• So I played global 1940 for the first time yesterday with my usual game group. Up to this point we had always played Anniversairy. It seemed to me that in 1940, the game was HEAVILY weighted towards the Allies. I mean… 82 IPCs for the U.S. after going to war for doing absolutely nothing? U.S., ANZAC, and UK income in the Pacific theatre all working against Japan? It also seems pretty easy for the UK to take out the Italian fleet, which is spread out over the Mediterranean instead of consolidated in one spot.

    I then began poking around this forum and it seems that everybody hates the OOB rules. I keep reading about ‘Alpha 3+’ and Alpha 3.5+', and I understand that these are revised rules and setups for the game, but are these complete and official? Do they effectively balance the game?


  • @creeping-deth87:

    So I played global 1940 for the first time yesterday with my usual game group. Up to this point we had always played Anniversairy. It seemed to me that in 1940, the game was HEAVILY weighted towards the Allies. I mean… 82 IPCs for the U.S. after going to war for doing absolutely nothing? U.S., ANZAC, and UK income in the Pacific theatre all working against Japan? It also seems pretty easy for the UK to take out the Italian fleet, which is spread out over the Mediterranean instead of consolidated in one spot.

    I then began poking around this forum and it seems that everybody hates the OOB rules. I keep reading about ‘Alpha 3+’ and Alpha 3.5+', and I understand that these are revised rules and setups for the game, but are these complete and official? Do they effectively balance the game?

    OOB rules, it’s not only heavily weighted towards Allies, I’m positive that it give not a single chance to Axis. I, personnaly like Alpha 2 a lot… but was recently (Sept 1st) superseded by Alpha 3… which (even more) recently evolved.

    Here both links :
    Alpha 2 : http://harrisgamedesign.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=4167
    Alpha 3 : http://harrisgamedesign.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=6149

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    Hello Creeping Death (Metallica fan?)

    You are right to assume that OOB rules are unbalanced, which I suppose you could say launched the Alpha modifications. The designer of the game, Larry Harris and his team of playtesters, began fixing the problems with a series of modifications called Alpha, and whenever they made significant changes to their earlier modifications, they would add (+) a new revision.

    There is a split between the members on this and Larry’s site (where the Alpha revisions are posted by Larry himself @ harrisgamedesign.com) as to weather or not the rule changes were effective in fixing the problems, that is something you will have to figure out on your own.

    It is safe to say that the majority of us feel that OOB is the worst version of Global 1940 available, for many reasons including the few that yourself mentioned. One example would be: the changes made in regards to scrambling air units from bases, like……

    • Air units can scramble from any air base on the board and not just island bases
    • Only a maximum of 3 fighters / tac bombers can be scrambled from a single air base at one time

    This is only a small example of the many changes made. however, this is a good one as it helps with the Itallian situation you mentioned. Some are arguably not so great, and it is up to you and your group to decide what modifications you like, and which ones you don’t. However, any version of Alpha is significantly better than OOB, so I suggest trying it.

    I myself prefer Alpha+3, and Alpha+3.5 which was a term I created in referring to changes they made to Alpha+3 without the title Alpha+4 (confused yet?). If you would like a complete copy of a rulebook with only Alpha +2 modifications, PM me with an e-mail address and I will send you one. If you want to jump right into the latest Alpha+3 revisions (which is 99% the final version of all the Alphas, before it goes to print as the new Global 1940 rule set) than you will need to visit Larry’s site , and print them off.

    Cheers,

    I hope this was helpfull.

  • Sponsor

    Also, You may want to look into getting more gray chips, Japanese Tac Bombers, and the proper battle board to replace the defective one in the Pacific game. contact wizards of the coast, tell them the issue, and they will send you a replacement order free of charge.

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