@derpsa As Germany you have to eliminate the Allied warships in Sea Zones 110 and 111. If you don’t sink these ships, the Allies will quickly be able to launch amphibious assaults against you. Then you’ll have a lot of trouble holding on to France and you’ll never make it into Russia.

For those who are interested in a different turn order check out my Axis & Allies Global 1942 setup.  The turn order proceeds in this manner:

Soviet Union
Germany
United States
Japan
United Kingdom
Italy
China
ANZAC

This turn order gives the Soviet Union, United States, and United Kingdom the initiative against their rivals.

We played with dice, not low luck.

Hey everyone, my friends and I got the chance to try out this setup in our Axis & Allies game yesterday.  We played through four rounds and there was no clear winner in the end.  Overall the game is pretty balanced, however, the Axis powers were able to make some reckless moves and pretty much get away with it so I think the Allies need some minor “buffs”.

Thanks for the input!  I like the suggestions that you and CWO Marc are putting forward, however, I think that they would make the game just a bit too complicated.  It would probably be feasible to give each world power a single special unit but not multiples.  Any suggestions as to the placement/number of units in my setup?

@CWO:

The following would be too complicated for actual use in a game (because you’d need to differentiate and track too many things), but tech upgrades would be more realistic if they worked differently from the OOB rules in two ways.  On the plus side, they’d be more or less automatic for everyone: as the game progresses over the span representing 1939-1945 (a span during which technology progressed enormously), technology would evolve upward automatically (though not in identical areas for the various powers), without any need for research investments or dice rolls.  On the minus side, tech upgrades would only apply to the units bought after the upgrade, not to every unit already on the board.  It’s that minus factor which would make this idea too complicated for general use.

On the other hand, a managable variant (whch would make use of any special extra sculpts that players own from HBG or othere sources) would be to allow every power to automatically introduce at one or two pre-defined rounds of the game one or two special units with special abilities.  These units would not necessarily be the same for each power.  The use of different sculpts would solve the visual differentiation problem, and limiting the concept to just one or two special units per power (rather than, say, half-a-dozen tech upgrades) would prevent things from getting too complicated.  Players would have the option of buying these special units, but would not be obliged to do so.

I really like your idea of ‘special units’.  Which special units would be most beneficial to Axis & Allies Global 1942, in your opinion?

@Kreuzfeld:

The limiting of the techs to one nation makes it too gamy.

If I where russia, I would then take rockets, to prevent germany from taking rockets and killing me.
If I where germany, I would take Improved Shipyards, because, NO WAY i am letting usa have 15% discounts on ships, that would just end the game right there.
US is then either taking super subs, long range aircraft or, increased factory production, just to prevent japan from producing 4 units in each of the main land factories of japan.
japan will then take the one US didn’t take
and UK takes Warbond.

The long version is: US, UK and Japan gets something good, USSR gets something decent, and germany screwes over US.

Improved shipyardes for US from round 1 is just insane.

If you wanted to balance it, you could have each side get three techs, and they would get to chose which power would get them. but, the clinch is, the least important powers would chose first. Important is determined according to the scenario. What way, you can chose between getting a good tech, or getting it with an important nation. Improved shipyards is great with US or japan, not that good with USSR, italy or anzak.

as a suggestion:
Anzac(/china?)  chose first
Italy chose second
USSR Chose third
Japan chose fourth
UK chose fifth
Germany choose sixth
US choose seventh.

Different suggestion:
Anzac(/china?) chose first
Italy chose second
UK chose third
Japan chose fourth
USSR Chose fifth
Germany choose sixth
US choose seventh.

Okay Kreuzfeld I’ve made a few changes to the Research and Development Rules.  Please tell me what you think!

I should mention that I have a group of friends who are going to try playing this set up with me on the 11th of November so we’ll see how it goes.

Here’s the issue with not limiting the techs to one nation.  If I’m the US and I did get the Improved Shipyards tech I don’t want Japan to be able to pick it up as well and just cancel out my tech.  However I do kind of agree with you I’ll consider making changes.

Ya China is a lot stronger but the Japanese can still over power them quite quickly since the Chinese units are pretty spread out.  I’ve done a little play-testing of this set up and I find that it’s pretty balanced.  For Russia I would choose the Advanced Artillery cuz you can really boost your offensive capabilities.