Hello All,  A while back, I posted a topic on how Axis & Allies pieces have changed over the years from game to game.  Well, I found out that I didn’t quite have a complete set and it was also pointed out that I missed a few crucial items from certain games.  Since then, I have gotten a few more pieces and I finally got around to lining them up and taking some pics.  I’m still not sure it’s 100% complete, but I know I’m a lot closer than before.  This time I put some labels on the table in front of the pieces so you all can better identify which game each style of pieces came from.
I am putting each country in a separate post with 3 pictures of each;  land, air and sea units.  I will give a brief description on how the pieces have changed and try to note any irregularities (such as mis-moulds).

As most A&A gamers know, the Classic version put out in 1984 had rather generic pieces and except for the infantry the only difference between each nations pieces was the color.  When Avalon Hill took over in the late 90s and put out Europe (1999), Pacific (2001) and Revised (2004), they made country specific pieces (Panther tanks for Germany, Shermans for US, T-34s for Russia, etc.).  However, they seemed to have a problem settling on colors for the different nations.  Britain in particular experienced a wide variety of color changes from game to game before they finally settled on the current tan color.

Well, here we go.

Okay, now we move on to United Kingdom.
In Classic, the pieces were a basic tan/beige color.
In Europe, they came out with an odd cream color.  Also, Britain used US sculpts for tanks, artillery, destroyers, subs and transports.
In Pacific, the Brits were a dark tan color, I think meant to represent the Australian forces.
In Revised, I have seen two versions of British units:  earlier versions had them in a sea-foam green color, later versions had them in a pinkish-tan or salmon color.
In D-Day, the Brits were a very light color, almost white.  I call it off-white and some refer to this color as blonde.  Only land and air units in this game, no ships.
In Anniversary and BOTB, the Brits came out in the current tan color but still used US Shermans.
Finally, in 1942 and both 1940 games, we have the current British army.  The Brits now have their own style tank, the Matilda II.  The Spitfire fighters are now flat across the bottom where earlier versions the wings were slightly curved upwards at the wingtips so the pieces sort of rocked side to side.  The Battleships are bigger, though still the Royal Oak class.  Also, the submarines are slightly different.  They are just a little bigger and the nose is thicker, where as on older versions the nose came to a point.  The British Tac Bomber is the Mosquito, a real British plane, but the British Mech Inf is simply a US M-5 Halftrack in tan.

AXIS & ALLIES GLOBAL 1940 2ND EDITION – Released September 2012
Finally, we have updates on the SUPERGAME of the Axis & Allies line. When Global 1940 first started being played after Europe 1940 was released in August 2010, gamers were finding there were problems with it. Basically, it was unbalanced. I believe most thought that the first version made it too hard for the Axis to win. So, Larry Harris came out with Alpha, the first revision of the setup and/or rules for Global 1940. While this fixed some problems, it didn’t fix all of them or new ones came up. Over the course of the next year or so, a number of revisions were put forth: Alpha, Alpha+, Alpha+1, Alpha+2… Some versions made it too hard on the Allies, others too hard on the Axis, so Larry kept tweaking it here and there. A couple of these Alphas actually had 2 or 3 versions under the same name. Finally came the version titled Alpha+3.9, which was considered as the final Alpha.
So, WOTC decided to put out a whole new version of Europe 1940 and Pacific 1940. This 2nd Edition would include the latest rule changes, a number of changes to the gameboard to correct issues found in the first edition and even more new sculpts. Besides working in the new sculpts from 1942 2E, Italy and ANZAC get ALL UNIQUE sculpts of their own. One minor disappointment is poor France which is still stuck with all Soviet sculpts with only the Infantry being uniquely French. However, since Russia got a number of new sculpts, in a way so do the French. They are just new Soviet pieces in blue.
ITALY: As stated, Italy got all Italian units now. Many of the sculpts are the same sculpts that were used by Field Marshal Games in their Italian set. While the WOTC pieces don’t look quite as nice as the FMG pieces, they are still nice and better than having German pieces in brown. Finally an Axis power gets a big, 4-engine bomber in the Piaggio P.108. They designated the SM.79 for the Italian Tac Bomber which seems like kind of a large plane for a Tac Bomber, but the piece looks really cool. Also, instead of a Halftrack for the mechanized infantry, they used a truck.
ANZAC: As for the ANZAC sculpts, there has been much discussion as to if these are proper units to represent ANZAC forces. For instance, the fighter and tank it has been said were actually used very little or not at all by Austalian forces. As far as I’m concerned, since they are uniquely Australian, they are good for this game. As for the capital ships, it has been said neither of these ships were even near Australian waters in WW 2. Personally, I think that is nit-picking. ANZAC didn’t really have any capital ships of their own in WW2 so I think using British models that weren’t already used for UK ships is just fine.
The only problem I have with ANY of the ANZAC sculpts would be the over-sized Infantry piece. I was at first excited that ANZAC was getting their own infantry piece until I got them and saw they were a full head bigger than any other infantry piece. I tried using them, but they just look weird on the board. I have went back to use the old ANZAC infantry with the new equipment sculpts.
So, there we are, up to date for now. I have heard there is a WW1 A&A game in the works. I guess that will require a new update. Hope everyone enjoys these pics.

