I got this game Friday night and immediately set it up and got my first real look at what this game was about. It was much better than AAP40 in terms of quality. The map looked nice and the player aids were thick like AA50 and the game had some real dice (not those dreaded “Halloween dice set” ala AA42. The new pieces are really nice and the color for the French is spot on perfect.
Unfortunately, some of the powers are short of pieces with UK basically close to depletion after her setup. Germany seems short of artillery, fighters, and bombers. This would be based on the remaining units in her box once the setup was complete. Too me this is not a great deal as I bought 6 copies and have many copies of the other games. I was very pleased that the rules did not contain typos (Cal Moore not used in this game for once) and seemed to be presented quite well.
I really like that they included (I made this suggestion before) an official IPC tracking sheet that players can copy from the rulebook and print out to keep track of each players income gains and loses.
I setup these pieces and prepared what I consider the best German moves:
At first I didn’t consider Sealion because too me this is a “cheapo”, so I just played out perfunctory moves that seemed getting the best gains and avoided the loses from the exchanges.
Germany builds:
1 CV, 1 AP, 1 Infantry, 1 Armor = 30 IPC or better 1 CV, 2 AP!
Germany Combat moves:
- Attack France with 5 Armor, 4 Mech, 2 Artillery, 6 Infantry, 2 fighters, 1 Tactical Bomber
- Attack SZ 109 with 1 SS, 1 Fighter
- Attack SZ 110 with 2 SS, 1 Fighter, 1 Tactical Bomber
- Attack SZ 112 with 1 BB, 1CA, 1 Bomber, 1 fighter
- Attack Yugoslavia with 3 tanks, 1 artillery, 10 infantry (try to kill 4 defenders and retreat—hit and run)
Germany NCM:
Transport 2 infantry to Norway (basic shuck: 2 Infantry Germany-Norway-Finland)
2 Infantry from Norway goes to Finland
1 Infantry in Romania goes to Bulgaria
Anything else not used into Poland
Germany placements:
CV in SZ 112 with 2 fighters on it, 2 AP in SZ 113 or 114
Now it was time to look at what UK might counter, as Russia is basically neutral for up to 4 turns:
Builds: largely dependent on outcome of naval battles around UK and the German builds. If they built transports, the threat of Sealion is real, so infantry are the best defense and we must consider all these German naval forces as a real issue. It seems like no matter what UK decided to build in terms of a naval force that this would be destroyed by all these German subs and surface forces…… so I must buy infantry. I got 29 IPC, but the possibility of a German sub remaining in SZ 109 costs me 2 IPC leaving 27-29.
I must build all the infantry I can… which is either 8 or 9 and nothing else in reach of UK to support it further.
The only real attack I can do is against Italy:
UK attacks SZ 95 with 1 CV, 1 CA, 1 DD, 1 Tactical Bomber, 1 Fighter. It does not make sense to also attack the smaller Italian fleet (the exchange on both attacks would largely remove my naval presence in the Mediterranean–-which is a condition for Italian NO’s. Italy can’t counter my fleet in SZ 95 and must waste 10 IPC for a destroyer, of which I just finish off the next turn as the rest of the Italian fleet. Oh joy!
Then I began to look at how Germany follows up really anything UK CAN do and eureka!
The game is BROKEN!
Germany Just builds her CV and 2 AP on G1 and now has 3 transports:
She merely attacks Yugoslavia minus the 3 tanks/ 3 Infantry and moves them in West Germany
(Now it’s just 6 infantry and 4 artillery attacking Yugoslavia)
3 tanks and 3 infantry load up and land in UK along with the entire Luftwaffe, which is 6 fighters, 3 tactical bombers, 1 bomber, along with shore shots of 4 and 3 from Kriegsmarine.
UK defends with 3 fighters and 9-10 infantry total.
The result is German victory and all UKs income goes to Germany.
Latter Italian fighter in North Italy can land in UK
Germany now has 2 more turns to build up infantry to protect its new assets and USA or Russia has no say in the matter. Germany can turtle UK faster than USA could retake. France is gone and it really does not matter what Italy does.
Germany with these 2 turns of shuck infantry can start with a lot of fodder, then on turn 4 build only tanks and smash Russia.
UK will never get back UK and game is broken.
Check my numbers they are sound and this is broken
I do have some solutions to correct this:
UK should start the game with Radar technology. Its fighters also perhaps might defend at 5 (only in UK)… of course Radar technology should also offer both bonuses because having radar means you can react to attacks by knowing where they are coming from and in what strength. I have no idea why this was not part of “radar tech” but it is as it is.
Another idea is reconfigure the setup because frankly its not historical in the slightest.
I will post what it should look like as I had previously studied the forces and their deployment globally spring/summer 1940.
UPDATE: Germany has 4 fighters not 6, this is a major issue/flaw in this analysis. I would like to point out that their is some real value in this exercise. What may that be?
If Germany builds her CV and 2 AP it forces UK to bring her carrier to protect UK and saves the Italian navy!!!