Helpful thoughts for new players!

I have a expansion set in my closet that I bought in probably '94-'96 that starts around '40 and has rules for how and when Russia and US enter the war.  When Germany takes France, you roll a die to determine whether French territories + troops are either Vichy or Free French, and whether the French Navy is Vichy, Free or scuttled.  ( I think the Free French are played by the UK).  Haven’t played it in years.  I think it was by Xeno Games and called “The World at War”.  Also had destroyers and some other cool changes.

Kreighund covered the rules questions.

Re:  Artillery, I use them mostly for Russia and Germany.

Japan, UK and US have to build transports, and tanks offer more bang for the transport buck than artillery.

Russia has 2 fighters to trade territories with, and a few artillery are useful in trading territories.

Germany needs some offensive punch to crack Moscow (or at least THREATEN to crack Moscow).

another way of doing this is to allocated an attacker chosen hit from any artillery or fighters rolling a one, and allowing tank hits to go against enemy armor or artillery first.

This is balanced and its been tested in my own games, but its an old idea since the 80’s.

Bombers cant do this because they are carpet bombers, while the other units are designed for targeted attacks.

You can have a sub do this on ones too as well as the battleship.

At least it would be easy to remember.

ONLY if you have the Combined Bombardment technology.

Otherwise, ONLY the Battleship fires, and then only once for the entire battle, and then only if it did not engage in combat the same turn as the amphibious landing.

This discussion needs moved to House Rules

im playing as japan this weekend and im pretty much going to abandon most of the stuff in the pacific other than borneo and phillipines my first turn im going to take china and put some pressure on russia, and take india with a massive invasion just to get the allies out of eastern asia, my long term goal is to make my way over to africa because the people i play with never seem to care about it and mount an invasion force against the US and England while germany holds back russia, only challenge is i have to do it quick before U.S puts all those I.P.C’s to use

i think this rule is needlessly confusing because it’s not that beneficial or realistic for going through the added hassle of keeping enemy units on the board as prisoners. i also think this topic should be moved to house rules forum.

Allowing the players to simply “place” all of their forces where they chose is going to lead to some huge stacks in key areas on all sides… US in China, Japan in FIC, UK in India, Russia in Russia and Germany in West Russia.

And there is the rub.

Even if Russia moved EVERYTHING they have to Russia for defense (15 INF, 2 ART, 4 ARM, 2 FIG) plus their initial build of 8 INF
They would face
10 ARM
4 ART
11 plain INF
4 Supported INF
6 FIGS
1 BOM

Attack Rating:  79 and 36 units
Defense Rating:  70 and 31 units (plus AA)

Odds are, Russia falls on G1.

As an alternate, why not simply do “All Nations Restricted” and allow folks to purchse and Non-Comabt one full turn sequence before begining attacks?

THAT will shuffle the hell out of things, but do so within the realm of initial set up and prevent over-stacking.  Only problem is, since the Allies are initially economoically superior, it gives the Allis a slight edge, an edge that SHOULD be offset by the Axis’s superior initial number of piece and ability to move them in preparation for initial advances…

as an attack in G1.