Axis and Allies victory fairness

Notes on the Europe 1940 2nd rules, mainly highlights of the most important rules as they appear in the rulebook along with some additional comments and explanations and some helpful tables:
Europe 1940 2nd - Setup Charts:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/m8t34moclkiy0ai/Setup Charts for A%26A E40 SE.pdf?dl=0
Europe 1940 2nd - Basic Rules Guide:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/nkmtfl3tblfhyd5/Important Notes for A%26A E40 SE.pdf?dl=0
Some pages as a sample of these Notes below:

09662159-39b1-42e9-b2d0-a6ebd72cb973-image.png

7e8a94cf-de2e-45c2-a44e-cfd2cb5a7a4b-image.png

See also the posts for Pacific and Global 1940 SE versions:
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/post/1623789
and
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/post/1630786

Magro,

You are correct about that Persian air distance, my mistake. I had been looking at the Caucasus routing not realizing that the Caspian Sea-Kazakhstan route cut off a space. That saves half a turn’s worth of UK income.

That last game I had hopped an Africa fighter over and shuffled a mech in, but didn’t do a fighter build in the Persia IC because of the miscount. I had tried “overworking” the German air and main thrust by pincering two infantry forces through Bessarabia and Baltic States, and a Brit landing in Norway under cover of the surviving half of the Home Fleet (SZ 106 transport had survived G1 but went to Britain because I wanted to force Germany to buy defensive forces.) However, I found I still had enough German air plus late arriving mech/tanks along with a portion of the spearhead infantry to handle these, take Western Ukraine, retake Norway, while still continuing the spearhead to Belarus next to the main Soviet stack with mech/tanks, etc. in Bryansk. And the Scandinavian infantry took Leningrad/Novgorod.

R3 counterattack odds were very poor for Russia and were going to leave a tank stack that would still have enough mech/tanks reaching it the next turn to be unstoppable. So the retreat to Moscow was made on R3.

On G4 I strat bombed Moscow’s IC with three bombers. I decided not to scramble the two Russian fighters for this as I needed their defense as badly as the IPC’s. I figured the ~50% chance of losing one of two fighters outweighed the lower chance of clipping a bomber at ~33%. The IC’s AAA missed and the bombers inflicted enough damage that I had to spend several infantry’s worth to repair for a final infantry build there on R4, which was mostly a waste as calcs showed it would not hold even with some UK help. But I stayed and was bludgeoned. German tanks reached the Caucasus on G6 and would have been unstoppable. US landing and Brit round 5 stacks/w UK fighters reinforcing in Normandy were crushed on the counterattack that turn. It would have been much better to do a fighting withdrawal toward Persia, maintaining a threat to keep German support forces in theater, rather than be unceremoniously swept away.

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=28502.0

All, just an FYI, but there is an A&A 40 Pacific discussion thread re: the Alpha set-up for the Pacific in the global game re: Siam. Since there is no truly “Global” site, just an FYI.
Ron

No.

When I play test, I set up the board and try to find counters to an idea as I work though the turns, so no opponent. Obviously, that will not mean the idea works until I try it live. Its just to test the concept. If the concept is sound, I use it in a live face to face game and see how the other guy(s) respond.

This first game I focused on the subs for blockading. That part does not seem reasonable at this point. Its still interesting that it delayed the US transports and gave Germany a nice income, but I don’t think the axis will pull a win out of the bag. By the way, when I meant to blockade I would leave the surface fleet back in the face of a large air force and wait for additional subs, you could then counter attack a DD build with air and sea, taking the air units off so that the carriers can stay back. Even convoy raiding for 22 IPCs would be nice.

Next test, I want to build a G2 transport wave as well, this will force UK to keep with Infantry making Italy’s job easier, and give me the resources to secure S. America while the US is neutral, with enough, I hope to divert 3 towards West Africa again, as having the German land unit in Egypt is a nice thought. I realize UK is the same amount of IPCs as S. America, but I’m testing the concept of taking an area out of America’s way plus they have multiple factory sites if it seems possible to use them.

There are some early risks I discovered. The G2 move to Gibraltar in the first game put the German Fleet of CV,BB,CA,2FTR in range of a UK CA,3 FTR and TAC…a bold player might take that shot. I also had UK do a weak attack [CV+FTR+CA] on the Italian fleet, it worked [damaged CV with a CA] while leaving the Tac for London.

Turkey was a tight fight G3, as I only had 5 inf, 3 arm, 1 tac, 1 bomber in range…I ended with 1 inf, 3 arm and the 2 air. Losing 2 units in Greece could have made it 4 inf for the assault. Turkey missed a lot, I could see losing armor in the future as an outcome.

Other concerns are if Russia stages north and drives on Norway, Germany’s income would plummet. With many transports, I hope to discourage that option.

I had UK protect Quebec, but I’m curious about how many players would suspect a G3 three transports full landing on Quebec? The potential to send planes staged in Gibraltar to sz 101 has merit as building carriers in 106[Quebec] would allow them to land and enable a weak looking axis force to “surprise” the US navy round 4. The transports can then hit Venezuela, West Indies and/or Central America turn 4. [This may prove to be a great move for a failed Sea Lion as sinking a US fleet would delay the US a round or more.]

The South American concept seems crazy since the US can just build large amounts of land forces. However, the US must choose fleet or land, and typically will go fleet, meaning there is “some” time for early gains and possible factories. I’m trying to limit the investment to two German productions as I want turn 3 and 4 builds to prevent Russia from getting their foot in the door.

Stalin also allowed German destroyers to sail around northern Russia to attack Allied shipping in the Pacific.

I personally believe that if the US/UK can drop land units off into Archangel/Karelia the game is essentially broken.  By all means allow them to send IPC aid to Russia, but historically Stalin did not want to share the glory of victory in Russia with foreign troops.

There must be a handicap to doing this; at the very least the turn it takes for Russia to convert this income into units and get them into action.

In a sense, the eastern and western fronts are depicted in different scales, certainly in regard to the numbers of units represented by infantry and Armoured pieces.  If it were accurate, the IPC income and starting units for Russia relative to the other Allies would be significantly bigger, perhaps 50%+.  That’s why introducing US/UK units into Russia can be so imbalancing.

@Imperious:

1 French inf

???

Theres a French Infantry that starts in the UK, like ANZAC had a guy in Malta.