Global 1940 Alpha 2 - cash in all units and purchase House Rule

[knp7765]

Oh yeah, taschuler, you are right, it was a very beefed-up game.  Lots of huge battles in the first couple of rounds.  I’ve got a bucket that I toss the combat casualties in during play and it is nearly half full.

Also, yeah, I’m not crazy about using chips.  I really prefer to have the actual units whenever possible, although as you could see, it does make the board very crowded in some places.  I took a long time collecting sets of playing pieces for that very reason.  If you are familiar with the set-up of FMG’s combat pieces sets, then take one set X 5 and that is how many pieces I have in each country, excluding the new pieces of course (trucks, commanders, transport planes).

[Jennifer]

Reluctance to use chips is precisely why I own 5 copies of the classic game (1 factory sealed)…that way I could have 12 battleships pieces at any time I wanted (the cutest most darling piece).

[knp7765]

@Cmdr:

Reluctance to use chips is precisely why I own 5 copies of the classic game (1 factory sealed)…that way I could have 12 battleships pieces at any time I wanted (the cutest most darling piece).

Ahhh, a girl after my own heart.  Yes, I love the game pieces.  It’s what attracted me to these games in the first place.  Yeah, if I have 20 infantry defending the capital or 12 U-boats lurking in the Danish Straights, then I will go ahead and chip them up.  Most of the time, my board is chip free.

That’s also why I have already ordered 5 sets of FMG’s Italian units, and I will probably order 5 sets of each nation they put out.  I am also going to get a lot of HBG’s pieces when they become available, just not sure how many.  HBG’s pieces are mostly going to be more specialized units.  I pretty much play the basic game of A&A.  I do have a few house rules, but I haven’t incorporated any specialized units like Marines, Commandos, SS, etc. or even different types of armor (light, medium, heavy).  Right now tanks are just tanks in my game, although I do like the idea of adding in light and heavy tanks.  It will be interesting to see how it affects the game if one country only buys heavy tanks for a stronger punch yet a rival nation only buys light tanks for greater numbers.  Who will come out on top?
I think before trying that, I will have to wait until FMG and HBG come out with more national sets.  That way everyone will get to try.

[Jennifer]

Lining them up in cute little battalions works as well, just put a marker in the territory and one by your stack of infantry (or whatever) to denote what territory they are in.

[knp7765]

Sometimes I do something like that.  I have the 10 marshalling cards + tokens from the Revised game.  I also have the 6 Task Force markers from Pacific.  They come in really handy sometimes.

[knp7765]

Hey everyone.  After trying a game with this setup and ending up with an Axis win in 8 rounds, our Allied players were a little unsatisfied, especially since Japan was so thoroughly destroyed yet they actually held one of the 8 VCs for the Axis.  Usually in our games, if the Axis win then they are all three still in the game, or at least Germany and Japan.  Let’s face it, Italy really is the minor partner in that triad.
Anyway, we decided to keep playing the game out and see where it went.  It took us 19 rounds although the last 4-5 rounds did go kind of quickly.  The Allies won, which makes sense really.  In most cases, the Axis really need a rather quick game to win it.  The longer it drags out, the more chance that the Allies will eventually win.  Britain ended up taking Berlin after USA kicked open the door by taking Holland/Belgium, Denmark and Western Germany all in the same round.  Here are some high lights:
Round 9 = Germany captures London, USA liberates Calcutta.
Round 12 = USA liberates London.
Round 14 = Germany captures London, India liberates Moscow
Round 15 = Germany recaptures Moscow, USA reliberates Moscow
Round 16 = USA captures Rome, liberates London
Round 18 = USA liberates Paris
Round 19 = Britain captures Berlin
Below is a final picture of Europe in case any of you have not seen a TOTALLY defeated Germany before, well this is what it looks like (pic #1).  Also, as mentioned before, I prefer not to use chips whenever possible and I toss my casualties in a bucket.  For most games, this isn’t a problem as I have plenty of pieces to play with.  However, when a game goes 19 rounds, you start to run out of things (namely; German Tanks, USA Tanks and German Infantry).  In those cases I simply HAD to chip up wherever possible.  Also, there were a few cases where a country simply bought a large amount of a certain unit, so I had to use some chips there.  So, if anyone has ever wondered what 19 rounds of casualties looks like, here they are in my bucket (pic #2) and in a pile on the table (pic #3).  This is everything that was killed during the game that I didn’t chip up.  Some people have suggested that 1 round in this game is about 6 months so I guess 19 rounds would equal about 9 1/2 years of warfare.  The ACTUAL war only lasted 6 years, 4 years for USA.

