Posts made by Wolfshanze

Thanks for the design clarification… appreciate the thoughts during design… I know in the game design business you will always be second guessed, and i’d be happy to toss in a “what about just a simple rule like subs can’t stop passage of units unless its unescorted transports…”  even if it’s just “one warship” which is the same rule you DID put in place for amphibious operations.  Oh well, i’m sure they won’t be putting out an A&A Third Edition rules, Wolfshanze-style!  lolz.  Oh well, that’s what house rules are for.

Thanks again for a great game… I know I might sound a little grumpy, but I always have loved A&A since 1984 when I first started playing, and I really can’t wait to introduce the game to my kids and get back into it again… in the end, my concerns in this thread are minor in the overall picture, and I know i’ll love it now like I did 30 years ago… fingers crossed my kids will feel the same!

The nerd in me would see me playing massive games of 1940 Global… I can totally see myself doing that… if I had no kids, didn’t have time obligations and had local friends into the same thing.  My realistic goal is 1942 SE… that will probably be my target for graduating the kids to at some point and I could see us having time to enjoy that scope as a family.  In the meantime, I know that 1941 is going to be the start… 1942 would overload my kids and turn them off before they begin… don’t want that… I’m glad they made 1941, and while it’s not exactly my cup of tea, it definitely has its place in the lineup for introducing new people to the franchise and/or for those just wanting a faster/simpler version.  I’ll be picking both 41 and 42 up later this week… can’t wait to get them in hand.

Oh I know the rules must be simple by definition… I don’t question that… this is not a historically accurate war simulator… I used to play Avalon Hills Third Reich boardgame back in the day (talk about detailed rules)… I don’t expect that from a Beer and Pretzels wargame like A&A… the thing that bothers me are absurd abstract rules that have already been handled better, or could obviously be handled better within the current scope and limit of the game.

As I understand it now, this is how the rules are currently in game:

1. a convoy of 10 unescorted transports can merrily sail right through a seazone with 20 Submarines patrolling without fear
2. the same 10 unescorted transports cannot disembark its cargo for an amphibious invasion in a seazone with 20 subs, but plop one battleship down, and all of the sudden its good to go for invasion, feel free to ignore the subs again.

While I am DEFINITELY new to the current version of A&A (hence my clarification questions), i’m not new to wargames in general, or A&A in-particular.  Those two above rules in red just strike me as silly and unrealistic… and yes, within the scope of what the game can handle abstractly, rules-wise.

I know they added new sub rules since A&A classic in an attempt to make sub warfare better/more realistic (otherwise they would have left those rules untouched since Classic).  IMHO, at least in the case of those two situations above… Second Edition has taken a clear step backwards in reality within the scope of the game… and needlessly, might I add.  In classic, both situations 1 and 2, the subs would have to be dealt with and could not be ignored.  I find the classic interpretation more realistic than the current rules.

I think situation 1 is pretty clear that you just dont want a bunch of unescorted transports sailing through sub-infested waters… it’s a REALLY BAD IDEA, and yet A&A 1942 clearly suggests its perfectly ok and safe to do so… this is not a “limitation of the scope of the game”… not at all… they could (and have in classic) very easily say “nope, sorry pal, a pack of subs is going to tear up your transports”.

In situation 2, it still doesn’t seem like a good idea to start unloading a whole bunch of transports in sub infested waters just because a battleship is off shore… subs would sneak right in again and cause chaos.  I might be able to see where they were going here, but they’d have to tweak the rules to say "you cant unload transports in sub infested waters UNLESS YOU HAVE A DESTROYER SCREEN, instead of just “any combat ship”.  Once again, doable within the scope of the game, and easy to word and implement.

Now, I don’t want to come off as some old grumpy guss, poo-pooing on the game after coming back after 30 years.  I’m in-fact very excited to pick up the game and start playing again, and look forward to about 99% of the new changes to the game.  A lot of the new sub rules ARE COOL and I totally agree with… the submerging rules are pretty well handled, as well as the sneak attacks and sub movement past everything but destroyers… i can get on board with that… it just irks me, that over the course of 30 years… SOMEBODY (Larry?), came along and had to consciously come to the conclusion that a pack of unescorted transports can safely move through sub infested waters without any fear at all… that was a change from “nope, subs are going to intercept and tear up that convoy, you better get some escorts”… I mean… that one really irks me… they changed it FROM transports need escorts around subs to “nah, just go ahead and sail on through pal, no worries”.  That’s not a “scale of the game limited that realism” factor… that one just was a plain glove across the face of realism for no apparent reason to me… somebody at Avalon Hill must’ve had a relative killed by a U-Boat, because they sure seem to have it out for subs.

