The Japanese are preparing for an attack on the homeland.
http://www.mediafire.com/imageview.php?quickkey=hjmfgykbhli&thumb=4
More Sand and IJA green. The only insignia I can paint is the Japanese red ball, so that appears often (the factory). I’d like to locate a souce for German crosses and UK aircraft insignia small enough to apply the decals after painting.
Still further to the West, the UK has turned the tide against the Japanese around India.
http://www.mediafire.com/imageview.php?quickkey=1m2bmtjw1yy&thumb=4
http://www.mediafire.com/imageview.php?quickkey=glblnufkj0x&thumb=4
The picture is a little out of focus, but the ships are from the UK fleet. I was satisfied with the aluminum superstructure of the Japanese ships, I decided to do the same to the UK ships. The hulls are Navy Grey, the decks are Armor Sand and the superstructure is aluminum. The cargo ship has a Navy Grey hull, an unpainted deck and an Armor Sand superstructure.
Another trick you may consider after you have painted a large number of soldiers is the give them a “wash” of black or brown india ink. This will add texture to the soldiers. The wash would be applied by diluting the ink 3:1 or more in water and then spraying onto a whole army of soldiers at once. I use this technique in my other modeling pursuits and I use a highly diluted mixture and then apply three or more coats until I get the density I want. I recommend you start with a very diluted mixture using extra coats until you get a sense for how it works. The ink wash also helps make every soldier unique.
OK, here is a little deal just a bit to the West …
http://www.mediafire.com/imageview.php?quickkey=ccrdngjfm9x&thumb=4
The Japanese hold Java, but now that the Japanese Navy has been crushed, the UK colonials in India are going to pay them a visit soon. The Japanese in this image are painted with a color called “sand”. The weapons are “leather” as well as the boots but the bayonettes are also aluminum. I also add a tiny red dot on the helmet or on the side of the tanks. The tracks of the tanks and the wheels of the artillery guns are the same grey I used for the German uniforms, which is a pale grey, not the medium grey I first thought I would use.
The UK forces are painted in the armor sand color and leather for the weapons and boots. I was determined to have at least two colors on these pieces.
The Japanese forces in Asia are Japanese Army Green. THe destroyer in the background has the hull painted Navy Grey, the deck is unpainted, and the superstructure is aluminum. The aluminum helps the detail appear on the ship.
Well, let’s see if this works …
http://www.mediafire.com/imageview.php?quickkey=wcdtjxam5y5&thumb=4
A view of Austrailia (AAP) with the Aussies, an American artillery and one of my American Marines I acquired from my son’s toy soldiers. There is a nice stack of B17s there too with a few other American units on New Guinea.
To do this, I decided I needed a collection of browns and greens. The OD green was used for US units. There are also Imperial Japanese Army Greens, and Imperial Japanese Navy Greens, Armor Sand (for UK, a very pale green) and finally a medium green, which I use for UK temperate uniforms and US Marines. This would be confusing if the Marines were not so unlike Aussies in appearance. I haven’t decided to paint te soldiers socks, yet. I recommend getting a silver or aluminum for the cockpit glass and gunner positions on the bombers. I also paint the cowling <sp?>on the airplane engines the Navy grey color in most cases. Once you have two A&A sets, I figure you have enough AA guns and Factories to paint them for the country. Again, I paint the glass silver or aluminum.</sp?>
Well, I made about 20 digi photos today and I’ll check them out tomorrow. IL, send me a pm if you would so I may know how to post these.
Hey guys,
I’ve been painting my sons pieces to help enhance his interest in the game. Now that we have AAR, AAP and AAG, we’ve got a lot of pieces to paint. I almost have enough painted that we could play any of the games with only painted pieces.
I have seen bits and pieces of websites and digital photo collections showing some other folk’s work. With all the fever for nice looking dice, I am hopeful to see what folks are doing in this area. I may get some good ideas or I may have some, but I’d really like to get some discussion going. Once my new dice arrive (Thanks Field Marshall), I plan to make some digi-photos of my dice and pieces to share.
