I’ve been working on this project for 6 years and counting now.  I still need to paint cruisers, German aircraft carriers, and French units.  I’ve been waiting for the new German units and French units to be released by www.historicalboardgaming.com.  For these pictures, I’ve set up the board with Destroyers substituted for the cruisers.  I used 1/72 scale soldiers purchased from online and other custom units.  You’ll notice neutral countries have actual painted soldiers to represent them.  This is my first time using Google Photos for hosting, so let me know if there are any issues with viewing these, such as the pictures not being publicly available, requiring a login, etc.

During this photo shoot, I was on a beach vacation with the family wanting to head out to the beach, so it was a little rushed and I was contending with a 1 year old, a 3 year old, and a 6 year old, who were all eagerly playing with the pieces and had promised to put them back (except the 1 year old)… so you’ll notice they’re not evenly lined up and you’ll notice some oddities, such as Australian fighters being placed with the US units and German V2 rockets being placed with the US units, also some soldiers are knocked over.

Here is a picture of the starting setup for Global 1940 with DD’s substituted for Cruisers (click on the pictures to enlarge them):
https://goo.gl/photos/oPSAXTKD84VzPRoh6

Here is a closeup of the US Pacific setup.  Note that the naval fighters had yellow wings.  This was done up until some time in 1941 and was used to aid in locating any aircraft that were ditched at sea.  You’ll also notice the old fashioned helmet on the marine, which was common for the US pre and early into the war:
https://goo.gl/photos/V6BDSS862Xw41oLX6

The US Pacific player also has more modern aircraft and soldiers to select from as the game goes on.  Here’s the available US pacific units.  Note the panel lines on the 1942 era Dauntless and bullet marks on the Avenger.  Each unit has been painted to look like an actual unit.  All boats from the different countries have the name of the specific boat painted on the bottom, so you can tip it over and see which actual boat it is:
https://goo.gl/photos/Yiaaow917HyQDT7E6

Here are the Japanese units:
https://goo.gl/photos/WeuhvW6x49u5siYaA

Some pictures of Japan on the board:
https://goo.gl/photos/rUEbbJVAC3RNuNF87
I agonized over getting the right ‘Pearl Harbor attack’ colors for the aircraft.  According to a group of guys who have for decades been obsessed with getting the right color and sharing out what that was and that frequent/host www.j-aircraft.com, the color is what they call “gray-green”, which is not the common grey or white that popular culture has them sporting during the attack.  I used pictures they posted of relics they said matched the color to match the color.  I’m mostly pleased with how they turned out, since they appear grey green in some lighting and tan in others, which is a peculiar effect I noticed from pictures of relics and colors of models these guys approved of.  I do think they turned out a bit dark though compared to some (but not all) black and white photos.  Here is a closer shot of Japanese aircraft:
https://goo.gl/photos/ScoCkr5XUzZwo3Uu5

ANZAC and India units (minus the Australian fighters the kids moved to the US Pacific area):
https://goo.gl/photos/vzEJxDEiv6wQEVUNA

The Australians viewing the threat on the horizon (Japanese carrier and fighters in mid-late war theme):
https://goo.gl/photos/kUY6sUeFNdLYYukv7

My 3 year olds favorite soldiers to play with (at least the ones that hadn’t ‘walked off’ to other areas), the Chinese soldiers.  A couple Mongolian soldiers and a Pilipino soldier also seem to have made their way over to this group:
https://goo.gl/photos/K76dgPk4zEny75R5A

Transitioning into the Europe Theatre…
Brits, Scots, Canadians, South Africans:
https://goo.gl/photos/LPMa6sXghiQNpt9YA
A sampling of British units.  The British employed pinkish-white spitfires for low level recon.  The pinkish fighter was based on a 1941 photo of a recon Spitfire.  Note the panel lines painted on:
https://goo.gl/photos/MFvWBBFhsK4XXqWd6

Sadly, in my frantic rushed photo shoot, I neglected to take a shot of the painted Italian units.  You can see a lot of them though in these shots focusing on the European theatre for the starting 1940 setup:
https://goo.gl/photos/poQVr4wEsv2UsUig6
Another Europe Shot:
https://goo.gl/photos/eDGGgVPhHB3nEdi48
The Italian battleship “Vittorio Veneto”.  Unfortunately the camera focused on the background and the ship is out of focus, but you may be able to make out that life boats were painted on the turrets, there are little details such as anchor chains, AA, windows, and other small marks:
https://goo.gl/photos/ZetP4E9iTShU6z556
The Italian aircraft carrier Sparviero is based on a mid war Italian camo scheme (the actual carrier was never launched):
https://goo.gl/photos/4w9Vp9MadtnFA7ri6

