Originally there was talk of including pillboxes in the Europe/global 40 games. I’m personally disappointed this didn’t happen. I feel it’s way too easy for the Allies to keep on invading coastal (German) territories. I mean, just think of a case like Dieppe. The Overlord invasion really needed to work right away, otherwise a following invasion would have had to wait for at least a year or perhaps longer. In A&A you can basically do it every single turn forcing the Axis to guard the coastline and to withhold substantial forces from the eastern front. I think pillboxes would have made for a great addition, in this respect. I’m considering adding those from the D-day game as a houserule. They’d work something like this:
Pillbox (Germany only):
Cost: 2
Attack:-
Defense: Each matching (regular) infantry unit defends on a 4 for the first round of combat against an amphibious assault.
Move:-
Atlantic wall: Pillboxes may only be built in the following territories: Normandy/Bordeaux, Holland/Belgium, Denmark and Norway while under German control. No factory needs to be present in order to be allowed to construct them. If there is a factory present, any pillboxes built don’t count against the placement limit
Gradual construction: No more than two pillboxes may be built per territory per turn.
Pillboxes may not be chosen as casualties. When a territory is captured all pillboxes in it are automatically destroyed.
When a territory containing pillboxes is attacked both via land and by amphibious assault, the beach defenses are considered to have been outflanked and the pillboxes don’t contribute their first round bonus to matching infantry.