Adding Italy

A re-post of some thoughts I had on adding Arty to 1941:

While I’m no expert, if I were going to add artillery units from 40 or 42 to my copy of 41, this is how I would do it.

First, use the pieces and rules from 42. Here are the stats for artillery:
@Axis:

Artillery
Cost 4
Attack 2*
Defense 2
Move 1

Supports Infantry: When an infantry attacks along with an artillery, the infantry’s attack increases to 2. Each infantry must be matched one-for-one with a supporting artillery unit. Artillery does not support infantry on defense.

Also, note in the rules section for infantry:
@Axis:

Infantry
Cost 3
Attack 1 (2 when supported by artillery)*
Defense 2
Move 1

Supported by Artillery: When an infantry attacks along with an artillery, the infantry’s attack increases to 2. Each infantry must be matched one-for-one with a supporting artillery unit. If your infantry outnumber your artillery, the excess infantry units still have an attack of 1. For example, if you attack with two artillery and five infantry, two of your infantry have an attack of 2 and the rest have an attack of 1. Infantry are not supported by artillery on defense.

Finally, I would change the initial setup for 1941 to reflect the presence of artillery in armies already on the board. I would think that changing every 3rd infantry in a territory to artillery would be a decent start. If I did that, I would change the setup in some territories and leave the rest alone. The changed territories would reflect the following setup:

Russia: 4 infantry, 2 artillery, 1 tank, 1 fighter*
Archangel: 2 infantry, 1 artillery
Karelia: 2 infantry, 1 artillery
Caucasus: 2 infantry, 1 artillery, 1 tank
Siberia: 2 infantry, 1 artillery

Germany: 2 infantry, 1 artillery, 1 fighter, 1 bomber
Eastern Europe: 3 infantry, 1 artillery, 2 tanks
Ukraine: 2 infantry, 1 artillery, 2 tanks
West Russia: 2 infantry, 1 artillery

Japan: 3 infantry, 1 artillery, 1 tank, 1 fighter, 1 bomber

*Note that according to the FAQ put out after the game released, the territory labeled Russia should start with six infantry. If you haven’t read this FAQ, you should, as it made other changes to the setup of the board. If you swap every third infantry for an artillery, you would get four infantry and two artillery, as shown above.

Also, this would mean that neither the UK nor the US would start with any artillery as their regular setup have no territories with three or more infantry. Either shrug your shoulders or change their setup as you feel appropriate, perhaps as follows:

India: 1 infantry, 1 artillery, 1 fighter
Eastern U.S.: 1 infantry, 1 artillery, 1 tank, 1 fighter, 1 bomber

The above changes should integrate artillery into a game of 1941 fairly well. The Axis would swap 5 infantry for 5 artillery and the Allies would swap 6 or 8 (with optional UK and US artillery swapping) infantry for 6 or 8 (with optional UK and US artillery swapping) artillery for the setup of the game.

My 2:gg:

-M_R

P.S. The FAQ for Axis & Allies 1941 can be found here: www.wizards.com/AvalonHill/rules/AA_1941_FAQ.pdf

P.P.S. Edits: Credit where credit is due.

Source: boardgamegeek.com/article/22682014#22682014

-Midnight_Reaper

NEUTRAL ITALY Variant:

Italy was clearly in the middle of everything at this time in world history.  Their strategic location in the Mediterranean Sea gave them a particular and peculiar place on who or how they would join in the coming war.  Italy chose neither side at the start - but events and pressures would soon change that course.

Use this rule to handle a weak and indecisive Italy  - which side will they JOIN?!

New power sequence:   (preferred but not necessary)
AH - Cannot attack Italy and must attack SER turn 1.
IT - Neutral turn 1.  Cannot move or build.
RU
GE
FR
OE
UK
US - Neutral until turn 4.

