Posts made by Cantab

Played 1941 a few times now and have added a few house rules.

BATTLESHIP

• Cost is 20 IPCs.  The standard 16 it seemed too cheap and it is 20 in other Axis and Allies versions.
• Damaged battleships must move back to a sea zone beside your factory and are repaired for free at the start of your next turn.
• Damgaed battleships can only move 1 space.  Gives the enemy a chance to hunt them down.

TANKS

• Each tank makes a single infantry attack with 2 instead of the usual 1.  It essentially makes the tank like the artillery piece that exists in other versions (1941 has no artillery pieces).

This was done to reduce the infantry push mechanic, which I have read a lot about.

CARDS
A standard pack of cards is shuffled.  Each nation recieves one card.  The types of purchase nations can make at the start of their turn is determined by the suit of their card.

Diamonds - land units
Hearts    -  air units
Spades    - naval units
Clubs      - one unit type only. e.g. only infantry or only fighters

If you don’t like the card you have, you can choose to discard it and draw another.  You now cannot buy anything till next turn.  You can also trade the card with an ally (if they let you) instead of discarding it.

If we want to keep the game short then when there are no more cards to draw the game stops.  The side with the most IPCs is declared the winner.

We play with cards because it:

• speeds up purchasing decisions each round.
• stops players carrying out the exact same purchase choices on the same turn every game, which can get stale.
• makes players plan ahead.
• makes it easier to exploit an enemies weak point as they cannot always buy what they want straighty away in response.
• reduces the availability of infantry which in turn reduces the infantry push mechanic.  It does not reduce it enough to break the game however.

Well that is how we play.  Let me know what you think and if you have any other house rules for 1941 I would like to hear them.

I often have this same problem.  I end up controlling the sea which does not give you any extra IPCs.  I try to use my navy to move infantry around dropping them on easy to capture islands and territories  (backed by fighters from carriers).  I try to get the Phillipines, East Indies and Borneo then go from there leaving well defended territories alone.

I keep doing this until my IPCs are about the same or more than the axis and then I start trying to attack their more strongly defended territories.

Not exactly a brilliant strategy, but I have not played it enough myself yet.

Thanks for the responses guys.  NIce to know the pieces are interchangable between games.  I have played another game since and we all seemed to make lots of mistakes.  An experienced player would smash a new person at this game.

smanifesto I will probably do exactly as you have done and get a pieces from other games.  It was getting frustrating having to constantly look for new units and swap chips around.  I’m also with you on customizing the game a bit.  We already have a house rule that battleships have to return to a factory to be repaired at the start of your next turn when damaged.

This game is great.  I have only played it once so far and thoroughly enjoyed it.  I had never played or even seen Axis and Allies before and I realize from reading the forums that this is a dumbed down version and not for the purists.  However I quite like its simplicity while still having a bit of strategic depth.

I am trying to figure out how the probabilities play out for each unit.  It seems simple enough for individual units fighting one on one, but gets interesting when there are more units or mixed unit combinations.  It does seem, (to me at least) that the game is basically fought with infantry with all the other units supporting them by either fighting directly with them or blowing up transports etc to stop more enemy infantry landing somewhere.  The manual did not really mention the mechanics of how to use infantry and their importance to be chosen as hits when defending.

My only gripe is that the map is a bit small in terms of number of territories.  Everything seems so close together in some places without much room to move about which reduces options of where to attack or manoeuvre etc.  I guess it is part of the idea of keeping the game shorter.

The only other thing is there are not enough pieces sometimes.  It does not change how the game is played in any way, but just a couple more of every unit would do the trick.  I was thinking of buying some from Historical Board Gaming and thought I might get some of the 1942 set, because Japanese Tiger tanks do not look right.  Are all the figures and counters about the same size between versions (i.e. will they work on my map or be so huge I will have no space)?

Well that was my 2 cents.  Maybe I will check out another version one day when I get bored of this one, but I suspect it will be enough for a while.