With several copies of the game, I have found I have the luxury of painting my pieces with different themes in mind. For example, I paint my UK ground pieces in two schemes, a regular green and an armor sand (a dull pale green) to represent UK troops in temperate and tropical climes. This gives a better feel or the colonial nature of the UK position. I can also paint some US pieces in OD green (army pieces) and others in a sort of camo scheme for marines. This in conjunction with using the P38s in the euro theater and the (F?) single fuselage planes in the Pacific give me the two front war the US was fighting. I may even paint two or three infanry and tanks of the German team in desert colors, if I can find a unique enough color to avoid any mix ups. My Japanese troops are in either a sand color or in Japanese Army Green. I use the JAG pieces in Asia and I use the sand pieces on the islands, again to help explain the strategic situation to my son.
In another thread, I hope to learn where some other pieces may be found appropriate for the game. I have raided my sons collection of “Army Men” because he has a set that is the right size for A&A. From these, I decided to make my own Chinese infantry, and US airborne infantry and US marines. I don’t have a use for airborne troops yet, but I got 'em when I need 'em. I need to quiz my wife to learn where they came from. I figure there are a couple folks that might like to do this too. If nothing else, they come in other colors: Dk Green (like US), Tan, Yellow, and Pale Grey. Anyway, I’ll leave those details for another thread.
Timerover,
You’ll get +1 karma from me when I get enough message count. WTG!
dinosaur
For my part, I’d only consider anything more than a sub or a TRN if the Ruskies got bad dice on R1. I also consider Egypt a must do on G1, or the Brits can put that into their India campaign. Taking out $18 UK IPC value in G1 is pretty important. It does pain me to have my Baltic fleet attacked on UK1. I would love to find a good way to keep that available for later, but the costs of doing that are too high.
Three quick questions …
When do you think you will be able to bring the 7 country combo (Rus,Ger,UK,Ity,Chi,Jap,US) to market?
Will you let folks that got the 5 country combo pick up the 2 new sets for the price difference?
Will you be developing a set or Aussie dice for Pacific? Seems if you are going to make Chinese dice, we should also think about Aussie dice too.
How about Switzerland? White dice with no spots!
All jokes aside, I think this is a great product at a fair price. I’m going to buy a set for my son and then post a photo of the dice with our painted pieces.
My vote goes to the US Navy diesel-electric submarines. We were doing to Japan with our boats more than the Germans were doing to us, I think. My second vote would have to go to the German subs, and my third vote, for aesthetic reasons, would go to the Japanese battleships. Finally, I’d give honorable mention to the US carriers, they look like they mean business, but have an elegance of their own. The Japanese carriers look quirky to me.
I remember hearing some kind of crazy formula like (Guys age divided by 2 + 7 years) But still has to be legal age, of course.
Guys age Girls age
22 18
30 22
40 27
50 32
…
For my part, I see younger folks as so irresponsible that I couldn’t imagine marrying someone less than three-five years younger. My dad gave me a lot of good advice including … remember. you will be marrying the mother of your children.
It seems to me that possession of Leningrad would have helped the German supply lines in the campaign. This may then have given a boost to the northern groups, or the extra effort could be redirected to other efforts on the Eastern front. Ultimately, I think it would have lengthened the war, but I am not sure if it would have been by much. I don’t see how capturing Leningrad would have had much effect on either the Allied invasion of France or the war in the Pacific. It may have changed the cold war, though.
If the US builds an IC in Phillipines during US1, Japan can still take it in Jap2, right? I still think the Japs need to use Jap1 to the maximum extent possible. Capturing the Phillipines in turn 1 seems a must move.
Regarding the strategy you outlined, I think you have to remember that after turn 1, Japans losses are going to rise alarmingly high. The US can replace their losses very quickly. Japan can not. Assuming the US and Brits are going to seek battle whenever they can keep the losses close for each side, you can’t help them as Japan by doing the same when it is your turn to attack. I believe you need to seek opportunities to attack the US and UK where you are going to eliminate them in the first round of dice by picking targets carefully and adding enough air power to make it a one round show. The US and to a lesser extent the Brits can afford to trade you down. The only problem for the Americans is they have to cross half the ocean before they are eating your income.
