Best posts made by DoManMacgee

@Krieghund Fair. The desire for the Renegade playtest staff to not be unfairly criticized is why I’ve been replying to these threads in the first place (like I said before, I don’t like back-seat gaming for others in most cases, as I think strategies/metagames should develop naturally as folks experiment).

Like you, I think there are other reasons that the current batch of games are seeing reports of issues with balance/etc. from new/low-level players, and I am privy to keeping my opinions to myself (probably for the same reason(s), if I had to guess).

EDIT: fixed some grammar flubs.

Just reaffirming that I am one of the folks interested in playing this hypothetical classic tournament.

@PainState While I agree that you can’t just go slapping rules from one game to another haphazardly, it’s a bit disingenuous to disqualify all discussion of the idea. People have house-rule’d G40 to hell and back over the years. There’s no reason why examining the ideas presented by another game can’t be beneficial to communities that want to spice up their game.

This is a bit off-topic, but while I disagree with the concept of limited turns for a WW2 Game (neither side in that conflict would have accepted a truce, especially not the Allies or the Nazis), I do enjoy the extra dynamic of “racing against the clock” that it adds to games. Face-to-Face Tournaments for Axis and Allies games impose a time-limit, which usually roughly equates to 5-6 full rounds. This results in strategies being employed by both sides that are noticeably different than “standard” play you’d see in an online league where games continue indefinitely. IMO, the time limit works great and ensures that more unique or “gimmicky” strategies have the potential to be viable.

Interested to hear more about WiF’s end-of-turn mechanic, if you don’t mind. I haven’t played that game before so I’m interested to hear your take.

EDIT: Typos.

@Martin @gamerman01
I have no preference in whatever system is used as long as the baseline format is not Best of 1/Single Elimination. If there is an end-of-season bracket that is single-elim to determine a champion that is fine. If the final standing is just based on overall placement after all league games are played (with no playoff) that is also fine.

@Conni_Hu This is a different sort of thread, but there have been instances of user of this site using A&A as a teaching tool before, here’s some actual answers to your questions:

@Conni_Hu said in Learning History With AA Europe (1999):

My question is this:
When you play the game, how do you feel?

Depends on the faction:

• Germany: Powerful, but boxed in and on a time limit to win before the full might of the Allies overcomes you.

• Soviets: The old saying “trade space for time” applies here. You are desperately weak, and need to stall for time until your allies can help you build up enough strength to resist Germany.

• British: In this game, you feel like a minor partner, constantly in-danger of losing the homeland to a potential German invasion and not particularly able to do anything of importance right away. By time the threat to the homeland is gone, you feel like your presence is irrelevant compared with the Americans and Russians.

• USA: Weak initially, but with unlimited potential due to its economy not really being threatened by Germany in any way. However, you feel like you are on a very strict time limit to win, as Germany will overpower the Soviets quickly if nothing is done to defeat the Nazis.

Second question:
Do you think it makes strategic sense to invade the Soviet Union at the beginning of the game (as a German) and to do a D-Day Reloaded as an American/British?

As others have said, the entire point of this game is the “Operation Barbarossa” campaign of Germany Vs. USSR. Attacking the British is not recommended.

General Points:

• Europe 1999 is not a very balanced game, but that should not matter for your use of the game as a teaching tool.

• This game may only cover the 1941-1945 period of the war, but the game board does contain fairly accurate 1930s borders for Europe. With this in mind, you can create your own starting setups for this game to simulate earlier periods in the war, or even the prewar period, with players like France, Czechoslovakia, Italy, Poland, etc. It won’t do a good job of handling more minor incidents like the German seizure/re-militarization of the Rhineland or the affairs over the Sudetenland, Danzig, etc., but it’s better than nothing.

• The geography of the map does a good enough job of showing why the UK/France had dismal prospects of actually following through on their commitments to guard Czechoslovakia, which was totally landlocked and in central Europe, and Poland, which was surrounded by the hostile Germans and even-more-hostile (at the time) Soviets, with the only naval access point requiring passage through the German dominated Danish Straits.

