AAG40 FAQ

Is a failed axis conquest of Yugoslavia treated the same way as Dutch territories are treated in terms of the allies gaining an ally that they cannot control? More specifically, can allied air units land in allied Yugoslavia before land units take it over? (They join the allies per page 11 of the rules).

Page 11, 1st column, last paragraph above the section :“Strict Neutrals” in the Europe 1940 rulebook uses a German attack on Yugoslavia as an example.

From the rule: “If the attack upon the neutral territory is unsuccessful (the territory is not captured), it’s no longer considered neutral and becomes part of the alliance opposing the power that attacked it. For example, if Germany attacked Yugoslavia but failed to capture it, after the attack Yugoslavia would join the Allies. Any remaining defending units stay in the territory, but can’t move. The territory remains uncontrolled, but units from the side it’s not allied with can move into it and take control of it and its remaining units in the same way as if it were a friendly neutral.”

If the axis fail to capture:

1. Is a once attacked Yugoslavia prior to being occupied by allied land units actually another ally like the Dutch territories?

2. Can the allies use Yugoslavia as a place to land air units during non combat before other allied land forces occupy it and convert it?

3. If they cannot land there, can allied planes fly over a once attacked Yugoslavia as it is no longer neutral if I understand correctly?

4. I assume for purposes of building air and naval bases, or factories, an allied Yugoslavia that you reinforce with land units, counts as being taken over that turn and thus you must wait a turn to build on it. Is that correct?

Basically, I am wondering if you can use it as a place to land, for an attack on the Italian fleet, if the German’s use it as an exploit (meaning they attack from two sides, without intending to capture, so they can retreat towards Russia with S. German units and 1 Romanian attacking and thus retreating to Romania).

This would basically allow 2 UK fighters (in alpha 2) to hit sz 97 to land on the carrier, and permit the Gibraltar and Normandy(if alive) planes to hit and land in Yugoslavia, along with the Tactical and Malta fighter, plus a non combat transported 2 land units….you would assemble a large force in Yugoslavia or at the very least, hit it with more air than otherwise possible choosing them as first casualties for instance.

Also, page 21 of the AAE1940 says air units can land on a “friendly” territory that was friendly at the start of your turn.

Is Greece considered “friendly” even before you take it over…I.E. can UK attack sz97 Italy with more UK air units and land in Greece, if the UK non combats land units into Greece to take it over. In other words, is it a “friendly” neutral even though its not yours yet?

@JamesAleman:

1. Is a once attacked Yugoslavia prior to being occupied by allied land units actually another ally like the Dutch territories?

Yes.

@JamesAleman:

2. Can the allies use Yugoslavia as a place to land air units during non combat before other allied land forces occupy it and convert it?

Yes.

@JamesAleman:

3. If they cannot land there, can allied planes fly over a once attacked Yugoslavia as it is no longer neutral if I understand correctly?

Yes.

@JamesAleman:

4. I assume for purposes of building air and naval bases, or factories, an allied Yugoslavia that you reinforce with land units, counts as being taken over that turn and thus you must wait a turn to build on it. Is that correct?

Yes.

@JamesAleman:

Also, page 21 of the AAE1940 says air units can land on a “friendly” territory that was friendly at the start of your turn.

Is Greece considered “friendly” even before you take it over…I.E. can UK attack sz97 Italy with more UK air units and land in Greece, if the UK non combats land units into Greece to take it over. In other words, is it a “friendly” neutral even though its not yours yet?

Friendly neutral is not friendly.  You cannot land air units in a friendly neutral.

If you capture a Naval Base during the Combat Phase, can you then use it during your NCM phase or do you have to wait until next turn?

It cannot be used in the same turn in which it is captured.

If the Germans have a submarine in SZ 6, England does not get the NO for no German submarines on the board except Caspian Sea, Black Sea and North Sea - according to what is written in Alpha 2, however, is that what was intended?

I presumed to think that the idea behind the NO was to reward Germany for putting Submarines in the North and Central Atlantic, not cower in the Med, Indian, Japanese or Pacific.

Only German subs on the Europe map cost the UK its NO.

@gamerman01:

@13thguardsriflediv:

Or buy more of them, I have a dozen UK Union Jack roundels, useful for my house rule that means I can transfer Persia, Iraq and Transjordan/Syria to UK Pacific control. And I mark West India with one. If UK London falls, either I use the ‘Canada/South Africa’ house rule I wrote or the UK Pacific is overall UK Capital house rule.

Did you buy 5 more E40’s?  :-D
Seriously, that’s a great idea, to mark West India!!  I think I’ll do that.

I bought some from historicalboardgames.com website, who ran out of them for a while :-D (think they have a few for sale now, again)

I just reread the combat section to make sure I understand, but just making sure:

There are 2 types of combats in which you can “partially” retreat.

1. An amphibious battle that has land units join in….the land units can lend their hits for the first few rounds and retreat, but since amphibious units cannot, (assuming you left them alive in earlier rounds) you can take the territory with the amphibious units. This is useful when you don’t want all of your units exposed to counterattack yet you still wish to capture. Example of a Tactical use: Italy for capturing Egypt if the UK is poised to retake, land units could retreat back to Alexandria.

2. Another partial retreat if I understand is a naval battle in which submarines submerge, the other units fire, and at the end, retreat…leaving the subs in the zone for possible convoy actions.

Yes, though number 2 is not technically a partial retreat, as the subs have submerged.

How does GB handle units, when brought together?
For example if the med fleet and the Indian fleet are brought together…
Do they move as one or separately? And who controls them India or London?

If India moves the Inf in W. India, to Persia etc. the IPC there go to London right? Because its on the European Map…?

Thanks.

@ViribusUnitis:

How does GB handle units, when brought together?
For example if the med fleet and the Indian fleet are brought together…
Do they move as one or separately? And who controls them India or London?