I am still working my way through a first game of Pacific and I am shocked that some of the rules of Pacific didn’t make it into Revised. The sub rules are much better than the original A&A, but I was surprised the great rules about escorting bombers with fighters, and likewise being able to use fighters as interceptors against SBRs is much better than the current “fly the bomber and hope it isn’t hit by AA” in Revised. Even better, I prefer the feel for the interaction of air-sea-land battle as in Guadalcanal. Why didn’t this fighter rule in SBR make it into Revised?
Now, can we come up with a really great rule for subs? Another thing I really like is the ability of subs to take income by occupying a square. I think a detection roll by all DDs before the subs first strike would improve the game, and if the DDs don’t detect, maybe the sub gets to take one free roll against the target of his choice. If that roll fails he gets to break off the attack. Or maybe the DDs get to make a second roll before he gets that choice.
I am becoming a big fan of Pacific with the harbors and airfields. It seems to capture the real essence of the Japanese dillema, once the US dragon is awake, you better win in a hurry. It just doesn’t get the resources totally in the picture. But with the convoy squares it gets much closer.
Are any of these features in AA50 or is the scale considered too grand for such trivia?
I know you don’t think we’re gonna believe that is a photo of you when there is on A&A board/pieces/dice anywhere to be seen. I mean, give us a break! We didn’t fall off the turnip truck yesterday. I always pictured you as one of the Nazi tramps in leather :-D. Or maybe a Varga girl :-o? Definately not a geisha. :-)
Thanks. I just wanted to make sure I was on top of it. My son and I are working through our first game.
I guess I can see with the huge income of the US that they should be willing to get that extra punch.
I had not read the essay on KIF so we are just playing by the seat of our pants. Japan really did run wild on their first turn, and I am wondering how effective they will be on turn 2 w/o the defend on a 1 advantage. We have a large US force on Hawaii at the end of turn 1 so it will be interesting to see how Japan handles that. In the current situation (board is not here where I can see it) I think 2 Japanese fleets may be able to reach Hawaii. My thinking is that they can’t afford to do this attack because they can’t afford the losses even if they did come out numerically ahead in IPCs.
This is a real shame that someone hasn’t noticed the potential for making an add-on for the game pieces. I think that a second infantryman mold (two for US, a marine and an airborne infantryman) for each country, a set of cruisers for everyone, a second fighter mold for US navy aircraft, a british tank besides the Sherman, and transport planes would give a number of folks what they need. Look at what one fellow did by just making custom dice? Another little touch would be to have tiny flags flying above your industrial complexes.
I can’t figure one thing out. If marines cost 4 IPC, and artillery cost 4 IPC, isn’t the artillery buy always a better deal? The only scenario I can see marines being helpful if when making an amphib assault, because you can’t carry 2 artillery on one transport, so 1 marine and one artillery would give you the biggest punch. But it still appears to me artillery are much more helpful. Am I missing something?
Builder Chris,
It appears I was not adequately clear in my earllier post about the “rule of thumb.” To determine the number of fighters planned in a raid, multiply the enemies expected number of AA dice by 0.75 to compute the minimum recommended number of fighters to bring. An example:
You decide to bomb New Georgia airfield which has 3 infantry, 3 artillery and an AA gun, with 2 fighters at the airbase. The Japanese also have 4 carrier squadrons that can be dedicated to New Georgia. Therefore, you have to expect to resist (2 FIGs + 4 FIGs) x 2 + 3 = 15 AA dice in the raid. 15 x 0.75 = 11 FIGs and probably 2 bombers to have decent chances. The problem, as you correctly noted is the FIGs have to be carrier squadrons which requires six carriers, although at this scale you probably have good enough chances with 5 carriers, 10 FIGs and 2 bombers. You will probably lose a bomber and another 4 or 5 fighters too, but you have a huge chance of taking down the airfield. When one victory point can let you win, this is not an impossible scenario. Just remember to have some other FIGs to defend your own airfields.
As an aside, my computer bit the dust back a few months and I lost my spreadsheet to compute the air battle “value”. I have been using a notebook just to surf, so I don’t expect to do any more rigorous calcs for some time.
I believe building an airfield on Santa Isabel is too ambitious. I like to build an airfield on New Georgia on turn 1, and I would think you should be able to hold it. My biggest problem is that I don’t have tough competition to evaluate the different options. However, I am beginning to think Japan can win with an aggressive building strategy and using subs if the US gets too close with their carriers.
