Italy Painted Pieces

The best thing Italy can do is can-open, period.  The more mechs and men it has to do this, the better, and so a mixed 60/40 German/Italian front is fine.  Russia will find it impossible to back-stack its reserve armies because they cannot screen the Italians out and then the German Armor will run through the holes the Italians make.  Its devastating and its why the bid is pretty much required.

If Germany and Italy can both get StratBombers, even better because all of them can fly to China and start can-opening in waves, for Japan.

Italy often gets nerfed by Taranto, but in the case you get lucky or the player doesn’t do it, Going Italy + Bulgaria +SFrance + Paris + 19 IPC is awesome because you will have about 40-50 income on I4-5, and you’re like a baby Germany.

And, if they decided to KGF or KIF, you buy a bunch of fighters and men instead, projecting threat and preventing UK and US from coordinating their attacks.

@Juan_de_Marco:

I disagree with taranto on a different level: positioning and denial of objectives. It’s worth a lot more for the british to keep a larger fleet alive in the med than to kill the battleship of the Italians. And if you get all the good defensive units together at Malta seazone, the Italians have to split up their fleet if they wish to clear it. Now if you can make sure you keep some air units around, the transports will sink too.

I’m with you.  Not very big on Taranto.  Not only what you said, but I feel it thins the UK up a little too much by having to bring planes down from London.

Other than the first game of global I ever played as the Allies, letting the Italian fleet be has never been the difference between an Allied win or loss.  The way you keep them at bay is by getting a solid US/UK force to SZ91 early in the game.

Thanks, that’s great! I should be able to get those to work.

@Patchman123:

@knp7765:

Yeah, I’ve gone kind of piece crazy myself. I have a specific set of pieces for each nation in Global 40 I call my gaming sets. Here is what comprises each nation set:
100 Infantry
50 Artillery
50 Mechanized Infantry
50 Tanks
40 Anti-Aircraft Artillery
40 Fighters
30 Tactical Bombers
30 Strategic Bombers
40 Transports
40 Submarines
40 Destroyers
30 Cruisers
20 Battleships
20 Aircraft Carriers
100 Control Markers
And that is just OOB units! The only exception is China, but they still have 100 OOB Infantry units. I also have some HBG units for China for artillery, tanks and fighters (some house rules allow China to have tanks).
To get these totals, I actually got several copies of the game when they came out and cannibalized them for pieces. I was able to sell off extras which helped me make back some of the money I spent, but it was still pretty pricy. 
On top of this, I have huge collections of HBG’s sets in just about every color available. This part is really silly on my part because I pretty much use the Olive Drab for US, Dark Grey for Germany, Burnt Orange for Japan, Maroon for Russia. Basically the OOB colors. So all of those other colors, like the Axis Minors, Neutral sets, US Supplement for Allies and alternate colors for the Japanese Supplement and Expansion sets just basically sit there in their containers. I keep thinking I will use them in trying out the HBG 1939 Global variant because it has all these little countries and you can use all the variant colors to represent them, but I never get around to doing so. My group simply prefers Global 40.
When I think back on how much I have invested in all these game pieces, it almost makes me sick. I enjoy my games and it’s a fun little hobby, but there is such a thing as too much.
Obviously having such large sets is not necessary. You can always use chips which in some cases you simply have to because of space limitations on the board. I hope you are able to find your balance. However, I must agree with YG, the pieces in a single game are simply not enough.

How many PER game, NOT total. What I mean by total is counting Europe 1940 Sec. Ed. and Pacific 1940 Sec. Ed separately, instead of as one game.

You can calm down - that posting is 3 and 1/2 years old and was just showing off how much money he’d wasted on extra pieces how many extra units he had for playing A&A.

There’s a Patchman123 on BGG who asked similar questions earlier this week - I answered the main questions he asked there. Assuming Patchman123 on A&A.org is the same person, I answered your question there and to help out the forum I’ll answer the same question here:

@midnight_reaper:

@Patchman123:

Could I please have an inventory on how many pieces there are with Europe 1940 First Edition and Europe 1940 Second Edition for all the countries involved in the game, such as France, United Kingdom, Italy, United States,Germany, and the Soviet Union?

I noticed that when I was selling Axis & Allies 1942 First Edition from 2009, that some Axis & Allies pieces from other games have been mixed in.

Could please have an EXACT count on how many pieces there are supposed to be in these games?

Exactly how many pieces are in all the editions of Axis & Allies from 1981-2017?

I am trying to sort my game out.

Let me point you at some online resources to sort things out. First, do note that some pieces are only in the First Edition, some only in the Second Edition. This post from axisandallies.org discuss which pieces changed between editions: www.axisandallies.org/p/whats-new-in-axis-allies-pacific-1940-and-europe-1940-second-editions/

That said, here is a listing from the Harris Game Design forums that lists what comes in a copy of Europe 1940, First Edition (well, both Europe and Pacific, but that will get you to Europe…): http://www.harrisgamedesign.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=18469

And here is a forum post from axisandallies.org that lists what comes in a copy of Europe 1940, Second Edition (well, both Europe and Pacific, but that will get you to Europe…): https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=30066.0

-Midnight_Reaper

Source: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1943468/number-pieces-europe-1940-first-edition-and-europe

What are your further questions?

-Midnight_Reaper

FAQ (Bottom of page 2, top of 3) is pretty clear on this http://www.wizards.com/AvalonHill/rules/AAEurope1940_2ndEdition_FAQ.pdf

I jest, of course  :-D

Also, I always posture for a potential Sealion to force UK economy to stay home.

Thanks!!