Looking forward to this new addition

I’m curious to see what the rules for tanks will be.  Tanks did not appear until the last half of the war and were pretty much only used by the allies (a couple thousand).  The only central power to use them was Germany….who made 20.

I would have liked a cavalry unit or even an airship.  I’m sure it will be a fun game though.  Looking forward to it.

Perhaps the tank unit is more of just like, a truck?

Representing divisions that had automotive transportation vs horses?

I don’t really like the tank unit. A cavalry unit would have been better. Or a 2nd version of artillery. (normal artillery and strategic artillery)

Strategic Artillery would be similar in respects to AA guns. 0/0/1 units, but able to fire into adjacent territories from the territory behind it. (imagine being in France firing into Holland//Belgium)
And it could have different fire modes.

• Bombardment: Each strategic artillery rolls 2 dice, rolls of 1 count as hits.
• Saturation: Each strategic artillery rolls 3 dice, rolls of 1-2 count as hits. (rolls of 6 are friendly fire, and inflict a casualty on your own forces)
• Counter Battery: Each strategic artillery rolls 1 die, rolls of 1 count as hits. (may attack territories 2 spaces away)

@oztea:

Perhaps the tank unit is more of just like, a truck? Representing divisions that had automotive transportation vs horses?

I don’t think any of the major powers had much (if anything) in the way of fully motorized divisions in WWI.  Trains and horses were the main alternatives to foot-slogging (with the famous Taxis of the Marne being an exception that proved the rule).  Scout cars and similar vehicles did exist, but only in a support role.  At any rate, if there is indeed a plan to represent motorized divisions in the game, I wouldn’t use tank sculpts to depict them.  WWI tanks could barely move (their speed and their operating range were minimal, especially in the case of the big models), and they carried no passengers other than the crew (so they didn’t serve as armoured personnel carriers).

I hope in this game there is more of a oppurtunity for building to your empire. Such as rail roads,factories,defensive fortifications,minefields,ports,etc,etc. I have been wanting a WW1 game with pieces in the Axis and Allies mechanic for years. I can’t wait till April. This game has a second addition already written all over it. Larry mentioned that only the infantry pieces would be different for all countries. Central powers will have all the same artillery and Allies the same artillery pieces. Second addition will probably have updated sculpts and new rules. I know I am getting ahead of myself but I thing after 1942 and 1940 is it really hard to believe this will be any different.

I am fine with the sculpts being shared by each faction.
The tank seems to be out of place in 1914, and perhaps you can only buy them after a certain turn, that would be cool.

I would really hope that aircraft aren’t 3/4/4.
I think they would be much better as 2/1/3 Special Rule: Observation: Each air unit bumps the attack value of an attacking artillery to ‘3’ at a 1:1 ratio, representing it’s use in reconnaissance.

And especially considering how important dogfighting was during the war, I would say all air units fight in a special combat against just other air units to gain air superiority. (and can’t attack land units until they have air superiority)

oztea– your idea about pairing fighters and artillery in that manner seems inspired.  Hats off to you.

I hope we get some real previews on this as well. Getting tired of Larry saying he will answer all of our questions and then he says I can’t go there right now. It is a board game for Petes sake not the Strategic defense initiative! Give us some rules,a few pictures and victory conditions. The way they did AA revised back in 2004 was awesome. An update every week giving you a little more info at at time. I hope this will be the same.

@Rammstein:

I’m wondering if this game will be like Axis & Allies meets Risk, where you roll and roll and watch your mass armies of men dwindle before your eyes.

This is just pure speculation on my part, but if I were to translate this line from Larry’s designer notes…

“I hope you get a feel for what it must have been like to move hundreds of thousands of troops into vital strategic locations only to again move hundreds of thousands more into the same contested battlefield to replace the staggering number of casualties.”

…into a game mechanic, I’d base it on three principles:

• A combat system that generates high infantry casualties on both sides during battles (to represent WWI’s massive attrition rates).

• A replenishment system that generates large numbers of replacement troops during the early and middle parts of the game (to represent the massive enlistment and/or conscription efforts deployed by the various governments).

• A cap on the number of replacement troops generated by the replenishment system towards the end of the game (to represent the fact that, in the later phases of the war, certain countries – especially France and Germany – were running out of men of regular military age).  One of the overall strategic aims of each side during WWI (such as during the Battle of Verdun) was to “bleed the other side white”, and by 1917 and 1918 those cumulative losses had become so great that France and Germany were getting close to the bottom of their manpower reserves.

I wonder if the end of the game will be equally as unfulfilling as the end of the war…

I think instead the cost of infantry, etc. should increase to reflect a shortage of manpower.

Larry wrote that this would be a game of yards, not armies sweeping across continents.  When I first read that, Bulge was the first thing that popped into my mind, maybe a hex style of play???

It disappointed me that the map will go all the way down to South Africa. Seems like a LOT of wasted space down there. We could do without the few skirmishes down there in exchange for a western and eastern front with more than 3 territories each.

I swear I will be so mad if France is any less than 5 territories (West France, South France, Paris, Alsace Lorrane, Picardy)
There is no way we can have attrition on the western front without a wide buffer between Paris and the German Border.

I agree with oztea. While there was some battles to take over the German colonies in Africa, I don’t think they had that much of an impact on the war. The main drama happened in Europe, with perhaps some of the action around Turkey like the Dardanelles landings and Russia’s invasion of Turkey from the Caucasus. It seems to me that a map similar to the original A&A Europe would be ideal.
By making such a large map, it almost seems like Larry is treating this war like WW2 which is a mistake. The style of fighting was vastly different.

Second that. I’d like to see Africa turned into blow up boxes in just about all my A&A games. How often does the Africa play mean anything vs. how much space it takes up that could equal larger regions in Europe.

When I read one round of dice rolling in combat I was thinking more of the D-Day type fight where a territory might end conflicted rather than controlled. We killed 6 of you you killed 4 of me but we each have 12 units remaining in the zone sort of thing.

The D-Day comparison is spot on.

Larry said the map would be similar in size and scope as the current europe 40 map is.
If thats the case, unless africa and north america are shrunken away, then europe is going to look much like it does now. Perhaps a “few” more territories.
But realistically we need many, many, many territories in europe.

The game Diplomacy would be a good measuring stick to go by.

perhaps the reason why the map includes basically the same area as global, it might be that another companion game representing the pacific is on the way. Then you could have a scramble for colonies style of game for an earlier point in time.

The map is the same size as Global from what i’ve read.

WWI in the pacific would be as dull as dishwater.

I think he means a period before WW1, with the great powers scrambling for colonies. The Great War could have easily started in 1905 or in the 1800’s

@oztea:

It disappointed me that the map will go all the way down to South Africa. Seems like a LOT of wasted space down there. We could do without the few skirmishes down there in exchange for a western and eastern front with more than 3 territories each.

My guess is that the land masses will be proportioned differently than in Europe 1940.  A&A maps are traditionally oversized in the areas where the most activity took place in WWII and undersized elsewhere.  A good example is the northern part of Africa, which is very large on the E40 map due to the North Africa campaigns involving the Afrika Corps.  Sub-Saharan Africa is, by contrast, quite small on the E40 map.  So I expect that Larry’s WWI map will allocate lots of space to the Western and Eastern Fronts, and that Africa will have a small size as compensation (while nevertheless being included to reflect the colonial actions there, such as von Lettow-Vorbeck’s East African Campaign).