Advice needed - contents of the box enough?

You could probably sell it for a few dollars locally (i.e. sell it in a way that doesn’t involve shipping costs), as Taamvan suggests, but I doubt that there would be much interest in an out-of-town sale, given that the game is missing some of its original pieces. A&A 1941 is still in print, and is the cheapest of the A&A games on the market, so when you factor in the shipping costs a potential out-of-town buyer could probably find a brand-new copy for about the same price. DoManMacgee’s donation idea is a good one; youngsters who’ve never played A&A won’t be bothered by the replacement sculpts, and as DoManMacgee said this would foster the next generation’s interest in the game. My own preference would be in line with Midnight Reaper’s suggestion to cannibalize the game for its sculpts, which are unique to the 1941 version of the game. I own multiple copies of 1941 for exactly that reason. The American P-40 Warhawk gives you exactly the right fighter to use for China’s Flying Tiger unit in the 1940 game; the British naval transport and the Soviet carrier correct the 1940 game’s lack of nation-specific sculpts for those units; and the battlecruisers (British and Japanese) and heavy tanks (Russian and German) provide good opportunites for house-ruled special units in the 1940, 1942 and Anniversary games.

Thanks all! Wow that was very helpful.  Made a lot of sense.  We’ll be playing this weekend.

That’s great Logic!

Of course, when you next play allies, your axis opponent will try the same things, so you’ll have the pleasure of working out how to counter.

Many hours of fun await you!  :-)

Cheers
PP

Here are some pictures of the game. I took them approximately once a round, after the US turn. I was playing the UK. The reduced income and factor production really hits hard in this game: being able to build only one unit in India per turn was frustrating, and I was careless and lose undefended transports and even my fighters in the Caucuses because the Japanese player decided to attack it using his carrier fighters (and thus abandon his navy to be killed by the US).

The Russian player lost her capital to Germany due to this 2-front pressure (and the fact that the US was mainly focused against Japan), and after that happened, the German player used her units to start mopping up Eurasia. The US player tried invading Japan once, but he lost, with one Japanese fighter surviving. At the end of the game, when it was approaching midnight, he decided to try a last desperate invasion of Japan, but it was easily repelled, and so an Axis victory was declared.

Now, I’m not sure if I would conclude that the Axis have the advantage in this game, but I certainly think that it’s harder for the Allies to play optimally and they have to be more careful and fight cooperatively.

Okay.  Thanks for all your other help though.

Cheers
PP

@canoehead:

I’m coming from a Risk background (and I realize there is no comparison with AA). […] given my profile so far, what is your best advice for someone like myself to have a successful and enjoyable start to my AA career?

Welcome to the world of A&A!  One thing that may help you get a conceptual handle on A&A is to keep in mind that, when you strip away most of the details, A&A and Risk do in fact have a fundamental resemblance.  A&A is powered by a “four-stroke engine” whose cycle can be described as follows:

Territory generates income

Income buys units

Units fight battles

Battles win territory

From what I can remember of Risk (it’s been ages since I’ve played it), it operates using a similar mechanic – though as I recall Risk doesn’t actually use money, and therefore Risk’s version of the first two steps I’ve listed above takes the form of a single “territory provides units” step.  So keeping this resemblance in mind as you play A&A could be helpful, both in terms of giving you a parallel with a game you already know and of helping you keep track of which phase of the A&A game you’re in at any particular moment.

Shat,

Loading and unloading from a transport is the unit’s “entire move”.

To clarify, It’s G1 combat move , you can load the transport, move the transport, and unload for an attack.

@Variable:

Yeah, I ended up doing 3 copies myself. It worked out well for my customized AA50 set. Should work numbers-wise for a G40 set as well.

Good to know thanks for the info.