Posts made by wove100

So, what do we think, will Britain be able and/or required to mobilize troops in Canada, India, and/or South Africa or will Britain just be able to strip these territories of units to ferry them to Europe/use them to attack German colonies/use them to attack the Ottomans?

I’m right with you. Mines! They played a crucial part in WWI amphibious assaults and it’s nice to see them included.

Now, for your delectation, watch as your attempt to land at Gallipoli flounders as your ships are destroyed by mines!

In his Austria-Hungary post, Larry gave us a few rules for tanks in combat. Here’s my interpretation of how they would work in battle from what we know:

On a turn after turn 4, Britain has purchased a tank and gotten it to a contested territory on the western front where it joins 5 British infantry and 2 British artillery who are facing 6 German infantry and 2 German artillery. Britain decides to test its new weapon in battle and sends its troops over the top to storm the German lines. The battle board is loaded as follows:

Britain (attacker)
5 dice are put in the infantry box (2 or less)
2 dice are put in the artillery box (3 or less)
1 die is put in the tank box (2 or less or 1, depending on how you read Larry’s A-H post)
Then, the tank and one infantry are promoted to the “With Artillery Support” box to roll at 3 or less (my guess is that, as in other A&A games, one artillery can only promote one other unit).
So, Britain will roll 4 dice at 3 or less (artillery + promoted infantry and tank) and 3 dice at 2 or less.

Germany (defender)
6 dice are put in the infantry box with the machine gun icon (3 or less)
2 dice are put in the artillery box (3 or less)
So, Germany will roll 8 dice at 3 or less.

Britain rolls its dice and gets 2 hits - the tank arrives on the western front with a whimper.

Germany, in a stout defense of its well built trenches, rolls five 5 hits.

Casualty allocation (done in turn, one unit at a time, starting with the attacker, but summarized below):

Germany allocates Britain’s two hits by removing 2 infantry pieces, leaving them with 4 infantry and 2 artillery.

Thanks to the British tank, the 5 German hits are reduced to 4 and Britain decides to loose 3 infantry and 1 artillery (Haig demands the tank be saved for a future assault), leaving them with 2 infantry, 1 artillery, and 1 tank.

The territory remains contested.

Nightmare Scenario:

The goddess Fortuna smiles on the Germans and they roll an unbelievable 8 hits!

The British tank reduces the 8 hits to 7, but Britain is forced to remove 4 infantry, 2 artillery, and its tank, because they must have at least 1 infantry unit.

In my imagination, the territory also included French units, but Larry has been pretty quiet so far on multinational forces, but my current assumption is that, as in other A&A games, they may defend together, but may not attack together.

I am sooo tempted to get some of HBG’s Russia Early War Infantry for use as neutral pieces. I know it wouldn’t make sense in the game to have separate pieces for neutral nations, but I just think they look like they were made for this game. Or maybe use them for the Bolsheviks for Flashman’s Russian Civil War house rule.

I might not be able to stop myself. :evil:

It does seem that Larry kind of phoned in the UK’s NO. That’s why I’m eagerly watching this topic, hoping for a game changer. Or at least game enhancer.

@oztea:

Wove those are very similar to something I proposed a while back:

I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what put the idea in my head. Sorry, I’ve been reading the forums a lot lately and things’ve started to become a sort of Axis and Allies stew.

It appears so, but I guess in AA1914 there are two types of minor powers. Minor Aligned Powers as described above and, as I found from re-reading Larry’s post, Minor Neutral Powers as described below (also from Larry’s post on Austria-Hungary’s first turn):

“Mobilizing a minor neutral power, note that I said “neutral” power, is another matter that we might get into at some point. In a nut shell they are mobilized by the alliance that did not invade it. They too mobilize twice as many military units as their IPC value. Except for which power’s units are used and who takes control of the invaded territory, it is pretty much the same as invading a minor aligned power.”

I wonder how heated arguments will get in multiplayer games of AA1914 over who gets to assume control of a Minor Neutral Power . . .

Summer 2013, in a basement near you, Austria-Hungary has invaded Greece.

Russian Player: “I’ll take control of Greece.”
French Player: “I think I should do it.”
Russian Player: “You can barely keep the Germans out of Paris.”
French Player: “But this gives us a chance to put some French pieces in the Balkans and really mix things up.”
Russian Player: “There’s nothing to stop you from sending help once I’ve beat back the Austrians.”
French Player: “You managed to lose Serbia and Romania to the Austrians.”
Russian Player: “So. I’ve kept the Ottomans out of Russia.”
Austrian Player: “Why don’t the British take control of Greece.”
French Player: “You’d like that, wouldn’t you.”
British Player: “It’s not the craziest idea.”
Russian Player: “Stay out of this.”

