Axis & Allies 1942 Game Board Size

I’ll save my next game, as soon as the server is back online. :)

I can host a game if anyone is interested

Take, for example, the not-immediately-obvious Japanese air to Ukraine/West Russia/Caucasus trick.

I recently played a game against my friend, where I was the Axis, and I think that the above move probably won me the game. On G1 I threw pretty much all of the available ground units and fighters at the Caucasus in attempts to capture it… this turned out to be a vital move in crippling the Russian deployment options… later on in the game you only have one “front”/IC to worry about. I also moved 1 or 2 fighters to Norway to harass the various allied ships that were not yet organized into a fleet. On J1 I flew 4 fighters to the Caucasus… later on in the game these fighters are even more valuable becuase they can be used to shore up the holes in your German lines, especially when you are pushing to Moscow. Using this joint J and G strategy, I didn’t even have to devote many of my IPCs to attacking Russia as Japan.

Overall, you definently have to be agressive as the Axis right out of the gate.

@Bunnies:

J1

J1 strategy:  14 IPC of transports moves up to 4 units from islands to Asia (as opposed to a 15 IPC industrial complex that can only produce 3 units). 
Transports let Japan hit any number of targets on the Asian, and later African coast, making it very hard to defend against Japan’s attacks.  As a final dealbreaker, Japan’s infantry on its islands are pretty useless, and it has 10 of them - that’s 30 IPC worth of unused material, that Japanese transports can bring into the game.  For all these reasons, transports are Japan’s answer to pretty much anything and everything.

There’s a little more to that math. 2 transports are more cost effective than 1 IC for Japan, if they are used to offload units to Buryatia/SFE/Kwantung/Manchuria (transports move nothing or 1 SZ to pick up units and land them). In the case of FIC you really need to have 4 transports to be able to land 4 units on FIC each turn (using a shuck shuck with 2 transports each on FIC’s SZ and SZ60).

And 4 transports is the bare minimum if you are planning on delaying an IC purchase until you really need it (i.e. Japan’s production is above 40 and you want to spend all money on land units). If you want to hit other targets (Australia, Africa) then you’ll need even more transports if you want to keep those 8 units flowing into Asia.

@Cromwell_Dude:

Find the loudest, big-mouthed bragger of Axis and Allies and make them play as the Axis in this game.  They should be humbled, hopefully.

Ha! That’s a great use for it!

@St.:

I hear alot of people say that revised is more complicated than spring 1942. Now I played the classic version when I was 12. Sure it was a long time but aside from the tech and the board being diffrent I dont see to many changes from the two, and neither one really seems more complicated than the other.

So what happand in revised that was taken away that makes it more complicated than Spring 1942

Other than the Technology and the National Advantages (although the NAs were optional) the game system is essentially the same. I almost never play with Tech because it can be a game breaker.

I really need to get some more f2f games in with some experienced players. I play my uncle who used to play the classic MB version with my brother. My uncle is really good at seeing things that might be a potential problem in future rounds so I try to pay attention to what he does and file that information away for future use. It is hard to remember all that stuff sometimes though. I have played all the AA board games with my uncle and he usually beats me in the global games but we are pretty even in the battle specific games like Bulge or Guadalcanal.

Units of any type are not limited to the available pieces.  Simply use any item that’s agreed upon by all players as a substitute if you run out of a unit.

You probably heard about that strategy in connection with the Classic game (1984).  In those rules, units were limited to the available components.

@idk_iam_swiss:

yeah, it is smaller. but it looks sooo much better than revised.

If you compare both map area looks to be the same more or less: some territories/SZs are bigger on Revised or 1942. 1942 map looks better visually but concerning playability it is worse that Revised because of the borders. On Anniversary there’s larger territories and the borders are less harder to spot but on 1942 it gets impossible to see the borders in some areas (Europe and Atlantic SZs) specially when a territory is overstacked with pieces. And since this version is meant for new players the playability issue is even worse because they will not be accostumed to the territory connections like a veteran revised player.