Posts made by Munck

This is perhaps a bit off topic and should perhaps have it own thread, but anyway:

My group are increasingly getting rid of old A&A baggage, thus getting better at the nuances. (Note: we play the 1939 scenario)

Some things we have discovered:

• This is truly a 3-person (or more) game. If only two players, everything about the alliances and victory points doesn’t work
• The Allies have to fight Comintern as much as possible with the few options available. This means Lend-Leasing to neutrals etc. - this have to be balanced with keeping the USSR in the game against esp. Germany.
• If USSR conquer a territory, the Allies have almost zero chance of liberating, as they have to conquer Berlin before they can declare war. Unlikely before 1945.
• Against a good USSR player that uses mobility and the terrain to his advantage, Germany has a very had time

In our previous game, Comintern stood to win due to the amount of neutrals (Mongolia, Iran, Iraq, Finland, Sweden, Norway…) it had conquered. The Allies could do nothing at this point.

Yes, you often can’t have it both ways.

Take the Japanese for example, upgrading your Infantry to Motorized makes perfect sense in China. But besides loosing the ability to pair with Artillery for attack, you also loose the ability to transport them on your destroyers.

I’m waiting for my order of the long anticipated Base Set. I will only use Coastal Subs and Torpedo Boats though. I’m actually pretty happy with the plastic roundels with an Infantry unit on top (Militia, Mountain, Ariborne, Marine, US Marine, Veteran, Volksturm, Blackshirt etc.)

So far we’ve used a yellow chip underneath to specify “worse than” (the unit on top).

We have used the same approach for units not available (Italian Medium Bomber for example). I have now bought the Italian set from IwillNeverGrowUp (waiting for that delivery as well), to get rid of the last yellow chip on the board  :mrgreen:

@KingKuba:

The people in my group usually do not lend-lease to KMT because they find it to be a waste of time. Even though the KMT may still end up getting beat, as long as you do not get horrible rolls, you will be able to force the Japanese player to expend resources replacing them. I think that this is the part the people in my group do not understand or just do not care much about.

If this is the case, you have a good chance of winning the game  :mrgreen:

One thing is the “harassment” of the Japanese, as discussed. Another important thing is the Victory Points. Take a look and see which are “doable” for each Alliance. The tipping point may well be found in China - for all three  :-)

When it comes to the Chinese theatre, expert A&A players are probably worst off at playing GW, because of obsolete knowledge.

@KingKuba:

Thanks for the suggestions Munck, I will definitely try these out next time I am playing as the Soviet Union and China. Do you guys pile up all your Chinese units, spread them out, or a little of both? I want to try and find a balance so I can pressure the Japanese without leaving my units to vulnerable to getting wiped out by Japanese troops.

Remember, KMT & US moves/attacks together. So you can use US planes in combination with your (hopefully) large number of weak KMT land units. I’ll leave you to ponder how exactly you can make it happen  8-)

(this of cause require that the US is at war)

@GeneralHandGrenade:

I’m not sure if it’s a good plan or not but I’m piling up some American ships on the build chart without finishing their production (getting them to within one space from mobilizing). I have built some in the Pacific but I’m holding these ones back to save them from the Japanese first strike. Is this a good plan or have I been sniffing too much paint lately with my renovations and assembling/painting my armies?

I don’t think the Japanese first strike capability is a problem for the US fleet in San Francisco.
Without telling to much, remember that the Japanese can only use it one time - to attack one territory.
The Allied player need to move his fleet around taking this into consideration.

Old A&A strategies like stacking a huge fleet as the US and protecting it with blockers takes a while to “un-learn”  :-)

On the positive side, your strategy gives you another option. You can LL your ships to the UK with short notice. We usually do that to reenforce the UK fleet if Germany has been too aggressive in the Atlantic.

@KingKuba:

How do you apply pressure from every angle though?

Here are some examples:

With Russia:
Take Mongolia, and perhaps reenforce Vladivostok with a few units and relocate a small factory from the European theatre.
This forces Japan to keep some troops in Manchuoku. (+ there is a Victory Point on the line. End-of-game who has the most units on Japans/Russias their shared border gets a point.).

With China:
LL some offensive units to KMT. Take a jab at the Japanese once in a while. Every time the Japanese loose a unit, a new one has to be built. These IPP can not be used to building ships.

Applying pressure can also be just the threat of attacking.

In my opinion, Germany & Japan must attack Netherlands in the same turn.

Japan has a hard time fighting on 3 fronts: Mainland China, DEI & The Pacific against USA.

Global War is all about applying ‘pressure’ multiple places, attacking where your opponents are weak in any point in time. Of cause, Japan can win in any theatre - for example against the US. But then it leaves the backdoor open for KMT, Russia or another 3rd party. A good Allied player will force (lure) the Japanese main battle fleet “out of place”, and attack from another angle.

It is this game of applying pressure I find so enjoyable.

@Chris_Henry:

We’ve just accepted that this game will take at least a full weekend, and quite possibly have to remain set up for a time after. We just figure we might as well add some of the cool stuff to it if it’s going to take that long anyways!

I’m jealous! Playing a whole weekend is a luxury we unfortunately can’t afford!  :cry:
We are considering splitting it over multiple days though - but that is to try the 1936 setup.

@Chris_Henry:

Interesting Munck, I had not heard that! Don’t want to derail this thread, maybe I’ll open another, but what is it about China that makes you say “biggest issue”? Unbalanced in your mind? Or just not exciting?