Russians.  Their Carrier was also never launched, but the scheme was taken from a Carrier that Soviet Russia launched post-war:
https://goo.gl/photos/Hixd36Dmq7jkBdk8A

Germans (minus the rockets which ended up with the US Pacific units):
https://goo.gl/photos/v6ypk6kDqgSXFqyE7
A sampling of German late-war units includes Tigers and bombers purchased form historicalboardgaming along with some custom made Me-410s and a FW-190D “Dora” painted based on a mix of color and black and white photos found of the “parrot squadron’s” FW-190D’s:
https://goo.gl/photos/DHBSkfCMuhYMAFg29

US Europe along with some French units.  Notice the “Operation Torch” scheme for the Dauntless and Wildcat and historicalboardgaming units such as the Thunderbolts:
https://goo.gl/photos/fTCMsYeV4FN6ovYA9

A final picture of the Europe theatre starting setup:
https://goo.gl/photos/bfDu97vYEqSx1qmH8

It has been a massive time consuming project which I wouldn’t have done if I knew how long it took and wouldn’t do again, but at least it gave me enjoyment and I hope to enjoy it with my son and friends in years to come.  Hope you enjoyed the pics.

Thanks SS.  I re-read the report: minor clarification:  It looks like I’m recommending that Britain can’t be attacked at all R1, but actually meant that Italy specifically needs to wait until R2 to attack (preventing the total annihilation of all UK forces from the mediterranean on R1).  Also, I thought there was little the UK could do with these house rules to prevent a takeover if Italy was allowed to attack the UK in R1, but this was assuming Italy could set up their fleet and transports to attack England on R2 with Germany, but skilled Allied players could put naval ships in the path to block Italy from joining in on R2.  With that, I think it’s appropriate to play that Italy can attack the UK on R1… especially since the Italian player only earns 10 IPC’s at start and with no National Objectives, it could be a slow climb to more income if Britain has a chance to maintain it’s fleet and holdings in Africa.

Nice!  Great bunkers, pillboxes, and painted pieces.  I know the amount of time and work that goes into doing that, so the price is very reasonable considering.  I’ll think about the radar and maybe some pillboxes down the road.  Thanks for posting.

@simon33:

Even 9 to 6 is a pretty fast game.

Normally takes us about 20 mins to set up. Once you remember where all the bases are you can put them down in one go. Similar with multi unit counters.

Yeah, it’s fast because we play that all the Axis nations play at once followed by all the Allies playing at once (and no national objectives or neutral rules): plus we have overlap, where when one side is making their non-combat moves, the other side can start purchasing units (if it doesn’t cause their opponents to make different non-combat moves).  So far the Axis have won once and the Allies have won once: not 100% sure which side has the advantage and it’s pretty fun figuring out new strategies that could be a little different to strategies with the regular rules.

That’s a great idea about putting all the unit counters down at once!  That would probably make setup faster than having to stop to find the unit type and place it on the stack and move to the next: just pull out all the counters and put one less than the chart says so you can go in later and add the unit type (I think that’s what you’re suggesting?).  I definitely want to try that next time.

This looks cool, but when I click on the link to the site, it says “Safari can’t find the server”.

Ha!  Yes, I agree.  We started right after lunch, but it took me about 2 hours to set up even with some help.  I’m planning on having another get together that would start at around 9am (with the game already set up) and end at 6.

I just played the most awesome A&A game of my life a few days ago: I didn’t take any pictures, but thought I’d share here.  This was the 2nd game of a house variation of A&A Global.  The first one was last year and I had pictures and a detailed report in a thread called “Game Synopsis with Pictures” (http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=38574.msg1582369#msg1582369) on this Forum.  For this game, we had 8 players and divided the countries like this:

Player 1: Russia
Player 2: Germany
Player 3: UK Europe
Player 4: Italy
Player 5: US East Coast
Player 6: US West Coast and China
Player 7: Japan
Player 8: Australia, France, and India.

