My review copy of Axis & Allies Europe 1940 has arrived

@Italiarulesthewaves

That happened to me once as well.

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.

@Cesc.1987:

So if I play a single Europe 40 or Pacific 40 game I must use the setup that is on top of the faction’s boxes.
If I play a global 40 game I must use the Global 40 setup alpha 3.9 version, correct?

Not really, Alpha3.9 is way outdated, as it was the predecessor of the official Global 2nd edition ruleset.

@rulebook:

Global Rules

…
Set up units as shown on the setup charts found in Pacific 1940 and Europe 1940. Additionally, place the following units:
Amur: 6 Soviet Infantry
Sakha: 6 Soviet Infantry and 2 Soviet AAA
Buryatia: 6 Soviet Infantry
Egypt: 2 ANZAC Infantry (also, remove 1 United Kingdom infantry)

…

The powers start with the following IPC income levels and treasuries:
Power  Starting Income
Germany  30
Soviet Union  37
Japan  26
United States  52
China  12
United Kingdom - Europe  28
United Kingdom - Pacific  17
Italy  10
ANZAC  10
France  19

HTH :-)

I agree with Karl’s assessment.  For the OOB set-up, Sea Lion seems like the only viable option.

Even then, the Allies might still have the advantage.  But taking London early on (by G3) should give Germany a decent shot at the W.

If there is a winning strategy for OOB that doesn’t involve taking London early, then it would need a strong naval component, or the Allies will set up in France and USA will build a major in Norway.

@Black:

… while Soviet Navy could have been dealt with just British units (as was in previouse AA versions)…

Some naval units for the USSR have been unique to Russia since AA1942.  These aren’t new molds specifically for AAE1940, these are reused molds from AA1942 plus new molds for tactical bombers and mechanized infantry.

I don’t disagree with you regarding the necessity for unique russian units or the sad lack of Italian units. I just want to point out that it was AA1942 (the 25th anniversary release of A&A) that first featured the unique russian destroyer, cruiser and battleship.

I can’t since I don’t know the disposition of the armies off the top og my head, sorry.

@Canuck12:

On that note though, I actually liked the subtle “watermarked” convoy and kamakazi zones.

Same here ;) just when the allies get too cocky you remind them of a kamakazi strike. “Oh, did’nt QUITE see that coming…”