1942.2 with the LH Balance patch in play, what is now a usual bid to play Allies.

@tranaas

What you can do is eliminate the units, then noncom into newly captured territory.

This isn’t a blitz.

By holding mechs and tanks back during combat movement, you could potentially noncom them into zones (newly captured or not) they could not have reached during combat. you often need all your firepower so this isnt all that common but it is helpful

Bombers add counterattack but they don’t sit on the seazone and so they don’t defend you (except in the sense that they threaten whatever japan has left once its your turn).

In 42.2 (and 42.3) unless you kill Japan’s Java Fleet or it makes some serious money mistakes, it can build against you 1:1.  This means that if you buy subs or bombers (or other junk like transports that do nothing to protect your fleet in place) japan will have more hits on both offense and defense (its usually about 14 Japan Naval hits to 16-17 USA and allied hits if the allies play super-optimally) when we are talking about a face to face confrontation in a classic naval battle.

The USA is just really hampered here;  in 42.3 they need to spend 100% atlantic to even try the KGF.  In 42.2, they can buy optimally (bbs, dd, carriers and every fighter) and still only match, not beat Japan.

Many times whether the USA steps up on defense or it uses the bombers etc to attack, they lose it all during that fairly even battle and then Japan can do whatever it likes.  this makes KJF even more suspect, in these editions.

I agree with Wolf about 1941.

I play and own all four (or five) versions he lists, plus 1914. But the shorter duration of 1941 allows me to play it most often - typically twice per month.

It has also allowed me to introduce over 20 new players to the wonder that is A&A. :-)

Welcome to the forum ironnerd!

Cheers
PP

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.

It seems pretty clear that you can’t just move the fighter onto the sea zone, since the bid has nothing to do with changing the initial setup.  The fighter could fly out and land during the US turn, if the carrier survives.

If you permitted it in this case, why wouldn’t you allow the UK to bid a carrier (with the BB and tran off Scotland) then just randomly move any two fighters onto it at the beginning of the game and change the entire setup thereby?

Just because you are only moving the fighter one square (from EUS to SZ) it still alters the setup dramatically.

and as other people pointed out, even if you protect this critical DD+2TT with the bid, they can still attack the UK one just north of it leaving UK with nothing at sea.

After replaying it on slow speed, it appears that they are using dice as aircraft range markers and bomb damage.  I hadn’t thought of using dice for range markers but it makes sense.  More practical than using cardboard chits.

Like Hobbes said the games I’ve been in have slight mods but we talk about them first before any bidding starts.
We do bid up for Axis. So the number that is settled on and wins that is the amount the allies get.