Difficulty finding 1942 2nd edition opponents…

@Imperious-Leader I would also like a copy but I imagine there would by copyright issues with this.

If I understand correctly your rephrased question, you want to know if it’s possible to play an A&A board game (like A&A 1942) using the large-scale pre-painted models that are used in these product lines…

A&A Miniatures (Original)
A&A Naval Miniatures
A&A Air Force Miniatures

…rather than by using the very small unpainted plastic sculpts that come in the board game itself.  The short answer is no.  The A&A board games are designed to be played with large numbers of tiny sculpts placed on a map board.  The so-called “A&A miniatures” games use models that are gigantic in size compared to the ones in the board games, and there’s no way that they’d fit on an A&A map board.  Besides, you’d need to buy dozens or even hundreds of these “A&A miniatures” to have enough units to play an A&A board game, which would be fantastically expensive – assuming you could even find them on the market, because they’re a discontinued product line.

In principle, assuming that you owned the required dozens (or hundreds) of “A&A miniatures”, you could theoretically use them to play an A&A board game by keeping all the “A&A miniatures” in labeled groups off the board and representing them on the game map by smaller labeled markers or tiny sculpts…but in essence that would bring you right back to playing the board games with tiny sculpts – which is how they’re meant to be played in the first place.

I have got a 20mb scan of the OOB map (that is, scale 1:1). The problem with this scan is, that it is too dark, as I was told. Unfortunately, I didn’t know that when the file was produced and when it came down to work with the scan file it was too late to compalin about the quality at the copy shop. However, if you are interested, I can send you a link to download the scan.

I’ve played about 30-40 games, and won against some other pretty experienced players. Axis is favored on this map. My personal view is that a bid of around 7-11 is fair among experienced players. This is a newer game, so it’s not surprising that people haven’t come up with an exact amount.

Among beginning players, this bid probably needs to be bigger because players don’t recognize deadzones and leave pieces in the open. Germany has many more offensive pieces than Russia, and Moscow is at serious risk of falling early if Russia loses a stack. This is less true if Germany loses a stack because 1. germany starts with more pieces (compared to Russia), and 2. UK and US aren’t a threat until round 4.

There’s already great threads on bid placement to have the most impact. I won’t go into depth, but inf in cauc, karelia, egypt ; uk sub off egypt or india are likely have the most impact per IPC bid. Among beginning players, I would probably give uk 1 inf in egypt and ~6 infantry for russia in moscow. That’s my suggestion for a dynamic game among beginners of approximate skill.

I wanted to compile a list so we could see at a glance how frequently and by how much the value of specific territories has been changing. I want to highlight some of the more significant changes that have occurred, based on a comparison with the nearest older world map boards (Revised and AA50).

The following territories or regions have seen changes in their total IPC value, which in my mind demonstrates that IPC values are abstract and should be considered flexible. The territories discussed here reflect the same basic space on the map, but different IPCs values depending on which board you look at.

Game: Territories and IPC value

Revised: Southern Europe 6 ipcs, split into two territories afterwards
AA50: Italy 6 ipcs and Balkans 3 ipcs, (for a regional total of 9 ipcs)
1942.2: Italy 3 ipcs and Southern Europe 2 ipcs, (for a regional total of 5 ipcs)

Revised: Norway 3 ipcs, split into two territories afterwards
AA50: Norway 3 and Finland 2 (for a total of 5 ipcs)
1942.2 Norway 2 and Finland 1 (for a total of 3 ipcs)

Revised: Balkans 3 ipcs, replaced with
AA50: Bulgaria-Romania 2 ipcs, and Czech-Hungary 2 ipcs (for a total of 4 ipcs)
1942.2:  Bulgaria-Romania 2 ipcs (for a total of 2 ipcs)

Revised: Eastern Europe 3 ipcs, split into
AA50: Poland 3, Eastern Poland 1, Baltic States 1 (for a total of 5 ipcs)
1942.2: Poland 2, Baltic states 2 (for a total of 4 ipcs)

