Disappointed with AA 1942? Perfect!

[Adlertag]

von Manstein is a thief, he steal IL’s ideas and post them over at AH forum.

Of course IL is not von Manstein, I know this because IL is banned from the AH forum after calling them chimps

[DY]

@Adlertag:

Of course IL is not von Manstein, I know this because IL is banned from the AH forum after calling them chimps

LOL @ IL perm banned  :-D

AH forum is for chimps  :lol:

[DY]

…or should that be chumps  :?

[gnasape]

@Adlertag:

von Manstein is a thief, he steal IL’s ideas and post them over at AH forum.

Of course IL is not von Manstein, I know this because IL is banned from the AH forum after calling them chimps

That’s good to know.  Wow, copy and paste!  No revision or anything.  Here I thought IL was moonlighting at WotC/AH.

[LuckyDay]

@Imperious:

Now the pieces….
This refreshed thing is kinda a letdown. The pieces for the most part are not different from AAR.
HOWEVER, some of the pieces are slightly different.

I agree.  I would believe that they actually got someone to re-sculpt all the pieces, but for most of them they must have said, “Now here’s the old one, copy this” and really just re-made the same old piece model.  They look good, have good weight in my opinion, seem better than AA50, and I see enough ‘small’ differences in them to see how they can be called ‘refreshed’, but I won’t go so far as to say that they ‘justified’ the statement…

[TMTM]

@Canuck12:

Does anyone think it is a coincidence that just 3 days after this, admittedly bland, AA42 leak Larry drops the A-BOMB on the AA community with the announcement of the biggest most bad-assed AA game anyone could ever hope for?

I am of course talking about what appears to be the ultimate mother(s) of all AA games, far surpassing AA50: AA Europe and Pacific 1940.

Here’s my take:

A few people have already mentioned this fact and they are absolutely right: AA42 is not for us. It was not designed with anyone in the AA community in mind. Take a look at it, compare it to Revised, and try to convince me that they expect all of us to pay for a copy of this game which features NOTHING we haven’t seen before. We weren’t meant to buy this game, we were meant to pay attention to it and then decide to save our cash for AA40E/P.
AA42 is designed to sit on the shelves next to Settlers and the new RISK and Monopoly etc. It’s really the most basic version of the game ever produced and would be fantastic for a 14 year old RISK fan to open on Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Ramadan. (or all four depending on your family tree). That’s precisely what is game is and it will serve its purpose very well.

Now… as we all got real hyped up on the news of a new AA game and started buzzing around this forum itching to get our hands on a new version of the game, Larry was quietly cooking up a 7-layer triple-chocolate ultimate-amazing fun-tastic new version of the game that would blow away just about anyone on this board.

This is actually an extremely smart business decision. First, announce a new game and get the community really talking about it. Then, issue a reprint of Revised (AA42) and get everyone super bummed out about it. Then, announce a new game that will keep everyone here salivating for months to come. This offers AH 3 things:

1. They get to cheaply mass produce a basic (yet still very good) version of the game that is really easy for newcomers to pick up and will not only bring in revenue for years to come but will also open the door for newbies to buy other versions.

2. They get to extend the hype on the forums for the new AA40 Europe/Pacific Mega-game for an extra half year or so as to make sure every last person in the AA community is aware of its presence (they do this basically for free.)

3. It allows them to make a ton of dough when we all willingly shell out $100+ for each of these 2 games. This is in addition to the revenue they will make from the mass-market 1942 edition which will likely be the bread and butter.

Does anyone here think that Larry Harris is not a strategic genius?

