Accurate Miniature Equivalents for Custom Painting your 1940 E&P

My group has taken the ultimate step that many on this and other sites are loathe to do. We have unified turns, 1:Axis 2:Allies. We mainly play a modded AA50 with slightly (5-10) more territories. This greatly increases the speed and playability for several reasons.

Positives
Firstly, the vast majority of the engagements can be done simultaneously without any real issues.

Everyone can purchase simultaneously, and if you are not particularly a-retentive some people can finish their purchasing while others are moving forward with their attack declaring, but please make sure all attacks are declared before any attacks begin, to easy to start conflict there with meant-to/didn’t-do.

The most important factor in time improvement is not the actual simultaneity of the turn but that every turn, every round, attack and defense, involves every player. No one is bored (US/USSR) for turn after turn of waiting to do anything. This engagement greatly increases the camaraderie (heh) and the pressure of the turn. Everyone’s attention is focused. We REGULARLY complete our AA50 to a satisfying surrender in about 3 hours. In fact most of us have young kiddos so we don’t really have a choice.

Another useful point is that if someone brings an uninterested significant other or newbie, Italy makes a great and dynamic option when coordinating with an expert playing Germany. I find that scheduling is one of the hardest issues with getting a group together and perhaps one of the main reasons you would want a shorter game.

Counter points/Solutions
No 1/2 punches with Italy/Germany or UK/US. This might be a bigger problem on Global but I do not feel that it is an issue in AA50. To correct this we use some special rules including a reserved 2nd attack round for unused armies that want to attempt a blitz through/drop past a recently conquered territory or Sea Zone.

Massed Allied navies, especially in Europe. Haven’t really figured this one out, but it is historically accurate and axis can usually get the allies to a surrender point without Operation Sealion anyway. Massed navies is one of the reasons we support the 7/0 Transport rule in the recent editions over the 8/1 of the old editions.

Starting positions for UK and USSR. Since Axis will move collectively ahead of them, USSR and UK might need a little tweaking in the setup. I usually move some of UK’s Pacific/Indian navies one space further from J1. Additionally we give a territory or two to USSR to absorb the assault of G1.

Conclusion
I feel like if you really want to make A&A work for you, it can. It just might take a little more willpower in working through and agreeing to some compromises on OOB rules.

P.S. It always helps if the scheduling problem is with other people, you be the one to set up ahead of time. I always end up falling on that sword.

What a great idea Der Kuenstler. I was feeling intimidated because I don’t know how to post pics here of what I’ve been up to the last couple of weeks since I dusted off my games and brought them out of the closet. I’ve been inspired to customize a room in my house by all the great people on here who have been so passionate about doing their own customizations and it’s been a lot of fun for me at a time when I’m not able to do much else. I’ve still got a little ways to go but so far the Great White Northern Bunker is coming along nicely and there’s lots of time to finish it before the long hard winter and the impending march to Moscow begins…or when I return to work…whatever comes first.

Pretty easy to paint.  You could always just spray them one color too.

Hi All,

If someone is interested, here 's our R&D set: https://www.mediafire.com/folder/owrasqpeass6a/R%26D.

These are materials for the Standard Global 1940/42 2nd edition rules and also for our simple houserule.

To speed things up we sometimes play a houserule. There the d12 board is used for along with a 12 sided die. Rule: at the beginning of every scond round (once a year) the player will roll a 12 sided dice for R&D w/o any payment. The player will gain the corresponding number in the R&D table as an ability at the end of that round. This is to give the player already the advantage during the buy phase, but not in the current attack (which he can prepare). Rolling a R&D number that you have already obtained is just though luck.

Let me know what you think, enjoy!

grtz

Very nice work. I’m way too unsteady of hand and mind to pull that off.

Redleg,

First, you have a beautiful family. Second, Your paint jobs look great. I have to really give applause to your freehand markings. It’s true decals are cleaner and sharper but I my self have used none on anything I’ve painted and I’m developing a way to layer and paint my own markings (It’s been holding up my project severely) I simply can’t afford to buy sheets of decals that I might only use a handful of.

One tip That I’ve adopted, is to use ultra-fine Sharpie permanent markers for small lines and details where a brush won’t do or may slop (canopy frames). Lastly I’ve learned from table-top gamers of much larger scale (Warhammer, Bolt Action) models that at the scale Axis & Allies models are you can “mass paint” with fewer details on many units to create large armies, fleets and air forces that will look phenomenal from eye level to table top . Anyway us A&A painters have our work cut out for ourselves. I salute you sir.

Anyway, keep on painting, Nice work.

It does fit, u place the two pices on top of eachother (they are only 40 mm high, the man board is 50 mm outside = 42 mm inside). The space is 600x800x84 when folded, the two pices on top of eachother are 500x600x80. That leaves a 300x600x80 space and my plan there is to make box of wood or paper to store units, dices etc!  :-D

@sgtwiltan:

It’s really too bad you didn’t make the side piece so that it would fit into the inner portion of the main board where the map is.
You could even make a simple cover to keep the pieces inside from falling out all over the place. It’s a great idea you have there though.