• There is a “successor” of sorts to this game which begins with the Battle of France in 1940 and includes Italy and France as playable characters in addition to the four from this game. The title is, as you may have guessed, “Axis & Allies: Europe 1940”. As with other games in the series, the swastika/imagery of Hitler are not depicted, so you should be able to import it into Germany without issue. One point in 1940’s favor is that the earlier starting date gives all of the players more flexibility in deciding their overall strategies. Specifically, a German attack on the British Isles is feasible in this version, although it can be countered by a UK player who knows what they’re doing.

• The trade off for the Europe 1940 game is that, for the most part, individual countries are no longer explicitly given their own territories on the map. Some of central Europe and the Balkans are compressed in this way, with Austria/half of Czechoslovakia becoming “Greater Southern Germany”. and Romania/the other half of Czechoslovakia becoming “Slovakia Hungary”. Additionally, a full map of the Middle East, Africa and South America are included in addition to Europe/North America/European Russia/North Africa. This can be distracting, but could also help illustrate the massive colonial empire the British and French had, as well as highlight the importance of the North Africa campaign.

• One last thing: This is beyond the scope of the initial question, but there is another game in this series that covers World War 1 that isn’t very well known. The title is “Axis & Allies: 1914”, and it boasts a very detailed map of Europe/North Africa for the World War 1 period. For example, “Germany” is broken up into “Berlin”, “Prussia”, “Silesia”, “Munich”, “Ruhr”, “Alsace” and “Kiel”.

EDIT: Added some more info about the Europe 1940 game and another game you may find helpful. Hope this information helps.

“It Depends” is the best answer I can give you.

If we’re talking strictly OOB, no bids, Anniversary is the more balanced game any way you split it.

However, far more work has gone into developing G40 into its current state than has gone into AA50. AA50 is balanced by the community simply by adding bids for the Allies (varying by scenario and whether you play with NOs turned on/off). G40 is balanced by the community by developing entirely new rulesets and altering entire mechanics to create what is essentially a completely different game to what you buy in a store. Despite these efforts, the Axis still are seen as having a massive advantage in G40, and most ways to play AA50 see the Axis in a similarly dominant position, with the Allies needing large bids to compete.

NOTE: Take what I said above about G40 with a grain of salt though, I don’t play G40 competitively. However, most members of the community would probably agree with me. Just because a game is more or less balanced than another does not speak to the amount of fun you can have playing said game. G40 is the most popular version of A&A for a reason.

In my opinion, if you want a balanced scenario, play the 41 Scenario of AA50 without National Objectives. This should give a fair challenge to both sides, as the Axis need to make the most of their massively superior starting forces to narrow the absolutely massive gap in production between the two sides (Axis: 58 (G: 31, J: 17, I: 10) Vs. Allies: 113 + “7” (R: 30, B: 43, A: 40, C : “7” (recall AA50’s odd rules for placing new Chinese Units))). The Axis might have twice the starting punch of the Allies, but without NOs its going to take quite a bit for them to make up the 50+ IPC difference (that’s ~25 IPC of territory they need to capture).

I think you’re focusing on the wrong thing here (if you’ve gotten far enough along to be in Northern Italy and USSR hasn’t died yet, you’re probably going to win no matter what you do), but for the sake of argument, I’d vote for US to take the factory. US has 40+ income for the entire game, so being able to build 4 FTRs immediately on the front lines every single turn is way better than anything the UK can manage. The US also has the much longer supply line to reach the front lines, so it’s more beneficial for them to be allowed to seize a factory that’s closer to the action than it would be for the British.

FINAL NOTES:
In hindsight, the main reasons for my severe shortcomings in the final game (mostly the obvious missed moves, which are very painful to discover when going through the game notes line by line to try recreating them) are the following:

1. Lack of a partner. Gen Con’s format is 2v2. I do not like this format as I believe A&A is best played 1v1, but I did not go solo to “prove a point” or anything like that. It just happened that everyone I knew who could have teamed up with me had other commitments and couldn’t make it to the convention. Maybe another time. I even agreed to be paired with the only other solo player at the convention to reduce bracket size, but in the end that would have caused an odd number of players, so we both went solo (I believe the other solo guy lost in round 1, which was sad as he seemed nice enough).

