[1941] Does Double IPC rules make Africa playable?

A re-post of some thoughts I had on adding Arty to 1941:

While I’m no expert, if I were going to add artillery units from 40 or 42 to my copy of 41, this is how I would do it.

First, use the pieces and rules from 42. Here are the stats for artillery:
@Axis:

Artillery
Cost 4
Attack 2*
Defense 2
Move 1

Supports Infantry: When an infantry attacks along with an artillery, the infantry’s attack increases to 2. Each infantry must be matched one-for-one with a supporting artillery unit. Artillery does not support infantry on defense.

Also, note in the rules section for infantry:
@Axis:

Infantry
Cost 3
Attack 1 (2 when supported by artillery)*
Defense 2
Move 1

Supported by Artillery: When an infantry attacks along with an artillery, the infantry’s attack increases to 2. Each infantry must be matched one-for-one with a supporting artillery unit. If your infantry outnumber your artillery, the excess infantry units still have an attack of 1. For example, if you attack with two artillery and five infantry, two of your infantry have an attack of 2 and the rest have an attack of 1. Infantry are not supported by artillery on defense.

Finally, I would change the initial setup for 1941 to reflect the presence of artillery in armies already on the board. I would think that changing every 3rd infantry in a territory to artillery would be a decent start. If I did that, I would change the setup in some territories and leave the rest alone. The changed territories would reflect the following setup:

Russia: 4 infantry, 2 artillery, 1 tank, 1 fighter*
Archangel: 2 infantry, 1 artillery
Karelia: 2 infantry, 1 artillery
Caucasus: 2 infantry, 1 artillery, 1 tank
Siberia: 2 infantry, 1 artillery

Germany: 2 infantry, 1 artillery, 1 fighter, 1 bomber
Eastern Europe: 3 infantry, 1 artillery, 2 tanks
Ukraine: 2 infantry, 1 artillery, 2 tanks
West Russia: 2 infantry, 1 artillery

Japan: 3 infantry, 1 artillery, 1 tank, 1 fighter, 1 bomber

*Note that according to the FAQ put out after the game released, the territory labeled Russia should start with six infantry. If you haven’t read this FAQ, you should, as it made other changes to the setup of the board. If you swap every third infantry for an artillery, you would get four infantry and two artillery, as shown above.

Also, this would mean that neither the UK nor the US would start with any artillery as their regular setup have no territories with three or more infantry. Either shrug your shoulders or change their setup as you feel appropriate, perhaps as follows:

India: 1 infantry, 1 artillery, 1 fighter
Eastern U.S.: 1 infantry, 1 artillery, 1 tank, 1 fighter, 1 bomber

The above changes should integrate artillery into a game of 1941 fairly well. The Axis would swap 5 infantry for 5 artillery and the Allies would swap 6 or 8 (with optional UK and US artillery swapping) infantry for 6 or 8 (with optional UK and US artillery swapping) artillery for the setup of the game.

My 2:gg:

-M_R

P.S. The FAQ for Axis & Allies 1941 can be found here: www.wizards.com/AvalonHill/rules/AA_1941_FAQ.pdf

P.P.S. Edits: Credit where credit is due.

Source: boardgamegeek.com/article/22682014#22682014

-Midnight_Reaper

It depend on the kind of restricting rule. For example a rule forbidding subs to fire on subs – since there is only one case in which a submerged sub sunk an other submerged – is far more easier to employ as a restriction in production.  :-)

@CWO:

@LHoffman:

However, it would lock up a ship for pretty much the whole game.

I think it might actually work the opposite way.  If we go by the principle that “freedom of the seas exists unless something challenges it”, we could assume that – to use Britain as an example – Britain doesn’t need to keep a ship at a strategic maritime choke point in order to collect trade income; rather, it’s the Axis that needs to put a ship there to stop Britain’s trade income.  It’s only in such a case that Britain would then have to eliminate the enemy interloper, either by sending in a ship of its own or by attacking the enemy ship with land-based aircraft…hence the usefullness of controlling land near a maritime choke point.

I could definitely see how this could work. I’ve seen the HR somewhere where UK gets +5 IPC’s if no Axis warships are in the Atlantic, this would be similar to something of that nature. I wish Singapore was it’s own territory on the map separate from Malaya (and should be a VC, but that’s another matter), but holding Singapore could bring an NO, or be similar to other straights and canals and not allow enemy ships to pass through SZ’s 37 and 41 without holding Malaya. Similar to the Atlantic rule above, you could say that while at war with Japan the UK (and ANZAC?) get a +5 IPC NO for no Axis warships in the Indian Ocean, signifying supply routes.

To the general theme of UK NO’s though, this one may be too dramatic, but you could have like a “Commonwealth Army” NO. Whenever an ANZAC unit is on an originally controlled UK territory the UK gets +3 IPC’s, this showing how integral other forces were to supplementing British armies. I think of the 8th Army in Africa particularly to being dependent on Commonwealth support. Would work better if Canada and South Africa were there, but it could work. This could be applied to both the Europe and Pacific UK economies separately. Would encourage ANZAC to send a bit of support to Africa to help the UK Europe side. That, and would give those two ANZAC INF in Egypt at the beginning a bit more purpose than just a defensive presence. I don’t know, just thinking out loud.

The Zimmerman note triggering the war IS the conclusion.

yeah smaller territories with the World at War variant

starting with OOB you actually want to WEAKEN SBR rules
you can make German bleed in a way thats too powerful for both gameplay balance and realism

hitting things during production is a great idea
it doesn’t make sense to be able to destroy IPC at an unused IC
but I wouldn’t make it actual units but remain as IPCs

its not easy to make a nice rule for OOB though
the income and production is all messed up by the USSR,Germany,UK,Japan,US play order

Your right Guerrilla Guy, but they cant shoot out of the transport

Interesting.