I hope Larry provides a few guidelines.

Found it! From Larry’s post on Austria-Hungary’s first turn:

“When a major power’s forces are moved into a minor power’s capital territory (Serbia and Romania are minor powers), one of two events occurs. The Minor power either mobilizes to join the entering forces, or it mobilizes to resist the invasion. The reaction depends on the political relationship between the major and minor powers. Only after an aligned minor power becomes mobilized can it generate income for any major power. I should also explain that the number of units that a minor power mobilizes is twice the IPC value of the territory, and that Serbia’s IPC value is 2. That means that 4 units will be placed. Only one of these units can be an artillery unit, and the rest must be infantry. Romania, with an IPC value of 3, gets to place 5 infantry and 1 artillery unit. Russian pieces will be used to represent the newly mobilized Serbian and Romanian forces, and they will be controlled by the Russia player. Hey… I probably don’t have to tell you but this can only happen once per territory.”

I believe that if a minor power is attacked, the major power allied to that minor power (an icon is displayed on the minor power’s territory) takes control of the minor power and the major power’s units are used. The minor power thus becomes incorporated into the major power.

I believe it’s also explained in the post on Austria-Hungary’s first turn.

Anywho, I finally mocked up the set-up charts. I big shout-out goes to FieldMarshallGames and oztea for their Free French and Commonwealth rules.

The setup charts also include the Political Situation for each power (largely the same thing as the Second Edition Rulebook), with a few revisions for the earlier start date, and the National Objectives for each power. All the Global 1940 Second Edition rules stand unless superseded by something on the setup charts.

Conceptually, the game starts two turns earlier than the Global 1940 game, so any rule from Global 1940 Second Edition that states that a certain event can’t occur before a certain turn should be pushed two turns later. For instance, the USSR may not declare war on a European Axis power before Turn 6, unless attacked.

France does start with an abnormally high IPC value (37) due to the combining of France, Poland, Belgium, and the Netherlands into one power. This shouldn’t last, but it will allow France one turn to buy units before the German onslaught begins (I had to reduce French and German military might in order to try to preserve the Phoney War).

Stealing an idea from the A&A1914 preview, on its first turn, Germany must attack Poland, but Germany may not attack France or the UK.

No power starts with any IPCs in hand, the forces on the map are all players have available for their first and second turns.

ACHTUNG! ACHTUNG! ACHTUNG!

I’m far too close to this scenario. In my mind it’s designed to unfold in a certain way and does when I play it (Germany taking out Poland and snatching Slovakia/Hungary and Romania on turn 1 and then redeploying on Turn 2 to attack France on Turn 3 because France has to be taken out before its high IPC starting value becomes a major problem (their only factories are in Europe!)). But any pair of fresh eyes will I’m sure find all kinds of bugs. Please keep me informed and I’ll try to look at it from a fresh angle as well and report back.

Thanks to anyone who tries this and please let me know if it’s broken.

(Modified to fix spelling)

A&A1939Scenario.xls

How about a slight change to the UK’s NOs:

5 IPCs if the UK controls the following territories: Scotland, United Kingdom (London), Gibraltar, Egypt, and Trans-Jordan. (Awarded to UK Europe Economy for maintaining Home Defence and controlling access to and from the Mediterranean).

5 IPCs if the UK controls the following territories: West India, India (Calcutta), Kwangtung, and Malaya. (Awarded to UK Pacific Economy for keeping the UK’s Asian centres of power intact).

Not quite as unreachable as controlling all original territories, but still rigorous, especially for the UK Pacific.

Thanks DarthShizNit! You are indeed the ShizNit!

I smell a Russian Revolution house rule. Maybe give Republican Russia one turn (or more, but given the timescale of the game one turn is probably about right) to turn the situation around. If the conditions triggering the Russian Revolution are still extant by the end of that time, then the October Revolution occurs and takes Russia out of the game.

This would also allow for the Kerensky Offensive and Allied Intervention (occupation of Murmansk and American Expeditionary Force Siberia (which of course isn’t possible on this map, but will be when house rule variants moving it to the global 1940 map are in place)).

@vonLettowVorbeck1914:

I have some German Infantry much lighter than the deep black of the Global 1940 Germans (I am pretty sure they are from the original 198_ game). (I also have a US infantry the exact same grey color, not sure where that is from.)

A little off topic, but my edition of Axis and Allies Classic had gray German infantry but using the traditional US infantry sculpt and green US infantry using the traditional German sculpt. It looks like your gray US infantry is from the same edition as mine, with its gray US-style German infantry and green German-style US infantry.

(Modified to correct spelling of your (was you’re)).