In this variant, all axis nations play at the same time and then all allied nations play at the same time.  There are no national objectives.  Players 1, 4, 5, and 6 were playing their first A&A game of any type.  Player 3 was playing his first game of Global.  Players 2, 7, and 8 were playing their 2nd, the first being the one linked above.  Unlike the previous game though, we didn’t restrict Italy from attacking England on the first round.  This turned out to be a good idea because the Allies won anyways (Axis won the last game of this variant) and at least the Italian player was able to experience some victories.  The Italian player said he wanted to play again but would want to play a country that makes more income.  An experienced player though would’ve began receiving a huge income in a few turns with these house rules.  Also unlike the previous game, I had all the cruisers painted along with several other units.  Another change was that we used a war movie soundtrack rather than the A&A youtube song list we used last time.  This worked out pretty well and I’m not sure which I like better.

Germany launched a huge invasion of the UK after the 3rd or 4th round with tons of airplanes and just one loaded transport along with the BB and Cruiser for bombardment.  It looked like they were going to take the UK, but they had some bad rolls and that was where Germany’s game took a turn for the worse.  A horde of Russians was bearing down towards axis territory and it looked like they would’ve taken much of Europe, though Germany took the northern Russian factory.  Really, if Germany and Italy had veterans playing these house rules and made perfect moves, there’s little the UK could do to keep from falling in the 2nd round, but with a new guy on Italy, this wasn’t any danger.  With 2 Axis Europe veterans, I’d recommend the rule that you can’t attack the UK on R1.

Meanwhile, on the Pacific board, I got to play Australia and India and it was a blast.  I usually play one of the larger powers, but it was really nice to take it easy and allowed me to help explain rules as we played.  It was refreshing for a change to have to manage relatively small resources against an overwhelmingly powerful enemy.  I just kept taking chunks out of the money islands and used the Battleship Repulse to knock off a Japanese Cruiser that strayed from their fleet.  The Repulse paid the iron price, but was able to provide a hedge of protection around the island Australia took (the real purpose of attacking the Cruiser, since the income from the islands 2 rounds in a row makes up for the value difference of the Battleship for the Cruiser).  The US and Australia managed to distract the Japanese fleet westward and Australia held 2 valuable Dutch islands for some extra income (not sure if the official rules allow allies to take Dutch islands for income, but we played that way).  India teamed up its fighters with the Chinese soldiers and fighter to take Japanese territory and stop them cold in Asia.  China was getting up there in income.

The game lasted from about 3pm-9pm.  Of course it wasn’t over at 9, but we called it quits because people had to go.  All of the players enjoyed it and those that didn’t have to leave were wanting to keep playing… unfortunately, I had to get back home and didn’t want to leave all my painted pieces over there where many curious 4-7 year olds would probably have them all over the house the minute the board was unattended.  This game was definitely tons of fun and since all Axis play at once followed by all Allies, it’s fast paced and even the smaller countries are entertaining to play.  I could’ve had a good time playing with either Australia or India by themselves.

With experienced players using these house rules, I’d bet you could get a full Global game in within 6 hours… with the new players, we had to explain rules and use the battle boards, but with vets, we could leave the pieces on the board and roll them and I think the purchases and combat moves would’ve been a lot faster too.

Moderator’s edit: added tag [Global 1940] to title

I think you could just announce that it’s a recon force and which ships would be passing through if it succeeds… maybe put the recon force into the territory for combat and the rest of the fleet could be put on the line between the territories until combat is resolved.  If the recon force takes out the blockers in the first round of combat, the ships on the line could then pass through the territory or use their shore bombardment in the territory: but the recon force could not pass through with them and could not bombard with them (they would be out of position, expended munitions, etc.).  If the recon force fails to take out the blockers, then the remaining ships may join the combat or they could stay in the previous zone and either way can’t pass through or bombard the shore.  The recon force would then have to continue to engage in regular combat or retreat.

I played a game with my brother in law where I was Japan and he was the Allies.  We played that all Allies play simultaneously and Japan must take a country to win (No VP win option). Japan still won and took both India and Australia before the Allies resigned.  That being said, my brother in law is less experienced than me, but doing that may help swing the balance towards the Allies?  This is similar to what we do with A&A Europe (1999), which was always a German victory.  We mainly did this to speed up play, but it also helped with the balance to where the Allies usually, but not always, win.

