Operation Sealion a Possibility with AA1940 Europe?

Yea this game (as Larry said) could go a couple of different ways early on. You do know there are convoy zones in the game right. We don’t have any details yet, but some type of economic blockade is possible.

Per LH

When you look at the English Channel and contemplate an attack on this island nation, you will see exactly what the Germans saw… a totally depleted British land force. The only thing that stands between you and capturing London is the RAF… Good luck, you’re going to need it. If the allies end up owing so much to so few then you as the German player will suddenly have a more powerful Russian force on your door step than you would have otherwise, but what the hell - you need some Lebensraum.

I cant wait to fight Operation Torch against the real opponenets the Vichy French cause I like kickin’ some French butt.

Per LH

If a second round of attack is required against France then this will prove to be benificial for the Soviets. You see they (the Russians) will in no position to either defend or attack in any meaningful way. The Germans, at the same time, will also be in no position to attack Russia. As for the Russians the game set up reflects the results of their fiasco in Finland. Stalin’s purging of the army and simple old out dated military doctrine. The German military disposition on their Eastern border will reflect the friendly status that existed between Russia and Germany when these black and red fascist were good buddies. Again, this is not to say that the Russians are not well represented on the board. They are, but when the time comes it will be clear that they suffer from too many places to defend and too dispersed an army to go on the offensive against Germany. As a Russian player you can certainly attack if you want to but it would be pure suicide. In effect, Russia will spend its first 2 or 3 turns purchasing and position its armies. Each turn that goes by the Russians get stronger and a good Russian player will skillfully be busy preparing for this inevitable German on slot. How and what the German and Russian players do during these critical opening turns will set the tone for what will look and feel like Barbarossa June 22, 1941. The player making the best moves, having the best luck, and making the best decisions on how and where to place new units as well as existing units will determine the eventual out come of the “Patriotic War”.

This game needs a government in exile rule, specially for France and UK. It would be cool if a Sea Lion would not be a instant axis win, fighting the brits from Canada, Australia or such. And a Free France would be also cool (some troops for Africa without having to do trannie chains)

@SgtBlitz:

Ok, so we NEVER get to see this in our regular Axis games…  It’s impossible for Germany to invade England round 2 with ANY build that the UK player can’t see coming a mile away.  Just too easy to counter with UK’s starting IPCs.  But this isn’t historically accurate.

In fact it is very historically accurate. In 1940 the Luftwaffe would at best have been able to gain air supremacy over parts of Britain and only for a certain period of time. About half of the RAF was out of Luftwaffes range, the British could produce aircraft and train pilots at a rate the Germans could not, the British had lots of pilots that could be retrained to fighter pilots, the British had superior air combat management with radar and by the time Luftwaffe switched to bombing London, Fighter Command was stronger than they had been in the beginning of the Battle of Britain (about 50% more fighters). Also, the Luftwaffe pilots suffered from battle fatigue (kanalenkrankheit), and the “breather” that RAF got from Luftwaffe switching to bombing London also gave the Luftwaffe a much needed “breather”, and also the autumn weather was coming.

The Germans had fighters with short range (external fuel tanks could have improved it, but not much) and this meant they needed more aircraft over Britain than the British, who hade longer operational range due to being “at home”. Also, Luftwaffe pilots who where shot down over Britain did not come back to fight again.

Moreover, it was not enough to gain air supremacy, the Germans also needed to defeat the Royal Navy. By the time the Luftwaffe switched to bombing London, the Germans had about one week to defeat the RAF, defeat the Royal Navy, gather an invasion fleet (wich would consist mostly of barges and the like), produce and test doctrines for amphibious invasion and conduct the landings, before the weather worsened.

A German invasion of Britain was a naive dream. The Luftwaffe’s inability to defeat the RAF (they were never even close), combined with the tremendous superiority of the Royal Navy over the sad Kriegsmarine, and the Heer’s non existing capacity to land troops in England and support them, meant that Unternehmen Seelöwe was never possible in reality. This was also the view of the OKW.

But that’s reality. A&A is a game, and it is supposed to be fun. Conducting Operation Seelöwe is fun, especially if you succed, therefore it should be possible (although difficult as hell) in the game.

Government in exile rule:

If a power loses its capital, that power surrenders half of its IPCs to the invader, and half are forefit to the bank. From this point forward, the power without a capital no longer collects income normaly, instead any Industrial complexes owned by that player may, during the mobilize units phase, make a special purchase using the IPCs of that territory, as well as the IPCs of any other territory controled by that player within 3 land or water territories. IPCs generated in this way are not saved, they convert directly to units

(So in A&A 50…UK knocked out can, if it had factories in Canada it gets 4 IPCs to spend, India would get 3 for itself, 2 for burma, 1 for persia, etc…)

And to represent sea lion, & dunkirk, have some UK stuff start in france, tank, arty, and have a transport with 2 infantry in the channel when the game begins. The UK had to leave its good stuff behind. London territory starts with 1 INfantry, 2 fighters and a bomber, 1 infantry in scotland

Why not just start the game in 1939 and then you can do whatever you want?

@SgtBlitz:

Bleh.  Russia threatening Germany in 1940 Europe as a counter is laughable.  Round 1 Germany builds fleet for Sealion.  Round 1 Russia builds all infantry or builds all armor to take advantage of Ger naval build.  Round 2 Germany builds all inf and armor, takes Britain, knocks UK out of game, ganks capital IPCs.  Ger possibly finishes France but isn’t main objective.  All inf and armor build in Germany.  Round 2 Russia builds all tanks to take advantage of Ger, but offensive is stopped in Poland due to Ger building before Russia’s turn.