Oh well, enough of my soapbox… I AM excited to pick up the game again… I know people do custom rules, and since I will be playing primarily with my kids (at least for starters), there will be some rule tweaks in this household… Thanks again to the kind folks on this forum, especially for the rules clarifications… I was finding it hard to believe what I was reading on some of them and came here to clarify the sub rules and you guys did that.  Kudos.

… You’d think when you click the link for 1942 SE replacements for America, they’d actually link you to 1942 SE Replacements for America… instead of giving you the guessing game of which color to pick to match the game.

I understand they offer multiple colors for various reasons, but they should say something like “D.Green matches the game, use Olive Drab to denote special units or minor allies” (or vice versa)… something to that effect.

Also, this Forum seems pretty awesome as a source and well established with a lot of members… was hoping SOMEBODY had actually used HBG for American units and had personal experience as to which is the actual no-joke color match.  Maybe i’ll have to order one of each and find out before placing a larger order.  Come to think about it… Japan might also have confusing almost-matching color choices too.

I will attempt to contact them and see if they respond, thanks for the suggestion.

P.S.
Private Panic… I imagine the answer HBG always gives you is “when there is peace in the Middle East, we will have them”.

I’m perfectly fine jumping straight back into A&A 1942 SE personally… but its not all about me… I have two young children who are currently enjoying family games of Risk… so they need a gentle climb into the A&A World… if I shoved 42 SE at them i’d probably give them a heart attack.  I’d love to have 24 IC’s just as a cushion… and I currently have 12… might try and find some 2nd hand somewhere.

Ok, once again, i know you’re clarifying the rules… I used the “single surface ship” to kinda drive home the silliness of the scenario… so if 10 (or 50 or 100) subs were off the coast, and one surface ship escorted the transports… the entire invasion force could then safely ignore the fleet of subs and unload… that’s how the rules are written?  [sigh]… unfortunately… i was getting that thought…, and you clarified that it is indeed the case… but man, that just blows my mind.
:-o

Thanks again for the swift clarification!  :-D

@P@nther:

Hello Wolfschanze, welcome to the forum :-)

Please see

@rulebook:

A transport that is part of an amphibious assault must end its movement in a friendly sea zone from which it can conduct the
assault. It can also end its movement in a hostile sea zone that could become friendly as a result of sea combat. However,
a transport cannot ignore enemy submarines to offload land units for an amphibious assault unless at least one warship
belonging to the attacking power is also present in the sea zone at the end of the Combat Move phase.

So in your example the transports can still move into the same seazone but they need to be escorted by a warship in order to be allowed to unload.
The attacker may choose to either ignore the submarines or to try to clear the seazone from your subs before unloading, then.

If the transports were loaded during the same combat move phase moving them there without escort would be illegal, as they cannot be unloaded when they are not escorted:

QUESTION:
Ok… so I understand 5 transports unescorted, cannot enter a seazone with 10 enemy subs and just unload for amphibious warfare… I got that… but i’m still a tad confused on the whole “unless escorted by a warship” thingie… if escorted by a warship, can they STILL ignore the subs and just unload?  Or does the warship HAVE to clear all 10 enemy subs before the transports can then unload?

@P@nther:

Just imagine a seazone being as big as hundreds or thousands of square-miles. It is not unlikely that they miss each other then…

Oh trust me… i know “in the real world”, ships can get by other ships without being noticed in the big deep blue see… but we’re talking about the rules in the game here and attempting to make sense and/or justify them… I know you’re going by what the rules say… but if we’re going to apply real-world logic here… the rules would say “a 40 sub wolf pack will completely miss a fleet of unescorted transports sailing by 100% of the time… because… well… big blue ocean”, while at the same time it wants us to believe “a single surface ship will always catch same transports in the exact same big blue ocean 100% of the time”… sorry… i’m not going to try and apply that logic to this case.

It just seems to me all this “transports may sail completely oblivious to subs with no worries” rule completely invalidates any and all reasons for submarine warfare… the original classic A&A rules (where subs were treated just like any other warship) seems more realistic then the “subs basically don’t exist at all” rules in the current “more realistic” version.

