French Set…need help to finalize set.

Well, I admit to being a “piece junkie,” and I leave it to all an sundry to say what their own top buying priority is, because I want HBG to make money on these things.  My key point though, is that while he’s doing the French, he’d be missing an opportunity if he ignored the only branch of the French armed forces that was worth anything, their navy, which had some great ships!  T-34’s could almost pass for Somua-35’s at a distance at this scale, but, as I said before, those ridiculously oversized Gangut class pieces can barely pose as themselves!  They certainly bear no resemblance (passing or otherwise) to a Richelieu (which went on to serve as a highly-valued component of the British Pacific Fleet, late war, btw, illustrating the importance that French ships can have in someone’s custom game version…)

Yeah, when the new Russian ship pieces first came out, I was really stoked about them because I was tired of Russia simply using all of Britain’s ship classes. I still like the Kirov Class Cruiser and Gnevnyi Class Destroyer. However, the Gangut Class Battleship, while definitely a Russian ship design, is too dang big in our pieces. They have it as big if not bigger than the Japanese Yamato when really the Gangut was much shorter, probably more along the lines of the Royal Oak.

I’m with DrLarsen on this.  France is the late-comer in the A&A franchise, and compared to the other countries there’s a great lack of pieces for it.  The US, UK, USSR, Germany and Japan have appeared in every global version of the game; every regional version of the game has included either Germany or Japan; the UK has appeared in some of the regional versions; and the US has appeared in every single A&A game ever published.  That’s a couple of decades worth of pieces, with a fair bit of colour and sculpt-design variations over the years, so there are lots of units from which to choose for game variants.

Italy – another late-comer like France, but one that appeared in Anniversary too – has a rather poor selection of OOB pieces for it, but at least it has its own OOB tank and, more importantly, it’s the only country for which FMG’s enhanced nation-specific sculpt set is available, so it’s in good shape.  (It also has HBG’s Italy-coloured Axis Minor pieces as a further expansion to its sculpt range.)

France so far, on the other hand, only has the OOB pieces – which apart from the troop sculpt are all Russian in design.  HBG’s blue Neutrals set doesn’t fill this particular gap adequately: the pieces are Dutch and Polish, the shade of blue used is too pale compared with the OOB French set, and the range of pieces is limited (with the heaviest naval unit being a cruiser).  This lack of pieces is compounded by the fact that France, for gaming purposes, can be seen as being anywhere from one to four different entities: the Third Republic, the Vichy regime, the Free French forces, and the post-liberation Provisional Government of the French Republic.  No more than two of those entities existed simultaneously, however, so having enough variety to distinguish between just two of them is plenty.

@DrLarsen:

Yeah, when the new Russian ship pieces first came out, I was really stoked about them because I was tired of Russia simply using all of Britain’s ship classes. I still like the Kirov Class Cruiser and Gnevnyi Class Destroyer. However, the Gangut Class Battleship, while definitely a Russian ship design, is too dang big in our pieces. They have it as big if not bigger than the Japanese Yamato when really the Gangut was much shorter, probably more along the lines of the Royal Oak.

Oh, if they actually made it to scale, it would be much smaller; it would be too easy to confuse it with a cruiser, in fact, so you can’t blame them for not doing proper scale, per se, but they didn’t need to make it THAT big. � Speaking of keeping ship classes distinct, I’m looking at the FMG Italian cruiser and I’m a little concerned that FMG made it too small, as I’m concerned that it will be confused for a destroyer. � Is it just me, or have others had similar concerns?

I also felt that the FMG Italian Cruiser piece was a little insubstantial in terms of superstructure height, and perhaps in terms of general width too, and I mentioned this is the past also. When you compare it to the FMG Battleship piece, the difference is enormous.

agreed, fmg’s Italian cruiser was a bit smaller then i thought it would be, compared to the battleship. but then again i felt the infantry was to small and the mech and truck were to big

OK, so I have an interesting compromise idea: why not add a Dunkerque class to the French set.  Since presumedly, FMG is going to want to do the Richelieu for the French BB and a treaty cruiser for the French CA, HBG wouldn’t be getting in the way of FMG’s plans.  Make it in-between the WotC Hipper class (which is the largest of the oob cruisers) and Bismark class in size, and players could decide to use it either as a conventional BB, a CB (attack/ defend at a 7 on a d12) or perhaps even a cruiser, depending on what makes the most sense for their own house rules.  Hopefully, the new AA41 CB pieces (since that’s really what they are if they really are the Hood and the Kongo) is a tad smaller than the AA40 BB pieces and then, when added to HBG’s Dunkerque, 7 different players could have a piece in their color that could be used as a CB should they want to experiment with the concept.  (Italy and ANZAC would still be left out, but Italy didn’t have any CB’s anyway, unless you count their rebuilt old BB’s as essentially CB’s in capability, and none of the Commonwealth nations had capital ships of their own by this time…)