2. Overdoing it on practice right before the tournament. In short, the night before I drove out to Indiana I stayed up until about 5:30 AM doing last-minute practice work. This accomplished nothing but trashing my sleep schedule before the convention. If anything, it’s remarkable I played as well as I did in the early games (although there are still plenty of minor piece movement mistakes and sub-optimal attacks that I should not have taken).

3. Not bringing snacks into the floor. I did all my eating at the stalls outside, as for some reason I convinced myself that foodstuffs weren’t allowed in the actual hall. I really should have known better, since I was drinking water basically constantly and opponents were drinking water/soda/etc. with no issues. My opponents in the last round had energy bars, so they were clearly better prepared than I was.

4. Playing too fast. I was a bit nervous during my games due to wanting to 100% make sure to play 6 full turns, since that’s the turn count I practiced for. Against my Round 3 opponents, I even especially made sure to play as fast as I could to force the game to go for extra turns (if you check my report, you’ll actually see that I was technically losing on turn 6. It was only during turns 7 and beyond that the Allies really started to overwhelm the Axis). Similarly, I feel that the Semifinal game could have become a win if I had a 7th turn to work with (this isn’t a complaint, we mutually agreed during the very start of J6 that it would be the final turn, and my opponents were even generous enough to let me modify my US unit placement to accommodate the fact that it was the final turn).

That being said, me playing fast caused me to miss a lot of obvious errors across all my games. I got away with it during the early rounds, but in the semifinal things like missing the Soviet sub movement R1, miss-counting the size of my own US Navy A3, and miscounting the range on the Japanese Air Stack during the final turns basically cost me everything. If I had played more slowly/carefully, I probably would have noticed at least some of the more obvious blunders.

5. Letting my physical fitness decline in the month before the event. Self-explanatory. I cut gym days to grind A&A instead and it probably impacted my ability to play/think effectively for longer stretches of time. You may think this is a strange thing to comment on but at least personally I need to keep good cardio to be able to put out A&A-levels of focus for multiple 5.5 hour stretches without getting tired or distracted.

I am attaching three files here. They are my best efforts at recreating the 3 games I played off-camera in TripleA. They’re based on notes + memory, so they are likely not 100% accurate. You should mostly just use them as a visualization tool to follow along with the summaries above.

Shout-Outs and Thanks
Even though I lost in a very sloppy fashion at the Semifinal, there are still two people I would like to thank.

First, @The_Good_Captain, for always being a friend and at least dipping your toes into F2F-style play for a fewrounds (since we both know your true calling is strict Online Play). You listened to my crazy ideas/theories much more than you really needed to, and were a good support system while I was between matches at the convention. You also put a lot of work in for pre-gaming Battle Calcs on a lot of common fight patterns (Without which I would not have been able to play as quickly as I did during Round 3, and I would have likely lost the tournament right there). One day when our actual lives are more settled we’ll have to actually make a team and sweep through.

Second, and more importantly (sorry TGC), @Slip-Capone, who spent almost as much time as I did labbing out the strategies for both sides, stayed up with me until God-knows what time discussing strategies, hypothetical counters-to-counters-to-counters, and even ran his own solo games to test strategies he would never even get to use personally (If it comes down to it one day, I will pay to fly you up here from Australia so we can team up properly). If anything, this performance was a disservice to the sheer amount of blood/sweat/tears you selflessly put into helping me prep, and I owe you the world for it.

@djensen tagging you because at Gen Con you asked for my write-up/calcs sheets during our game so you can have a more complete data set for whatever you’re getting up to with the one YT Channel (BGN?) that was taking recordings. They’re in the relevant section on our Semifinal Game. Thanks again for the fun match even if it was stressful at the time.

(6/6)
genCon-Round-1.tsvg
genCon-Round-2.tsvg
genCon-Round-3.tsvg

Only thing that’s weird is that the way the Devs programmed OOL means that Bombers will die last in combat. Seems a bit weird to me.

Other than that, LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

@vodot I’m glad you enjoyed the write-up. Hopefully it provided a counterbalance to whatever BGN had to say. Others have asked me about it but I’m too self-conscious to willingly sit through a hour+ video of someone else using the luxury of hindsight to review my game. If anything I’d probably just get unnecessarily angry over it and leave a 2-mile long argumentative comment, and that wouldn’t do anyone any good.

