Grasshopper’s Dice & Cards (A&A Gaming Accessories)

@Black_Elk:

Here’s a little something I do, that I’ve found really helps to shave a few minutes off every turn.
It might seem simple, but you’d be surprised how much time can be spent digging and returning pieces to their trays, if you don’t have a good system in place…

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=35904.msg1411574#msg1411574

You can see an example image in there at the bottom using 1942.2 but I adopt the same system in G40. Once I started doing this, I never went back. Now I’m a big proponent of grouping by shape, and trusting in color differentiation for easy recognition, rather than the other way round. Hard habit to break, for the OCD sculpt collector, but it works. Even chainsmoking degenerates like me can make the extra effort to be better orgnaized haha.

Also, like others have mentioned before and elsewhere too, my group separates combat movement, and combat proper with the purchase phase. So the phases like this…
repair, combat movement, purchase, combat, non com, placement, collect.
If you want to pick up the pace it’s highly effective for focusing your players. It doesn’t change anything compared to the standard phase order of “purchase, combat movement, combat proper” other than the speed with which your players will make decisions.

interesting, i like the idea of sorting by unit type instead of faction, i may toy around with that in a smaller version to see how it feels before doing it with the G40 units (it’d be a huge pain to re-sort them again after, lol)

How a cheaper Navy helps the allies is this. The US comes in after turn 4. With a cheaper navy, namely transports, Japan could be a real threat to Australia, forcing the US to pay attention to it, making it historically accurate.

The US paying some attention to Japan helps the Germans.

Lastly, IMHO, the game is close enough that these changes don’t ruin the game. But seeing your point, to go along with this, you would also have to fix the sub problem which is horrible. The advantage Germany had in the beginning of the war with their subs just doesn’t exist in the game. They need to make the subs more stealthy, like rolling the dice to locate them before attacking them, (destroyers would have a better chance than other units) and greatly expanding the areas they can convoy. Also giving the Germans a wolf pack advantage that the US copies and made use of much later in the war against the Japanese.

This whole incredible aspect of WW2 was somehow left out of the game.  A real shame. That would bring some balance.

Round 2 this evening so will post new pics etc soon

@wittmann:

If you are playing Global, yes.
Is not easy. You will probably only get the bonus on UK1.

Well, if germany/italy work hard enough, then yes.  The only places they u might have trouble retaking would be malta, cyprus, and alex if germany lands planes with italian garrison.  British somaliand is annoying but reclaimable.  everywhere else, the allies should eb able to reclaim without too much trouble.

Done.

@Gargantua:

I was in a group game, where we were winning, and my “allied” UK partner, got wiped from the game, after the germans rolled a last ditch fluke shot on Paratroopers, and took the London Capital.

It was all downhill from there, as no one was in range of taking it back immediately (Blocked)  and he was able to build off of U.K.

But would you say that this actually enhanced the gaming experience?

This is exactly the reason I don’t like the R&D rules, it is a bit too much based on luck and once earned changes the entire (delicate) balance of the game.

I hear this from the previous posts, though I would be very interested in how and why R&D deserves a place in the game based on long-term strategies…

(I can remember from the original setup it made strategic sence to invest in developments, but the game back then was less complicated and less delicately balanced)

@Pelanderfunk:

I don’t know what the official name is, but I looked around the internet for a long time before I broke down and made my own.  You can get “croupier sticks”, which are what the croupier uses to collect the dice in craps, but it doesn’t really have that “war room” feel to it.

I just bought some wooden dowels and balsa strips from a craft store, then I cut the strips into rectangles and wood-glued them to the ends of the dowels.

Yeah I was thinking of doing the same.

When Germany tried to take Paris, G1  The French and English Units rolled nothing but ones and twos and Germany couldn’t buy a hit.  Needless to say Germany had to retreat with what they had left and let the Itilians take Paris.  Which really helped Italy early on in the game.