Anybody want to spend the time to use this and the previous post (on Austria-Hungary’s first turn) to map out known territories? I think he gives a pretty good glimpse of which southern Russian territories are connected to each other, but I don’t have the patience.

That being said, I can’t wait for Germany’s first turn report. According to this, they have a fighter!

(Modified to specify which previous post I was referring to).

Alternatively, I did recently pick up a comic called Zombie Nazis, so we’ll need that scenario as well.

@Gargantua:

What we need is a sci-fi 1945 setup, where the axis get wonder weapons, and the question is if the allies can keep their foot on them.

Anyone read the Harry Turtledove novels were the Axis and Allied powers must unite to fight off an alien invasion? Anyone got any old Twilight Imperium pieces lying around? Now, who wants to develop the alien tech chart . . .

@oztea:

The farther you roll the clock back, the harder it gets to find the right balance, that will extrapolate into something at least plausible in later turns.

Yes, that’s the rub. And finding a way to do it that adds as few rules and stipulations as possible.

You would also need a mechanic for powers to sign peace treaties, because Japan and Russia were at war in 1939, but agreed to stop fighting.

As far as I can tell, while the Russo-Japanese Border War cease fire went into effect on September 16, 1939, all Japanese forces on the Russian side of the border had been destroyed or driven off by August 31, 1939. I figured I could fudge the timescale a bit and assume they had already signed it before turn one, since no serious fighting occurred in September 1939, when the 1939 scenario would begin.

I’ve been kicking a round a few ideas for a 1939 scenario on the A&A Global 1940 board. The biggest hurdle seems to be how to prevent the Phoney War from becoming an actual war, with France and Germany going at it on turn one.

My current thinking is to reduce the UK and French starting units. To balance, nearly all of Germany’s starting units are in Germany, poised to attack Poland and enter the Pro-Axis Neutrals of Slovakia/Hungary and Romania. Thus, Germany can’t attack France without shifting its units to the west and France doesn’t have enough units to attack Germany.

Another idea I had was to combine France, Poland, Belgium, and the Netherlands into one power. This allows Poland to have more than just infantry (a tank and a fighter) and Holland/Belgium to have an artillery piece. Best of all, it allows the Dutch East Indies to have units, especially a small naval force, which allows ABDACOM to get a look in. As another bonus, aside from putting more of those wonderful blue pieces on the board, it gives France a high enough income to beef up her army before the Germans unleash their attack.

Which reminds me, my current idea is that no one starts with any IPCs. The starting units have to last all of turns one and two. This prevents both France and Germany from making big purchases on turn one and going at it on turn two. Since powers can’t buy anything until turn two, they should go for the ripe fruit on turn one and reposition on turn two so they can unleash their beefed up forces on turn three (which is akin to turn one in A&AG1940).

This all does necessitate a special rule for a neutral Soviet Union to be allowed to attack Eastern Poland without going to war with the Franco-Belgian-Dutch-Polish forces as a whole. A neutral Soviet Union also has to be given special approval to attack the Minor Neutrals of Vyborg, Baltic States, and Bessarabia (which are a special category because the Soviet Union attacking them does not affect the status of the board’s Strict Neutrals).

I also think oztea’s and ghr2’s (among others) idea of turning the ANZAC power into the Commonwealth power and giving it Canada, South Africa, and Newfoundland/Labrador (all the Dominions combined) should be incorporated. However, the creation of the Commonwealth power plus the Belgian Congo going to the FBDP power, gives the Commonwealth 20, reducing UK Europe to 17, on par with UK Pacific. As a balance, I like FieldMarshallGames’ suggestion I read on BoardGameGeek of having the UK and the Commonwealth share the same turn, to allow for coordinated action.

Other thoughts include incorporating FieldMarshallGames’ Free French infantry recruitment rule. Siam becomes a Pro-Axis neutral. Japan controls two fewer Chinese territories. While neutral, the US is allowed to transfer one and only one fighter to the Chinese by landing the fighter on Chinese territory, provided it does not violate any other neutral movement rules. All A&AG1940 turn dependent rules are pushed back two turns. Denmark and Norway become Pro-Allied Neutrals to allow the much discussed Franco-British preemptive occupation of Norway to become a reality if the Germans don’t get moving. I also think a German cruiser should be loose in the Atlantic since the Deutschland and Graf Spee were at sea when the war began.

I know the UK needs more National Objectives, as does the Commonwealth. I don’t feel the Early Allies (FBDP) need any NOs, as I don’t expect them to last as a coherent fighting force beyond turn three until the liberation of Paris.

Any thoughts?

Well, this report from Larry Harris did it for me. Just pre-ordered a copy. Now, does anyone have a mechanism to collapse time so it’s the end of March already?