1941 troop setup at the begining of the game?

@USS:

I would like to add that I haven’t played without National Objectives so maybe my advice means nothing. The US benefits from NOs a lot, so maybe that will help the Allies?

Actually, the allies lose their National Objectives quickly, whilst the Axis attain (and keep)  theirs.  This makes playing with National Objectives more advantages to the axis.

Overall, no NOs means IPC income is less for all involved.  Units are more valuable, especially reusable ones (like planes and transports).  Once the allies make this initial investment(s) in these type of units and does not lose them, the can have a fighting chance in the game.

Amen Brother…  Axis need to be offensive, axis have shorter supply lines and can take losses a little bit better then the allies.

I have played both the 41 and 42 set-ups and found that the 42 is a little more balanced and the Allies usually win, but the Axis can win if well played.
The 41 set-up does favor the Axis but we have won as the Allies in a long and hard battle that takes a long time but eventually turned around. In that game UK bought a factory on India T1 and diverted resources that way to slow down Japan, and USA and Russia (a little) went after Japan right away aiding UK as best they can. Germany, Italy and Japan were making way too much money by T3, but smart decisions allowed the Allies to slowly climb back and turn things around by T7, so it can be done. China was no help at all so they are week. Victory cities is the key. Do not worry about crushing the Axis completely just getting the VC you need.
I agree that China does not start with enough and/or is not getting enough men per turn. That part alone would slow Japan down enough to make it that much more balanced. :-)
We play with the rules as is. :-D

/corbeau blanc

Agree with you on Karelia, even though Germany can take it sometimes it’s not too difficult to take it back by Russian counterattack and/or UK invasion. Only once Germany gets heavy inf reinforcement east can they hope to hold it, and if you do a good UK/US invasion combo into Europe there should be tied lots of Germans tied up manning the West wall. In my games, Germany and Italy often seem to end up being inf-heavy hedgehogs, leaving it to Japan to finish Moscow off.

India, on the other hand, isn’t easy to hold at all. This is due to Japanese number of transports and fighters, which will overwhelm you sooner or later. I think ICs in SAF and EGY are a better UK focus, better fighting a delaying action over India and reinforce Russia with aircraft to make it impregneable.

Typically the longer the game goes on, the better off the axis are as they can bring pressure to Russia much easier than the allies can bring reinforcements to Russia.

I rolled 3 1’s on Germany’s fighters in the G1 Karelia attack once.  Nobody’s dared try it since.

Just had an 8 hour game with the 1941 setup. We played with NOs and techs enabled and I was Allies.
G starts by buying 7 inf and 2 researchers. It then attacks the CA and DD, the single DD and the 3 russian territories. G attacks Egypt with the BMR but it fails.
Russia counterattacks and retakes Baltic and Ukr. It moves 4 inf into China and masses all the inf on Bur.
J attacks EE, Borneo, Philippines, US BB and DD/TRN plus 3 chinese territories. It leaves the DD/TRN off India alone.
UK buys 1 IC for India and builds a carrier. The BB land units on Algeria.
Italy buys 1 DD and counterattacks on Algeria.
US starts building a fleet on the Pacific and gets 2 researchers.

From that moment on, the game went like this:

G and R were trading territories. G managed to conquer Karelia once but couldn’t keep it. Besides fighting G, R managed to sent some 9 tanks to help in China. J tried to attack India on J3 but failed due to the AA shooting 3 planes out of 5. Meanwhile it built some ships to counter the US buildup and had to deal with the Chinese and the Russians on China. After defending China, the UK moved to Burma and kept attack FIC. This, and conquering both Norway and Finland, securing Africa and liberating EE and Borneo (the Indian TRN went back to Australia and a US TRN moved from the Solomon) gave the UK a massive income (+50). Italy tried to attack the UK fleet off Algeria and lost big time. The US fleet eventually grew to 3 ACs, 1 CA, 2 DDs, 4 SUB. When we decided to end the game it had attacked and sunk the J fleet off Japan with the help of 8 jet fighters and 1 BMR (against 2 AC, 1 BB, 2 DD, 2 SUB and 4 FTR).

The game wasn’t really decided at the end, we stopped because of getting really tired but it was really interesting, although the Axis made some bad mistakes.