The USSR does not get that NO until it is at war. To get that NO, USSR has to be at war, have SZ 125 clear of Axis warships, must control Archangel AND have no other allied forces in any territories originally controlled by USSR.
So, until the USSR is at war, it doesn’t matter if Axis warships are in SZ 125 or not.
Correct. The UK Europe and UK Pacific economies have to be kept seperate so events in Europe do not affect the UK Pacific and visa versa. At least not financially.
Does anybody know why cminke’s posts keep disappearing?
Well that makes a little more sense. So when they first made Europe and Pacific, there was no real set color for the forces. Then when Revised came out and they kind of set a pattern for each country’s color, they probably issued newer versions of Europe and Pacific with the new colors, making the older ones with Red Japanese, Burgandy Soviets and Green Brits obsolete.
Oh yeah. I’ve got some of those Table Tactics pieces. They are sort of a light, pale green. Close to the current Chinese infantry but without the slight yellow tint.
I wonder why WOTC made these odd colors at first (red Japanese, burgandy Soviets, green Brits) just to turn around and change them to the more “normal” colors. I mean, the Revised edition of A&A came out first, right? Before A&A Pacific and A&A Europe. In the Revised edition, as far as I know, all the forces were in the “normal” colors with the Soviets being maroon, the Japs being burnt orange and the Brits being tan. So, they already knew what color the forces were supposed to be before they came out with Europe and Pacific. Yet they went and made these odd colored versions and then changed to the regular versions. Were they just trying to make a few hard-to-find collectible items before going into more regular production?
I have some of the red Japanese pieces from the earlier version of A&A Pacific. In fact, I’m trying to sell that game on eBay right now. I also got a few of the burgandy Soviet pieces which I guess are from early versions of A&A Europe. However, I have never seen the green British pieces. I would like to get some of those for my personal collection. I’ve got British in several shades:
the current tan pieces,
some dark tan/beige pieces from early A&A Pacific,
another shade of tan that seems to have a slight pink tint to it,
a sort of cream color,
and some that are nearly white from D-Day. Of course, those don’t include any of the ships.
The green British pieces would be a nice addition. So, for anyone else who has seen them, what shade of green were they?
I have placed my order for 3 sets of the Russians. Looking forward to adding them to my Germans, Italians, British, Americans and Japanese sets.
Hey Jack,
Just curious. What gave you the idea to use guns to represent infantry units instead of actual soldiers?
I think FMG should do France next after USA so they can correct WOTC’s error and give France their own specific units instead of just blue copies of Soviet equipment. After all, that’s one reason they decided to start with Italy, because WOTC had them using German and Japanese equipment. I would love to see the French classes of ships, tanks and planes that reloader-1 suggested in the Table Tactics thread.
So are you going to do the pre-order around Thanksgiving or so?
When are the new Russian pieces going to be available at Fairplay Games?
@Table:
That OOB Soviet tank looks like it’s from one of the earlier A&A games where the Soviets were more of a burgandy color. I got my games later, after they started using the current maroon color for the Soviet Union pieces but a while back I bought a lot of pieces on eBay and it had some of these burgandy Russians.
I have to agree with IL on this. The current color of Soviet pieces for A&A is maroon, basically a dark brown with a reddish tint to it. I realize that color matching 100% is very hard but you should come closer than this. Perhaps these pieces can be used for other games, but your biggest amount of wargamers will want them for A&A. Thus, that is where you will make your biggest sales.
I don’t have every A&A game out but what I see is an ever changing color selection. Look back and you will see my German units do match some versions.
Also what I see in the latest Europe version is that the Russian and Italian units are almost the same color.A lot of you may remember the old original A&A with the British tan and the light colored Japanese tanks and planes that were hard to identify on the board because they look so much alike. The Japanese infantry were a little darker and that is what I matched my pieces with. At least I got good feedback from that move. :-)
Okay, I don’t understand something here. I have read a number of people saying that the Russians and Italians look alike. I look down at the board and I can tell them apart fairly easily. Granted, we are basically talking about two shades of brown, but the Italians are more of a medium brown while the Russians are, to me anyway, quite a bit darker with a slight red tint to them. I can’t believe that someone would get them so confused as to not be able to tell which is which on the game board.
That OOB Soviet tank looks like it’s from one of the earlier A&A games where the Soviets were more of a burgandy color. I got my games later, after they started using the current maroon color for the Soviet Union pieces but a while back I bought a lot of pieces on eBay and it had some of these burgandy Russians.
I have to agree with IL on this. The current color of Soviet pieces for A&A is maroon, basically a dark brown with a reddish tint to it. I realize that color matching 100% is very hard but you should come closer than this. Perhaps these pieces can be used for other games, but your biggest amount of wargamers will want them for A&A. Thus, that is where you will make your biggest sales.
Hey cminke,
I use a Plano brand adjustable storage container for my combat dice. It’s not as fancy as what you are suggesting, but it holds all my dice (20 for each nation at present) with room to spare. Notice I also have plenty of extra spaces for upcoming countries.
You know, that’s a pretty good idea. One reason I think the Euro-Axis got smashed so bad was because USA was just making SO MUCH MONEY. With all of 82 IPCs every turn, plus more as they snatched up the neutrals in South America, all directed at Europe with pretty much none of it going to the Pacific, also with Britain managing to hold out and keep the Axis off guard, there was really no way Germany and Italy could survive that. With the UK Pacific base of India heading west, it was like Italy had to face a 2nd Britain – one that was nearly equal militarily and stronger economically. Also, once England managed to repulse Sealion and the RAF destroyed the Kriegsmarine, Germany really had no other way of increasing their income since Russia was off limits. So, if UK can hold out against Germany and slug it out with Italy in Africa and the Med for 3 rounds, then USA will show up with MASSIVE force to hammer-punch the Axis. After that, UK Europe can afford to start thinking offensively and keep up the pressure. Then ANZAC shows up with it’s modest force and just compounds the Axis’ woes.