Personally I don’t enjoy the 2v2 format that gen con and all of BGN’s tournaments employ. All the past cons I went to for A&A over the years have been 1v1, Beamdog’s 42SE client is 1v1 for ranked, League/tournament play on here is strictly 1v1, and basically every Classic/Revised league worth its salt from the old days were 1v1 as well. In basically every game I played I found that all of the “teams” effectively boiled down to “leader/follower” dynamics anyway (not to mention that sometimes the teammates would starting getting antsy with each other over who’s “fault” X/Y/Z thing in the game was), so if anything it just feels like a cheap way to cut the tournament’s runtime in half. I guess that’s fair since the organizers need to work with Gen Con’s schedule/table availability, but IDK, it’s just not an appealing format to me. Hopefully next time I go I can convince either my wife (who is roughly as good as I am) or one of my friends to go just so I can avoid the hazard of being paired with a random.

My gripes aside, I would definitely recommend trying to go to any F2F tournament one day, be it BGN’s upcoming series in the Ohio/Indiana area or something smaller wherever you live. It’s a high-octane version of A&A that is basically a completely different board game than what is played online (due to the turn/time constraints + the fact that calcs are explicitly not allowed)

This was fun last time (AAZ), so I’ll throw my hat in the ring again:

• How hard was it to get WOTC’s blessings.

• Was Larry involved in any capacity?

• Will there be online tournaments?

• Is the setup the OOB setup or the LHTR (from ~ last year. The one with the Bomber in Ukraine, etc.)

• If the setup was the OOB, is bidding or some similar system included to account for the massive imbalance towards the Axis?

• If the setup is neither OOB or LHTR, what is it?

• When is the bloody Early Access starting? It’s been like 10 days since the announcement.

• Are there plans to adapt other versions (Classic, Revised, Anniversary, Global, Zombies, 1914, etc.) a la TripleA? TripleA has no support for 1914 and Zombies so I’d kill to be able to play either of those against AI or online.

NOTE: Thank the Lord for the new Forum Software. My session timed out while writing this and I was horrified to think I had lost my entire post. Fortunately, the new Forum Software is smart enough to save a draft of your post for you.

I have my own thoughts on the strategies others have posted about, but first and foremost Happy New Year to everyone.

Sorry it took a while, but I was able to sit down over the holiday and give AAZ another look. This is the third and final part of my overview of this game, where I’ll be taking a look at how the game plays without Zombies, compare it to AA41, review the “1939 setup” from the back of the instruction manual, and give my final impressions on AAZ and what it brings to the series as a whole.

I was not able to round up my playgroup for a game without the “Desperate Measures” features of the Zombie Cards, nor was I able to test out my proposed House Rules from my last post (only use the Zombie Cards for UK/US-owned territories). I apologize for this and I’ll try to test these out in the future at some point.

Anyway, I ran through AAZ without applying any of the Zombie Rules, and I what I found turned out to be the exact opposite of the scenario I described in my previous post. Here’s a general overview of my observations:

• The Eastern Front devolves into the typical West Russia Stack game you’d expect from a Revised/42SE game, mostly because no zombies = no attrition. No surprises there. However, the lack of a “Belorussia” territory between Eastern Europe and West Russia makes East Europe into the main German stacking point instead of Ukraine, which greatly strengthens their position by shortening their supply line.

• Due to the way the SZs in the Pacific/Indian Ocean are positioned, UK can drive the Germans out of Africa B1 with minimal losses (by using the FTR from India + loaded TTs from Australia and India. The FTR is only necessary if Germany suffered minimal losses in taking Egypt).

• Without zombies to hamper their advance, Japan is able to steamroll mainland China with minimal issues. They tend to stall out in Southeast Asia though, due to their weak start in FIC + having to spend the first 1-2 turns clearing out the UK Pacific Fleet. This gives the British enough time to establish themselves in India and the USN enough time to match the IJN’s strength.

• No AA Guns helps the Axis in assaults on key Allied positions (India, West Russia, etc.). By time the Allies are attacking strong Axis positions the lack of AA guns doesn’t matter as much as they should have an overwhelming advantage when they go on the offensive.