Battle of the Atlantic. I hadn’t really considered that, and don’t have the slightest what that might entail. Could be very interesting!

Re China:
It’s very hard for CCP to do anything except stacking everything they’ve got in Communist China - even with lucky recruitment rolls. I know you can fly down Russian planes and attack together, and I can’t see other real options to get an offensive going. LL from Russia is in reality too expensive. In our next game, we will start playing with Manchuoku. I hope this will improve things a bit for CCP.

For both CCP & KMT, you need to “win” the civil war before you can start building factories. Perhaps it is due to our start in 39, but I fail to see how either side can ever win before 1945.
I hope the new Expansion provides more options - esp. for a 1939 start.

Re. BoA:
I think it started from the notion that the convoy rules in v.1.2 (current) are a bit flawed (favour the Allies). Simply put, subs are typically not a good “business case” for Germany. I know they are working on revising the convoy rules for v1.3 to solve this.
Anyway, BoA will probably give us more units, like the German Condor planes.
I hope they will include Submarine pens as a facility + will include “Wolfpacks” as a concept somehow.

As it is today, I think the biggest issue is China. I know they are working on a “China at War” Expansion, and I look forward to shaking things up in that theatre.
Today, it is like playing through the Spanish Civil War - without the Expansion. It can be done, but…

Another Expansion they are working on which I look forward to is “Battle of the Atlantic”.

We are 3 players in my group. As such, we don’t want more playable nations.

Note: HBG have had an “Island Warfare” Expansion in the works, but they cancelled the project. Probably didn’t work out.

@Chris_Henry:

That said, you don’t think potential railroad supply path disruption in the Balkans/Greece area could be an issue for the Axis? That would probably take many games to really see the difference a lot, but I could see it.

Also, the fact that the Axis would need to garrison some troops in those territories, even if only a few, are that many less to terrorize the Eastern Front :)

Curious, given the fact that you use Turkey at War, you don’t also think using Croatia at War in tandem might be an even bigger thorn? If the Allies or Comintern “win” Turkey, that mixed with partisans in Yugoslavia would prove a decent destabilizing issue in that area of the map. Curious on your thoughts.

You’re right about the first thing. It could be an issue, albeit a rare occurrence.

Germany gets a bunch of SS units for free to deal with partisans. They can’t be used for much else anyway.

We haven’t played with TAW yet - our first game with that Expansion is next week. I see your point, though. Esp. if you look at it from the Axis side. If partisans were to hinder rail movement, the Axis player could not use Turkey to rail units to the Middle East.

For us, it all comes down to this though:

We want to play as “effective” as possible. Also why I made the PDF’s I posted in the beginning of this thread. By being more effective, we get more rounds in a game-day. Doing minuscule things like partisan rolls that doesn’t effect the grand scheme of things takes time. Like the rest of the detail-oriented Expansions. Time we would rather spend going one more round :-)

@sjelso:

Which expansions do you play with and which did you decide to forgo?

Expansion - Reasoning

DAK - Gives the German player a real chance of going into Africa.
Seaplanes - More options for hunting subs for the Allies.
Manchuoko - More “dynamic” game in China (we look forward to the Chinese at War Expansion very much).
Sealion - The German player has little incentive to go after UK as it is.
Winter War - To counter Russia crushing Scandinavia.
Turkey - More options regarding the Middle East for all alliances.

We only play the 1939 setup. If we played 1936, we would use Spanish Civil War as well.

Forgo - All others.
We considered Croatia at War, but after scrutinising the rules, we realised it didn’t do anything for the game. It doesn’t matter if there is a partisan or two.

We played OOB for a while. After we got “good” at it, i.e. good game flow, we started to add a few Expansions here and there where we felt we missed something. We only add a few new things at a time, taking it slow. The group has to adapt to the new rules/possibilities/units in the Expansions. That being said, there are many Expansions we would never use, because we feel they add nothing to the game - from a “Grand Strategic” point of view.

We think many of the Expansions go into a unnecessary level of detail. For example: SS Divisions, Minorities at War, almost all 3D printed units. Some people might like the extra detail, but we don’t. The extra level of detail restrict us from getting a fast-paced game going.

The ability to choose which Expansion you want to play with - if any - is an awesome concept.

@sjelso:

I am holding off on buying.  It just seems like it is too Beta.

My group has been playing the game for more than a year. In its current form it is very solid/polished.
… And far more balanced than anything A&A.

@Chris_Henry:

What did they say was being done with the new map? Is it meant to fix errors on the existing map? Or is it meant for one of their other Global War variants?

Some of the changes known so far:

• Small & wide railway gauges
• Minor ports (new facility) present on the board
• Jungle & possibly tundra (new terrain types)

Most changes can be implemented on current boards as well.

The new map is at least a year out.

Rank,

Nice charts! You sure does play with a lot of extra units (esp. ships).
Do you use chips to tell them a part on the board?

@GeneralHandGrenade:

Is there a link you would like me to provide or should I just direct viewers to this thread?

Feel free to do what you want  :-)

Finally, my “turn-tracker” page:

• Keep track of income during the game (all phases / 12 rounds)
• Neutral units that will be placed during the game (when, how many sculpts etc.)
• Vichy (we kept forgetting these)
• Sleeping Bear rolls
• Income tracker at start-up

During the game, keeping everything at your fingertips like this saves A LOT of time.

Global War Turn Tracker.pdf