Posts made by squirrelfox

HBG clearly wants all of my disposable income.  AND THEY SHALL HAVE IT.

I’m with Pacific War.  Really glad HBG came along.  It’s awesome to have that ability to buy up a few pieces here and there to fill out sets, as well as getting scores of new pieces to really take the game to the next level.

As for the expansion sets’ content… while I’d sorta prefer sets with smaller numbers of unique sculpts in higher quantity, the products HBG puts out are so great, I’m going to buy them either way.  Gotta support small businesses!  Plus, my games are steadily looking prettier and prettier with all the supplements HBG’s putting out.  They’re just too good to pass up!  Even if I don’t know what I’m going to do with them yet, I want them!

I ordered from 12-7 Games.  According to the UPS tracking, it went out Friday, and should arrive either today or tomorrow.  Woo!  :-D

Map, please!  :-D

Just tore in to my new FMG Italians.  Figured I’d put my piece count here, too.

8 bomber
3 transport planes
7 tacs
12 fighter
12 arty
6 heavy tank
5 light tank
12 armored car
6 truck
7 commander
11 rifle inf
13 smg inf
13 ss
6 bb
6 cv
12 dd
6 ca
13 transport

Little disappointed with the number of air transports, but these pieces are so freaking cool that I don’t think it’s really an issue.  I’ll probably get a couple extras when I buy some sets of Axis minors from HBG.  Keep up the good work, FMG!  :-D

I haven’t put up many AAR’s (or played too many games of Global yet), but in my experience… France can be a bit forgettable.  I’ve yet to see the French Med fleet survive round 1, so I wouldn’t know what to do with it if it survived.  I usually have the French West African infantry march across the continent to defend wherever the Allies need defending, and once tried bringing the Syrian infantry to help defend Egypt (which helped speed up Italy’s route to Iraq).  The French destroyer around Madagascar I’ve seen either sitting in the Red Sea to slow down the Italians if they capture the Suez Canal, or heading into the Pacific to harass Japan.  It usually isn’t all that interesting, not really doing much but posturing before it gets sunk by the Axis.

Also, I’ve never seen it worthwhile to consolidate the North African infantry.  I prefer to keep them separate so Italy has to fight for all three of the territories (and I’ve seen single French infantry units there take out 2, 3, once even 4 Italian infantry; this usually proves to be a Pyrrhic victory for Italy).

I voted ANZAC because I’ve found them to be FAR more useful in Global than in Pacific 1940.  They can do some pretty neat stuff, particularly if you can keep both of their NO’s open.  In the few games I’ve played, I’ve seen ANZAC tearing apart the Japanese Navy with packs of subs, SBRing a Japanese IC in occupied FIC, and island-hopping with the best of them.  I love how that little power can be such a pain in the @$$.  It feels like the US’s little brother in that theatre, and it certainly makes Big Brother proud.  :-P  Oh, wait…

I’ve gotten in one game.  Didn’t have the time to play it through to completion (only place I had the room to set it up was my bed, and I needed sleep after 7 hours of play  XP).  Called it a draw.

Used the most recent set-up changes for Pacific.  Japan never got close to India.  They skirmished with the Soviet troops north of Manchuria, which really slowed them down, and lightened the push into China.  Once the UK got involved, the Burma Road stayed open, and ANZAC dropped a number of subs which shredded the Japanese navy.

Over in Europe, Germany overwhelmed Paris G1, as well as sinking the vast majority of the RN, the remainder of the RN was sunk G2, and G3, a Sealion just barely captured London (at the cost of a few planes) while simultaneously launching Barbarossa.  Germany went light into the Soviet border territories, drawing out the full force of the Red Army, which was soundly crushed by the next wave of German troops (mechanized infantry are quite useful in that regard).  When I called it quits, Germany had a stack of tanks sitting in Leningrad ready to start pushing towards Moscow, and Italy (which did spectacularly well in Africa) was making a slow push towards Stalingrad along with a smaller German force.

At the end, the US had a sizeable force in Iceland ready to try to liberate London, as well as another force in North Africa pushing towards Egypt, and small fleets dashing around the Pacific.  Germany looked like it was still going strong against the USSR, though the Soviets’ all infantry build after the fall of Leningrad would have probably made Moscow a tough nut to crack, Italy was being forced to turn its attention from the Soviet Union to the US forces that were starting to push into north Africa, and Japan was lying on the ground convulsing, bleeding out of a hole that wasn’t quite big enough to kill it.  Not sure how it would have turned out.

Well, I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing the Soviet battleship leaving the Baltic Sea.  Makes it easier to ferry troops to Leningrad when I don’t have to take out that annoying Red Fleet, and I can take it out when I spread out into the Atlantic.  So it COULD potentially be useful to Germany to let the neutral Soviet fleet out of the Baltic.  I’d have to see it in action first before passing judgment, though.  Could be interesting… I may try it, see what happens.

So we’re all (I’m sure) eagerly anticipating the release of E40 so we can combine it with P40 and make our (TOO HUGE FOR ORDINARY TABLES!!!) super-awesome Global game.  Which begs the question: how many of you are going to play Europe 1940 as a stand-alone game (at least some of the time), and how many will only play the combined game?

Heck, I’m still locked in a debate with my friends at college as to whether we want to play E40 separately first, or combine it with P40 and play the global game first.  On the one hand, playing it alone can be useful for getting a feel for what strategies work on this game, as well as figuring out the political rules (which we may end up waiting for an FAQ on, anyway, if P40 taught us anything about the quality control department at WotC).  On the other hand… the combined game is going to be HUGE, and what boy DOESN’T want to play with his shiny new toy right out of the box?

