@Slip-Capone And also we don’t play Economic victory.

@Slip-Capone Yes good point, I did forget to mention that we played without the Economic Collapse thing for Russia.

Central Powers: Germany (G), Austria/Hungary (AH) - Mike (aftertaste). Ottoman Empire (OE) - Jon (Jon1988).
Entente: Russia - Tomas (Duklapasser). France (F), UK (UK, duh!) - Andrew (holymonk). Italy (Italy, because it always sounds like I’m talking about myself when I type I), USA (US, as if it wouldn’t be obvious by this point), - Colin (GuiltyCol).

Two house rules were played throughout, 2 territory movement permitted for ‘non-combat’ moves on land, and a 4 build limit to India.

The CP opened with typical strikes into Venice, Serbia and Belgium, however, poor co-ordination between G and AH led G to under commit in Poland leaving a juicy target for R’s massive stack in Ukraine. The UK fleets were eliminated, but only a single G battleship remained in the North Sea, her crew desperately trying to pump water out of her many shell holes. Venice managed to hold, and that was as far as AH ever made it into Italy,

The Entente responded in turn 1 with a slow, defensive posture, with limited attacks by all except for R, who eliminated G’s army in Poland with ease, confident that AH was not yet in position to launch a concentrated invasion, in addition to eliminating an OE cruiser squadron. The UK made landings in Saudi Arabia and the territory west of it (I forget the name), but largely, the first turn was unremarkable. F finished off G’s battleship with his own.

It was clear that the CP went for ‘Russia First’, but with the initial G stack destroyed, most reinforcements were sent east, delaying an invasion proper, and ensuring that the CP were defensive on the western front, especially with Italy’s stubborn defence of Venice.

AH took Romania whilst OE swallowed Bulgaria and sent some units west later on to aid AH, who had to contend with the lions share of the forces committed to Russia. OE fought to contain UK incursions whilst also attempting an aggressive Med Sea campaign, which ended in unlimited glory… and hundreds of deaths, I should imagine.

The mid game was heated, with UK and OE dancing around each other in the Middle East, but OE plugging all gaps expertly. F tried to help, bless them, but the captain of a transport - whose modest force of proto-marines could have really been a thorn in the side of OE - either had the wrong charts or one too many in the mess before steering straight into an OE mine! Cheers mixed with moans of despair ensued!

The AH fleet received some unusual attention by a certain Entente member throughout the game, and managed to account for itself well, eliminated units from F, the UK and Italy, but it was eventually sunk, allowing the F/Italy landings to take place without fear of a sortie.

Italy and F promptly began landing in Albania, and whilst never a serious threat, did divert AH units from Russia. Italy eventually began an offensive into AH that was only held at bay by OE units marching across the Balkans. Africa was unusual this game, as G headed straight for Egypt and even managed to take it for a time, frustrating UK efforts to dominate OE. We subsequently learned that a player may NOT amphibious assault into an ongoing engagement, c’est la vie.

In the East, AH and a reinvigorated G took Ukraine, but at a cost. Dice rolls were good for G and AH throughout, regularly coming out above average, but the CP still had a mans job on their hands to take Moscow before the Entente could start to take advantage of their numerical superiority.

By late game, the lead had switched at least twice, with no clear winner in sight. The US had a fleet inbound to France and G had no way to stem the tide. One spoiling attack in Belgium managed to nibble off some UK units, but a strong F and eventual UK build up was probing into Germany on the absolute rampage, by the game’s end. Italy - as mentioned - was aggressive, and that really told when AH started to divert units away from Russia.

OE eventually drove the UK out of the home territories, and there was even talk of abandoning India by the UK, with a large force in Persia poised to strike. Africa was finally ‘saved’ by the Entente as the CP had no way to reinforce, and G’s remaining subs made a go at a F fleet off of Portugal, but even an unlikely victory would have had little effect on the outcome.

Before the game was called, AH and G had been making inroads into Moscow, but the Imperial Russian Air Force clearly had some secret tech, like MiG 15’s or something, because they were shooting down CP fighters like it was going out of fashion! Progress for the CP was slow and grinding, and even though G managed to cut a path through most of Russia, the northern territories were left open to that US fleet from before.

Those men really made the difference, because without them, Moscow would probably have fallen. G thought he was being sooo freaking clever when he bought a cruiser to block the Baltic Sea, but clearly the Admiral died early on, because nobody pointed out that there was a perfectly usable northern sea route! Epic Fail of the match!

However, the game was NOT over, because OE, being the team carrying champion that he is, diverted his India army to the Ukraine, in an effort to gain the final victory, at the expense of keeping the UK on the back foot.

Unfortunately, the game did end before a full conclusion could be drawn up. But the players all agreed that a game that ebbed and flowed the way that this one did deserved a final battle, or two or three, because the battle of Moscow went on until one side won or lost.