• Overall, with no zombies bogging down their forces, Germany can steamroll the Soviets because the amount of TANKs they start with is simply insurmountable. They force the Soviets to retreat their stack to Moscow G1 by moving every available TANK to East Europe, and after that point they can just stack Ukraine to finish the game (Caucasus can only produce two units per turn, which is too few to stave off a German push around G3/G4). German loses its entire fleet at the end of round 1, but they inflict so much damage on the RN that by time they build a fleet capable of landing in Europe the game is already over.

• Japan doesn’t amount to much, but they can clear out China J2 and force the Soviets into a position where they’re forced to either clear out the INF-IC in Szechwan or allow Japan to start building INF there each turn, neither of which are sustainable options.

• It’s amazing how much the game balance fundamentally changes if Zombies are removed, in my opinion. Honestly the game is more even with the Zombies left in. Without Zombies Allies probably need 6-9 IPC of bid to either bolster Russia’s start or to give the UK an extra DD to force Germany to commit all 3 Subs to clearing the main fleet (the one with the BB).

So any way you split it, this game is not a balanced one. Additionally, taking away the Zombies completely kills the Fun-Factor this game has vs. the rest of the franchise with nothing to show for it. Not the news I was hoping to give you all on this front…

Anyway, let’s talk a bit about some more general points this setup has, Zombies or not:

• Germany’s starting fleet has a whopping 0 TTs in the Baltic. This makes Sealion virtually impossible unless the German player is willing to commit almost all of their starting income to it.

• That being said, Germany can attempt to bolster its starting Baltic Battleship by keeping it out of the G1 attacks and building a CV on G1. This echoes a popular strategy in Revised where Germany builds a Carrier G1 to delay the UK’s uncontested landings in Europe for a turn or two. Whether this strategy has any merit Vs. opting to wipe out both starting fleets I can’t say for sure, but it’s worth looking into further. Note that going this route means sacrificing most of Germany’s land build G1, but Germany’s start has such a material advantage over the Soviet’s that I don’t think one lost round is necessarily crippling.

• As I’ve mentioned previously, the starting Submarines + the small Italian Fleet Germany starts with are enough to kill basically the entire UK Naval Setup on the Atlantic Side. The trade-off is that the US/UK can clear this out by the end of round 1. However, much like in G40 and 42SE, the near-total loss of the Royal Navy cripples the UK and delays any serious threat to Germany by at least 3-4 turns. Not a big deal when Zombies slow down the German advance, but without Zombies Germany is partying in Moscow before the Western Allies can manage anything significant.

• Unless the Allies go for a 100% KGF, the USN will overtake the IJN in about 2 turns. That’s not a lot of time for Japan to establish itself, and without the ability to build ICs, Japan will have an extremely difficult time gaining income once their initial land units are killed off. This is less of an issue without Zombies due to the lack of Attrition Rolls.

• I don’t understand why players are not allowed to purchase ICs. In my opinion, this streamlines the game to the point of making the strategies for each country painfully linear. Yes, the Japanese Tank Drive to Moscow is not historically feasible, but neither is 70% of the other nonsense that happens in this game. Without being able to build ICs, Japan is forced to play the naval game, which they will lose every time. Without being able to build ICs, Britain is forced to defend a difficult position in India/Australia without even having the option of declining in favor of a full-on KGF because of the threat Japanese control of the Indian IC presents to Russia’s back-door.

• INF-ICs (the ICs in China and India that can only build INF) are a marvelous addition to the game that should be included in future releases as not only features of the setup but as a cheaper alternative to a full-priced IC. Imagine being able to spend something like 6-7 IPC to build an INF-IC in a territory you want to defend, but simultaneously don’t want to risk becoming a strong point of the enemy. I’m thinking of ideas like giving the UK the option to produce INF in India to stall Japan’s advance without the downsides of wasting 15 IPC and handing Japan a staging point to build Tanks from. The INF-IC is a perfect middle ground between leaving a territory in the hands of the starting units and investing 15 ICs in what is essentially a double-edged sword. Something like a double-edged knife, I guess?

