It seems that looking all the “talk” that the “standard” move by the USA in Europe is to take Norway, build a factory and funnel troops into USSR or use it as a airbase for Strat. Bombers on Germany. The “key” to the Norway USA tactic is they can purchase 3 units every turn and not have to shuttle them across the pond.
SO
Why is it a waste of 12IPC for Germany to build a minor factory in Norway on turn 1 and stack it with INF for either defense or funnel into Northern USSR?
@Benito:
OMG THERE ARE TOO MANY CATS!� CURTMUNGUS IS RIGHT!
There must be Blood for these outrageous crimes against A&A, Humanity, and the Internet.
I Demand a DUEL!� PainState YOU must answer!
Again, I back Gargantua. Sorry but you will be in a pain state painstate
What is all this talk about cats? Is this some hipster lingo Iam not familiar with due to my advanced age?
Iam a blue blood Gen X American who drinks beer from a 64oz stein as I roll a hand full of dice and decimate you with 27 1’s on 30 rolls and just let out a laugh as I dominate you at A&A. Of course I do not spill one drop of my beer as I dance around the board in celebration, listening to your cries of getting diced.
OMG THERE ARE TOO MANY CATS! CURTMUNGUS IS RIGHT!
There must be Blood for these outrageous crimes against A&A, Humanity, and the Internet.
I Demand a DUEL! PainState YOU must answer!
A duel you say? Against a cat? Well, good sir, I sadly do not own a cat any more.
A duel with me? Well, PainState is always down for a duel. You are not some ANTIFA punk I hope.
:-o
@Benito:
The 1944 June set up you could finish in 4 hours…
The best Avalon Hill game of the 80’s was Squad leader. We played the crap out of that game.How is one supposed to win at a 1944 set up as Germany?
Agreed, Squad Leader is pressing A&A hard for the #1 slot on my most played list. I know that’s heresy in the A&A world but…
Germany wins if the Allies have not taken Berlin by the end of the Fall of 1945. If Allies take Berlin in the Summer of 1945 it is a draw and any earlier than Summer of 45 is a Allies Victory.
FYI….Third Reich is split into 4 turns. Winter/spring/summer/fall.
You want complicated… I used to play Avalon Hill’s Third Reich board game back in the early 80s (before I moved on to the classic A&A of 1984)… now this took hours to setup and even longer to figure out the rulebook… games would take weeks!
Interesting. I found Third Reich very easy to understand and play. You just have to get used to how Avalon Hill wrote the rule books back in the 70’s and 80’s. Our group moved on to a more advanced game in SPI WWII Europe and then SPI Pacific and then moved on World in Flames.
Third Reich can be played in about 16 hours for the entire war with experienced players. The 1944 June set up you could finish in 4 hours.
They came out with Third Reich Second Edition that incorporated a lot of concepts from other contemporary WWII games like World In Flames. I have not played second edition but I understand it takes a long time now to play compared to 1st ed, the picture you posted. I still have my original copy of Third Reich in my game collection that I had from the 80’s when I was in high school.
The best Avalon Hill game of the 80’s was Squad leader. We played the crap out of that game.
@WILD:
Your other points are valid but the main reality that will determine the game is the push for Moscow in the middle of the map IMO.
I do agree with this. If Germany (after they have steam rolled Leningrad and Moscow) and Japan (after they steam roll India) meet in the middle east then the war is over for the Allies.
That is why the game is so much fun and challenging. There is no one way to win. Plus, we can discuss, with no resolution in sight on various tactics.
Example: I do not think Germany is steam rolling Russia with out Italy controlling all the Med, moving down in Africa and huge in the middle east. Then again some players could post match reports on You tube of Italy all over the world yet Germany and Japan are conquered, strange things happen in this game.
:-D
@Caesar:
#2 is wrong based on my experience. I was ANZAC and they were completed captured and invaded by Japan and China, UK, and US was working Japan over on the mainland.
Wait, what? Japan knocked out ANZAC early? That just proves the point that ANZAC is very important to the allied war effort in the Pacific. In fact you could ask this question.
Is it not important for Japan to focus all effort on killing off ANZAC or reducing them to the point of useless no later than turn 4-5?
Let me clarify what I mean. If you can reduce ANZAC to the point of 10 ICP or less they are not contributing troops to the fight. They are only providing territorial support to the USA in the terms of ports/airbases and landing zones for ground troops. At that point only the USA is directly attacking Japan and ANZAC is just sitting there.
Iam a new player to 1940 and have only played 2 games so far. I have wasted to much of my life force watching you tube videos of 1940 and all the strategy and helpful insight the community has provided me. In fact my wife would say if I dedicated as much time to watching 1940 videos and thinking about this game and put that to something useful, like how to make more money my family would be rich at this point.
I have determined there are 3 harsh realities of 1940 based on the advice and tactical discussions on You Tube.
#1 Italy is the key to success for Germany. IF Italy is contained early in the game by the Allies and can never gain any traction in terms of IPC production. Germany will be under serious strife as the game moves along.
#2 ANZAC is the key to success for the Allies in the Pacific. If ANZAC can in the opening 5 turns of the game get their NO’s and build up IPC production, be a thorn in the side of Japan. That USA and UK on the Pacific map will have a much easier time to defeat Japan.
#3 Japan is the key Axis nation if the Axis powers will win the game. If Japan is reduced to a role of total defense, low IPC levels and stuck in the “corner”, taking body blows left and right, it is over for German/Italy, in less they have had a serious success on their side of the map.