United Kingdom Europe and United Kingdom Pacific are not separate powers, they are separate economies within the same power.  This means that the only things that they do separately are collect and spend IPCs.  Everything else is done together, so there is no issue of control of units.  There is no such thing as “UK Europe units” or “UK Pacific units”.  Once they are paid for and mobilized, they are all just UK units, therefore they move and fight together.

@ViribusUnitis:

If India moves the Inf in W. India, to Persia etc. the IPC there go to London right? Because its on the European Map…?

Yes.

He’s talking about the income from Persia, not from West India.

@Cmdr:

In my opinion, since the transports are legal enemy targets, you can retreat from them.  Thought justifying this statement: You are allowed to automatically remove any unhit transports left when you attack them, but legally, you still have to roll the dice and score hits against them, just as you would when attacking any other ship.  The only real difference is that transports cannot defend themselves, so throwing dice is an excersice in futility and transports must can only be chosen as casualties after all other valid units are already destroyed.

ok, I deleted my post as I bothered to actually look at the rule book - P 19 of AAE 1940  - side bar.

but for clarity, I’ll repost:

As an attacker, and if transports are the only legal remaining target, can you retreat from them?  There is precedent in that an attacking carrier MUST retreat, but what about subs?  And what is the timing for removing transports if they’re the only remaining legal target?

A thought experiment:
Britain attacks w/ a cruiser, 3 subs, and 1 fighter.
Germany defends with a carrier, 2 planes and 5 transports.

Britain scores hits 3 sub hits and 1 other hit.  Germany immediately removes the CV, a tt, and a selects a plane to take the non sub hit (only legal target).

Germany rolls 2 defense hits from its planes.  The UK loses the cruiser and a plane.

At the end of the first round of combat:
UK has 3 subs remaining.
Germany has a plane and 4 transports.  Germany has a DD in range to counterattack that seazone on their turn.

A)  Can the UK retreat, or are the 4 transports immediately removed (despite the combat round being over), locking the 3 UK subs in that seazone.  Technically, the UK did not win the combat yet (a plane remains), and as all hits have been assigned, is not another round of combat is req’d to remove transports?  Though at this point the UK can only hit tranports and Germany can no longer hit subs.

B)  If the UK can retreat, can the UK instead choose to simply roll as normal for however many rounds, trying to snipe transports to the smallest surviving number, and THEN retreat?

C)  If the UK is allowed to snipe a transport stack, can a completely defenseless transport stack be sniped at?  Can you attack a transport stack with a single ship, roll combat after combat roll, eventually wittling down to 1 transport, and then retreat?  Or are you compelled to stay in that seazone?

@Cmdr:

In my opinion, since the transports are legal enemy targets, you can retreat from them.  Thought justifying this statement: You are allowed to automatically remove any unhit transports left when you attack them, but legally, you still have to roll the dice and score hits against them, just as you would when attacking any other ship.  The only real difference is that transports cannot defend themselves, so throwing dice is an excersice in futility and transports must can only be chosen as casualties after all other valid units are already destroyed.

Per the side bar - It would seem that once the transports are defenseless per my example, they are immediately removed.  This implies that you CANNOT retreat from transports, so they do lock you to that seazone.

HOWEVER, the wording is “you don’t have to continue rolling dice until all the transports receive hits.  This will speed up combats.”

The wording suggests “you don’t HAVE to” but you MAY, in which case, I guess my question is still unanswered.  If you’re a pencil whipping pain to play against, who likes to know about rule loopholes…  Can you choose to roll, can you choose to snipe, and can you choose to retreat after being a little @#$%!

Using a slightly different unit configuration…

A thought experiment:
Britain attacks w/ a cruiser, 3 subs, and 1 fighter and 3 empty transports or a carrier.
Germany defends with a carrier, 2 planes and 5 transports.

Britain scores hits 3 sub hits and 1 other hit.  Germany immediately removes the CV, a tt, and a selects a plane to take the non sub hit (only legal target).

Germany rolls 2 defense hits from its planes.  The UK loses the cruiser and a plane.

At the end of the first round of combat:
UK has 3 subs remaining and 3 transports remaining.
Germany has a plane and 4 transports.  Germany has a DD in range to counterattack that seazone on their turn.

At this point, the UK COULD choose to stay or retreat, and the transports are NOT immediately removed, because the attacker retains the option to retreat and the german plane could AT MOST hit one transport each round of combat.

So the UK could snipe with the subs, wittling the transport stack down, using the UK transports as fodder (transport fodder, woooo!) to stay in the fight, and THEN choose to retreat.

So if it’s the case that you can snipe in this manner (using transports to take the only legal hits, or a carrier), then it seems as though the rules SHOULD allow transport sniping and retreating.

I do realize this won’t come up often, and I do realize this might suggest an underhanded style of play, but it does seem intuitive that you can choose to attack a stack and retreat whether it’s one transport or 10, and it seems as though if you want to instead roll on the transports, gambling them lower so you can retreat…  well, why would that not be allowed?  That’s how other combats work, is it not?  It seems like the kill-all-transport rule was created so that if you wanted to kill them ALL, you could do so without rolling, but I’ve never seen a response that suggested how a tactical retreat works with them, when you just want to kill as many as possible and beat a hasty retreat to a home port.

Also, I apologise if I just broke the game ;)

You can’t retreat when there’s nothing to retreat from.  As soon as the only valid targets are transports that cannot retreat, combat is over and the transports are removed.

If a transport carried 2 ally units, can those unit off load on different territories both adjacent to the sea zone the transport is in on their nations’ turns? (like if france and uk both had an infantry on an american tranny and america moves them to sz 112, can the uk infantry go to norway on his turn, and the french one go to denmark on his)