It was fought.

To…

A…

Man.

But by the end, as the sun set for the final time over the corpse choked fields and rubble filled streets of Moscow, the bullet ridden and blood stained flag of his Imperial Majesty, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, flew over what remained of the Kremlin.

The game was called as an Allied victory.

It was a hard fought game, with many a twist of fate and not too much a great deal of swearing. And in truth, we don’t really know who would have won for certain, because by the end, we were skipping almost entire goes, just to get back to the fighting in Moscow. Perhaps the CP could have reinforced before the Entente rolled into Berlin or Vienna, (G was on a very healthy income), but it is just as likely that the UK would have taken advantage of the lack of OH units and smashed Istanbul.

Whatever the result, we will always remember the look on G’s face when he realised the blunder he made purchasing that damned cruiser!

1942.2

The game began with a limited Russian counterattack that easily eliminated forward German elements, and a slow transfer of units away from the Japanese frontier, purchases for Russia were typical - but strategically sound - throughout the game.

Germany managed to lose his only bomber in a glorious and honourable strategic bombing raid turn one, and then shocked the Allies by moving almost every offensive unit on the board in the direction of Moscow, immediately tipping the Allies off to the Axis intentions. However, no serious offensive action was taken until midway through the game.

The Kriegsmarine made some initial headway against the UK navy but was ultimately eliminated, as was the small fleet in the Med. Lip service was given to the Afrika Korps, and the Allies never really had any threat in Africa or the Middle East.

In the Pacific, Japan constructed a battle ship and tried to keep the Allied navies at arms length, but won a surprising victory against the whole US Pacific fleet early on. A half hearted ‘Man in the High Castle’ invasion was attempted, but driven off, and from that point, the Pacific was very quiet.

China was a steady slog for the Japanese, who, having agreed to take Moscow with Germany, grimly marched across the Chinese and skirmished with the British around Burma. By the wars conclusion, British units were liberating left, right, and Chelsea, but a Japanese factory in Manchuria gave the impression of either a long winded draw, or a very long winded Japanese victory, as they had free reign of the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

The US took off with gusto and focused on the Atlantic, as Germany practically gifted France to them. France, Italy, Denmark and the Low Countries exchanged hands several times as the Germans had to divert more and more away from the Russian front.

Combined UK and US operations, coupled with the total abandonment of the Pacific by the US, meant that the Western front was lost to the Germans from the outset of Allied offensive operations. A factory in France was testament to the efforts of the Allies determination to press their only real advantage in the war.

The game was - unfortunately - called due to time constraints, but not before honour could be satisfied. Germany can opened Moscow for Japan, having only taken small bites out of the main Soviet forces up to this point, and received some extremely fortunate dice rolls that made Japans follow up victory a possibility. It was decided that the turn sequence would be forgone and the Allies would launch an all out attack with everything they had to try to take Berlin.

Before the final battle, it was agreed by the participants that an Allied victory would result in a draw, and a successful Axis defence would be an Axis victory. The battle was the last action of the day and there was a great deal of cheering and not a little swearing by the perfidious Germans, but five fighters and just enough boys and old men eliminated the Allied invasion. (One successful AA defence roll being a significant contribution).

The game was called as an Axis victory, but it was conceded that there was a good chance that it would have been an eventual Allied victory, if the game had continued for a few more turns.

This was an unconventional game that ebbed and flowed with no clear outcome even to the last, and was thoroughly enjoyed by all involved and all who watched the conclusion. Jon and Colin (who were both new to the Battle of Britain, but definitely not to A&A) fought valiantly, and were formidable and flexible from the word go. Dale’s willingness to stick to his panicky ally and his shaky battle plan was commendable, and certainly his commitment was a major contributor to the final victory.

Some parts of the game that were overlooked by Private-Panic:

Germany pursued an aggressive Dreadnought building policy that would have made Alfred Tirpitz proud, on the back of annihilating the Royal Navy around England, persuading France to move her two battleships and one cruiser to the North Sea to contain the German fleet. Throughout the war, the UK was forced to divert funds away from Europe to maintain naval parity, meaning that the middle east was the focus of British offensives, which the Ottomans rather handily kept at arms reach, despite almost every territory in the region changing hands at least twice.

An aside of the UK spending a fair portion of its funds on the RN meant France had the lions share of the responsibilities against Germany on the continent.

The Black Sea fleets cancelled each other out, Britain lost two cruisers in a (if we’re being honest with ourselves, Dukla ) pointless attack on the A-H fleet, and the Russian Baltic battleship bravely did nothing throughout the war.