• Switching the “Purchase Units” phase to the end of the turn is a change I welcome, but question the value of. I appreciate the ability to better-tailor your buy to account for some of your rolls going poorly in a major battle, as it lowers the barrier-to-entry for new players to compete on a higher level. However, was such a drastic change to the core rules really necessary for a 35-year-old series? My play group and I had to catch ourselves several times buying units at the wrong time, and we’ve only been playing since ~2007. I can’t imagine how hard it must be for people who have been playing since the 80s/90s to adjust to the new timing.

Anyway, the last major point I want to touch on is that this game, in my opinion, is heavily based on 1941 to the point where I’d go out on a limb and say that this is what WOTC did:

1. They started with just having 1941 and trying to add Zombies to it.

2. They realized immediately that:
   A: The starting incomes are way too low in 41, so no country would be able to deal with the Zombies.
   B: There are far too many INF in the 41 OOB setup compared to other units, which only furthers issue A above.

3. To remedy this, they bumped up the IPC value of (almost) every territory in the game, while retaining mostly the same map apart from some minor changes (which I covered in my first post but I’ll briefly go over again below). These changes mostly serve to tweak the balance of 41 while also accounting for the switchover to the Zombie rules. Below is my comparison of the 41 OOB Setup Vs. AAZ’s OOB Setup, by-country:

• USSR: Almost no changes, but 1 INF in Moscow is swapped out for an ART and 2 INF were moved from Moscow to Urals. This weakens the initial Soviet push but gives them more flexibility in their opening (allows a bigger stack in Siberia or a beefier Sinkiang).

• Germany: “East Europe” has been split into “East Europe” and “Balkans”. This makes attacking Europe more time-consuming in a late-game scenario, and splits the initial German units between more territories. The Wehrmacht on the front lines in Russia have had their strength reduced (mostly INF cuts, INF swapped out for ART, and one less TANK in West Russia. All of these changes were likely intended to reduce the number of Zombies that would pile up after R1 and G1). To compensate, Germany has had several TANKs added to their overall setup (North Africa, West Europe, Germany), along with an extra SUB which makes G1 an absolute nightmare for the UK.

• UK: The Carrier near Gibraltar has been swapped out for a DD, and the FTR that was on it has been relocated to Gibraltar proper. This spares the FTR from the G1 onslaught unless Germany goes out of its way to eliminate it (at the cost of letting the Egyptians live, bad trade-off IMO). Their Pacific Fleet has been given an extra DD, which allows it to stand against Japan for ~1 more turn (or simply betters the odds of wiping the DD/SUB off FIC). The Atlantic Fleet got an extra DD, but that’s not enough to save the Royal Navy from being obliterated G1. India can now only produce INF, which indirectly weakens Japan by preventing them from mass-producing TANKs once they capture the IC.

• Japan: Navy 100% identical to the 41 setup. This, coupled with the buffs to the US Pacific Fleet and UK Pacific Fleet, makes life difficult for the IJN, as I’ve elaborated on previously. The only other change for Japan is an extra ART in Manchuria, which helps the J1 push but not much else (it doesn’t even help the J1 push if Zombies are in-play, as the Soviets can sacrifice the Siberians to drown Manchuria in Zombies).

• USA: “Szechwan” split into “Szechwan” and “Yunnan”, net change in the area is one extra ART. Szechwan can now produce 1 INF per-turn. This doesn’t do much without Zombies, but with Zombies it effectively allows the US to dump 1 Zombie on Japan’s advancing troops per-round. This adds up quickly and will ensure that Japan’s land forces die out long before they reach the Russian border. The SUB on the US West Coast has been replaced with a DD, and the SUB was moved to the Solomon Islands SZ. As mentioned previously, this allows the USN to very quickly overtake the IJN and strain their supply lines (since Japan can only really produce land units in Japan proper, and must ferry them to the mainland via TT).

Lastly, we have the 1939 Setup, a glorified tutorial. As it hasn’t been covered by any posts on this site, I’d like to review it briefly here.

Play is limited to the following territories:
SZ5 (Baltic), Norway-Finland, Karelia, Archangel, Moscow, Caucasus, West Russia, Ukraine, East Europe, Balkans, South Europe, Germany, West Europe.

This means that UK Proper, the USA, Africa, Japan/China, and most SZs are out-of-play.

