My review copy of Axis & Allies Europe 1940 has arrived

It was stated by Larry in the original announcement about the Italian sculpts that there were “production problems” with the Italian sculpts from AA50.  Basically, they were either lost or thrown out after AA50, or they decided they couldn’t use them since the new sculpts they were using (ala Spring 1942) were bigger.  This then meant that WOTC didn’t want to invest the money in recreating the Italian sculpts (ditto for the French sculpts), so they just duplicated the German sculpts in brown (and the Russian in blue).  Larry was disappointed as well. :-(

Keep in mind the only unique Italian sculpt was the tank. All others were German in AA50 as well.

@reloader-1:

Keep in mind the only unique Italian sculpt was the tank. All others were German in AA50 as well.

Other than the Italian infantry and tanks, the Italian pieces were a mixture of German and Japanese sculpts.  If I recall correctly, the naval pieces were all German, the artillery pieces were Japanese, and the planes were half and half.

@CWO:

@reloader-1:

Keep in mind the only unique Italian sculpt was the tank. All others were German in AA50 as well.

Other than the Italian infantry and tanks, the Italian pieces were a mixture of German and Japanese sculpts.  If I recall correctly, the naval pieces were all German, the artillery pieces were Japanese, and the planes were half and half.

Exactly - They used the Japanese Bomber and Artillery, German everything else.

makes me remember the good old days when the first A&A Europe was released, with 24 new and uniqe sculpts.

@Razor:

makes me remember the good old days when the first A&A Europe was released, with 24 new and uniqe sculpts.

Though keep in mind that there were shared pieces of equipment in that game, like the American destroyer, submarine, transport and artillery piece, which the British and the Russians used too.

Also keep in mind that the sculpts in 1942/1940 are brand new - they may be the same tanks/planes etc but they are completely new (compare tanks and other models to AAE/AAP models.)

The quality of the sculpts looks good too, and that is all I really care about.

has any one com,pared the size of an old aa bb to a new bb? the diffrence in size and detail and qulity is amazing!

I wonder how many of these new pieces are in the set?

Is it a situation yet again where say Germany has only 6 tactical bombers or 6 Mech?

As for France, once they get liberated, they can build forces so it is important that the sculpts are ‘French’

Also, i would use them for neutrals so as not to confuse the units from other powers pieces. Under house rules some of these neutrals need something more than infantry and having unique pieces is a plus.

Ironic that the French pieces are wearing trenchcoats, since the only ones who’ll survive the early rounds will be based in Africa…

Still, they’ll do nicely for WWI French inf when the time comes.

Yes perhaps that was the intention. When i see a French soldier it seems that greatcoat and the unique helmet are the iconic uniform of French infantry 1940.

Thats what they were after.

You can make the same case for UK 8th army infantry wearing shorts in Normandy, but that too is iconic uniform that were remember best in.

@SAS:

The French units are rocking the sweet trenchcoats. :mrgreen:

http://www.axisandallies.org/node/433

Damn those are awesome, but why French, why? Well actually it suits them the best.

Really nice report.

The way its written makes it seem like we don’t even need to look at the rules because of the manner you wrote that.

Awesome.  Thank you.

I really like the “Strict Neutrals” rule.  Should make things quite interesting.

So they did include the “strict neutral alliance” rule.  That’s kinda cool.  I guess we’ll see how it affects the gameplay.  I also like that the Soviets get to place 2 infantry for Free in Novosibirsk every turn.

@djensen:

Krieghund will need to proofread it for mistakes before it is “official.” Thanks in advance, Krieghund.

It looks OK to me.  :-)

Thank you for the great pictures and the rules update.

So Usa and Russia cannont attack neutral while not at war?….Could have been fun for russia to kill some time attacking finland or another pro axis neutral.