This could probably be built in tripleA pretty easily. All the required units and national markers already exist. The rules for attackable neutrals etc are basically in there. It’s mainly a set up change.
In practical terms for FtF play you’d need at least the Europe 1940 game to properly transform the 1942.2 board. Or a bunch sculpts from HBG.
Yup! I bought some sculpts from HBG, and also from thegamecrafter.com, which will sell you 30 infantry, 20 artillery, 10 tanks, and 10 fighters for a total of $6.
If you or anyone else would like to port this map to tripleA, I’d be much obliged!
Meanwhile, here are some photos:
(Photo 2 of 3)
(Photo 3 of 3)
First playtest report:
Britain and France played max defense on Paris: they moved in the infantry from Morocco, the artillery from Algeria, the fighter and two infantry from London, and they moved the British fleet to the North Sea to stop Germany from using its transport to ferry additional troops to Paris on G1.
This Allied strategy was a little too effective. Germany attacked Paris with everything that could reach on G1, and the battle calculator showed that Germany had 75% odds to win (88% if Italy suicided its army into Paris on I1, but I decided not to do that), but Germany didn’t even come close – Paris was left with something like an artillery and 2 fighters after the attack.
Germany regrouped for a second attack on G2, again bringing everything that could reach, but after a close battle, Paris was still left with 1 fighter. I called the game after the second failed attack, because Germany had no navy, no air force, and even if it managed to take Paris on G3, that would leave nothing in the way of oncoming Russian forces, which would then be able to stack up safely in Poland and Romania.
The other areas of the board were playing out interestingly – Britain used its bid factories in South Africa and India, and ferried troops west from India to defend the Suez. Despite the added pressure, Italy managed to repel (for now) an American landing in French Morocco, and was dueling fiercely with British forces in east Africa. China made an unsuccessful attack on Kiangsu, and then lost Kwangtung, Yunnan, and Anhui to the J1 counter-attack, but China was able to hold its inland territories with help from Russian reinforcements, and China didn’t look dead at all. Meanwhile, Britain took New Guinea with the Australians, which was then blockaded by the American destroyer from the Philippines, so the Japanese couldn’t take New Guinea back unless they wanted to start the war with America early. This allowed America to stack its two Pacific fighters in New Guinea on A1, where they would be in range of either the Philippines or Singapore on A2. Of course, using the tiny Australian army as an expeditionary force meant that the Japanese picked up Sydney without a fight, but I still think the New Guinea stack sets up interesting options for the Allies. The Americans also had a carrier and a loaded transport near the Solomon Islands to play with.
I’m going to give Germany an extra artillery in Berlin and an extra tank in Poland, which boosts Germany’s odds of taking Paris on G1 to 95%, even without Italian support. I don’t mind the occasional upset in Paris if the Allies want to play maximum defense – I think the Germans would be able to recover from taking Paris on G2 – but it needs to be impossible for the Allies to hold Paris with 3+ units, because then Paris is back up to 9+ units by the time the Germans attack it again on G2, and if the Germans lose on G2 as well then the game is over before it really begins.
This will also put a little extra pressure on Russia; if the Allies evacuate France instead of reinforcing it, then the Germans might be able to pull off a G1 or G2 attack on Russia as a viable gambit.
Just finished my first game with this set-up. The axis won on the seventh round. This set-up plays out really well. It’s like a mini version of global that can be finished probably around 5-8 hours. If your looking for a alternative version for your 1942.2 game, try this one out. I have played a few variants for this map and I like this one the best.
ok why does japan have a larger navy than the entire globe combined? I am thinking your interested in balance and not Historical?
Well, in 1940, Japan had more fighters, more carriers, better fighters, better pilots, and better naval doctrine than the rest of the Pacific Allies combined. I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to represent that by letting them put extra naval units on the map, even if they did not literally have more destroyers than the USA.
That said, yes, I will always prioritize balanced play and rich thematic value over any attempt at 1:1 representation of historical navies. If you want to roll the 1942.2 map back to any plausible set of 1940 borders, that means giving the Allies a starting income of 3 times or even 4 times the size of the Axis starting income. To balance that, the Axis need a correspondingly large advantage. I split that advantage up into a few different categories. One Axis advantage is that Russia and America are slow to wake up – They are each -20 ipcs and no combat move for the first two turns. I pushed that advantage as far as I dared – if you slow USA & USSR down any further they get real boring to play. Another potential Axis advantage is turn order – let Japan go first and crush the Chinese before the Chinese even get going. That’s been done to death in many other variants, and it’s also quite boring – why bother introducing China as a separate power if you are going to crush it into irrelevance on the first turn of every game? Another advantage is extra starting tanks for Japan – again, overdo that, and you wind up with Japanese tanks in ChongQing and Moscow before you can say “Boo.” Besides, extra tanks are even more unrealistic than extra destroyers.
The game has to give both teams a reasonable chance to win, or else 90% of the potential audience will quit as soon as they see what’s going on. Global 1940 does that by nerfing China, widening the Pacific Ocean to the point where America cannot intervene in the war until after India and Indonesia have utterly fallen, and giving Japan an air force that’s unrealistically large. I do it by giving Japan a few extra boats. There are always choices.
It should be clarified that you don’t strictly need a copy of E40 to recreate this functionally, as there are no G40-specific unit types. A few old copies of AA (AAR, 41, 42FE, etc…) and a couple cans of spray paint should suffice :) If the semi-permanence of spray paint is too scary, some sharpie roundels that stay grouped with units means you could get away with Japanese troops for the French, German units for China, and (at a pinch) Russian? units for Italy if you haven’t any uniquely colored Italians lying around.
Looks interesting!
Thanks, vodot! I was able to test this out in a face-to-face game a couple of weeks ago with Corpo42 and some other friends, and it actually worked great! The Axis reached 9 out of 10 victory cities on turn 7, and then stayed there all the way through the end of turn 8, allowing a narrow Allied win. The Japanese ran rampant in the Pacific, taking Manila, Sydney, and Honolulu, but the British were able to hold India and the Russians lucked out in Moscow, beating off five German tanks with only four infantry. So now we have three solo playtests and one live playtest, and they all seemed pretty balanced, not to mention a lot of fun. I’m grateful to have such a great group of playtesters. :-)
awesome. I’ve got your setup printed out to try once I finish my current solo vanilla 42.2 game. I have some homemade Italians, and am debating whether to paint up some Chinese + French units, or just use the substitutions I mentioned earlier.
…thegamecrafter.com, which will sell you 30 infantry, 20 artillery, 10 tanks, and 10 fighters for a total of $6.
Which ones were these, the on-the-sprue “Military” units? Those look like a steal! What are your impressions RE: quality & scale?
Yup! Scale was perfect for the map…the infantry are too large to fit comfortably in Belorussia or West Russia, but they fit great in France, Italy, Africa, and China! Quality is 3.5/5 stars. Some of the infantry didn’t detach cleanly from the sprue, and the modeling is slightly chunky, but overall the pieces are durable, handsome, and clearly distinguishable.
