Allied Playbook - G40 Collection of Essays - Compiled by jacobgeo24 Nov 18-19 2023

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: Yes, but there are a couple differences between the editions. At a minimum, download and understand that rules for Pac '40 2nd Ed. in addition to the rules for Eur '40 2nd Ed. Also, Japan and ANZAC will be missing their own AA Gun sculpts. No game play affect to this, just something for those that like the pieces. Also, the 1st Ed ANZACs are Brits in Grey, it wasn’t until the 2nd Ed ANZACs that ANZAC got “New Zestralian” units.

Clear as mud?

-Midnight_Reaper

@Herr:

@oysteilo:

@Herr:

Isn’t that a bit slow?

I1: take Bulgaria
I2: units move to Romania
I3: can-opening into Bessarabia and/or Eastern Poland

So in that scenario, the German followup will be as late as G4.

I think the important can-opening happens around (I4), I5, I6 in order to break through into volgograd and caucasus and later to threaten middle east by italy taking NW persia

The idea of can-opening is, to take the territory with Italy in order to allow Germany, and especially the German planes, to reinforce it against a Russian counterstrike. So I don’t think that any Italian drive to the south servers the purpose of can-opening because Russia is unlikely to have sufficient forces to strike back at either Volgograd or the Caucasus anyway in case the Germans would have taken it without Italian assistance. Which doesn’t imply that going that way is bad for Italy because there’s a lot of bonus to be had. But if you’re talking can-opening, then I’d say Bryansk on I5 would be the way to go.

@aequitas:

With Bulgaria, Yugo and Greece given to Italy, what punch will Germany have?
Any Allied player will be happy to harvest Italy…

Agreed. I’d much rather give Bulgaria to Germany to assimilate those troops and add some punch to the German drive into Russia.

I might be using it idfferent than you. The other idea of canopening is to force a russian retreat.
let say you stand in rostov with a german and italian stack, with at least 40 german tank+mech and 5-7 italian units., and 7+ italians. Then ussr has to retreat to moscow. if he stacks byransk, you can take tambov with the italians, and moscow falls on the german turn. Since ussr has to retreat, you get to take cauc, stalingrad and begin taking the middle east immediately.

No discussion for a while now…

Any new conclusions about this strategy?

What’s about an airbase at Gibraltar and moving Egypt fleet west? Yet, I guess there was this topic deep down at forum’s splanchnic times ago but couldn’t find it…

I would not be G40 boxed set for a new rulebook or even for new French unit sculpts. However, I would buy a G40 boxed set for some combination of two or more of these changes:

1. Long standing balance issues were resolved officially instead of with the house rule hodgepodge we use now.
2. Historical inaccurances (Scapa Flow, Iceland, Sierra Leone, etc) were corrected on the map/setup (for instance, Iceland was occupied by the US on July 7th 1941, but the map shows it as a UK territory from the start).
3. There were cool new sculpts for multiple powers, and cleaned up sculpts for units that look too similar (ANZAC cruiser vs destroyer for instance, or corrected the 9 ft tall ANZAC infantry unit).
4. New map! For instance, eastern Russia is vast and would have been a Japanese sinkhole that brought no benefit, but in the G40 map those territories all actually produce income. The Global War map is a much better representation – combined German/Japan strategies that work on the current map would not work on Global War map.
5. Map supports faster setup – MICs and setup bases pre-printed, for instance.
6. Rule changes that allow the US to build bases on other Allies territories.
7. Rule changes to fix unit issues (cruisers!)
8. Separate control markers for UK Pacific vs UK Atlantic

Basically, a couple of big changes or a bunch of small changes make the investment worthwhile IMO.

Fixing NOs could be part of #1 – giving the UK an additional NO of no German navy in the Atlantic other than sea zone 112 would probably help the balance issue. Also, giving Japan an NO that costs it money if it DOESN’T control those islands once at war with the US might help the balance issue.

Marsh

@the_jetset:

In fact, it could even be argued that Germany should collect the IPCs for these Vichy French territories after capturing Paris.  … but that might be going a bridge too far.