Procedure for Italy entering the war:
Italy was in the Triple Alliance (of 1882) at the start of the war; Austria, Germany, & Italy.  The Triple Entente; England, France, & Russia did much to “buy” Italy’s allegiance with promises of any territorial gains they may take in Austria, the middle East, and Africa.  If not for the death of the pro-CP Italian Foreign Minister, the Marquis di San Giuliano, the auction for Italy may not have occurred, and Italy may stayed out of the war longer, if not for the duration.  The Triple Entente had much to offer Italy, the Triple Alliance, very little.

Turn 1 - Italy cannot be attacked.
Turn 2+;  
a) At start of turn, roll 1d6.  1-2 = to CP; 3-4 = stays neutral;  5-7 = to AP; 8+ = stays neutral.
b) The Triple Entente can spend IPCs (from any treasury) to adjust that die roll.  For every 6 spent, add 1 to the roll.   This money does not go the Italian treasury.
c) While neutral, Italy will collect 50% of IPC values into their treasury.
d)  If the Italy joins a side due to this roll, the owning player can immediately spend 50% of treasury on units to be placed in any European Italian territory or sea zone adjacent to Rome.
e) While neutral, Italy can be attacked by any power, in which they would automatically join the other side.  1; If this occurs, they will mobilize 2 x IPC value of territor(ies) under attack, and regardless of the number of units mobilized, 50% of the treasury will be expended.  2; Mines are active against any amphibious or sea attacks.  
f) On Italy’s first active turn in the game, they can spend 50% of their treasury minus any amount that was pre-spent in step d.

@Tamer:

I like your original idea, but what about carriers?  They were the most important ships to keep afloat during the war, and a great deal of repair was done for them as well.

I do not recall any instance off-hand during the war in which a carrier was re-floated after having been sunk and then returned to active service.

The Amagi and Graf Zeppelin were both sunk and re-floated, but neither saw active service during the war and Graf Zeppelin wasn’t even complete.

The re-floating idea is kind of cool, but it may need to be reduced somehow to make it a more rare occurrence. As Marc said, it was a long and expensive process and not every ship that was sunk qualified for such a salvage operation. Unfortunately with A&A, we do not have the granularity in gameplay to determine how badly ships are damaged.

I suppose that you could modify the rule so that after combat you need to roll for each ship lost to determine IF it can be salvaged. Say you need a 2 or less to float a given ship. If you roll that, then you can decide to pay half to re-float.

It complicates things, but definitely makes it so you can’t just regenerate 2 battleships and 3 cruisers if you want.

I will offer another limitation that sounds logical to me, but you can consider:

Ships may only be raised on the following turn and to do so, there may not be any hostile warships in the sea zone where the ships were sunk. This implies that any ships not raised the following turn will be lost forever, as you said, and that the territory with your naval base cannot be taken by the enemy in that time.

Example:    Gibraltar is amphib assaulted by Italy. All UK warships are destroyed. Italy has no warships present in sea zone, only transports. Italy takes Gibraltar. US player lands and liberates Gibraltar on their turn, returning it to UK control. The UK player cannot then re-float ships lost in previous turn combat with Italy because they did not retain full control of Gibraltar.

Somewhat complicated perhaps, but I think some of these limitations need to be placed, otherwise I see this as being a huge advantage for the Axis. Germany and Italy in particular, because they tend to hole up their navies in home water areas and can potentially get double the naval power at half the cost. It will further incentivize them to stock up and stay in port knowing they can effectively respawn capital ships on the cheap. An element of chance and tactical consideration should be added so that it isn’t just automatic.

@CWO:

Depicting a single regiment would be problematic in terms of game scale.  In general terms, a game on the scale of Global 1940 represents (admittedly in very abstract terms) the actions of units that are mostly the size of army groups and fleets – and, furthermore, of army groups and fleets which have no specific identity other than their nationality.  It would be hard to justify saying that one particular regiment-sized unit, with a specific name, ought to be added to the game; by that rationale, there are hundreds of other regiments that could be added too.