My initial instinct is to play it separately first, just to try out the new political rules, and afterwards… I may still play Europe 1940 separately more often than combined with Pacific 1940, simply due to the fact that I don’t have a table large enough to put it on (nor will I likely have the free time to play it often (and victims friends to play it with.  :-P)).

(I apologize if there’s already a thread about this – I didn’t see one, and can’t search the forum, apparently.  If it’s a duplicate, feel free to delete it!)

Here’s a thought concerning the global game.  Will there/should there be any units in western Canada (Yukon or BC) in G40?  I’m thinking that at MOST, they might get an infantry in BC, if there’s anything at all in Canada on the Pacific side.  Something to serve as a bit of a buffer against a Japanese invasion of North America, or just another unit that can be transferred to the eastern provinces and shipped off to war in Europe (or defend against the dreaded German invasion of North America  :-P).

Open box.
Set up board.
Stare at board.
Attempt to not drool all over board.
Open all pieces.
Set up for E40.
Be depressed by my lack of a table large enough to set up G40.
Contemplate using bed to set up G40.
Say “screw sleep!”
Set up G40 on bed.
Play with self.

…. yeah, I’m going to leave that last item on the list exactly as is.  No further explanation necessary…

So… we know that the UK will have split income in the global game, for the European and Pacific sides of the board.  I haven’t seen this mentioned anywhere else, so I’ll ask… what will the UK’s roundel be in Europe?  Should they continue to use the “standard” UK roundel (as per P40), or should they use the Union Jack roundel from the convoy zones in the original Pacific to differentiate the UK’s European and Pacific possessions?

I’m a bit torn on the issue.  On the one hand, it’d be neat to see that Union Jack roundel come back, and it’d make it easier at a glance to differentiate the European possessions with the Pacific possessions, but on the other hand… with all of the various minor powers we now have (Italy, China, ANZAC, France), PLUS the roundels for the Dutch and Canadians, it might make things a little too messy with the many different roundels across the board.  Though of course, it could be easy to make the argument that, with all of the other roundels on the board, the Union Jack for Europe wouldn’t be that much of a stretch, since Canada and the Dutch get roundels and territories without being separate powers…

Thoughts/insights?

The planes look amazing.  Can’t wait to see the USN!

And I vote UK next.

This emphasis on the colors is getting a bit ridiculous.  Can we all step back and moment and admit to ourselves that these pieces are going to be extremely high quality and that we’re all going to buy them regardless of whatever minor variation of color FMG decides to choose for them, and be happy that we’re even GETTING these high quality pieces?

@FieldMarshalGames:

Price is JUST A PLACE HOLDER!!!

software requires all items to have prices.  I though of putting $1,000,000 as a joke!

I wonder how many people here would have been throwing fits if the price HAD been listed as $1,000,000… XP  Fun to think about!

@allworkandnoclay:

@Brain:

@idk_iam_swiss:

US NAVY!!!

Oh yeah! I can’t wait.

Actually it’s the USAF.

Well, to be fair, the USAF wasn’t established until 1947.  In 1940, it’d be the US Army Air Corps (USAAC), reorganized to the US Army Air Forces (USAAF) in 1941.  And of course, the one that may be of interest in the Pacific would be our US Naval Air Corps (technically under the Bureau of Aeronautics, though the term USNAC was widely used before and during the war).

Though to make this relevant to the thread, quick question to AllClay… will you also be painting a set of Hellcats from the original Pacific?

Oh, and awesome job on the land forces, AllClay.  And a big thumbs up to Variable on those Japanese Guadalcanal pieces.  I swear, if I just had more time (and patience), I’d try my hand at painting my own AA pieces… oh, well.  I’ll satisfy myself admiring the work of others.  Keep it up, guys!  :-D

My goodness, such animosity!  I think it’s not that bad of an idea, tbh.  After all, India is essentially a separate power in AA40 (with the “split income” Brits and dual capitals in global, India is only a separate turn sequence shy of being a completely separate power).  I think it’d be pretty cool to have separate dice and, if feasible, separate units in a different color (perhaps its own infantry sculpt, but otherwise using British units).

But then, what do I know?  waits to be laughed at  :p

I haven’t heard that, but I LOVE the idea.  If it’s not included OoB, it should definitely be a house rule.

Technically, they’re called the “Caroline Islands,” NOT the Carolinas, which may have been the point of the previous poster.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroline_Islands

Though to contribute to this discussion… the ease of defending the Carolines rests, I think, on how much damage Japan deals to the US fleet once they open up hostilities.  In one game I played, Japan barely touched the USN when they attacked on the third turn, so I (as the US) invaded the Carolines with 2 infantry, 1 artillery, 1 tank, and support shots from my cruiser and battleship.  Japan had 1 infantry and 2 fighters on the Carolines (the recommended defense force BasileII mentioned).  Japan opted not to scramble the fighters, and the US took the Carolines, only taking a single infantry as a casualty.  Granted, this might have been more due to luck than to any strategic considerations, but to my mind, it calls into question how effectively that small force could hold on to those islands, particularly in the face of a dedicated US push (and a mostly-intact USN stationed at Hawaii).

My assessment may change, however, once I’ve gotten some more play experience with the game.  I will readily admit it may be too early for me to judge (the aforementioned game was only my fourth, and the Japan player was playing Japan for the first time, as well as pushing heavily to Alaska and Australia, leaving the central Pacific more or less open).