Posts made by tkroll

Enterprise
Bismark
Arizona (first model I ever tried to build)

Favorite fictional ship “The Sea Wolf” Operation Petticoat heh heh

from revised and original-

“Russian Soldiers have no bullets!”

I have a buddy who always breaks out in “Hail Brittania her navy rules the sea!” unless he just sunk said navy with Germany. Then he sings “Hail Brittania her navy is nonexistant”

The best was silence at my buddy’s face trying to catch flies when his invasion of UK was thwarted by a new player rolling 7 out of 10 hits on AA.

The Allies would have lost. Hitler’s turning on Russia at the time and place he did was one of the biggest reasons his thousand year Reich failed when it did. I am sure most people on these forums have tried out the USSR neutral scenario. Just with them neutral the game becomes much more difficult.

FDR was playing for time prior to Pearl Harbor. He had already comment the US to a virtual state of war in the Atlantic and had sent Pacific naval units over to the Atlantic already. Maybe the atom bomb could have still shifted the balance. But the allies weren’t the only ones working on technology. Conflict with Japan was coming, their preemptive strike on Pearl Harbor brought the USA in too early.

The novelization of the third movie was much better than the actual movie itself. All three of the prequels should have been scrapped or redone….That being said here my quirks…

The SSD Executor crashing into the Death Star…cmon there had to be a back up bridge or cic…

The whole “What I told you was true, from a certain point of view” line

Millions of dollars (credits) worth of military equipment destroyed by vines, logs, teddy bears, and harpoons and tow cables.

The change of Darth Vader’s line in the updated version of ESB- “alert my star destroyer to prepare for my arrival, provide fan fare and a fresh pot of coffeee…” ok made the last part up…

The silly Jabba dance scene…lame…

Last point two star wars recoomendations- Robot Chicken’s poke at Star Wars and Star Wars Episode Three The Lost Hope…

Hayden Christianson dubbed over the original ghost of Anakin in updated ROTJ.

Remove all Star Wars Novels starting with Vector Prime all the way to the most recent ones.

Read all of Tolkein’s books. I am also sucked into LOTR Online.

The Dune series has some excellent novels. Aside from Dune itself, the House books are all enjoyable reads. I actually enjoy most of Brian Herbert’s books more than his fathers.

I know I am not the only fan of of Timothy Zahn’s Star Wars novels. I recommend those to any and all fans of Star Wars. I see Grand Admiral Thrawn posts here. The best bad guy in the Star Wars universe besides Vader.  Too bad the guys in charge of the books now don’t deal more with Zahn and fire all the New Jedi Order and Legacy of the Farce crowd.

Jordan’s Wheel of Time series is a favorite as well. It is a shame he passed away before finishing it. The fellow finishing Memory of Light broke the novel up into three parts but has done very well so far.

It definitely would have lengthened the war in both theaters. It probably would not have changed the outcome because we could out produce Japan in every capacity. Also some of the Japanese leader understood they could not beat the United States in a drawn out war. That was one of the reasons for the strike on Pearl Harbor, keep the US out of the war long enough to secure the pacific. The only way the eventual outcome could have changed is a loss of support for the war. A democracy is the hardest government to fight a war with and public opinion can do a lot more damage to campaign than a lost battle.

On the other hand, midway would have been the second successful “Long Shot” gamble that Japan had undertaken. It may have only been a matter of time until they took one that failed.

Patton is one of the most interesting characters in WW2.

First of all look at how the Germans feared him. They were terrified of the man. Secondly a good many of Patton’s strategic and tactical viewpoints came to pass about both the 2nd World War and the Cold War. The man also had a sense of justice. He forced German civilians that tried to ignore the existence of the concentration camps to walk through the horrors there. As a tactician and commander I doubt we had anyone better than Patton.

The man had his faults certainly. The two incidents of slapping a soldier (he discharged a firearm in at least one of those, not sure about the second), he always seemed to have trouble managing his supply lines, and he always had trouble keeping his opinions quiet. He blundered severely sending troops to liberate a POW camp that happened to have his son in law as a prisoner. Patton never believed in shell shock, “battle fatigue”.

