It makes moo sad that not everyone can enjoy the aa50 experience in a face to face game. :(
I prefer revised, but I haven’t given this a shot. Revised was setup to be aggressive. Not very realistic for japan to make ICs and churn out tanks to take russia, but it is much more fun to take japan to fight on for Moscow while usa/uk/russia work on berlin.
AA50 works out like that as well.
Since that experience has been set already, Larry Harris is trying to get people to do a more realistic approach to WWII… one that involves the allies in the pacific and japan to fight for the islands.
If you are going to get a 1942 board, get revised (which does not have cruisers) or get this 2nd edition. Do not get the middle child (because transports don’t defend themselves you will find a less aggressive game, which is not as fun).
However in this version, there are two landing spots for the allies on western europe instead of one. So the transports not defending themselves will not be as heavy of an issue, because usa/uk can stack up together if they can’t crack western europe individually. So an aggressive strategy is viable, just like AA50.