I just put in my order for 5 sets.  These different ship classes will be very cool.

A couple of questions:
1 – Assuming this garners enough interest and we go forward with it, do you plan on doing naval supplements for other nations as well?

2 – What color will these ships be?  Olive drab or dark green?

I got my shipping notice too.  Really looking forward to getting them.

Also have my pre-order for Germany 3. I know we’ve got till April on those, but I’m excited for them anyway.

First, lets start with the good ole USA.
In Classic, US pieces were a dark green.  Some games had a mis-mould on the infantry and got US Infantry in German Grey.
In Europe, they came out in olive drab green and got artillery and destroyers.
In Pacific, the shading seemed somewhat lighter and in some cases the pieces almost looked translucent.  That may have just been a case of improper adding of the color to the base plastic.  The US also got a darker green Infantry unit to represent US Marines and a Navy F6F Hellcat fighter for use on carriers.
In Revised, the shading seemed somewhat darker but still basically olive drab.
When BOTB came out in 2006, GMC Trucks were added to the US inventory for transporting supplies to front line troops.
When Guadalcanal came out in 2007, the US had special green colored Anti-Aircraft guns.  Also, a number of Guadalcanal games were sent with mis-moulded cruisers in Japanese Orange color.
Cruisers were also included in the big 50th Anniversary game, but the pieces were very poorly moulded and a lot of them really looked bad.
When the 1942 game came out in 2009, WOTC apparently went with a new factory because the new moulds were very nice.  Also, they made the battleship pieces bigger.
Finally, we come to Pacific 1940 and Europe 1940, which introduced Mechanized Infantry and Tac Bombers to the lineup.  The color of the pieces is still olive but somewhat brighter shade from Revised.

I just checked out the latest Kickstarter update from HBG. Great pictures of the box and components. The outer box, storage boxes, game cards, roundels and map all look absolutely fantastic. Very professional job too. I will love to see this game on the shelves at my local game shop. Excellent job Coach and Variable!!

By the way Coach, do you know if Hobbytown USA here in Wichita will be stocking AMERIKA?

Hey All,
We just finished a game which ended up in an Axis Victory. Germany/Italy captured 8 victory cities on Round 6 and the Allies were in no position to take any of them back. This took 7 rounds.
It might have taken longer but our Allied players made a couple of blunders. Russia had a huge stack in Moscow and Germany had 3 army groups ready to invade (Vologda, Smolensk and Bryansk). I guess our Russia player got tired of playing defensive and wanted to go on the attack. Russia attacked the three German army groups but only succeeded in Bryansk with 2 artillery and 1 fighter surviving. The other two battles went very badly and ended up in Russian retreats back into Moscow. As a result, Russia lost it’s numerical advantage to the Germans and they attacked and took Moscow Round 6. Also, Germany had a sizable force in Rostov which was blocked from attacking Moscow by Russian units in Bryansk and Tambov, so that force took Stalingrad Round 6 as well.
The other blunder was by our UK player. He successfully defended Cairo from repeated attempts from Italy, so Italy took their transports and captured Gibraltar, Morocco and Algeria (the main point is the naval base at Gibraltar). I think the UK failed to realize those transports could make it to Egypt in one turn. As a result, UK thinned out the defenses in Egypt and started sending tanks and mechs from the IC they built in Egypt into the Middle East on their way to help Russia. Italy then hit Egypt with 3 transports full of men and equipment plus two strategic bombers, thus capturing the 8th victory city on the Europe board. ANZAC, while doing good to thwart Japan, was no help in Europe. On Germany’s next turn, they flew 3 fighters from W Germany to Egypt, thus dashing UK hopes at taking Egypt (Cairo) back.
Germany and the UK had been battling it out with subs (Germany) and destroyers (UK) so the UK had no real navy to launch an invasion anywhere in Europe. Italy controlled the Med. So Paris, Rome, Berlin and Warsaw was under no threat from the Allies. All three Russian cities were way deep behind German lines and in even less threat from the Allies. Finally, Cairo was heavily enough protected that the UK had no chance of taking it back.
Meanwhile, in the Pacific, Japan was beaten down. The US went 100% Pacific and went hard after Japan. This is why there was no US presence in Europe or the Atlantic. The US didn’t have anything over there until Round 5, when Japan was pretty much out of the picture. Japan was cornered on their island with US subs convoy raiding and US bombers SBRing them into near non-existence, although Japan was still holding out and hadn’t been invaded by the US just yet. So the US started building a presence in the Atlantic and even took Gibraltar back from the Italians round 7, but it looks like it was too little too late.