I really enjoyed Rick Atkinson’s first two books (Army at Dawn and Day of Battle). Patton is a major player in Army At Dawn (focused on North Africa). In the second book Patton is involved briefly but you learn many of his predictions about the fight in Italy prove to be correct. I look forward to third which focuses from D-day to the end of the war. I was disappointed in the amount of time Jeff Shaara devoted to Patton in “No Less Than Victory”. True a wealth of information is already recorded about Patton but writing any WW@ novel without Patton would be like writing about the Shenandoah Valley without mentioning Stonewall Jackson.

I believe that some authors portray Patton with a bias and marginalize Patton (most notably alternative writer Harry Turtledove). Part of this is because Patton offers so much stuff to criticize in his character. Part of it also comes from the fact it is popular to criticize anyone that could be considered conservative today.

Patton
Midway
A Bridge Too Far
The Longest Day
Tora, Tora, Tora

fun ones: Father Goose, Operation Petticoat

worst one I have seen: Pearl Harbor- more like lame love story with Pearl Harbor back drop.

I liked the book for Flags of our Fathers but didn’t care much for the movie.

Thanks for all the feedback. I really appreciate it. I plan on cannibalizing a copy of the cheap new game, using the downloadable map, and picking up my own dice (to blazes with ugly dice- if I am putting it together I will use dice I like).

Still might pick up pac. 1940- I like playing with navy pieces what can I say?

Thanks again.

Missed out on AA 50. I was wondering for those of you who have tried both AA50 and Pac 1940 which game was more fun to play. If you could pick up either Anniversary or the two new theatre games which would you pick and why?

Basically  I am torn between picking up  the new Pac and Europe theaters or just saving up and picking an overpriced version of the Anniversary Edition.
I like most of what I have read about both games. The only thing I don’t like about the new Pac version is the apparent attempt to cut corners. The only thing I don’t like about the Anniversary edition is the current price tag.

I was watching that auction- the first bid I saw was 120- and then it went up until it sold.
Not sure if that makes it any better….

Speaking of that map where would you go to have it printed out? Would a kinko’s do it? Would just lamenating the map work or would you (probably) have to give it a cardboard or other backing?

Patton- as mentioned above an Obvious choice.
Tora, Tora, Tora! A bridge too Far, Midway, The Longest Day……All good choices.

Kinda surprised no one suggested Red Dawn (fiction and not ww2 but still). They Were Expendable and Operation Petticoat are a couple of good old time movies. Who doesn’t like the Duke or Cary Grant? For that matter what about Father Goose? Nothing wrong with a little laughter with the roll of the dice.

Sometimes a good movie is actually a kids/disney movie to acquire the addition of kidlets so grown ups can play. While I dearly hope my kids will like AandA as well as other board games, trying to persuade a 3 year old not grab die and the board is rather difficult. He looks with wonderment at what we are doing but his idea of fun is the toddler nuclear war…

We have talked about using some of the mini pieces for the board game- never done it but the discussion involved paying more for a named battleship or carrier and maybe requiring an extra hit to take it out, an extra attack die, land more aircraft on the carrier, something like that…

Mostly we wanted to use them for the sake of appearance…

What killed the deal was a lack of American Carriers (Big E is tough to get- ebay I guess) and an over abundance of the Japanese Carriers. Both sides have about the same number of Battleships in our collections.

Any players in or close to Reno, NV?
I have played the Original, Revised, and original European and Pac Theaters. I haven’t played the new Pac or Anniversary edition.

terrenceroll@msn.com

I will be buying online after Christmas. As for supporting my local game store…They want 90 bucks for the game. Amazon wants 60. I would happily pay 90 or more for a reprint of anniversary (which I missed out on) but based on what I have read online this game, while it looks like a lot fun, isn’t up to snuff with no IPCs, a lack of pieces, and rule book that is filled with errata and misspellings.  The main reason I am considering this game is to combine with upcoming europe (I don’t think a reprint of AA 50 is really coming based on posts here and at WOTC).

I have good collection of navy minatures which might help with the lack of tac bombers…not really sure yet.