The objective of the scenario is for Germany to reach 20 IPC value by turn 6. If they cannot attain this objective, the USSR wins. There are British units on the map, representing Neutral Countries. However, the UK does not take a turn. These units merely exist to die to Germany and Russia, but will fight back when attacked.

Anyway, here’s the setup:
Germany - 7 IPC
Germany (4) - 7 INF/3 ART/3 TANK/2 FTR/BOMB
Italy (3) - 3 INF/2 ART/2 TANK
SZ5 - 1 TT/1DD

USSR - 10 IPC
Moscow (4) - 3 INF/TANK/FTR
Caucasus (2) - 2 INF/ART
Archangel (2) - 2 INF
Karelia (2) - 2 INF

UK - 14 IPC
France (4) - 2 INF/TANK/FTR
Norway/Finland (2) - 2 INF
East Europe (2) - 2 INF/ART
Balkans (2) - INF/ART
West Russia (2) - INF
Ukraine (2) - INF

This scenario is a joke, so I didn’t really sink much time into it. I’m pretty sure Germany just wins outright by the following:
G1: Build INF/ART, they go to Italy to hit Balkans G2. Crush France/EE. Be sure to stay after combat and eliminate all Zombies. End with 13 Income.

R1: Either 2 TANK for fast-move of 2 INF/ART for a longer game. They take West Russia + Ukraine. They probably kill all Zombies as well. If they’re feeling lucky they can try taking out the Baltic Fleet to lock Germany out of Norway-Findland. End with 14 Income.

G2: Build 2 TANK/INF, all in Germany. Take Balkans and probably Karelia + Norway-Finland (may not be able to take it if Russia killed the Baltic Fleet R1). End with 17-19 Income. Rest either stacks EE or dead-zones it by over-committing to the Balkans fight.

R2: Not sure what they can do here, really. I guess the can try poking at EE if it was lightly defended, or strafing Karelia to flood Germany with Zombies.

G3: Germany probably wins this turn by mopping up Norway/Finland and/or taking one of Ukraine/West Russia/Karelia. I’d have to play it out to be sure, though.

All in all the “1939 Scenario” is a disappointment. I like what they went for with the concept of “holding Germany to a certain IPC level”, but I wish they had at least added Japan/UK/US to the scenario to represent the 2nd Sino-Japanese War and the early tension in the Pacific. It could have been a useful tutorial on the Naval Mechanics.

If you actually read all this, way to go.
If you actually all 3 parts, You Da Bes.
If you only read 2/3 parts for some reason, you’re kind of strange but way to go anyway.

I’m at work at the moment, so I assume the Early Access is still not out.

Is there an alternative method to access the game at the moment, or is it invite-only (for folks like djensen and whoever else the Developers have given access to)?

@taamvan Fair enough. My group can’t stomach the idea of devoting an entire day (or multiple days if the game is in a stalemate) to G40, so we mostly stick with the “medium-scale” games (Revised, AA50, 42SE, etc.).

I imagine that in my group Zombies will lose its novelty and then die out. A similar thing happened for us when 1914 came out.

I am aware of GW36-39, but thanks anyway. While I’m a fan of that line I’m looking for something a tad more basic (less reliant on tech, optional rules, etc.). You know, something that can be played in a day instead of a weekend.

I wasn’t aware of de Gaulle’s ruleset though. That’s some interesting stuff, there.

I doubt this community would take it well if they went after TripleA lol. That’d be essentially taking an ax to all of our leagues.

Taking the time to reply to this because it’s a well thought out reply to what I originally commented and goes into other areas I see as great opportunities for this new, digital edition of A&A.

@Black_Elk said in Grand Plans, 3rd Edition?:

1940 was the last scenario to offer something substantially new in a while.

IMO Zombies and 1914 both brought a lot of new things to the table, but the community despised the whole “Zombie” thing and never really gave it a chance. I’m not sure why 1914 wasn’t well-received but I’d probably agree with you that the non-WW2 setting means the game loses one of its core audiences immediately (WW2 buffs).

Agreed that 42/42SE are just poor man’s revised clones. At least 42SE tried to be different by changing the map, but really that just resulted in making one of the worst-balanced games in the franchise.