Okay, so the situation is this: Germany/Italy holds 8 Victory Cities on the Europe board. Germany controls all of Russia on the Europe board and was starting to advance into the Middle East. Europe is just one big Nazi camp now. Italy controls the Med, Egypt and roughly half of North Africa, while England has little chance of reinforcements. England has strong defenses in London (due to Sealion threats earlier) but no navy. On the other hand, Germany has started building a navy in SZ 112 and Sealion may be a possibility in 2-3 rounds.
The US has a strong presence in SZ 91 and recaptured Gibraltar. A US invasion of Japan would probably occur in the next round or two. Japan is almost non-existent. So US could start focusing all of it’s attention in the Atlantic. China will just keep building more and more guys so Germany would not likely get any Chinese territories, although their attention is more focused on going after England now. India could start sending resources west to probably contest the Middle East with Germany. ANZAC could also start sending stuff to back up India in the Middle East, although it would take them a few turns to get a sizable force in the area.
So, my question is, if this situation were to occur back in the 40s, do you think it would have been an actual win for Germany and Italy? Would the Allies had sued for peace with Germany or kept going?
I am thinking that the US and UK would keep going. The US already has a strong fleet in Gibraltar so Sealion can probably be prevented.
If Russia would have actually fallen during the war, would the Western Allies have sued for peace?
As far as this game is concerned, I think that if we kept playing this out the US would eventually win. As big as Germany is right now, it would still be hard for them to keep resisting the US advances and fend off forces from India and ANZAC. Then again, a strong Italy might make the difference.
So what do you guys think? Would this situation be an actual victory? OR, just a victory for game purposes?

Next we visit the great Soviet Union.
In Classic, Russian pieces were a dark brown color.
In Europe, they came out with a burgandy or dull red color.  All Russian naval pieces were copies of British ships and they also shared the US artillery piece.  Only infantry, tanks, fighters and bombers were uniquely Russian.
In Revised, the Russians came out in more of a maroon color.  This became pretty much the basic color for Russia through the Anniversary game.  Also, when they got cruisers, they were British style as well.
The 1942 game actually saw quite a bit of change for the Russians.  The piece color came out slightly darker but still the same basic maroon color.  Big change is they got some of their own naval pieces.  While the Russians still shared carriers, subs and transports with the British, they got their own Gangut class battleship, Kirov class cruisers and Gnevnyi class destroyers.  One other thing is the bombers.  Now they have flat wings.  Older versions were severely curved upward toward the tips.  Personally, I like the flat wings better.
The Europe 1940 game saw Russia getting ZIS-42 halftracks for Mech Inf and IL-2 Sturmoviks for Tac Bombers.

So you are suggesting a 20th century world war using 16th century weapons? This reminds me of a quote which I think was from Albert Einstein. “I don’t know how they will fight WWIII, but WWIV will be fought with sticks and stones.”

I noticed that strategic bombers and superfortresses only hit on the first combat round. Do they leave the battle after the first combat round or do they remain in the fight?

In the opening strategy post you say Paris has a minor ic but the setup shows a major ic. Which is it?

