After Action Report: Global with Alpha Changes

This is an after action report for a Global 40 Game we played last Saturday.
We started around 1pm and had to end around 8.

We had 7 players, 4 allies and 3 axis, and although experienced levels were different between the players, all of us have at least played some form of AA within the last year. We setup with the latest Larry Harris “Alpha” setup and rules for Global, as of Sept 10.

Germany opened with an attack on the British fleet in the North Atlantic, sinking most of the ships around Britain and the French Cruiser and Destroyer in the Med. They took losses of a few subs and 1 or 2 planes. They also moved into pro-Axis Finland. As expected, Germany attacked France and took Paris. Germany built a minor IC in Romania and a few Subs.

The Russian player bought a mixed buy and maneuvered his forces away from the Germany front and towards his main 3 cities, while consolidating Siberian troops together near the Manchurian border.

In the Pacific, Japan maneuvered into a position near the Philippines to attack Borneo, Celebes, etc and built more transports, but did not attack UK or USA. Japan did heavily attack China, the beginning of the three turn campaign against China that would take more than half the Chinese territories.

The UK and ANZAC occupied two Dutch islands. UK Europe decided against attacking the Italian fleet, because the Germany player had positioned about 6 airplanes to counter-attack in the Mediterranean and the French ships were no longer there for cover. Instead the UK player finished off a German Battleship and Cruiser off Scotland, and consolidated forces near Gibraltar. They built a transport and ground units for S. Africa.

Italy attacked southern France, took Gibraltar and Jordan. Italy built a transport to replace the one they would lose near Gibraltar.

US did a 50/50 build East/West, a build strategy it continued for all subsequent turns. It evacuated the Philippines and consolidated on the West Coast.

The next two turns (#2 and #3) saw the following happen:

On Turn 2, Germany dropped 3 TT’s in the Black Sea and upgraded the IC to major. (A carrier would follow on turn 3 for protection). From Turn three on, Germany started dropping 6 units per turn into Caucuses with ground units also being built in Romania.
The Russians kept clearing caucuses and were pulling back as Germany pushed the entire border below the baltic.

Egypt was evacuated by the UK, and occupied by Italy, but UK successfully retook Jordan and Gibraltar and was reinforcing the Red Sea with ships from S. Africa and India. Italy’s advance was stalled.
UK Europe did minor landings in Normandy and Norway which were rebuffed, and traded Gibraltar with the Italians, while doing mixed builds in South Africa and Britain. Britain counter attacked from Burma into Yunnan to reopen the road for China. China had a large stack in the interior, but was reeling from steady Japanese pressure.

Japan attacked the USA/UK/ANZAC in turn 3.
Russia attacked Japan in turn 3, taking Manchuria and Korea which had been abandoned by Japan the turn eariler.

Turn 4 was our final turn, after 6 hours of game play.
During this turn some interesting things happened:

Germany maneuvered into a position where, had there been a turn 5, Stalingrad would have likely fallen.
They had more units in the south than the Russians at that point.
However, the German advance was in question due to increasing pressure to the West.
UK retook Egypt, and Italy’s counter attack (barely) failed. With the US at Gibraltar sinking most of the Italian’s remaining fleet and Italian ground forces decimated, Rome was in peril. Britain landed in Normandy again, this time reinforced by Americans.

Japan’s offensive took off. Yunnan was wiped of British troops with favorable dice as Malaysia and all of the DEI was in Japanese hands. UK Pacific was down to 3 territories and 6 IPC’s. Calcutta would be in jeopardy in coming turns, if Japan could deliver enough ground troops. Japan was were now earning about 69 IPC’s. 9 of those IPC’s were from Russia. A Japanese counter attack retook Korea, invaded the Far East above Manchuria and pushed into the interior through central China. Few units were involved, but they were eating into Russian IPC’s. Russia still held Manchuria, but was now surrounded there.

Anzac had ample ground forces, but only a small fleet. However, they did move into the Caroline Islands with a transport and couple of infantry on turn 4, setting up a possible US staging area. They had taken part of the DEI early on, but were kicked out with the Japanese offensive.

An American fleet in the Pacific had formed around Wake. With the Aussie base in Caroline Islands, a Japanese response of some type would soon be required.

Afterthoughts:

Japan player felt number of fighters was impressive but also frustrating, complains of lack of infantry and/or transports at the start of the game. Still Japan finished turn 4 with income near 70 IPC’s.

The German player discovered that despite extremely aggressive strategy against Russia, and daring Black Sea fleet strategy, it was difficult to take even one Russian city, much less all three.

USA seemed to have tons of IPC, for better or for worse, and when it arrived in force, was a dominant power. Frequent landings in Europe are likely from turn 5 on with USA help.

Italy blossomed without losing its fleet turn 1, taking at least one National Objective each turn, sometimes two. But when confronted with UK/USA attacks, Italy’s fortunes were rapidly reversed.

New rules: tactical bombers, IPC rules, and land/sea bases seemed ok.

House rules: because we heard complaints of the USA/Norway large-factory strategy, we ruled that players could not build factories in captured territories. Large-factories, when captured, would be reduced to small-factories, but usable to the occupying power. Small-factories would be destroyed.

Overall game seemed biased towards Allies. A lot could have still happened. However, it seemed unlikely the the Axis would get to even 12 VC’s. They were already being rolled back in Africa and Italy was threatened.