Regarding the sub stalling: I read a thread related to A&A 1940, where it was proposed that Cruisers could have a special ability of a recon attack, where they could be used to attack blocking DDs.  If they took out the blocking DD, you could then either pass through the zone or use your shore bombardment with the other ships.  Using this idea, since Pacific (2001) doesn’t have cruisers, you could use Destroyers and/or subs as a recon force, where if they took out the sub, the rest of the fleet could pass through/bombard.

Hopefully I can remember enough to add a quick finish to this after all this time.  Basically, Churchill’s morale was broken after England fell and realizing the mistake of thinking India’s IPC’s were England’s, so he went off to play cards.  Roosevelt took over control of all of the remaining Commonwealth nations and military forces.  Stalin still felt optimistic that he could push back the Germans.

The following summarizes R4+5 (I think it was 5 rounds at least)

Japan and the US clashed around the Caroline Islands in what was the largest naval battle of the game.  Japanese battleships Yamato, Musashi, and Nagato joined the carriers Zuikaku, Shokaku, and the Kaga complete with full loads of Tony, Oscar, and Zero fighters as well as Kate and Val bombers along with 5 destroyers against a multinational fleet consisting of US and Royal Naval forces lead by the “Big E”, the USS Enterprise loaded with Wildcat fighters and Dauntless bombers (still in their 1940 pre-war livery), the carrier USS Lexington with a Wildcat fighter group and Devastator bombers all in Battle of Midway camouflage, 5 DD’s, a sub and a bunch of transports, with the BB USS West Virginia not able to join the battle in time. The overwhelming Japanese force was successful, with the bulk of their forces surviving with battleships damaged.  Encountering success everywhere, they also wiped out the last remaining Chinese resistance.  On the follow up turn, an Australian tank corp raced across the country to defeat the sneaky Japanese and their infantry unit’s beached was eliminated.  The few surviving Mongolian troops and the Allied powers had little to celebrate.

Roosevelt took huge morale blows with Churchill’s resignation and now this catastrophic naval loss, but he was still hanging in there by a thread.  The Japanese were pretty much the masters of mainland Asia.

In Europe, Iraqi soldiers were charging towards India, backed by their Italian friends.  Germany kept pressing towards Russia.  They bought another carrier and a Destroyer to further intimidate the Americans, who were still equally distributing their money to each front, with some money left over given to land units to maintain parity with Stalin, with the idea of spending everything to land units against Russia on the following turn.  Italy steamed the Battleship Littorio, a cruiser, DDs, and subs past the “Pillars of Hercules” to further intimidate the Americans from making a move.  The naval intimidation moves succeeded on Roosevelt who decided to capitulate as he didn’t want to dare move the US fleet in range of all of those Axis ships, especially given all of the airpower that could support them.  Stalin tried to convince him to fight on, but after the demoralizing Pacific defeat, he didn’t have the heart to see the USS Ranger, California, and Arizona at the bottom of the sea (yes, the USS Arizona was stationed on the East Coast for this alternative history).  The Allies were essentially defeated and it was game over.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1eWPStTU4pgFqS3rN8NnCtVlTJzmcFZnSHA
Pacific after the Allies capitulated

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Htmx1y4AuE4X81l1iBdf0bU8wiABqjiTxQ
Europe after the Allies capitulated

I’m betting this variant is not balanced, but there were so many mistakes and the skill level was so unbalanced between the Axis and Allies, that it’s hard to say that it favors the Axis.  It seemed like Sea Lion wouldn’t have worked with England collecting the proper income and making more strategic decisions such as supporting with Canadian troops and not scrambling all of their air force in the initial attacks.  The drawback of simultaneous play was that the newer players couldn’t be monitored as well as when play is one country at a time.  Perhaps playing one country at a time for the first round may be the way to go when there are new players, so they can be watched and have their questions answered.

I posted this last year, but in case anyone didn’t see it or wants to find it again (wish there was a stickie that appeared each year after Thanksgiving and disappeared after Christmas), here is a World War 2 Christmas themed playlist to play as a background to your A&A games:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHdtjQ501JyX4TbHlIOfjfYjzD11CVhtQ

I’ve also found it to be a neat thing to play in the background while hanging around the house, though my wife’s not too fond of it.  Enjoy!