Interview with the 2021 OOB champion: AndrewAAgamer

@shadowhawk

Agreed.

The main allied strategies still hold up. The one that becomes more dominant would be shuffling 20 units a round into Spain from USA… But even this has its flaws.

@ShadowHAwk:

It isnt as bad ad the 1914 game that you cannot even set-up apparently because it is lacking stuff.

I think you’re talking about 1941?  1941 barely ships with any units out of the box.  I would hope 1914 ships with enough considering its hefty price tag.

@theROCmonster:

I recommend playing the newest alpha. The new alpha rules allow scrambling from not island airbases as well, which I believe is huge. The entire flavor of the game is changed with the new alpha rules VS out of box. Also out of Box I think UK just falls to sea lion everytime…

theROCmonster, he is playing the G40 2nd edition (recently released). The OOB rules include the the newest Alpha (nicknamed Alpha 3.9) with the couple changes Port Hardcore mentioned. I guess you could call OOB 2nd edition Alpha+4, or the final Alpha.

I would go OOB 2nd edition instead of Alpha+3.9, like kcdzim said. The changes between the two were minor compared to the changes that took place through the Alpha project (like the scramble rules from Alpha+1 allowing all airbases to scramble, but only 3 units). 1 UK inf missing in Egypt surprised many ppl thinking the game is axis bias, but like he said it probably balances the Med which is a battle with-in the war. Adding Korea to the Nap just makes sense.

What I would do is play OOB 2nd ED a few times, and decide for yourself which side has an edge (every group is different), keeping in mind that the allies have a longer learning curve and it normally takes a few games for them to figure things out. If in the first game you lose Moscow in turn 6-7, then figure out what the allies need to do to save/delay that in the next game. I would also plan for a two day game the first time LOL (2-10 hour sessions).

After hearing this I’m definitely going to print out Alpha+3 and try them this weekend when I play again.
Thanks a lot for the advice!

@Krieghund:

As I have explained before, the reason Chinese movement is limited is to reflect the historical fact that China was also embroiled in a civil war (Nationalists versus Communists) at the same time that it was fighting the Japanese invaders.  As such, it had little interest in matters outside its own borders (keeping the Burma Road open for Allied aid being an obvious exception).  This restriction keeps China from influencing the game outside of its borders without having complicated rules to represent the impact of this conflict.

Don’t forget about the warlord factions!:)  Sure they were nominally supportive of Chaing but he had to keep a decent force back just to police his ‘allies’.