The obvious exception to the above principle is the single fighter which represents the Flying Tiger squadron in China…so it’s not an ironclad rule that units smaller than army groups and fleets are never represented in the game.  It can be argued, however, that the Flying Tigers are a special case because of their high profile, and because in the game China lacks aviation forces of its own.  China doesn’t lack infantry, however, so adding a USMC unit doesn’t bring anything distinctive to China’s forces.

Additionally, Global 1940 has no rules that govern riverine operations – which is understandable, because the game map doesn’t depict any rivers.  Even the Saint Lawrence, which is huge in real life, isn’t depicted: on the map, it looks like a strip of land.  There are a few lakes depicted, plus a few canals and narrow straights, but no rivers.  So a river patrol unit in China would literally have nowhere to go.

If you just using A&A Pacific, 1940 (2nd Edit.) as a “Stand Alone” game only, and using this as a “Special House Rule” scenario it wouldn’t be problematic and would make this interesting for the folllowing reasons - By the rulebook, the U.S. and Japan are not a war yet until Japan attacks first (which would be stupid to do outright) and if this is played in the “House Rules”, Japan may place their all of their units in the Sea and Land zone of Kiangsu Province. HOWEVER, they DO NOT recieve the IPC for it until either ALL American Forces in China (the 4th Marine Regiment and the Yangtze River Patrol at Shanghai) are either evacuated out of China and headed towards either the Philippine Islands (which both actually did do in 1941) or eastward towards Hawaii or one of the outlaying Island outposts before war is declared or Japan decides to “sneak attack” and goes after the American Forces in China and wins, that is when they finally recieve the IPC for the Province. Until then NOTHING, it would be a “Eyeball to Eyeball” scenario in the “Special House Rules” to see who blinks first. And thanks for reminding me about the AVG (the Flying Tigers") in China, i will definitely add them in the “House Rules” as well.

Here is a savegame using the concept in tripleA…

To achieve the desired turn order position, I fast forwarded the first round to Italy, and then returned each Nation to its normal starting income via the edit mode.

This means that the USA will be closer to their DoW as well, by a round, which I think might be interesting as well.

Anyway, just thought I’d toss it out there in case anyone wants to get a feel for how this might look in practice.
:-D

G40 Italy first (fast forward to Italy).tsvg

How about if you capture Sicily the Italian player has to toss a coin. If it’s heads the King arrests Mussolini and Italy becomes neutral.

If Germany sends units into neutral Italy (or leaves units there on a German turn after Italy becomes neutral) then Italy joins the Allies.

Maybe give the Axis one full turn to recapture Sicily before Mussolini gets the boot.

Here is an Italian rule (offset to Axis Vichy rule).

Italian Co-Belligerent Army / Italian Social Republic

ICBA is a pro-Allied Italian government created after Rome is captured.  At the same time, ISR, a remnant and a pro-Axis goverment of Mussolini’s regime is created and seated out of Northern Italy.  ICBA eligible territories are all Italian controlled territories, EXCEPT Northern Italy and Italian controlled territories with German units.  These territories are treated same as pro-Allied neutrals.  All other forces are part of the Italian Social Republic.  ISR becomes the new Italy and starts with 0 IPCs.  On the each ISR turn, they CAN get up to 5 IPCs from Germany.  For the ICBA, any movement is done after Vichy.
**Procedure:  **
After Rome is captured, the following happens:
1. All ICBA forces (land/sea/air) standfast and defend against Axis attacks.  
2. ICBA land forces can move during the non-combat phase.
3. If an ICBA territory with units is occupied by Allied player, no new units are created, but any ICBA infantry units are converted to the occupying Allied power, and all others disband.    
4. ISR units may move as normal.  ISR can be ordered to attack ICBA units.
5. All ICBA units return to Axis if Rome is liberated.  ICBA cannot be re-created.
(Optional: Any ICBA controlled Allied territories return to original owner, non-infantry units disband.)

The point of it is to help the allies, so japan cant empty manchuria

When august comes around….you wont be able to empty manchuria or korea, or 6 russians will walk in

That is what im trying to simulate