AARHE: Phase 3: Revised NA's

There’s no official answer that I know of.  A&A is such an abstracted game that, in one sense, it would be meaningless to say that game unit X corresponds to real-world military (or naval) formation Y.  Given the scope of A&A Global 1940, however, the various unit types on the map would roughly correspond to large formations if we were to assume that the allocation of units in the rules corresponds to real WWII numbers.  As an example, Germany’s invasion of the USSR was carried out with over 150 divisions – so from that perspective, the small number of sculpts on the actual board could at best only correspond to army groups.  At that level, it shouldn’t even be possible to differentiate between the components of the army groups, nor even of their consitutent armies or corps; the highest-level tank formations in WWII were, I think, armoured divisions and (one level further down) tank brigades.  So one way to look at the game would be to imagine that we’re not actually seeing the military formations themselves, but rather a patchwork picture showing some of the elements of those formations, with some of these elements being high-level ones and others being lower-level ones (like tank brigades).

The lady and I will be playing as the Allies, and we’re going to attempt a neutral crush.  The idea is Russia hits turkey hard R2, followed by the US landing in Spain US2.

The idea is roughly this:

R1: purchase 2 tanks & 1 mech for Stalingrad, 7 inf for Moscow.  Back off the front lines, including sending the Leningrad troops to Archangel, then position 6 infantry in Caucasus and as many mechs and tanks as possible in Stalingrad.  All air force goes to Moscow, giving Russia 23 units to hit Turkey with on R2.  Should only lose 3 infantry in the counter attack, leaving 15 ground units in Turkey.

US1: purchase 7 transports, all in the EUS.  Get the Pacific fleet to Hawaii, get some planes down to NZ and Queensland, consolidate the Atlantic fleet in EUS, move the EUS fighter to Gibraltar for extra defense.  US2: all Pacific buy of 2 CV, 1 transport, 2 DD’s, 3 subs.  Attack Spain in full force, should only lose 2 inf, leaving 14.

UK1: factory in Egypt, transport in Canada, fighter in South Africa.  Standard Med and Africa moves: clear out the Malta SZ with a couple of planes, try to kill the Italian BB with the sub in SZ98, add planes to Gibraltar to defend.  I’m going to use the Canada transport to drop a tank and inf in Suriname.  Over on the India side I’ll move the fleet over to Africa and use the transport to take Persia.  UK2: Buy ships out of Egypt, factory in Persia.  From there, get as many men to Egypt as a I can, move the Royal Navy to SZ91 to help protect the American transports.

There is obviously a lot more to it, but this is the basic version.  Thoughts and suggestions?  The overall idea is to squeeze the Med and Italy.  US can build a complex in Spain, or more likely just shuttle 8 units from EUS each turn.  Russia can gradually advance into Southern Europe, especially if the UK has men and planes to back them up.  The idea with UK is just that: build a lot of ships and planes to help secure the Med and the territories Russia and the US advance into.

@NilOGrav:

Big thanks for Young Grasshopper,

Played this last weekend in combination with the Halifax rules (option 2, the greater Commonwealth). Fantastic. We have added a ton of luxury materials (NO-cards, scoreboards, country sheets, , IPCs, tokens, etc) to help speed things up and are looking for a year now how to create a one day game w/o losing the characteristics.

This completely answered our questions! Congratulations on a job well done.

chrz Eppo

Thanks for the comments NiIOGrav, glad to help… I honestly think these VOs are a no brainer for those that want to sum things up in a 10 hour day. I will be releasing my new game accessory card deck soon, keep an eye out for my next “essential customizations” video.

Cheers.

And where is the escort carrier. The escort and the heavy cruiser?
I also had merchant marine and german raiders in my game….german player love that boat!

Using D12’s or D10’s also expands the option of having different countries units be more powerful then others, for example a German tank was more powerful then a Japanese tank, with a D12 system this could be represented.  :-D

UK 15:  Is this only in Africa, or all UK fighters now get this?

Some of these sounds like silly questions but our group gets bogged down by the letter of the law a lot.  So, I’m always trying to understand the spirit of the law so we can make better decisions when we run into ambiguity.

–---------------------no its for any British fighters anywhere…not just in Africa.

Ok that explaination makes more sence. Can you reword it in such a manner that it captures both the examples and the language of your description?

Commanders (based on d12 system)
Each major power can have one or more military commanders that affect the outcome of battles. Each turn one commander unit is placed in a territory you wish to attack and can affect a +1 modifier on attack or defense for the sum of combat units equal to its leadership value for the duration of combat rounds. Each nation begins with commanders as follows:

Germany:
Hitler          8
Manstein    9
Runstedt    8
Rommel    10
Guderian    6

Italy:
Kesselring    7
Badoglio      4

Finland
Mannerheim    6

U.S.S.R:
Stalin              7
Zhukov          8
Timoshenko  7

United Kingdom:
Montgomery      7
Alexander          5

Japan:
Tojo                  7
Yamamoto*    10
Nagumo*          8
Yamashita        7

U.S.A.
Patton              9
Eisenhower    8
Nimitz*          7
Macarthur      7

Note: The engaged commander remains in the territory till the end of the turn. If enemy forces choose to counterattack and capture the territory  then that commander is considered killed in battle and cannot be replaced. All Leaders can only affect land battles except the leaders with * which can effect battles on the sea.