While I agree with this in spirit, I do think it could be taken too far. You could have people that say it should be this way for all countries: Once the capital is captured, the capturing power now controls all the territories and units of the vanquished nation.
For one thing, this would eliminate any possibility of liberation and I think this game would end up being a sort of Deluxe Risk rather than Axis & Allies.
Imagine this scenario:  Germany goes after Russia and tries punching straight through to Moscow along the north route, thereby NOT taking Ukraine or Stalingrad.  Suppose Japan didn’t attack Russia at all in the far east.  Now suppose Russia was foolish and bought a battleship for the Caspian Sea instead of infantry so they didn’t have a proper defense in Moscow and Germany wins.  Now Germany controls territory all the way to the Pacific and Japan now has a buddy to their north instead of an enemy. Plus, Germany becomes instantly rich, almost doubling their income with all the Russian 2 point territories plus all the troops that were guarding those territories (not to mention Germany’s shiny new battleship in the Caspian Sea.).

I wonder if a crazy rule like this would make games longer or shorter?  Capital defense would probably be even heavier.

I don’t see a flight path on the map that would be shortened by being able to fly over the Pripet Marshes, so I suppose that it’s not particularly relevant from an A&A perspective whether or not planes can fly over them.

@Karl7:

@Talleyrand19:

Been following this thread as best as possible so sorry if this was already mentioned and I missed it…

But what happens if Allies spend most of their money on the Atlantic with only a few capital ships in the Pacific to join up with Anzac. The Atlantic money goes to transports and capital ships and then tanks and infantry. With England’s help, you hit Spain and Gibraltar  (for the naval base). Then every single turn the US can land more stuff and set up a nonstop funnel. If Russia does its job then axis should not be able to keep up on both fronts. If Germany sent its Dark Skies bombers to try to stop the funnel, then fine you can wipe each other out and still land more US troops the next turn.

My friends and I have done this to each other and the Spain landing always overwhelms the Axis eventually. …

What have you all experienced when trying this?

Yes, this is a good strategy.  The weak point is then the Germans blitz into the middle east, ignoring Moscow.  They can get an economic advantage and then just sit back and outbuild the allies.

Perhaps have Iraq and the Persian territories be treated as True Neutral, just give the UK and USSR extra units to make up the potential difference.

Those are some good ideas. I think to make this game balanced, I do need to make some adjustments. Just giving Italy the Axis NOs and ANZAC the Allied NOs doesn’t quite work. It seemed to be working for a while, but once ANZAC got the upper hand, it just gradually got worse and worse for Italy. I know that happens even in some games of regular A&A, but I don’t think there was any hope of Italy turning things around once ANZAC started getting ahead.
We just finished this game tonight. It took 15 rounds before Italy surrendered. For the first three rounds, Italy really grew and just about closed the gap between them. Rounds 4-8 were somewhat even between the two. If Italy did well on one front, ANZAC was doing well on another front. From Round 9 on, Italy was more and more defensive. ANZAC managed to take Japan and pretty much ruled all the Pacific and Asia within the next 2 rounds. Once all other Italian presence was eliminated, all ANZAC had to do is keep pounding on Europe until something gave way. Between amphibious landings every turn in Western Europe and a flood of tanks, mechs and planes rolling in from Russia, Italy was finding it harder and harder to maintain any kind of border.
For a while, whenever ANZAC would land somewhere in W Europe, Italy had enough to take it back. There were a few sparks of good for Italy, like when they sacrificed most of their European air force to kill the ANZAC fleet outside of England, including a stack of transports. That delayed ANZAC for a couple of rounds, but soon they were making landings again and Italy couldn’t afford a whole new air force to risk against the navy.
While playing the game this way makes each round go somewhat faster, it is pretty hard keeping track of all the different fronts. You literally have attacks going on in every point of the map on some turns. It’s a little easier when Germany is dealing with England and Russia, Italy is dealing with the Med and Japan is dealing with China and the Pacific. Still, it is kind of cool to be able to carry out ALL your ideas in the same turn.