On the Dark Continent, Germany did everything in her power to frustrate the Entente, conducting sound strategic moves coupled with exceptional dice rolls. Germany’s position in Africa is utterly hopeless outside of divine intervention, but all things considered, Credulous acquitted himself well.

A well fought game by all involved that could very easily have ended in a CP victory, but by the games conclusion, it was all Germany could do to keep the French and (rather late) British away from Berlin, and Italy was rampaging through A-H with reckless abandon, taking advantage of their foothold in Albania that was never given proper attention by the CP for the whole war.

Something I personally took away from this game was that for the CP, mainly A-H and G, building a warship now and again - whilst unconventional - might be a good strategy to force the Entente to spend more than you did to keep you contained, ultimately costing them more. Maintaining two fleets in being might be an idea for players in the future.

CWO Marc,

I could spend hours talking to you about this I suspect, but to keep things quick, my position on the general opinion of the British at the time of the DfB deal is seen as a part of the whole decline of the Empire, which you lay out quite clearly.
    I imagine that were I a British citizen of the Empire, as happy as I may have been that the RN were receiving 50 destroyers, we had to share parts of the Empire with a shining example of how successful a nation can be without it, which wouldn’t look good (from a British perspective) for other parts of the Empire. Canada, India, Australia, and New Zealand being the lead examples.

GHG,

I see your point and I agree, this does unbalance the game and to be honest, I hadn’t even considered that sort of angle before when suggesting House Rules, some of my other suggestions are universal, and this was an attempt at one for a certain Alliance. I have given it some thought though after reading your response…

The way I see it, the DfB rule is within the Allies Alliance and is reflective of their co-operative nature in general. Were I to do a similar unique rule for the Axis and the Comintern, I would have to (at least in the way I come up with House Rules) find some sort of historical justification, because I’m fun like that.

For the Comintern, I’ve been toying with one called Maskirovka - which I am sure CWO Marc knows a lot about - but the point of the rule would be similar to the Japanese Surprise Attack but only for land units and the only combat modifier being that defending units receive -1 on defence for one round. It would also allow the Comintern player to move units into the attack from territories that are beyond the land units usual range. This is to reflect that historically, the Soviets were good at deceiving the Axis as to where there divisions actually were, allowing them to concentrate a massive numerical advantage in certain areas.

There would have to be certain restrictions as to how many units can do this and how far, for obvious reasons, and only allow it once, but I feel that the Maskirovka rule could be a good balance for the Comintern if the Allies are allowed DfB.

The Axis is more difficult for me because anything that I could think of has probably been covered in an expansion, and I haven’t seen them all so any attempt would be a stab in the dark, but…

The Germans had blockade runners that would take technical specifications and equipment to Japan in exchange for exotic and rare materials. Now, I know almost nothing about the specifics historically, so I am on unfamiliar territory, but I was thinking of a rule where Japan and Germany exchange, say, a certain number of free technology rolls for Japan and a one time boost of IPC’s for Germany. This rule is even less fleshed out than the Maskirovka, so feedback is welcome.

Rank Carcass,

I am totally against not using allied facilities in GW36, I think it is, quite frankly, a stupid rule, but I’ve never made a board game, so what do I know?

With regards to the destroyers given being TBD’s, the ships that the UK received were overhauled to the standards of the day, so I figured that after some time in the production queue, they would be just as capable as any other destroyers. There could be an exchange of IPC’s, but I wanted to make rules that add a more unique flavour that could be used or not on a game by game basis, and I felt that having money change hands was a bit vanilla. I’m not saying it’s a bad idea, it’s just something that I was trying to avoid.

Munck,

I’m not really trying to ‘fix’ anything, just try some new stuff. I’m going to discuss using some of my ideas with my group, but to be honest, they probably won’t want to use them all.

Chief,

Always a pleasure to get a reply from you, allow me to attempt to answer your questions.

1. The costs of the in game units mentioned for the deal; destroyers, and air/naval bases, and their abilities, does reflect the deal about as well as can be expected for a board game. They are relatively cheap to produce, destroyers take one turn, airbases two and naval bases three. Honestly, the DfB deal wouldn’t be reflected as well as might be hoped, because it isn’t usually a viable option for Germany to prosecute the Battle of the Atlantic anywhere near as intensely as in real life. So the need might not actually be as great as it was in 1940.

The abilities of bases are similar to A&A, but destroyers are important for convoy escorts because even though any surface ship may escort, their value in the convoy raid - which is a special battle similar to strategic bombing - is the same as a battleship so it isn’t efficient to purchase anything more expensive than destroyers.

2. I didn’t make this rule on that assumption alone. I mentioned that it was a raw deal more to suggest that Britain had no choice, not they were totally shafted, but sometimes I don’t word my thoughts clearly. As always, your historical insight is greatly appreciated, and I agree that the DfB deal itself was more important than any exchange of assets, for the reasons you mentioned. The idea that Britain had been done over was more to do with the fact that at the time there was a comparison of the DfB deal drawn between the USSR and Finland’s relationship by John Colville, and the RN’s disgust at the state of the Destroyers, on top of the work required to make them useful. Do I think it was worth it though? Absolutely.