However, if USA wasn’t making such a staggering amount, it might not be quite so tilted against the Euro-Axis. They would still have a massive force right at first because they have 3 rounds to simply build up in Eastern USA and transfer their sizable Pacific fleet over to the Atlantic, but maybe the Euro-Axis could come back against the initial onslaught. America wouldn’t be able to pour quite so much into Europe and if the Germans and Italians planned it right, they might be able to at least keep the tables even. Perhaps Germany could duke it out with USA and give Italy more of a chance to fend off the UK Pacific forces and re-take the Middle East. Obviously controlling the Suez is key there.
I think a successful Sealion is key for the Axis in this scenario. If Germany had succeded in taking out London, that would have made it harder on the US. Of course, if they hadn’t failed so miserably by not only losing all those land troops, most of their airforce AND all of their navy on Britain’s turn, perhaps it wouldn’t have been so bad for Germany not having taken London. As it was, in my game, that was a disaster for Germany and I don’t think they ever quite recovered.
Jeremy has stated that they are definitely sculpting the Panzer III. That has already been decided and is a done deal.
There has been talk they may use the Tiger 1 for the second German tank, but that is not official yet.
Another possibility is the Me110 for the Tac Bomber since WOTC did the Stuka. That is not official yet either.
I also agree with Dr Larsen and Reloader-1. I would love to see these new naval, aircraft and tank units for the French. I think a lot of A&A gamers would like that too. If you can match the color of the WOTC French pieces, I’m sure you would have a definite big seller on your hands. You might have a hard time keeping up with orders.
As for the Mech Inf piece, I would like to see the Panhard too but if it comes down to a cost problem, then the half-tracks from Central Powers would work fine too. At least they would still be different from the other nations.
On the Armored Infantry question, that was kind of what I was thinking. Half-tracks and armored cars I think could blitz on their own and truck units could take the place of the “mechanized infantry” that we have now.
I also agree that the Panther should be closer in size to the Pershing. The Sherman should not be bigger than the Panther and certainly not the same size as the Tiger.
Dr Larsen,
I know this is going back a ways, but I have another question about your cool chart for the 10 different land units and their Att, Def, Move, Cost. It’s about the Armored Infantry. Would those be able to blitz by themselves, without a tank?
We did think of the idea of continuing the game after the fall of Russia. Basically, it would then be Western Allies VS Japan. In that case, I don’t think Japan would have lasted more than a few more rounds. USA and UK had a huge amount of forces in Europe and Western Russia by then. Also, the USA was making so much money that they started building a large naval force on Western USA just for something to spend extra IPCs on. If we had decided to carry that out, I think the US Navy would eventually sink the Jap Navy and both British and US forces would grind eastward pushing Japan back to the coast.
In this scenario, I’m not sure what would be done with China. Would the US/UK forces liberate Chinese territories? Or, since they decided to attack Russia, which was China’s main ally in this game, does that mean that China is out permanently and the US/UK forces would simply be conquering the Chinese territories from Japan? It seems like the latter would be the best solution.
You know, I am tempted to try this out again but this time with a few new rules, NOs and victory conditions. Here’s one idea: If China is allied with Russia, who is allied with the Euro Axis, what if they were able to take British territories to open the Burma Road? Of course, with Japan pounding on them, I don’t think China would be strong enough to take on British forces, especially since part of the Burma Road includes the Pacific UK Capital of Calcutta. Or maybe devise a NEW supply route coming from Stalingrad to Szechwan. That would make a little more sense. Also, it would be hard for Japan to shut that down.
Do you think the Western Allies should take a larger part in aiding Japan? How about the Euro-Axis helping out Russia and China? I’m talking about actual military aid, not just simply avoiding each other. Then again, Flashman’s idea of four seperate groups is interesting as well. That would mean that, technically, each group could attack any of the other three groups. For example, UK forces could attack the Euro-Axis, Russia and/or Japan. That would definitely provide different avenues of obtaining IPCs. Plus, I guess that would also mean that Japan could sail down and get the DEI for all those IPC plus their NO.
On Victory Cities, that was another mis-calculation for me. Usually, at the end of each round I count how many vicory cities each side has. However, I kept counting the three Soviet cities as Allied and Shanghai and Tokyo as Axis, when it really should have been the other way around. In fact, I’m not even sure that would work because throughout most of the game the two conflicts really were separate. Russia was sort of allied with Germany in that one German NO for trade of oil and wheat from the Soviet Union, but that was all. Japan had even less to do with the Western Allies, more of non-aggresion pact than an actual alliance. It wasn’t until round 9, after Germany and Italy were totally destroyed, that USA and UK declared war and joined Japan in smashing Russia. Even then that was more the player’s choice to wrap it up than the actual “game rules” themselves. If I decide to try this again, I will definitely have to rethink the Victory City conditions and maybe even come up with some new NOs.
Also, I still think a new setup would be in order. I think the reason Japan did so well against the Russians was because the bulk of Russian heavy equipment was all in the west facing Germany. By the time they got some units with firepower up to face the Japanese, Japan had already built a sizeable force on the mainland. Plus, the Japs had much greater air power which I think also told in many of the battles. Oh yeah, I used that new “Alpha” setup in this game. While that does cut down the air strength for Japan, they still had a huge air superiority over the Soviets. If I had used the original setup, it might have gone even better for Japan and they might have actually reached Moscow.