Axis and Allies 1942 2nd edition review coming anytime soon?

@Wizard well the link is close to the first page, are you looking for Barons version? let me know

@Jaybird Out of stock when I checked just now. Thank you for trying to notify me. I don’t know why I got this notification so late.

Pretty funny even though ive seen videos like this many times

Differences (from memory):

Second Edition adds/changes:

-Destroyers
-Cruisers
-Two hit battleships
-AAA (now a combat unit and nation specific)
-Strategic bomb damage works differently
-New costs for most units
-New rules for subs and destroyers
-Completely revised map: Lots more territories and sea zones; income levels and starting unit counts are very different (favors axis); the Atlantic ocean now takes two turns to cross for East USA to England; fighters have to land in Iceland or carrier otherwise don’t have enough range; China and the Pacific Ocean are much revised, et al

@Hunter:

Ah. So it depends on what the starting situation? So maybe round 1 is too early to choose which way to go or is that just enough time?

If you are deciding between KGF and KJF, you can wait. The exception may be with bidding units, if you specifically bid a sub or 2 to help with sz 37 so you can go KJF or if you get extra Russian units to help go after Germany, etc. There are also “generic” bids you can use that won’t show your focus either. Inf for Egy, any inf for Russia, dd to protect US trns in the Atlantic, etc.

So outside a specific bid for a specific purpose you can wait until after rd 1 to see how the board lays out. You’ll probably have to decide by US 2 though. Russia can be played the same in the early rds and so can UK (say 3 units Ind, 2 ftrs UK for the first 1-3 rds is fairly safe).

There are a few “conservative” openings for the Allies that won’t necessarily commit you to anything.

Russia 1, buy 8 inf, or 4 inf 3 rt. Attack Belo/Wrus.
Fortify heavy in Wrus and begin bringing eastern units to the west to defend against Ger. Send 1 inf to help protect US ftr. in Asia

UK 1, buy 3 units (ind), 2 ftrs (uk) - I’ll assume no Sz 37 attack.
Sink any vulnerable Ger ships and if you can land ftr(s) in Wrus do it, and get bom to Wrus/Rus if it will reach after any attacks.
Attack J dd/trn with ftr/Cru from Ind sz land ftr with US/Rus units in Asia to protect against attack. Send Aus troops East to Atlantic on Trn, Remaining India ships to sail around South Africa. (note: if you did bid a sub for Ind, you can attack J dd/trn wuth sub/ftr instead and save your Cru).
Consolidate troops from Afr and defend Trj (if safe), Per and Ind. If you defend Trj you may be able to trade Egy on UK 2 if you have units to spare.

US 1 can be highly variable but at least you’ve seen how the board plays out. Did J by a factory? more trans? Where are their ships/planes? etc.
It is fairly safe to buy a AC/DD for the Atlantic with 2 ftrs (or substitute in a trn and troops if you’ve already decided to go after Germany).
Pac fleet consolidates in Sz 56 (unless J left a real opening)

You can do a lot of things with the US but you never really show full on KGF. For example if you bought AC, dd, 2 ftrs and place in the Atlantic. They will ultimately be usefully against Japan if you go that route. The ftrs can be in sz 56 on US 2 and the surface ships by US 3. Or if you stay Atlantic it may be possible to be off of Afr on US 2 or 3 by the latest. Which is fairly typical anyway in a KGF game.

Uk is also versatile with the 2 ftrs from UK 1 buy. They can go to Wrus (on way to Ind) or land on an AC for the Atlantic.

The general design is, you’ve made no clear move toward J or G leaving you the ability to see how rd 1 shapes up. The one thing I wouldn’t do is buy a US transport on US 1 (if your intention is to go KJF) and you want to see if you can get Germany to make a purchase that assumes you are going after them. In all likely hood it won’t make a difference but if you get them to heavily defend France for another turn, that eliminates some troops that could have been on the Russian front a round or two earlier.

A final caveat is, if Germany buys any ships for sz 5 or even the Med on G1, you are probably going to have to focus on the Atlantic and Germany. You are not going to want to have a German fleet parked in sz 5 indefinitely or the threat of a united fleet meeting up off the coast of Fra or Afr. You can still do the 3 units Ind 2 ftr Uk buy, but US will have to consider how it wants to take down the G ships. 1 AC, 1 dd, 2 ftrs isn’t bad in that case, but your follow up turns will probably be air heavy with ftrs/boms to ultimately go after those ships. And the time it takes rds 1-3 to get into position is probably enough to for J to get set up in the Pac, meaning it is going to be too late to swing your ships back into the Pac. In this case you’ll want to do the bare minimum to keep J off of Hi/Ala with the bulk of your focus being sink the G ships, get to Afr then Europe. Hopefully you can hold Ind for 4-5 rds and hope your stacks hold in Wrus/Cauc/Per area with US either coming through Fin/Nor/Kar or North Africa. At that point it just depends on how you set up your Atlantic shuck.

I’m a big believer in paper money! I used those same AA50 bills for a while, until a got the HBG cash.
Look at those classic factories!

Great video man  :-D

Beautiful Ruskie bomber! How giant she is haha. Genius

First off you need a bid. I know this might be discouraging because you will be adding pieces to the Out of Box set up, but without a bid the allies are in very poor shape. I recomend a 9 bid for allies. Look at the bid thread for this edition on what you should do with your bid purchase and place.

The allies can do a lot of different strategies, but the important thing to remember is that you should go all out for that strategy. For instance if you are trying to go KJF, and UK killed Japans AC BB and 2 figs, then don’t spend 50% of US’s money in both theaters. Spend all 100% of your money in the pacific against Japan. The same works the other way when going KGF. The two key important areas for the allies through out the first 3-6 turns will be India and West Russia. Make sure you can hold West Russia as long as possible. What I mean by hold is that you have a giant stack of units that Germany can’t attack and defeat. Holding India really depends on what strategy you are going for. If you are going all out against Japan you should be able to hold India for 4 turns at least, unless Japan made a mistake and spent too much of his income on transports and ground forces. You should pull out of India when

1. Moscow will fall in 3 more German turns. Example would be it is UK turn 4 and on Germany’s turn 7 you see that Moscow has no chance to hold, but with the 10+ units from India reinforcing Moscow the turn before Germany will be able to attack should swing the battle greatly in your favor.

2. India will fall to Japan on Japans next turn. This will likely happen on T4 or T5. An agressive Japan might be able to take it on T3, but that is very unlikely.

3. Lastly, if there is a more favorable place for your fighters to be at the end of your turn, then give up India to Japan.

The map is indeed bigger - I think a good size, in fact. There is still along the top of the map a place to track IPCs which I think could have been done without.

OOB - no tech, no NOs.

MM