Posts made by SuperbattleshipYamato

@taamvan

Agreed for the most part. I will add to those who haven’t played the game that the full effects of the Joe income advantage don’t come into play until the 5th or 6th round, so Cobra have around half of the game to try to eke out a victory.

@AndrewAAGamer

Nice. Those will make for some good house rule pieces in Global 1940.

@Panther

Amazing! Definitely going to get it soon. The future of Axis and Allies is bright!

@Panther

Let’s go!!!

@dazedwit

In case you need it, here are PDFs of the latest Axis and Allies rules from the official manufacturer, including for Europe and Pacific 1940:

https://renegadegamestudios.com/axis-allies-resources

@PGsquig

Thanks for the advice.

@shadowhawk

Agreed. Battleships are definitely superior to cruisers.

@DoManMacgee

Agreed.

@Panther

Thank you!

@SMichael23

Nice idea. But I’m confused:

In the out of box rules for 1942 Second Edition (new), there is no German bomber in Ukraine, it’s in the Berlin territory. It’s a fighter in Ukraine. Can you please clarify this? Thank you!

@FMErwinRommel

Yeah, very different. Play centers around the Central Powers first beating Russia as quickly with as few losses as possible (either by Revolution or capital capture), then turning their guns on Paris and, if necessary, Rome. The Bombay strategy offered above instead proposes the Central Powers capturing the one territory of India as the UK can build unlimited amounts of units out of it and crush the Ottomans that way. Africa is mostly negligible unless the Allies screw up and let the Ottomans in.

@Cornwallis

For me, probably not. I don’t tend to take such high risk battles. Taranto is a much better move.

Unless the fighter from Slovakia Hungary can fly to Tobruk via Yugoslavia on the first turn (can’t remember the rules), I’ll be playing happily as that fighter couldn’t participate in the British fleet attacks.

@Matt-Hyra

Thank you so much!

@BombsAway

Looking at what the losing side also did might tell you what not to do (several of my games certainly teach that).

@DoManMacgee

That’s a point of interest in and of itself. In A&A Hexes only appeared in Battle of the Bulge but most wargames use them, so they’re not completely alien to me. Are there bonuses in combat for flanking the enemy or penalties for moving your units into the enemy’s “Zone of Control”?

Nothing like that.

Yeah that one sounds very strange. Land units being able to freely shoot at ships seems very off.

In my mind I imagine this to represent the land-based anti-ship missiles modern militaries have.

Probably not a good thing but the stacking limit might somewhat mitigate the usefulness of spamming outside of blocking.

You’re right about that. Additionally, the main battle areas are either a bit far from bases (at least 3 hexes) or centered around islands, so there’s not much room to build up giant land armies to clash anyways.

Are they optional rules or mandatory?

Mandatory.

I know basically nothing about GI Joe other than the absolute bare basics. Is the game 2v2 or is their an uneven number of powers (example: most A&A games are 3v2 (R/B/A Vs. G/J)?

It’s 2 v 2. Admiral Keel-Haul and Snow Job vs Destro and Cobra Commander.

If the game reaches the round limit and no one wins with one of the previously stated methods (capital/economic), how is the winner determined? Is it a draw?

Whichever side has the most victory at the end of a game wins. If both sides are exactly tied in victory points, it’s considered a draw.

Sorry to ask a follow-up on this one, but to narrow the scale to the “lighter” A&A games, which of the following (assuming you’ve played them) would you say this is closest to (complexity-wise). Disregard the actual quality of the games. I’m only asking about scale/complexity here:

41
Zombies
Classic
Revised/42 1st Edition
OG Europe
42 2nd Edition
OG Pacific

Out of those I’ve unfortunately only played 1941, Zombies, and 1942. Definitely more complex than 1941 or Zombies. Probably closer to 1942 2nd Edition. It’s hard for me to make a comparison though, and I might be completely wrong.

However, I’d say that for a player who only ever played 1941 or Zombies, 1942 2nd Edition would be easier to jump to than this as there are fewer differences between 1941 and 1942.

@The-Janus

About Europe 1940:

I do think you’re right that submarines don’t have much to do on the Allied side. But that’s historically accurate. Despite the clear competency Allied submarines had in the Pacific, there was just not much for them to do in the European Theater of Operations historically (one of the reasons we don’t hear of their escapades all that much) relative to other units. Personally I prefer historical accuracy even if it renders some units utterly unbuyable (like almost any naval unit for the USSR).

As you correctly pointed out, cruisers are not powerful enough to justify their purchase while destroyers are quite powerful. I don’t understand your complaint about destroyers “taking away” the fodder role from submarines. Maybe that’s the case in Europe, but destroyers historically were the fodder units for surface fleets (at least out of the ones that are in the game, obviously torpedo boats, frigates, etc. are the true fodder units). In the Pacific sumbarines are effective as fodder.

I think battleships and cruisers can stay as they are, as I quite like the reasoning in here that cruisers* and battleships are purposely unbuyable to reflect them growing obsolete during the war. I do think to be historically accurate there should be a mechanism to reflect ships under construction being finished, maybe a one-time discount for a set number of battleships and cruisers, like allowing the US to buy one battleship on turn 7 for 17 IPCs to reflect the Iowas finishing construction, and one cruiser for 10 IPCs to reflect the later Baltimores finishing construction (both representing the fact that part of the “cost” of the ships was already paid for before the game started). We can do a similar thing for Japan, the UK, etc.

Anyhow, I no longer think we should lower the price of cruisers for historical accuracy. For example, a Fletcher class destroyer, which the game uses to represent American destroyers, allegedly cost 6 million USD while the heavy cruiser Portland, used to represent American cruisers, allegedly cost 10 million USD, so cruisers being about 150% of a destroyer’s cost works well.