[Warplayer12]

How did ANZAC get in europe???

[knp7765]

@Warplayer12:

How did ANZAC get in europe???

After Japan was smashed, there wasn’t anything for ANZAC to do in the Pacific so they started building troops & transports along with some planes and headed west.  It took a few rounds for them to get over there with a decent force but eventually they helped out in taking undefended or lightly defended territories from the Axis and backing up the other Allies.

[Jennifer]

@knp7765:

@Warplayer12:

How did ANZAC get in europe???

After Japan was smashed, there wasn’t anything for ANZAC to do in the Pacific so they started building troops & transports along with some planes and headed west.  It took a few rounds for them to get over there with a decent force but eventually they helped out in taking undefended or lightly defended territories from the Axis and backing up the other Allies.

Shh. You cant say that Japan gets smashed on these boards, people will freak out. wink

[knp7765]

@Cmdr:

@knp7765:

@Warplayer12:

How did ANZAC get in europe???

After Japan was smashed, there wasn’t anything for ANZAC to do in the Pacific so they started building troops & transports along with some planes and headed west.  It took a few rounds for them to get over there with a decent force but eventually they helped out in taking undefended or lightly defended territories from the Axis and backing up the other Allies.

Shh. You cant say that Japan gets smashed on these boards, people will freak out. wink

OOPS!  What I meant to say was “Japan honorably decided to cease all hostilities, withdrew back to their island and became a part of the greater USA.”

[Global-commander]

@BigBadBruce:

@taschuler:

I wanted to get some feedback on a house rule where players purchase all of their units and place as they wish prior to the start using the total IPC values from Alpha 2 setup, and still using all Alpha 2 rules and National Objectives.

RULES:

• All Industrial Complexes and Naval/Air Bases Remain and are not cashed in

• Additional Industrial Complexes and Naval/Air Bases may be purchased with the players cash, with the exception of China which may not build any of these

• Each territory with an IPC value of 2 thru 5 must have Infantry (Mechanized or regular) in a quantity of at least one less than the IPC value of the territory

• Territories with an IPC value higher than 6 must have at least 5 Infantry (see the United States mainland)

• There will be four placement turns prior to the first actual turn of the game. Each player purchases and places their units in reverse order of the normal turn order. France first, Italy second, etc.

• The Chinese player may only purchase (non-mechanized) Infantry and a single Fighter, but the Chinese player is not required to purchase a Fighter

• A maximum of 2 IPCs can be carried over to the next turn, with the exception of turn 4 when up to 5 IPCs may be saved for the players first actual turn in the game

• Players cannot place units in territories other than their own with the exception of Japanese controlled China, France and UK (London), ANZAC and UK (London or Calcutta). The UK player must keep his two sides separate and cannot share money or place units on the other side of the map.

CASH PER PLAYER PER TURN (in placement order):

• FRANCE (Total 132): 33 per turn

• ITALY (Total 223): 56 for the first three turns, 55 for turn four

• ANZAC (Total 91): 23 per turn, 22 for turn four

• UK (Calcutta) (Total 130): 33 for the first two turns, 32 for the last two turns

• UK (London) (Total 318): 80 for the first two turns, 79 for the last two turns

• China (Total 58): 15 for the first three turns, 13 for turn four

• USA (Total 278): 70 for the first two turns, 69 for the last two turns

• Japan (Total 570): 142 for the first two turns, 141 for the last two turns

• Russia (Total 248): 62 per turn

• Germany (Total 399): 100 for the first three turns, 99 for the last turn

Kinna introduce a Risk’s placement, I love it.
This sounds very interesting. I would allow Chian to build Art, as they have Burma road open. Also I would also gives NO that qualifies after last purhcase, ie. more money for first turn expense. I would try such game, in 1vs1 game.

I wonder if this format would work with AA50??

[Jennifer]

It doesnt really work in 1940, to be honest.  It’s far too easy for the Axis to set up a near instant win (within 5 rounds that is.)

[knp7765]

You could use the same general rules for AA50, but you would have to pick one of the AA 50 setups (1941 or 1942) then add up the total cost of starting units to get the starting cash for each country. For one thing, I think there are less starting pieces for all the nations because AA 50 has a smaller map than the 1940 games so there are less pieces. Another thing is I think the prices are a little different in AA50 than in the 1940 games, plus you won’t have Tac Bombers or Mechanized Infantry as those units didn’t come out until the 1940 games.
Also, I’m not sure how you would handle China, since in AA50 they don’t actually get IPCs but rather 1 infantry for every 2 Chinese territories still under Chinese control at the beginning of their turn.
Other than a few small changes though, I think you could still adapt this idea to AA50.