top to bottom redesign of the current french units. everything from art to battleships need to be done so they look french. I’m talking about a set 100 to 150 pieces something on the scale FMG did for Italy. Or doing two sets but one set of 28 pieces just isn’t going to be enough to make everyone happy.

[korruptkaos]

when Europe 1940 is reprinted do you think they will add unique  pieces for the french and Italians. and if you feel they will wouldn’t it be better to see what they make before making a supplement set?

[knp7765]

What I’m afraid of after seeing pics of 1941 is that when they reprint Europe 1940 they will do the same thing…all Allies get the same sculpts and all Axis get the same sculpts. So France will get HMS Hood battleships and IS-2 tanks while Italy gets Kongo battleships and Tiger tanks.

[Bob_A_Mickelson]

@knp7765:

What I’m afraid of after seeing pics of 1941 is that when they reprint Europe 1940 they will do the same thing…all Allies get the same sculpts and all Axis get the same sculpts. So France will get HMS Hood battleships and IS-2 tanks while Italy gets Kongo battleships and Tiger tanks.

I doubt that will happen. I believe global will remain a delux version. Actually I expect that global will get the new sculpts introduced in 41 and 42 but only for the appropriate countries. Ie I expect to see Russian but not British IS-2s. I also expect there will be a FEW new sculpts. (likely Italian)