I don’t see any reason though why we couldn’t take a board on the scale of 1942.2 or AA50, and have that as a more universal starter board that can be built into something more impressive with expansion materials. Or even with a starter board closer in scale to Global, but modular so that you can stage in the complexity.

I agree with this 200%. I think this where the most potential lies with the new online platform. They can add new maps and tweak the IPC values, borders, etc. of existing ones to improve balance in a way that simply isn’t possible with a physical board game.

When you combine the Europe and Pacific boards you end up with a map that has like 4 times as many game tiles as Classic or 1942.2. To me having more game tiles (a bunch of additional tt and sz) doesn’t really necessitate all the baseline rules complexity we see in 1940. What I mean is that you could surely find a way to make a more limited and much faster 5-6 man total war scenario, still with a larger game map more on the scale of global, and it wouldn’t be that much harder to learn than 1942.2 is currently.

Agreed on basically all of this. The trend I’ve seen with other playgroups’ House Rules is that they add more rules/units/etc. to the existing G40 Baseline. The others in my playgroup can barely keep up with the baseline rules of something like AA50, so G40 is simply too overwhelming for them (even though it’s not really that complex compared to “”“real”“” war games).

Again though, I think that whole franchise model would be way way easier to develop if it was done digitally in tandem. Again so that everyone can be on the same page, and the testing and feedback, and dissemination of new materials would be easier to coordinate.

I didn’t quote the rest of your post because, to me, this is the meat of it. The logistical nightmare of creating a “starter edition” and releasing different expansions for said “starter” edition is easily solved by using a digital platform instead. TripleA works because of basically this principle. There’s just the core A&A Rules Engine and the capability to add custom maps/scenarios. In the hands of a professional developer with (presumably) WoTC’s Blessings, it should be (relatively) easy for them to eventually get every edition of A&A made available on this new platform and create new maps/scenarios as needed. Community mod support would be nice but is probably just a pipe dream.

@Panther We seem to be on slightly different wavelengths, but ultimately hoping for the same thing.

I program for a living (although nowhere near the video game industry) so I understand how difficult/time-consuming dealing with technical challenges/implementing rules can be. I don’t expect to have all the functionality that’s been developed piecemeal in TripleA over several years available immediately. I’m just hoping that Beamdog doesn’t stop after 42SE.

This is a huge opportunity for A&A to have a wider audience/appeal. It would be a shame if the only version of A&A the wider gaming community knew was 42SE, that’s all.

@JuliusBorisovBeamdog That’s similar enough to what was done in AAC, the “Russia can’t attack on their first turn” rule. Basically, it gave Germany a turn to get their valuable Tanks and their irreplaceable FTR out of their indefensible positions in Russia. This change gives Germany a stronger initial force, which snowballs, as it takes Russia/UK longer to kill Germany, which in turn gives Japan more time to gobble up IPCs on their side of the map.

For 42SE, giving the Allies a turn to not die saves:

• The USSR IC in Karelia, which means it could be a feasible point to hold for a few rounds.

• The entire UK Fleet, which speeds up the UK/US’s deployment to Europe/Russia/Africa.

• The US Atlantic Fleet, as some German openings favor sending a sub or two after the US East Coast on G1.

• The US Pacific Fleet, as no J1 attack on it is possible.

• The US FTR in China, which can be redeployed to either help the Soviets or link up with the Pacific Fleet.

Great idea. Hope to see it implemented in-game.

@JuliusBorisovBeamdog
Changing the OOL on a turn-by-turn basis is a huge improvement. Naval Battles and Capital Defenses in particular can sometimes warrant unusual decisions for OOL. For example, some players may want to lose Bombers ASAP during a Life-or-Death Capital Defense, and you may want to lose Fighters before Carriers (or vice versa) in some naval battles Vs. others.

Thanks for putting in the extra effort on this one. You may want to post this information in another thread, or make a new one to share the news. I’m pretty sure the fixed OOL was a point of contention for others (I didn’t really care one way or the other, but I appreciate the extra effort).

I always forget that we have Mr. TripleA himself ( @redrum ) here. It’s like having royalty among commoners. You really deserve more credit for keeping the A&A community alive for all these years via TripleA.