@Argothair:

Infantry: 3 IPCs, 1 Attack, 3 Defense, 1 Move
Artillery: 4 IPCs, 1 Attack, 2 Defense, 1 Move, Boost up to 3 Infantry by +1 Attack each
Tank: 5 IPCs, 3 Attack, 3 Defense, 2 Move, Blitz

The idea here is that with enough supporting infantry, artillery are now much more cost-effective for offensive punch; you can get 4 punch for 4 IPCs, which is the best ratio available in the game…but only if you have enough cannon fodder. If you take casualties and you only have 1 infantry per artillery, then your artillery are no longer cost-effective, and may even perform worse than pure infantry, since they have weaker defense.

Shouldn’t the Artillery itself also attack at 2?  It seems weird to me that it only attacks @ 1 but boosts infantry up to 2.  However, the ability to boost up to 3 infantry is a big plus.  I like that idea so you can have more infantry in the mix.  It always irritates me a little to have a lot of infantry with a few artillery so I end up with a bunch of “1” attackers.

@calvinhobbesliker:

Is AA50 the game that introduced escorts and interceptors for bombing raids?

No.  These were introduced in the original A&A Europe.

I tried something like this when I first started playing Classic A&A back in the late 80s/early 90s.  I enjoyed the game but after a while felt I wanted more.  Basically, I thought it was silly that you would fight one battle for a territory like Eastern United States.
So, I started researching maps to further break down these territories.  I got the US and Canada and a good part of Western Europe done. I made separate game boards for each larger territory.
Then I had to figure out how many of each unit (infantry, tank, fighter, bomber) represented the units on the global map.  This was mostly done by a lot of guess work.  I came up with the system that each infantry on the global map was 20 infantry on a smaller map.  Each tank equaled 10 tanks and planes converted to 5 of each on the smaller maps.
I kept the same A&A combat style and values for the smaller maps and had to introduce a unit limit of 10 units per territory on the smaller map per side (planes did not count toward this limit). 
This seemed to work well but took a long time just to capture a single territory on the global map.  For example, the territory of Western Europe includes France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Holland.  These (except for Luxembourg) were broken down further into smaller territories, similar to the D-Day or Fortress America maps.
Another problem that arose was my conversion system.  Once you commit to a battle for a certain territory, whatever forces you have there are all you have.  There are no reinforcements for that particular battle.  So, once you captured a certain territory, how do you convert the units back to their global equivalents? 
For example, say you attack with 1 bomber in the global map.  That changes to 5 bombers on the smaller map.  During the course of fighting for all the territories in the smaller map, say 2 or 3 of these bombers get destroyed.  So, when you go back to the global map, how do you represent 2/5 of a bomber?  Infantry and tanks were even harder to figure out due to their higher conversion rate.
So, I soon abandoned this project because it started taking the fun out of the game.  I still think it’s an interesting idea, but you would need a dedicated room where you could leave everything out and set up to play this really long.  After a while, I think a single game might take as long as the real war did.

Every time we have played Anniversary, either 41 or 42, the Axis always seem to win.  Next time we are going to try not using the NOs to see if the Allies have a better chance.

I must be lucky this time.  I ordered 2 copies and both were nearly perfect.

What I don’t understand is why there are so many reports of damaged inner components while the outside box is undamaged.  How does that happen?  It sounds like these things are getting wrecked at the factory, placed in pristine outer boxes, then wrapped and shipped out.  So why would someone do this?

I ordered 2 copies and both of mine arrived in great condition.  Some of the storage boxes had minor creases here and there but nothing I found objectionable.
From the bottom up, my games were packed with the game boards, the punch out sheets, the storage boxes then the rule book and IPCs.

I just want to say this sounds like a terrific idea.  With all the talk of bids to give the Allies extra units or cash to begin the game with, I never thought of changing the IPC value of certain territories.
For one thing, it gives the Allies a boost at the start but it is possible for the Axis to get these territories, which makes it more fair I think.
Also, like Argothair mentioned, it could make for more battles in what would be considered up to now odd territories.
I know you are still working on this, but I am curious to try it out myself.

Excuse me if I missed a post, but with the changes that you are suggesting, it doesn’t sound like you are using Global 1940.  It sounds more like HBG’s Global 1939. 
1940 doesn’t have Dutch or fortresses.  Vladivostok is not it’s own territory either.  Also, you mentioned veteran units, light cruisers and carriers and battlecruisers.  I know you mentioned adding new units, but I don’t think 1940 has room for this many changes.
Again, if I missed something I apologize, but this was confusing to me.