Lend-Lease to the USSR

After the final play testing has succesfully ended, the Desert Army will be part of the Axis & Allies Global 1940 House Rules Expansion under Optional Rules.

The Desert Army is also eligible for use with Global 1943.

@the-captain yea the wolfpacks are pretty effective in my limited experience with them. If you decide to send the Bismark to Scapa Flow after the Hood and if given the option, retreat and the Hood goes to Iceland, a wolfpack has a good chance to sink it without loss.

You’ll still be a wolfpack for defense if the Americans are activated and try and come after you as well.

Definitely changes it up. I like em. Adding some more convoy zones would be something you guys might consider as well. just a thought : )

@hengst not wasted at all. Repetition is what fine tunes these scenarios to make them the best they can be. Keep up the good work

I agree with the initial premise of this post. Russia could definitely use a boost in 1942.2

@Der:

Or you could give Russia production bonuses after holding out a while, to represent the increased production over time. Like after round three Russia gets 3 bonus IPCs per round, after round six they get 6 IPCs per round, etc.

This is one of the more interesting ideas I’ve heard in a while. I like it for its simplicity. You could play this way with a direct correspondence between Round and IPCs awarded.

Round 1 = 1 ipc
Round 2 = 2 ipcs
Round 3 = 3 ipcs
Round 4 = 4 ipcs
Round 10 = 10 ipcs
and so on

this would mean that the effect on the early game would be fairly minimal, but each round that the game progresses, the Russian advantage would become more potent. The higher boosts would also kick in at precisely the time when the Russians need more loot, since all their land has been snatched. This would give the Axis a strong incentive to attack early, rather than trying to wait it out. So for example, as Germany, if you had choice between a somewhat risky attack on Moscow, or waiting 3 more rounds for Japan to back it up, you might just go for the attack rather than facing the extra lend lease loot that Russia receives. Each round you push the game out the larger the benefit becomes, which would encourage faster game resolution, at least on the part of Axis. Not sure might work.

I support basically anything that gives the Russians a boost on this board.

My favored change (in terms of a hard and fast set up adjustment) is to just give the Russians a bomber. Which seems to work fairly well at balancing this board in my playgroup :-D

@Der:

I would add a level of strategy, which I’m all for. Love strategy.

Why not say everyone can transfer up to 25% of their income to an ally during their purchase unit phase?  The 2:1 loss of production would not motivate me to do it, ever. If I’m the UK and have 40 IPC’s, instead of sending them to Russia so they can have 2 Russian fighters, I’m going to still buy 4 UK fighters and fly them over there. But say I could just transfer 25% over there. (10 ipcs) I would do that and Russia would get the fighter faster because they could buy their own and put it out on Russia with the money, instead of waiting for UK to put out fighters, then fly them over next turn.

@toblerone77:

What about just charging a fee plus the unit cost? For example, the U.S. could build a British destroyer plus a fee of say +2/3 IPCs. The question would be where placement would be allowed. You could in the case of G40, that could be on territory adjacent to a convoy zone. In other versions it could be the nearest industrial complex.

Whether you loan IPCs or have an ally build the unit for you the principal is the same.

It may also be reasonable to implement a system where a die roll is made by the enemy to destroy the convoy shipment. Example: The U.S. builds two tanks to send to Russia. Germany then rolls two dice at 1. Germany rolls a one and a two. One tank is destroyed en route.

Either of those might work, and still be preferable to me, over a scheme that only encourages multination stacks on defense.

I’m open to finding new ways to get a real Loan phase going

USSR 14:  This one is BRUTAL!  I saw USSR pull this on turn 1, and Germany was hammered.  Love it!

However, the question is how many times can they do it per country?  The first time Germany invades each USSR held territory, or every USSR held country for the rest of the game?

–--------- this is the first time they invade the Soviet territory, not every turn which denies Germany of any money. So its each originally held Soviet territory once per game.

I was limiting each USSR country to 1 time “Slash and Burn”.  Is it really suppose to be every time a country sea-saws back and forth that it is of no use to Germany?

-------- no not the back and forth… just the first time.

What if Moscow has fallen and Stalin is “dead”.  Does the order still stand?

-----------LOL yes the rule is not relative to Stalin in the game because Stalin is not a playing piece in AARHE ( at this point)

:lol: Those one, two attakes must have sucked for you!  :lol:

It makes more sense now that I it’s been fully explained. One of the challenges here would be protecting E. U. S. from a sudden German attack, but it would probably be easy enough to destroy any German transports.