I know you’re answering my question(s) to what is stated in the rules, and I appreciate the clarification… but my military historian brain is having a hard time grasping the real-world correlation here.  I have a real hard time grasping a 40 sub wolfpack being completely oblivious to a large number of transports sailing through its zone unnoticed while a single destroyer would find and nab them every time.  The Chewbacca Defense seems in play here.  I can see subs sailing past a group of ships that have no anti-sub defense (no destroyers), but I have a much harder time seeing a gang of transports sail merrily on by a wolfpack of subs.  I think some house rules may have to be put in play here for my household… this hurts my mind too much to let it slip by unchanged.

Anyways, once again… a SINCERE thank you for the official book rules clarification… if you (or anyone else) could still clarify my one remaining question above in red, that would be great… the rules seem shady on Submarine warfare, even though they tried to do something “more realistic” over classic A&A, even though i think they may have not ended with the best rules in-place.
:?

Ugh… I opened up side by side pictures of the default game with HBG Dark Green and Olive Drab and I thought for sure it was Dark Green… ugh…

Hello… quick question on what seems really odd to me… reading over the rules, it seems very, VERY clear that Subs alone in a seazone don’t interfere with enemy ships moving in or through their zone… seems super odd to me, I would think this would be more the option of the Sub captain to be seen or not seen (destroyers not-withstanding), when enemy ships pass through his zone… especially lone transports… so, having said that, I have two questions of clarification:

1. If i’m reading the rules right… if I had 10 subs (alone) in a seazone, and 5 enemy transports, without any escort were loaded up with troops, they could sail merrily right by my 10 submarines as if I wasn’t there on their turn!!!

2. In the same situation above, if 5 unescorted transports loaded with troops ended their combat move in my seazone with 10 subs, with the intent of unloading a bunch of units for an amphibious invasion of the bordering land territory to said seazone… is there any combat between the unescorted transports and my subs, or do the transports just merrily unload their troops for invasion because my subs are super unnoticeable and too lazy to intercept?

I’m super unsure about #2… but i’m fairly certain rule #1 is in-play… which as a big historian on WWII naval combat, and knowing the whole point of Wolfpacks intercepting transports loaded with equipment… this seems really odd that a convoy of unescorted transports can sail clean through a plethora of U-Boats without harm.

Just a clarification here in case I’m going color blind… if I order American Sculpts from HBG for A&A 1942 SE… there’s two choices… Dark Green and Olive Green… if I’m wanting to match the default 1942 SE American unit color, I order Dark Green, right?

@CWO:

The artillery pieces can be used to provide artillery to China in Global 1940.

Ah… but there are no artillery pieces in A&A Classic!  :wink:

Anyways, thanks for the info guys!

A&A Classic comes with 12 Industrial Complexes (and I do have all 12)… is that enough for A&A 1942 SE?  How many IC’s tend to get used in an average game?

Hello… wasn’t really sure where to put this thread, as I’m interested in both A&A 42SE and A&A 41 after taking a 30 year hiatus on playing A&A.

As a teen in the 80s, I used to play on my (now retro-named) 1984 copy of A&A Classic… I played it A LOT back in the 80s… I then moved on with life… fast forward 30 years later, I am now retired with children who I may be able to get into my old hobby, and I’m planning on picking up A&A 1941 to introduce the kids to the game and eventually (fingers crossed) graduate them to 1942 SE.

Having seen the rather shortfall list of units in the default A&A 1941, I’m probably just going to go ahead and pick up A&A 1942 SE as well and merge the sculpts together for a deeper pool of units for either game… finally, I did an attic crawl, and low-and-behold, I dug up my 30+ years old copy of A&A Classic, still complete with everything that was in that original game.

So my question to you fine people with much experience in the current releases of A&A… what (if anything) is worth salvaging from the old 1984 Classic A&A game that I could use with either/both A&A 1941 and/or A&A 1942 SE?  Any sculpts, ICs, IPCs, IP-tracker board, Battle Board, chips… anything?  Nothing?

Thanks for the answers again guys, especially the detailed answer on the color matching… that’s a help for sure.  I decided to go up into the attic and dig through some old boxes… 30 years later, I dug out my 1984 copy of Axis and Allies (now “Classic”)… a little worn, but still intact.  Guess there’s some free chips, IPC bank notes and 12 factories… I don’t suppose any of the sculpts are useable, but oh well.

