Balanced Mod on Table Top

You have some interesting house rules. Thank you for the suggestion.

I am thinking of adding a third research table to our G40 games. I believe one or more might have been suggested already.

1. Self-Propelled Artillery Artillery can move 2 spaces and can blitz when paired with tanks. Infantry and mechanized infantry paired 1:1 with SPA attack at 2.
2. Super Carrier Aircraft Carriers can transport 3 aircraft (fighters and tactical bombers).
3. High Speed Transport Destroyers can transport 1 or 2 infantry
4. Convoy Escorts Enemy units disrupting convoys ignore roles of 3 or more.
5. Mine Layers Destroyers can lay mines instead of moving, attacking or defending. Anti-Submarine rules are not applicable when laying mines. SZ that is mined do not impact friendly units. Enemy units entering a mined SZ roll 1d for each ship. Each ship that rolls a 6 is hit by a mine. Aircraft on carries that hit a mine can fly to a friendly territory or carrier up to 5 spaces away; if there are no applicable territories or carriers then aircraft are lost. Mined SZ is cleared after enemy contact.
6. Improved Transports Transports can carry 2 infantry plus one additional ground unit

@fat-belly-general

I really like this idea, as it allows even in a three player game to have two players as the Axis.

@Mr-Kell Ah yes they do but you can’t get the infantry to Paris before Germany can but you can get the fighter so that adds on defense. If you pay attention to what I set up, it’s still pretty damn favorable for Germany, it just has to bring in the airforce to make it a victory.

I really like the idea of 1 IPC per valueless allied pacific island. I am going to propose that to the group I play with, because we are always looking for a way to balance the game, but at the same time try to keep it as close to OOB as possible.

What we have been doing for several games, and it is working well, is this:

Play “cry uncle” - so no Victory City win condition for Axis.
Germany not allowed to build factories in original German controlled territories.
USA can do whatever they want in the European theater only, right away in turn one.

Based on your feedback, I’ve made a couple of tweaks to the variant. The most recent version is attached for play testing.

Changes from the original version are indicated by underscoring:

Revised Russian National Objectives

1. Spread of Communism: Bonus for Russian control of originally Axis/Pro-Axis territories is confined to mainland Europe (excluding Africa, Iraq, mid-east Islands, etc.).

2. Lend Lease: Russia receives +5 PUs, when at war with Germany/Italy, if at least one of three historical Lend-Lease lanes is “open” (i.e., the lane territory is friendly-controlled and there are no enemy warships in the corresponding sz). The Lend-Lease lanes are as follows:

a. Archangel, sz 125
b. Persia, sz 80
c. Siberia, sz 5

As in the original version of the NO, the presence of non-Russian allied units in originally Russian territory cancels out the objective.

(Hat tip to calvinhobbesliker and ItIsILeClercs for this change. I enjoyed reading up on the subject)

Other Allied National Objectives

1. Western Europe Beach Head: Allied control of at least two of the following gives USA +5 PUs if at war: Normandy, Holland, Western Germany, Denmark.

(Hat tip to The Hessian for this change)

2. Southern Europe Beach Head: Allied control of at least two of the following gives UK + 5 PUs: Southern France, Sicily, Sardinia, Greece.

3. Vital Forward Bases: Allied control of all of the following gives USA +5 PUs if at war: Wake Island, Midway, Caroline Islands, Marianas, Marshall Islands.

(Hat tip to Gencre for this change)

Air Raids

Fighters attack and defend at 2 during air raids. Strategic and tac bombers attack at 1.

Play-Testing

Over the last week, I had the chance to play test the variant a half-dozen times times, both as Allies and Axis. Some observations:

1. Axis players generally were more proactive in defending Western Europe against small-sale allied incursions.

2. In two games, Italy used its surving transport (after Taranto) to move defensive units to sicily and sardinia.

3. In all but one of the games, the changes to the Lend Lease objective effectively extended Russia’s +5 PU bonus until entry of allied units into Russia (usually by round 6 or 7). Mostly, no serious effort was made to contest the objective. However, in one game I was able to defeat it by getting a sub to sz 80 by round 4.

4. The 2 attack/defense value of fighters during air raids significantly reduced the frequency of unescorted bombing raids. Dark skies was not attempted in any of the games I played (whether due to the changes, or a coincidence, I don’t know).

5. The “Vital Forward Bases” objective encouraged “island-hopping,” as well as early naval engagement in the central-pacific, which was fun.

Thanks again for ur feedback guys. Am curious to hear your thoughts on the changes. Shoot me a message if you’d like to arrange a play test.

RegularkidG40BalanceVariantv5.tsvg

Here are my house rule suggestions for economic balance in Global…. it’s not much, but that’s the point.

#1. The $5 Russian National Objective for no axis ships in the Norwegian convoy zone #125, control of Archangel, and no allied units on originally owned Russian territories has now been modified and split into 2 different National Objectives for Russia.

Lend Lease

$5 National Objective for no Axis ships in the Norwegian convoy zone #125, and for control of Archangel.

National Prestige

$5 National Objective for at least 1 Russian warship on the board, and no Allied units on any originally owned Russian territories

#2. Two significant National Objectives that were dropped after Alpha +3 have now been reinstated.

Merchant Shipping Protected
#1. 5 IPCs for the United Kingdom if the Atlantic is free of German submarines.

Germany controls London
#2. 5 IPCs for Germany if they control London.

#3. When the United States declare war, they are automatically given the War Bonds technology for free.

Is this giving to much to the Allies?

All these problems are solved if you remove the extra movement and instead allow naval bases to shelter ships in harbour.
The ships can still be targeted by bombing raids; altogether this creates the mechanics for a much more realistic depiction of both the Taranto raid (and the copycat Pearl Harbor operation), and the general usefulness of Gibraltar (which by the way should not be a tt but a UK NB in Southern Spain).