My thinking is… A&A Anniversary just came out and its a masterpiece so that fact that A&A 42’ has come out so quickly after that… was just to update the entry level A&A to be in line with the experienced player version of A&A 50th… it just got a tuneup which is great. It was probably time to make another production run, just made since and the price is nice… I’ve seen it online for $19.95. Now a new player can go from 42’ and move into A&A 50 smoothly. From a players stand point this is all good and for Larry Harris… I don’t think its all about the money but im sure it helps with his kids in college :)

[Imperious Leader]

LOL!!! :-D

[Monroe]

Canuck12

Totally agree with your analysis.  There’s an AA42 “Entry Level” / “New User” / “Mass Market” / “Unit Volume” strategy and an AA50/AA40 “Step Up” “Higher ASP” strategy - this is actually marketing 101 by WOC/Larry - We’d never get the Step Up games (which visitors of this site are all about) without the volume variants to drive cash flow for WOC…So in a weird way we should be thankful for AA42.

That said, I received AA42 today (from Target.com - Mass merchant…).  Worth the price to get some of the new sculpts (per IL’s summary). But the Russian Battleship sculpt is a disaster…I’m all for differentiation/new sculpts, but I mean it looks ridiculous.  Does anyone know if this sculpt is based on an actual historic ship?

I’m sure I’ll never actually play AA42, but I’ll use the scuplts for other variants.

Can’t wait for the AA40s…

[DY]

Well said Monroe

[AG124]

In reply to inquiries regarding the Soviet BB, the mold appears to based on the Gangut class; the only class of Soviet BB (other than the UK Royal Sovereign) to see action with the Soviet Navy during WWII.  It is quite a…well…interesting…looking ship, but from the pictures I have seen, the AA42 mold actually looks fairly accurate. Perhaps it would be fair to direct complaints towards Soviet naval engineers who modernized the class prior to WWII instead of WOTC… 8-)

Here is a line drawing of the Gangut class, for comparison purposes (the lower image depicts the class as it appeared during WWII, with the upper pictures illustrating the vessels prior to their modernization):

Personally, I have always stated my preference for the incomplete Soyuz class, for reasons I have stated elsewhere on this forum. Here’s a hypothetical illustration for consideration (although I am not terribly disappointed by the Gangut class, I do hope that FMG decides to use the Soyuz class instead):

[Adlertag]

If they had used Soyus class, then they could used that mold for the French battleship too, since Soyus look very similar to Richeli-class. But now we will get Gangut as French battleship, how nice.

[Veqryn]

whats with the complaints about AA1942?  Its just supposed to be an update of Revised, with the updated rules from AA50 plus cruisers.

[Veqryn]

is it just me or does the shape of the map, the shape of the countries, borders, etc. not look right? i can’t tell you what is wrong, but it just doesn’t look right, like the shape of the continents or something.

[Adlertag]

@Veqryn:

is it just me or does the shape of the map, the shape of the countries, borders, etc. not look right? i can’t tell you what is wrong, but it just doesn’t look right, like the shape of the continents or something.

are you complaining ?

[Veqryn]

@Adlertag:

@Veqryn:

is it just me or does the shape of the map, the shape of the countries, borders, etc. not look right? i can’t tell you what is wrong, but it just doesn’t look right, like the shape of the continents or something.

are you complaining ?

hahaha
i am not disappointed, i am just curious  :mrgreen:

[tekkyy]

various styles of distortions exist for practicality

the territories and sea zones look awkward on a real map

I once drew the revised map over a real map
unfortunately such maps may only be practical for game boards larger than A0

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=10999.30

[Veqryn]

@tekkyy:

various styles of distortions exist for practicality

the territories and sea zones look awkward on a real map

I once drew the revised map over a real map
unfortunately such maps may only be practical for game boards larger than A0

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=10999.30

Nice map
I’d rather have funny looking sea zones than funny looking continents.

[Canuck12]

Wow, that is a very cool looking map. I wish they would mass-market that one.

As far as the distorted looking AA42 map: nearest I can, tell it looks funny because they tried to maximize the space in each territory. So some of them look really fat and distorted in order to allow the maximum amount of space to place units. Not necessarily a bad thing… if you can live with the change in aesthetics of course.

[miragehunter]

I would also have to agree on that one.  I would rather have space for more units as well.