I believe LH said USA would need to layover fighters in Iceland on the way to UK, so Ger round 3 be sure and take that out too.

@oztea:

Government in exile rule:

If a power loses its capital, that power surrenders half of its IPCs to the invader, and half are forefit to the bank. From this point forward, the power without a capital no longer collects income normaly, instead any Industrial complexes owned by that player may, during the mobilize units phase, make a special purchase using the IPCs of that territory, as well as the IPCs of any other territory controled by that player within 3 land or water territories. IPCs generated in this way are not saved, they convert directly to units

I like the exile idea, I just don’t get why you hand over all your production capacity to the enemy when you loose your capital, or even half.  Half to the ‘bank’ i can understand, but I like the idea of just letting the other IC’s that the UK might have get to simply reallocate the production to them. Especially with major/minor ICs now…  Maybe half to the bank or the enemy, or the conqueror gets to roll to destroy IPCs in the captured capital’s hands…

Probably because it’s production ability, not just supplies like Bulge.  Maybe the captured player should get to try and scorch it before being captured, that might have legs…  alas…

I like the exile idea, I just don’t get why you hand over all your production capacity to the enemy when you loose your capital, or even half.  Half to the ‘bank’ i can understand, but I like the idea of just letting the other IC’s that the UK might have get to simply reallocate the production to them. Especially with major/minor ICs now…  Maybe half to the bank or the enemy, or the conqueror gets to roll to destroy IPCs in the captured capital’s hands…

I think you should be able to keep all your IPC’s

it throws the game out of whack when you take a capital
you get near doubble IPC income because you get their money and the value of the capital territory. And how do you get of stealing another powers Industrial Pdoduction rpepresented in millions of man hours?

Also the loser cant keep it all with my rule, if Ger takes Moscow, then cacusses and karellia produce 6 tanks that are within range of moscow.

Losing only half, and allowing ICs to draw from other controled territories is a comprimise, in this caccusses factory gets 4 IPCs, + 5 for urals, novisibirisk, and the other SSR one if they are all soviet controled.

I agree that something has to change, but I am not sure what. Keep all your money or only a portion of it.

I like the gov in exile rule. You should be able to continue the fight if you have the capability. I like hand over 1/2 your money, or hand over the ipc level of your capitol tt + $5 whichever is greater. Part of your money going to the enemy makes sense as he will plunder all he can. Think of all the national treasuries (gold) jewels and art that Germany took, and sold via Switzerland. It also shows that the gov made it out with some of its riches, or hid it to smuggle it out later.

Each power is going to have more IC’s at set-up (2-3 on average). So the new game will be screaming for this house rule as I think Larry already said no. There is noway the US would have thrown in the towel if DC fell. It had to many other war making options as did all the allied powers, mainly because of the vast land masses or other holdings.

I would think any of the tt that are lib would stay in your allies hands until your capitol is retaken or you move ground units into those other tt(so you have the chance to get your other tt back along with your IC’s if you want to).

I’ve been in some games that one side or the other did something stupid :? and left his capital wide open and lost it. Like Uk is left week and Germany happens to role paratroopers. Either that or the dice were just evil :evil: and their 3 tanks took out your 10 units. If you had gov in exile you could over come these setbacks and continue on. Of coarse in most cases it will make for a longer game.

Most of the games that I have played in, by the time caitals are falling the outcome of the game is no longer in doubt, but there is the occasional blunder and the question is: How steep of a penalty should you pay for that  blunder?

Yea the blunder thing can really hurt when you have to hand over all your ipc’s. Rarely will you recover from that. We had to make a flip the board house rule. If you flip the board during the game you have to pay everyone at the table $10.00 (and not ipc’s) :x :x :x

I’ve also played where both sides lose a capitol in the same round. So an exile rule would have been good, as the out come wasn’t all that clear.
Lets see how an exile rule would play out for each power not knowing how many IC or where they will be in AA40.
*US- easy just HQ in LA
*UK- easy just HQ in Canada or Anzac(assuming there will be IC there)
*Russia- easy if you still have one of your other IC’s. If you lost Moscow chances are you already lost your other IC’s. Do you hold on to your part of ipc’s until your friends lib one of your IC’s?
*Germany- will most likely have options with its other starting German IC or in France, hmm German HQ in Paris thats just not right :evil: .
*Italy- I would think Italy will have two IC’s 1 major & 1 minor. I would think Rome (major IC and capitol) will be in N Italy as you wouldn’t want the allies to take S. Italy and sack the capital for game play (or maybe I’m wrong on this). So where dose Italy set up its gov in exile if you already lost S Italy. Like Russia hold on to its part of the ipc’s and wait for Germany to bail it out?
*Japan- as we know Japan is one tt, it should get at least 1 other minor IC on Manch. So I guess it could set-up gov in exile in China, that just sounds weird.

It is very possible you won’t have a place to set up a gov in exile so do you just hold on to you ipc’s until the calvary arrive.

If you have no place to set-up your own HQ can you set-up your HQ at an allied capitol (just a holding place for your saved ipc’s, can’t collect any more or spend it). The UK took in many of these gov in exile. What happens if their capitol is also sacked.

What happens if the enemy sacks your temp HQ also, then are you done or do they only get 1/2 your $ again? I would think you hand over everything this time.
I can almost see why Larry didn’t want to include this, he didn’t want to get writers cramp and add more pages to the rule book.

You had to make a flip the board rule? How about you flip the board and we kick 'urass while your picking up all the pieces.And then don’t ever come back. That would be ny flip the board rule. I think we should make a separate post called; What is your flip the board rule? I think it would be humorous.