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

I’m not looking for a rule change but they did fly ���� over the Himalayas. I’m tempted to get out my grandpa’s US Army Air Force stuff from the war and scan and post it. He was there and they did do it. Â

Alpha 3 is an evolution of what originally started as a setup change to address imbalances in the Pac1940 game.

The original setup change addressed Pac 40 only, and was called Alpha, and was meant to be used in Pac alone as well as Global.  Imbalances noted in Global began to influence the alpha revisions, going from Alpha, Alpha +, Alpha + 2, etc.  As these changes were made to address global, there was still a desire to use these modifications for the theater specific games, but this was not a playtesting priority (most people has transitioned to Global only as their primary game - alpha began before Europe 1940 was released).  As the theater games became less of a playtesting priority, the national objectives were revised, and this is probably the primary driver of theater imbalances at this point (particularly US objectives in the pacific theater & Russian objectives in Europe theater).

I would recommend using the Alpha 3 setup and rule changes.  I would recommend using OOB national objectives until official objectives that apply to the theater games are released.  Alternatively, use national objectives from Alpha 3 for all countries but US (use OOB for those) in theater specific games.

The one hanging option that’s been noted many times for the Europe theater is that the Siberian reinforcements should be abandoned and instead Russia ALWAYS collects 9 additional IPCs each turn that represent the eastern provinces not shown in the Europe theater.

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.

I am currently in the middle of my first game of Global using Alpha. It is going really well actually. We have played 6 games of global in our group (this alpha game is our 7th). Initially we certainly believed that there is a distinct allied advantage, and I still do. I believe that only very skilled players playing as the Axis have a chance of winning with them, and that is if they play against mistake prone allied players. If you have skilled allied players against equally or even more skilled Axis players, the Allies seem unbeatable barring extreme luck or blunders going in Axis favor.

We have 1 victory for the Axis, and that actually came down to our two best players who are much better than the rest of the group playing Axis, and the allies were made up of our third best player and two totally new players. America’s player was playing for the first time ever. And the Axis just barely won due to a 1/36 tech miracle and botched allied play (poor use of transports).

There were also 3 allied victories, and 2 games we called draws, but the allies would have won if we decided to play for weeks longer…

We are currently on J3 in our latest game with our first go at the Alpha setup. We also have the same two players as Axis, only this time switching powers. I have to admit that I think I like this setup better as Germany because our UK player is infamous for bringing the whole british empire into Egypt and holding Africa with overwhelming force while threatening Italy all game long. Less planes and ships and initial transports makes this harder for him and makes Italy more viable. Also we started with a G2 DoW on USSR. Things are going very well for them with the USSR’s hardware in dead zones, so by R4 they will be down to only Inf.

Japan is doing very well also in China and with the sizeable Manchurian land force nipping at the retreating Russian’s heels in Siberia. The lack of planes certainly is putting a cramp in Japan’s game play in the Pacific itself, and in its Caroline/Hawaiian posturing against the Angloish-Allies, but they are still in a solid position. I the new naval base in NSW is a very interesting double edged sword. It makes Australia very happy that they can move around a bit easier, and can claim DNG on ANZAC1, but they have to be careful because it no longer is a dead end for the IJN, which makes ANZAC a viable target for Japan.

A huge thanks for this.  I hadn’t gotten around to making an IPC excel sheet for my group and it looks like I won’t have to thanks to you.  Great job.

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…

This gives Japan a huge incentive to invade Russia the round that Germany invades in order to deny the Russians that NO, and in so doing changes the outcome of our AAP 40 games where Japan has no need to worry about Russia.  So, while this rule is outrageous it could also aid the Allies by forcing Japan to change the current script of a J3/4 taking of India.