Explained: Axis & Allies Global 1940 House Rules Expansion

@SuperbattleshipYamato

Finished the first game:

2023-8-13-World-War-II-Global-1940-2nd-Edition.tsvg

The game was certainly unique and spiced up from the original rules. It’s quite biased towards the Axis, with the “cannot move into pro-Allied territories while the Soviets and/or the Americans are neutral” is crippling.

I definitely could’ve been more creative as Japan, but overall it was still a fun and unique game.

These house rules are meant to make the game more realistic while staying as simple as possible.

Battleships cost 14 IPCs. They cost 1 IPC to repair.

Switzerland has an IPC value of 4.

The U.K. can only produce up to 4 units per turn in India. If India is captured by the Central Powers, the Central Powers cannot produce units there.

If a capital is captured, the IPCs are discarded and not taken by the capturing power.

Neutral territories that are not home territories still get units if invaded.

Sea units, except submarines, must end their movement when they enter a sea zone with enemy mines.

Units that retreat from a contested territory cannot move into another contested territory. They may move into any adjacent friendly territory.

There is a combat move and a non-combat move. During the combat move, units can move into neutral, contested, and enemy territories. The non-combat move comes after combat. During the non-combat move, units that did not move during the combat move and did not conduct combat can move into friendly territories. Land units can move an unlimited number of territories during the non-combat move within their original territories.

Optional Manpower Rule

Keep track of the infantry that are destroyed for each power. If a power has had 2x the number of their infantry destroyed as their starting IPC value (rounded up), they may only collect half of the total IPC value of their territories when they collect income (rounded up). If a power has had 4x the number of their infantry destroyed as their starting IPC value (rounded up), they may only collect the IPC value of their capital territory when they collect income.

It seems to me like in a lot of cases retreat would not be an option, unless like Black Elk said they could choose any adjacent friendly territory.
Here’s an example using 1942.2 with Germany and Russia:
Germany starts with 3 infantry, 1 artillery, 1 tank and 1 fighter in Ukraine.
Russia starts with 3 infantry, 1 artillery and 1 tank in Caucasus.
Russia decides to send 2 infantry, 1 artillery to Ukraine from Caucasus, 1 infantry, 1 tank to W Russia from Caucasus.
Germany sends 3 infantry, 1 artillery, 1 tank and 1 fighter to Caucasus from Ukraine.
Now there is a border clash. Let’s say Germany wins losing 2 infantry. Now Germany has 1 infantry, 1 artillery, 1 tank and 1 fighter that move on into the Caucasus. Basically, Germany now takes control of the Caucasus.
Let’s say the battle in W. Russia goes badly for Russia and they decide to retreat the 1 infantry and 1 tank that came from Caucasus.
How would you handle this retreat? Would they go to Russia or Kazakhstan?
Or would they go back to Caucasus and fight the German units there? If this were the case, would they act as attackers or defenders?
Or, if neither Russia or Kazakhstan were available as retreat options, I guess the infantry and tank simply fight on in W Russia until they are destroyed?

Another idea is if you could make up a small set of cards, each one with a different country on it. You wouldn’t have to give each player the first set of cards, just deal out the one set that each player keeps face down.
Then it’s like you said, if you get your own card, you can attack anyone you want. If you get another country, then you are at war with just that country and which ever other country got your card.
This has interesting possibilities.

Would Germany have much chance of sinking them with the Atlantic just a couple of SZs wide?

Give subs a first-strike capability and you may be talking, but this will not make USW worthwhile.

You could use the same general rules for AA50, but you would have to pick one of the AA 50 setups (1941 or 1942) then add up the total cost of starting units to get the starting cash for each country. For one thing, I think there are less starting pieces for all the nations because AA 50 has a smaller map than the 1940 games so there are less pieces. Another thing is I think the prices are a little different in AA50 than in the 1940 games, plus you won’t have Tac Bombers or Mechanized Infantry as those units didn’t come out until the 1940 games.
Also, I’m not sure how you would handle China, since in AA50 they don’t actually get IPCs but rather 1 infantry for every 2 Chinese territories still under Chinese control at the beginning of their turn.
Other than a few small changes though, I think you could still adapt this idea to AA50.

Why is Uk 23 and also Can I use this rule for Canada on 1940 2nd?

Yes, I am quite insane  :-D

As for how I got it all to fit, I typed it into a Word document, and then copied and pasted.

I plan to playtest these rules and modify them as needed.  I was trying for as much historical accuracy as I could with the starting forces, while making the minimum number of changes to the official rules.  I got the idea from World in Flames, which is a great game, but, practically speaking, unplayable.  Even if you read and understand all the rules, finding one or more opponents who also have read and understand the rules is pretty much impossible.  You can, however, play Axis and Allies while you’re drunk (Been there.  Done that.  Got the T-shirt.)  But I like the idea of having the same basic problems, options, starting forces, and deployments the real military and political leaders of the time had to face.

Now, I’ll admit that the Vichy France rules are a bit more detailed than most A&A players prefer, and I understand why the game disigners decided to just leave them out.  But, if I was going to give the French a realistic starting fleet, I had to have the Vichy option to keep the combined French and British fleets from blowing the Italians out of the water on turn one.  It also gives the Allies the same uncertainty about what the Vichy French forces would do if their territories were invaded.  Historically, it was a major concern for the British.  Remember that they actually bombed the Vichy French fleet in port in North Africa, killing, IIRC, a couple of thousand French sailers , because they were afraid of having it fall into Axis hands.