IMHO what is needed from a french set is a top to bottom redesign of the current french units. everything from art to battleships need to be done so they look french. I’m talking about a set 100 to 150 pieces something on the scale FMG did for Italy. Or doing two sets but one set of 28 pieces just isn’t going to be enough to make everyone happy.

when Europe 1940 is reprinted do you think they will add unique  pieces for the french and Italians. and if you feel they will wouldn’t it be better to see what they make before making a supplement set?

What I’m afraid of after seeing pics of 1941 is that when they reprint Europe 1940 they will do the same thing…all Allies get the same sculpts and all Axis get the same sculpts. So France will get HMS Hood battleships and IS-2 tanks while Italy gets Kongo battleships and Tiger tanks.

@knp7765:

What I’m afraid of after seeing pics of 1941 is that when they reprint Europe 1940 they will do the same thing…all Allies get the same sculpts and all Axis get the same sculpts. So France will get HMS Hood battleships and IS-2 tanks while Italy gets Kongo battleships and Tiger tanks.

I doubt that will happen. I believe global will remain a delux version. Actually I expect that global will get the new sculpts introduced in 41 and 42 but only for the appropriate countries. Ie I expect to see Russian but not British IS-2s. I also expect there will be a FEW new sculpts. (likely Italian)

@knp7765:

What I’m afraid of after seeing pics of 1941 is that when they reprint Europe 1940 they will do the same thing…all Allies get the same sculpts and all Axis get the same sculpts. So France will get HMS Hood battleships and IS-2 tanks while Italy gets Kongo battleships and Tiger tanks.

Now gentlemen, that would really drive their sales into the sewer and prove what we on this forum have known all along, Wizards of The Coast Avlon Hill doesn’t care about quality or iconic.  It all about the bottom line greenbacks!  Let get real Tigers and JS IIs in 1940 or 1941 how stupid can you get!

The French need a Full land, Air and Naval set just as the Japanese are receiving.  Think about it, the French Army was one of largest in the world before WWII and their Navy was larger than any Axis accept the IJN!
The French had more different types of tanks then the entire German, Italian and Japanese Armies combined.
From their small calvary tanks to their 10 each massive Char 2C monsters built by FMC.

WARRIOR888

I agree I would like the French set to be the 3 set combo Japan is getting

The following is pure speculation on my part:

I don’t know that every nation will need 3 sets. Certainly Japan, US (not including Marines), UK and Germany. Russia is heavily land based and would not require the extensive navy that Japan will get, but does need enough equipment to keep up with the Germans. We may be able to fit them into 2. We will have to wait and see on that. It’s a long way away right now! The Italians and French could probably be fit into 2 sets each as well. Keep in mind there are Axis Minors is brown and neutrals in blue. No fear though, I know Coach plans to do justice to the French and give them a great set.

IMO the only way to give them justice is giving them all there own units so we can play france with zero blue russians

Yeah, we all hate the blue Russians…

i’ll take that as good new for france  :-D

well if its true that reprint of 1940 is coming out this 4th quarter than i say might as well wait until it comes out to see if OOB made anything new

@Lunarwolf:

well if its true that reprint of 1940 is coming out this 4th quarter than i say might as well wait until it comes out to see if OOB made anything new

New pieces in a reprint for the French are unlikely IMO.

I would rather get one French set, then focus on other nations, because as much as we need new pieces… the French are on the board for 1-2 turns. However, I know they may be necessary for the 1939 game (which I would buy if I had the time or pieces to play  :-o)

@Spitfire38:

@Lunarwolf:

well if its true that reprint of 1940 is coming out this 4th quarter than i say might as well wait until it comes out to see if OOB made anything new

New pieces in a reprint for the French are unlikely IMO.

I would rather get one French set, then focus on other nations, because as much as we need new pieces… the French are on the board for 1-2 turns. However, I know they may be necessary for the 1939 game (which I would buy if I had the time or pieces to play  :-o)

IMO the French could be done in one set if and only if it has a full range of naval units, which for me means at least one of each the current ship types, and preferably a couple of “tweeners” too (i.e. a CB or old BB and a contre-torpilleur or light cruiser) because I want the diplomatic maneuvers over the French Fleet to be an important part of my GW1939 set-up.