All of the post battle reports on 1940 that have been posted have shown that the Axis win, big time, when Italy and Japan go hog wild. When the Allies win they have totally dominated Italy and Japan to the point of total defense and then the Axis just quit. I have yet scene a video or review that the Allies won by going all in on Germany and dominating them and ignoring Italy and Japan. I think that is because in order to go all in on Germany and knock them out requires so much, time, IPC and some good luck. That by the time all three of those factors come together in turn 8-10 that Italy and Japan have gone so hog wild it is pointless at that point. Most likely Japan will have achieved its VC by then and the war is over.
What do you guys think?
Are my 3 Realities of 1940 good or just hog wash by some new player?
So, we are playing our first game of 1940 and 2 rules issues came up.
#1 If you declare a combat and move in your units on the combat move phase, conduct the combat and the attacker wins.
Does the attacker have to move all his land units that he declared, in the combat move phase, to enter the defeated territory?
OR
Can he elect not to move his units into the territory and let the defender keep the territory, albeit it is now void of units? Or can he just move 1 INF into the space and leave all the other units in the attacking territories and not move in?
(during the game we decided that the attacker had to move all the attacking land units into the territory because they declared they had moved into the territory) This was a issue because the attacker just wanted to beat down the defender and not take the territory because of the counter attack from another territory.
#2 Germany on T2 goes in on Sea Lion. They commit all their air units into London for the invasion. Germany has 5 TRS a Battleship and a Cruiser. UK scrambles its two FTRS and engage the invasion. Germany gets diced hard and loses its Battleship and Cruiser.
During the game we decided that since the attacker had lost all its combat ships that the TRS fell under the defenseless TRS rule and all the German TRS were lost and all the cargo went to the bottom of the Channel.
Looking up the rules the next day it seems that the TRS could of at the start of Turn 3 Combat Round, the surface German ships were sunk at the end of Round 2 of the combat phase, retreated one sea zone and then in the non combat phase move all the land units into Belgium or W. Germany. Is this the way that combat should of gone? The TRS could of retreated and called off the invasion?
Side Note: Even though the naval invasion was a dicing of the highest order. The German Air Force that committed to the attack on London totally diced the defenders and out of 7 rolls hit on 6 of them and only took one hit in return and smashed the UK defense in a big way. Needless to say the Air Force retreated on the second round of combat to safety.
In our group when rules discussion come up in less a player can find the rule in reasonable time frame we just move on with the groups ruling and then go back after the game and put on our rules lawyer hat and hash it out. We have found that intense rules discussions during game session are a serious drag and just bog down the entire game.
Thanks.
@CWO:
I have to think that once all 4 of us get up to speed with 1940 that the amount of time it takes to play the game will start to go down very rapidly and we could, most likely finish a game in 3 game sessions, with each session played at around 4-6 hours. We will find out though.�
From a mechanical point of view, the primary difficulty with playing A&A Global 1940 over several sessions is that the game involves a large map board covered with many plastic sculpts, mini-poker chips and base markers.� � This means that someone would more or less need to have a dedicated gaming area or room where the game could be left set up from week to week; otherwise, the dispositions at the end of one session would need to be recorded, then reconstructed at the beginning of the next session.� � And even the dedicated-room option has potential flaws if you have kids or cats or both.� �
No worries from our game groups part on this account. We are all in our 40’s � and between the 4 of us have 2 palatial game rooms of titanic proportions. We have the 1940 map set up and with room to spare if we want to upgrade with grasshoppers increased sized map and still have room for coasters for our beer on the sides of the map.
This is one of the perks of being in your 40’s and having a job, FYI. � � � :-D
Now on the issue of keeping the map intact over a few days or a week, well, my friend got rid of the cat. So, no need to worry about cat Armageddon on the map board.
** Foot Note **
Just for full disclosure.
All 4 of us are married and we all have kids. Now one of them is an old dude. He used to be our history teacher in school (80’s) and coached on the football team. He was the one who got us into WWII board games by playing World In Flames 1st ED after school in the 80’s. He is still in town and plays with us.
I have to think that once all 4 of us get up to speed with 1940 that the amount of time it takes to play the game will start to go down very rapidly and we could, most likely finish a game in 3 game sessions, with each session played at around 4-6 hours. We will find out though. :-o
If you play World in Flames, once a week for 4-6 hours. It will take you around 6-7 months to finish the war to its conclusion if you start the game in Sept/Oct 1939 with the invasion of Poland.
If you start at  mar/Apr 1941 at the invasion of Russia and can play 7 days straight for around 10-12 hours a day you will finish in 7 days.
Of course this all based on if Germany can even hold out to get a draw if the Allies do not conqueror Germany by June/July 1945.
Hello to all you on the A&A 1940 forums.
Iam a new 1940 player, have played A&A since the 1980’s.
My group just switched over to 1940 because of its breath of strategic options, time and well, A&A is just fun because of its simplicity.
We normally played World in Flames or SPI WWII, yet those games, no matter how good, take forever to play.
The nice thing is our group of 4 players are all new to 1940 so we will all learn together this game. We started up our first game last week end and got to the end of turn 2 and will start up again tonight at the top of the order of round 3 with Germany going all in on London.
I have a lot of thoughts and stuff and over time will be active on the forums, discussing all things related to 1940.
Cya guys around.
