My review copy of Axis & Allies Europe 1940 has arrived

Magro,

You are correct about that Persian air distance, my mistake. I had been looking at the Caucasus routing not realizing that the Caspian Sea-Kazakhstan route cut off a space. That saves half a turn’s worth of UK income.

That last game I had hopped an Africa fighter over and shuffled a mech in, but didn’t do a fighter build in the Persia IC because of the miscount. I had tried “overworking” the German air and main thrust by pincering two infantry forces through Bessarabia and Baltic States, and a Brit landing in Norway under cover of the surviving half of the Home Fleet (SZ 106 transport had survived G1 but went to Britain because I wanted to force Germany to buy defensive forces.) However, I found I still had enough German air plus late arriving mech/tanks along with a portion of the spearhead infantry to handle these, take Western Ukraine, retake Norway, while still continuing the spearhead to Belarus next to the main Soviet stack with mech/tanks, etc. in Bryansk. And the Scandinavian infantry took Leningrad/Novgorod.

R3 counterattack odds were very poor for Russia and were going to leave a tank stack that would still have enough mech/tanks reaching it the next turn to be unstoppable. So the retreat to Moscow was made on R3.

On G4 I strat bombed Moscow’s IC with three bombers. I decided not to scramble the two Russian fighters for this as I needed their defense as badly as the IPC’s. I figured the ~50% chance of losing one of two fighters outweighed the lower chance of clipping a bomber at ~33%. The IC’s AAA missed and the bombers inflicted enough damage that I had to spend several infantry’s worth to repair for a final infantry build there on R4, which was mostly a waste as calcs showed it would not hold even with some UK help. But I stayed and was bludgeoned. German tanks reached the Caucasus on G6 and would have been unstoppable. US landing and Brit round 5 stacks/w UK fighters reinforcing in Normandy were crushed on the counterattack that turn. It would have been much better to do a fighting withdrawal toward Persia, maintaining a threat to keep German support forces in theater, rather than be unceremoniously swept away.

@P@nther:

This is covered in the rulebook:

@Rulebook:

Multinational Forces: Transports belonging to a friendly power can load and offload your land units.  This is a three-step process:
1. You load your land units aboard the friendly transport  on your turn.
2. The transport’s controller moves it (or not) on that  player’s turn.
3. You offload your land units on your next turn.

Unloading in an enemy territory occurs in your scenario in US’ combat move phase, followed by the battle.
Unloading in a friendly territory occurs in US’ NCM phase.

Thanks, sorry I missed that.

@bladewar:

the income of nations remain the same or change as well as I have seen that Russia has 38 such ipc for global version
–-------------------------
Use the box incomes, but give USSR 9 extra IPCs.  Do not give it the two infantry per turn in Novosibirsk.

Sorry for spanish clarification:
No te confundas “bladewar”, los IPC para jugar a Europa 1940 no son los mismos que para GLOBAL 1940. Por eso yo enumeré cada uno de los paises para “Krieghund”, para resolver todas las dudas. Ahora ya los tienes.

Thank you

When I play test, I set up the board and try to find counters to an idea as I work though the turns, so no opponent. Obviously, that will not mean the idea works until I try it live. Its just to test the concept. If the concept is sound, I use it in a live face to face game and see how the other guy(s) respond.

This first game I focused on the subs for blockading. That part does not seem reasonable at this point. Its still interesting that it delayed the US transports and gave Germany a nice income, but I don’t think the axis will pull a win out of the bag. By the way, when I meant to blockade I would leave the surface fleet back in the face of a large air force and wait for additional subs, you could then counter attack a DD build with air and sea, taking the air units off so that the carriers can stay back. Even convoy raiding for 22 IPCs would be nice.

Next test, I want to build a G2 transport wave as well, this will force UK to keep with Infantry making Italy’s job easier, and give me the resources to secure S. America while the US is neutral, with enough, I hope to divert 3 towards West Africa again, as having the German land unit in Egypt is a nice thought. I realize UK is the same amount of IPCs as S. America, but I’m testing the concept of taking an area out of America’s way plus they have multiple factory sites if it seems possible to use them.

There are some early risks I discovered. The G2 move to Gibraltar in the first game put the German Fleet of CV,BB,CA,2FTR in range of a UK CA,3 FTR and TAC…a bold player might take that shot. I also had UK do a weak attack [CV+FTR+CA] on the Italian fleet, it worked [damaged CV with a CA] while leaving the Tac for London.

Turkey was a tight fight G3, as I only had 5 inf, 3 arm, 1 tac, 1 bomber in range…I ended with 1 inf, 3 arm and the 2 air. Losing 2 units in Greece could have made it 4 inf for the assault. Turkey missed a lot, I could see losing armor in the future as an outcome.

Other concerns are if Russia stages north and drives on Norway, Germany’s income would plummet. With many transports, I hope to discourage that option.

I had UK protect Quebec, but I’m curious about how many players would suspect a G3 three transports full landing on Quebec? The potential to send planes staged in Gibraltar to sz 101 has merit as building carriers in 106[Quebec] would allow them to land and enable a weak looking axis force to “surprise” the US navy round 4. The transports can then hit Venezuela, West Indies and/or Central America turn 4. [This may prove to be a great move for a failed Sea Lion as sinking a US fleet would delay the US a round or more.]

The South American concept seems crazy since the US can just build large amounts of land forces. However, the US must choose fleet or land, and typically will go fleet, meaning there is “some” time for early gains and possible factories. I’m trying to limit the investment to two German productions as I want turn 3 and 4 builds to prevent Russia from getting their foot in the door.

@SAS:

I wasn’t referring specifically to you, Dany, I just don’t understand why everyone thinks this is such a big mistake.  Someone earlier referred to Crete being part of Greece just like Hawaii is part of the US.  However, if Japan invades Hawaii, they don’t receive control of the Eastern US; and even if they invade the Eastern US and take the capital but don’t invade Hawaii, they don’t automatically get control of Hawaii.

That was my quote - but again - I wasnt referring to issues regarding “control” or occupation, merely when and where related forces are activated.  For sake of clarification, I was looking at the issue from the perspective of an Axis attack on Crete - not from the perspective of an Allied player sending forces to Crete in order to bring Greece into the war.

The analogy was simply intended to illustrate that when Japan attacks Hawaii on J1,2, or 3 - Japan and the US (i.e. ALL territories of the US) are at war.  In my mind it seems to follow that if the Axis attack a portion of Greece (be it Greece proper or Crete) then all territories part of the Greek state are at war - and so any troops so designated on the board are activated.  I certainly wasn’t getting “bent out of shape” - I was simply offering what I thought was a plausible explanation of what happens - understanding official clarifications will eventually come from those positioned to do so.

But I also understand (based on the earlier poster’s Mongolia clarification offered by Krieg) the idea that Crete and Greece are treated as separate and distinct tt - and not part of the same greek  nation-state so to speak.

I agree. It’s funny because the game is not that hard to comprehend. I started playing A&A at 12, and while my first few games I was playing wrong, that was mainly because I never really read the rule book. Once you sit down and read it once, the only time you have to use it again is if you are doing something like an amphibious assault or shore bombardment, something that maybe only comes up once or twice in a game. Other than that the basic premise is really easy to understand.

I know, but now it is impossible for the axis to win without taking Cairo (unless they invade UK, US). Also, the middle easts income is now a factor and UK would be limping without Middle East/Africa income. Italy would also be earning 40+.