Minor Threat's Alpha+3.9 (Global 1940) COMPLETE! Setup Charts

@taamvan:

We going to see you at Gencon?

Unfortunately no, due to a combination of work commitments and geographic distance.

@Fredrico:

I love the French infantry sculpts, also the trench coats on the moroccan troops is kinda funny.

Moroccan troops?  The blue infantrymen with the trench coats are wearing the standard French Adrian helmet, so I always assumed they were regular French troops rather than colonial troops.

Okay, I did that and now the numbers all look right.  Thanks.

10 to 14 hours.

@Krieghund:

As I have explained before, the reason Chinese movement is limited is to reflect the historical fact that China was also embroiled in a civil war (Nationalists versus Communists) at the same time that it was fighting the Japanese invaders.  As such, it had little interest in matters outside its own borders (keeping the Burma Road open for Allied aid being an obvious exception).  This restriction keeps China from influencing the game outside of its borders without having complicated rules to represent the impact of this conflict.

Don’t forget about the warlord factions!:)  Sure they were nominally supportive of Chaing but he had to keep a decent force back just to police his ‘allies’.

By 1943 Russia had 2-5 times as many tanks as germany on every front. 2-10 times as many planes. 2-5 times as many artillery pieces, and 2-5 times as many infantry units. Remember Germany had to send 15-20 % against the allies in the west. Norway, france, Homeland Germany, Denmark, and other occupied states, while as Russia had nearly all of its forces Against Germany since Japan was NEVER going to attack russia after it had previous battles against Russia and saw it was hopeless as well as Japan had its hands full against the other Allies. This is just Russia VS. Germany. The allies (UK, Canada, and US) had 10 times as many tanks as Germany and 10 times as many aircraft. Japan was equally screwed. US built over 100 Carriers in WW2. Japan had a total in the 20’s, but never at one time due to battle losses. The US built over 1,300 warships. Japan could never have handled this. No matter what you say the Axis had about a 5% chance to win WW2. this only if Moscow would have gotten taken, but if you read military history you will see that this probably wouldn’t have mattered anyway seeing as how Russia moved its factories back into Siberal in the Ural mountains region. Germany never could have taken Russia due to Russia’s huge size as well as huge manpower advantage, industrial advantage, only one front to deal with, and the fact that their front lines were in Russia meaning tanks and airplanes could drive and fly strait into the battle off the assembly line. While as Germany’s front lines in 1942 were far from Germany’s industry. If the game was ever played to history allies would win 98 percent of the time with two equally skilled players IMO. This is why the game is made to recreate history sort of, while being playable so that both sides have an equal chance of winning.

HA!  My guys are idiots.  It is only one extra space.  Can’t wait to bust their A$$e$.  I’m glad they know how to read.  I was REFing our the Double Blind game and going back and forth.  I’ll have an After Action report on it AFTER they rewrite it!!

Thanks guys…

SHARED THIS ON LARRY’S SITE ALREADY, JUST WANTED TO SHARE THOUGHTS HERE ALSO:

Ok Larry,

Me and an official playtester of yours here in Michigan (his name is mentioned in the rulebook for Europe 40) played Global with the new setup given with all the aircraft taken away and such. Here was a short summary of what happened:

On the Europe side:

Germany played pretty predictably, sinking most of the UK navy, taking France and the Eastern European pro-allied and pro-axis neutrals with Italy. They continued to build on their air force to keep the UK from building ships right away. Began to stack some ground units as well. Italy expanded into Africa and shored the Middle East slowly controlling the Med.

UK responded by NOT attcking the Italian navy and pulling back the rest of the navy it had left until it could come back to England with a strong navy that included the US. UK took the Pro-allied Brazil and shucked the troops to Africa to help the SAfrican force which slowly pushed the Italians back up to Egypt turning the tide in Africa.

Russia stedily built a force consisting of infantry spiced with some tanks, artillery, tacs and mechs. Stacking behind some dead zones and waiting for the declaration of war.

US spent about 70-80% of its cash in the Pacific since it could not even approach Africa/Europe before a state of war.

Now for the Pacific side:

India with little cash built mostly infantry and stacked. Combined navy near India and activated the Persian troops to bring back and help defend India. In Global, India has a little more help from some extra troops west and a few ships, including one French destroyer to help defend. Also, it can fall back with its stack to West India if needed.

ANZAC naval base is much needed and I am glad it is there- balances nicely.

China was stonger, but does what it normally does and stacks at Yunnan to wait to wear down Japs. China units are really used as a delaying tactic for the India crush.

Japan didn’t see an advantage to the India crush in J1 but felt that the initiative came to them in J2. They didn’t want to wait until J3 because they felt the Allies would have established a long-term defense of India. So with that the Japs declared war on J2 taking back the Dutch East Indies and unleashing the fury. Japan built transports J1 and J2 and built more planes to replace the ones missing from the new setup in J2.

Now even though both Japs and Allies have the same amount of planes removed, Japan can build them faster and move them closer to the action (India). US could also build their planes back but it takes them longer to get them to the battle scene (India). Brit India and ANZAC can’t build much of an airforce because of the typhoon of Jap units coming fast, so India stacks and ANZAC tries to distract and/or try to send some units.

Japan can make the US wait longer to send ships and planes down to ANZAC by using its navy as a shield. I as Allies, I made tactical blunder ruining my chance to meet the Jap onslaught of India from behind through Australia. However, if not for this the setup seems very balanced and gave some options to both sides.

A hot topic question will be “what to do with the Russian inf on the Pacific side??”
It is very frustrating for the Russians, if you attack immediately, Japan will bring the heat to wipe them out with now China and Russia give large concessions to Japan $$$. If you stack and sit. Japan has to garrison Manchu with a small force but continues to spearhead to India. I figure as the Russians, you have to attack with the 18 inf at some point. The hard part is when. Timing is everything in this decision.

With US entering the war at turn 2, the US began to throw a good amount of cash to the European side, mainly because of the blunder in the Pacific- India would not last long now- 2-3 more rounds. I recovered nicely putting pressure on the French coast quickly until I made another tactical error involving Gibraltar- arrggh!!!- new rules and new map takes a little while getting used to.  :-(

Besides these 2 blunders, I thought the Global game was pretty fair and balanced with a slight edge to the Allies. I definitely think the Allies are a little easier to play because that sides is spilt into 6 sub parts (countries) that are easy to prepare while you are waiting for the Axis to finish. The Axis with so many more units in the beginning, take longer and you have to be very efficient both in the short-term and the long-term planning.

Anyway that was are anaylsis so I hope it helps.  :-)