Thanks for helping me think through my views on cruisers.

*I used to think cruisers didn’t become obsolete until later, but after some further thought I realized they were fast becoming obsolete during and after World War 2. As I wrote in the discussion I linked, the three original uses of cruisers when they were first created were superseded by aircraft and submarines during and after the war. While I still think they served an important role as destroyer squadron commanders, I now imagine those commanding light cruisers are “embedded” within the destroyer unit as each piece represetns a fully independent formation. Heavy cruiser squardons were not much better than battleship squardons, which was why most powers gave up gun armed cruisers soon after the war (and as destroyers have been getting bigger and bigger, all cruisers are rapidly aging and are being succeeded by large destroyers).

@DoManMacgee

1. I haven’t played enough games to decide that, but overall it looks pretty even. Both sides played evenly (all the games I played were against myself) have a good shot at winning.

2. Its hex based system is definitely a change from most games, but it’s still based on the real world (it takes place within the Arctic Circle and Greenland, Alaska, Iceland, northern Canada, Norway, Finland, and northern Russia are clearly visible), and as there are limits on land and sea movement (explained below), it actually isn’t that different.

Land units can still only move on land by themselves and can only cross from hex to hex if there is a corresponding land connection. This makes for some interesting movement when fighting over the islands north of Canada, as the map is designed so that important areas in that region are quite far from the bases of both sides.

Adding to the above is the introduction of a Cobra “Weather Dominator”, allowing to turn hexes with water into ice (i.e land) hexes at the cost of 1 reinforcement point (basically IPCs). They’re generally used to faciliate the land movement of Cobra-Destro units and bridge areas.

One huge change that I’m still getting used to is that ships, aircraft, and land units occupy hexes that contain both land and water together, attacking and defending with each other (with some small exceptions). As such, amphibious assaults are made with ships and land units fighting together, and most battles (especially over islands) are conducted with all air, land, and sea units fighting together.

The unit selection is pretty truncated. There are only 2 land units, 1 air unit, and 2 sea units per side. Submarine mechanics don’t exist. Cruisers operate as the only surface ship and are also able to transport units. Like tanks in Classic, cruisers defend at a worse value than they attack. Carriers are still 2 hit though.

Aircraft are pretty interesting. The Cobra-Destro side has Rattlers, which are basically fighters that move at 3 (costs and attack and defense values are the same). The really useful thing is that they can fly almost anywhere, including territories captured on the same turn. They more or less make aircraft carriers for the Cobra-Destro side unneeded. In comparison, the Joes have Skystrikers, which have superior attack and move values to Rattlers but can only land in hexes with victory points (more on that later) and carriers. They’re actually quite balanced against each other.

Snow Cats (for the Joes) and W.O.L.Fs operate basically like Classic tanks, with an attack of 3, a defense of 2, and a cost of 5. Each has special abilites in combat. Snow Cats can make targeted attacks in the first round of combat and W.O.L.Fs have the option of doing what’s basically the first strike ability of submarines in the first round of combat, down to taking a combat penalty of attacking at 2 and defending at 1.

Infantry work in the exact same way, but they only cost 2 reinforcement points, so it’s easier to spam.

Each side has national advantages (although they’re not called that), encouraging certain moves.

Most areas cannot be controlled by either side, only passed through. The only areas that can be controlled are areas with victory points, which essentially double as IPCs, as they also determine how many reinforcement points you have to buy units.

All powers have a base, which essentially acts as their capital, which is where all units a power buys are placed (with some minor exceptions) and the capture of one base on the other side instantly leads to victory for the capturing power. Interestingly each side has a “shared” base, where units from two powers on the same side can be placed.

There are 2 ways to win: Capturing bases (I would compare this to a capital capture in normal games) or getting enough victory points from the board, the latter of which is both the most likely scenario of victory and similar to an economic victory in some Axis and Allies house rules.

3. This plays a lot more like an Axis and Allies tactical game than the “traditional” ones, with stacking limits, round limits, and several scenarios, all like like North Africa (they do have the same lead designer).

Like all Axis and Allies games, the “bad guys”, in this case, Cobra and Destro, start out with more units but fewer reinforcement points, while the “good guys” start with fewer units but more reinforcement points. The resulting dynamics on the game are similar to the other games.

Besides what I outlined above, movement operates fairly normally, as does turn order, purchases, etc.

Overall I would say it’s similar to tactical Axis and Allies games, especially North Africa, and more similar than different to the latter.

4. It’s pretty fun. The round limits and victory conditions keep the games short and avoid the kind of prolonged deaths losing powers in Global 1940 experience. The changes provide an interesting twist, while what’s kept from other games make it easy for returning players to understand the rules.

5. I would put it in between 1941 and 1942. Definitely one of the simpler Axis and Allies games. Probably most similar to D-Day of the games I’ve played in terms of complexity.

I hope this helped!

@SuperbattleshipYamato

I now realize that this wasn’t a new insight at all and AndrewAAGamer found this out years ago:

https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/35286/warfare-principles-of-axis-allies-by-andrewaagamer/3

I don’t think I was aware of his post at the time.

@Panther

Thanks for trying to answer. Quite a shame this isn’t getting more traction as it’s actually a pretty fun and interesting alternative to regular games.

@Midnight_Reaper

Bit late to the party, but I find this intriguing. GI Joe was pretty good so I have hope for this. I hope they’ll keep doing this and I’m curious what other IPs they’ll do this for next (I think a Transformers-themed one would be great, depending on how they handle the pieces).