As I see it, back then, the bases part was a loss of British sovereignty, but the fact that Britain was seen to be ‘begging for scraps’ (my own wording), when it is supposed to be the pre-eminent world power, is a serious loss of face. As you say, Britain didn’t really ‘give up’ anything, and it all came up good in the end, but I personally can’t help but draw a comparison to the Louisiana Purchase.

CWO Marc,

I was talking about the historical stuff specifically when I mentioned you.

This thread is specifically about Global War '36-'45, I’m going to assume that everyone who reads this has read the rules, or at the least, knows that there are some very different rules and mechanics compared to A&A.

When the USA reaches a peace time IPC production of 15, it has the ability to conduct Lend-Lease. This is very useful before the US entry into the war for the Allies, and as it’s production increases, the US attains more and more abilities. One thing that I think might be a good addition to these abilities would be - as the title of this post suggests - the Destroyers for Bases agreement between the US and Britain.

Historically, DfB came roughly six months before Lend-Lease and one year after Cash and Carry. With regards to where this would fit in GW36’s timeline, it might be best to just be a one off thing that can be done any time after US Lend-Lease becomes a possibility, for simplicities sake. Normally, my proposals for House Rules or modifications come out of a desire to utilise the concept of a historical event, rather than it’s simple recreation (see my suggestion for a Straits House Rule).

However, as GW36 has similarly important historical events as a part of its rules (Vichy France, the Soviet-Japanese Border War, Anschluss), I don’t feel that my attempting to include DfB is particularly out of place.

How it would work would be during the Production Phase of the next UK turn after the US can Lend-Lease, the UK player may propose DfB, the US player does not have to accept it, but every subsequent UK turn the UK player may broach the subject again. If the US player accepts DfB, they may offer up to four Destroyers that they already have at sea to the UK, who - if they accept the number of Destroyers offered - places them in the 3rd stage of the production queue, to represent that the Destroyers offered were WWI era, had been rusting merrily away for some time, and all needed a thorough overhaul! The UK player does not have to spend IPC’s to advance the Destroyers along the build queue.

The price for the Destroyers would be that the US gains the ability to produce naval and air bases on the following UK territories:

Newfoundland
Bermuda
The Bahamas
Jamaica
Trinidad
British Guyuana

This would be symbolised by placing a US roundel next to the UK roundel. The US does not gain possession of these territories.

This is a relatively straightforward House Rule that I feel is in keeping with the ideas behind GW36. There isn’t a great deal of loss on either side in game, but historically this was a raw deal for Britain. I’m sure if CWO Marc decides to reply, we’ll all learn something.

I’m glad I cleared your principle concern and I do take your point with regards to world-wide naval redeployments. I think, from a purely historical perspective, I do have to concede that what I am proposing does require a suspension of disbelief. Even today, that sort of operation is incredibly difficult to plan for, let alone execute, (although it is only a concern for the USA at the time of writing).

If I may touch on your examples, my limited understanding is that thanks to the Dogger Bank incident, the British closed the Suez Canal to the Russian fleet, which they were hoping to do anyway. The Brits had recently signed treaties with Japan against Russia, so Dogger Bank just gave them a pretext, which has always made me wonder if the British had something to do with the whole mess. So, on top of the two other major problems you previously mentioned, the required transit distance was increased by thousands of kilometres. Had that not happened, I still think the Japanese would have just as easily and completely annihilated the Russian fleet, but every little helps.

The Great White Fleet and Force Z are good examples too, although Force Z was defeated largely by lack of air cover, not so much to do with logistical challenges, again, as far as I am aware. I agree that this sort of thing is likely done in stages, as you mentioned in your last paragraph, not as one trip only stopping for food and fuel, but I did consider that for the House Rule.

As for the colossal US naval builds and deployments, again I think you are correct. In GW36, to build cruisers and light carriers takes 18 months and battleships and fleet carriers take 2 years, that is, 3 and 4 game rounds respectively, so that aspect doesn’t detract from reality when taking my House Rule into account, IMO.

Ultimately, I do agree that the whole thing is a little hard to swallow, but a ship can travel from Liverpool to Bombay, through the Med, and it still takes 1 year in game time. I think if each nation gets 1 Naval Redeployment per turn, things become much less fantastic. I had to try to balance realism with the in game mechanics to address something that I felt was a bit odd, and it can’t be 100% believable, but we are talking about a board game that has to make it at least feasible for the Axis to win the Second World War, which I believe to be a total impossibility.