Revised: Western Europe 6 ipcs, split into
AA50 and 1942.2: France 6 and NW Europe 2 (for a total of 8 ipcs)

Revised and AA50: Algeria 1 ipc, split into
1942.2: Morocco 1 and Algeria 1 (for a total of 2 ipcs)

Revised: Ukraine 3 ipcs, split into
AA50: Ukraine 2, and Eastern Ukraine 1 (for a total of 3)
1942.2: Ukraine 2 (for a total of 2)

Revised: Moscow 8
AA50: Moscow 6
1942.2: Moscow 8

Revised: W. Russia 2, Belorussia 2 (for a total of 4 ipcs)
AA50: W. Russia N/A replaced by Belorussia 1 (for a total of 1 ipc)
1942.2 W. Russia 2, Belorussia 2 (back to a total of 4 ipcs)

Revised: Archangel 2 and Novosibirsk 2 (for a total of 4 ipcs)
AA50: Archangel 1, Novosibirsk 1, and Urals 1 (for a total of 3 ipcs)
1942.2: Archangel 2, Novosibirsk 1, and Vologda 2 (for a total of 5 ipcs)

Revised: French Indo China 3 ipcs, split into
AA50: French Indo China 2, Burma 2 and Yunnan 1 (for a total of 5)
1942.2: French Indo China 2, Malaya 1, Burma 1 and Yunnan 1 (for a total of 5)

Revised: Kwangtung 3 ipcs
AA50:  Kiangsu 2, Fukien 1, Kwangtung 1 (for a total of 4)
Revised: Kwangtung 2, Kiangsu 2 (for a total of 4)

Revised: Philippines 3
AA50: Philippines 2
1942.2: Philippines back to 3

Revised and AA50: Okinawa 1
1942.2: Okinawa 0

Those are the main ones that jump out at me, there are probably more, and if you look back to Classic there are yet other differences in IPC value. But the point to stress is that there is a degree of variation (especially in the range of 1 ipc plus or minus to a specific region.) To me this indicates that A&A is willing to tolerate a margin of flexibility between 1 and 2 ipcs on several areas of the map board. I would suggest going forward that an additional 1 ipc should be added to area/territories of the map that do not see much action. Clearly you know where I’d like to see them (in the Pacific islands!) At least as far as every other area of the map goes, A&A has already proved itself less rigid and inflexible regarding IPC value than it seems to be with the Pacific. Why? Can anyone explain this to me? I find it odd, since on every board the Pacific vs JTDTM dynamic persists without resolution, even after several editions.

I say stop trying to create new territories out of existing ones, or shuffling numbers around, and instead focus on changing the values of those territories which currently have little to no in game value (IPCs). Give them an additional value of 1 ipc the same way all those other territories mentioned above have seen adjustments at 1 ipc. I find the decision to remove yet more ipcs from the Pacific islands in 1942.2 totally baffling. Clearly the gameplay in previous editions (and yet again in the current one) would have recommended doing the exact opposite, if the goal was to make that region of the board more active. Does anyone else see that?

Aniversary Is cool to have but other than having Italy I just wasn’t all that stoaked about it. The sculpts in mine were really bad in alot of ways I ranted about this along with others when it came out . 1942 Second Ed is awesome and with a bit of tweaking you can probably get a better experience than AA50. HBG and FMG have a set of Italian minis and roundels you could easily use. As far as balancing goes you could simply combine Germany and Italy and simply use your Italian pieces in place of Germans where it calls for them or use some house rules.

You can get the Aniversary rules too but I’m not sure where.

While I might dodge some stones being thrown here AA50, was not a favorite of mine. For what it costs to get a copy it’s not worth it. There are a ton of threads on here as to how to make your own version of AA50.

Personally the attraction of this game for me was to have the game in my AA collection. I have all the board based AA games except for Guadal Canal and AAE40.

yes just call AA42 Global 42