Thanks again… are the national colors standardized across the different versions of the game (from the same edition)?  Like, if I bought the current A&A 1941 SE, and also bought A&A 1942 SE, would (for example) the Japanese units have the same color from 41 and 42?  ie: would the infantry and sculpts all be in the same shade of (orange/red?) from 1941 and 1942?  I know older (like 1st edition) may not be the same, but if I bought the current 1941 SE and 1942 SE, would the national colors be the same (like same shade of US Green and what-not)?

Or do I have to keep multiple 1941 editions together to get a color match for 1941, and the same for 1942 respectively?

Sorry for all the questions… I like putting everything together correctly before I even open up the case… I think I will search my attic too for the classic A&A, if nothing more than to steal the IPCs and Industrial Complexes.

Thanks to both CWO Marc and Private Panic for your replies.  Some good thoughts there… I was thinking about either ordering a bunch of spares from HBG or perhaps buying a 2nd copy of 1941… but there is some thought about just going ahead and buying 1942SE and combining both sets for a deeper pool of units for either game.

Also, nobody really mentioned how available extra units from HBG is… is the site reliable for getting spares from or (as with the industrial complexes) are a lot of units “out of stock” for indefinite periods of time?

I often scour websites for spares (I got a “super set” for Risk by combining multiple editions as well), and I might also try that route for A&A if its cheaper… also, the Youtube channel “The Cliffside Bunker” specializes in A&A and has a lot of great ideas about custom sets and industrial complexes and what-not (even stealing Industrial complexes from the 2008 Risk edition for A&A).  Through my returning research, I’ve found a lot of comments on the lack of industrial complexes (replaced by cardboard cutouts, yuch)… if HBG never has any… I might have to break into my attic… its possible I might still have my 1984 Classic A&A set up there somewhere… I could steal the chips, IPCs and industrial complexes if I can find it! lolz.  To be honest, I’m not sure if its up there or if its long gone… I don’t remember its fate.

I have seen multiple references to “printing your own map”… how does one go about that… you get the file and take it to a Kinkos or something?  How much does something like that normally run?  Curious about that process.

Thanks again for the input, I’m welcome to take any advice on the matter.

Hello… this is my first post on this site.  I used to play a lot of A&A (Classic) back in the 1980s as a teenager back when there was only one version of the game!  I was also heavy into other Avalon Hill wargames back in the day, but as life moved on, I joined the military, moved onto computer wargaming (Panzer General & Pacific General were some of my favorites), eventually retired after 20 years, settled down and had children of my own (now with an 8yo son and 10yo daughter).

Now that my children are getting a bit older, I have started going back to showing them something other than Nintendo and computer games… (the old “back in my day” comes to mind… God, have I become that now?)… they both became addicted to Stratego, and when we couldn’t all play together, I put together a custom Risk set (based on the 1993 edition) and we’ve been playing a lot of family Risk games together lately.

While my own personal dream of having the entire family hunched over a massive custom table of A&A Global will probably never happen, I have thought that I might be able to introduce them to A&A on a more kid & family-friendly learning curb… trying to catch up after 30 years of not playing A&A, I’ve come to realize all the many different versions that have come out in my absence and it looks like A&A 1941 is probably the best place to start with my kids (and maybe even with me, as it’s been awhile).

If you all haven’t fallen asleep by now, here comes my thoughts/questions… doing pre-purchase research (don’t have the game yet)… I’ve seen a lot of comments about the utter lack of units for this game and that a lot of people who’ve picked it up say there’s not enough units to play the game comfortably out of the box.

I’m not averse to customizing the game with buying extra stuff for it… (I beefed up my own 1993 Risk set with a lot of extra stuff as it was), and I’m aware of the HBG site and the units it sells.  I understand the game comes with the following for each of the 5 nations:
8 infantry, 5 tanks, 4 fighters, 2 bombers, 4 transports, 3 subs, 2 destroyers, 2 carriers, 2 BBs (and no IPCs).

My main question(s) are the following:

1. Just how much more should I be getting for each nation?  Double the units? More/less than double?
2. If it is double or close to double, is a 2nd purchase of the game cheaper than buying all that from HBG?
3. I noticed the Axis (and Allies likewise) share sculpts in 1941… like Japanese Heinkels and Tigers and American JS tanks (ick)… as a stickler for reality and long time student of WWII history, would buying units from other A&A games from the HBG site blend in size & color-wise with the default 1941 units or would they clash with one another?
4. Aside from units, what else (if any) should I look at to bolster the A&A 1941 set?  What else might be lacking that could be made better… IPCs are missing I believe, and I think some hard currency would be better then pen and pencil tracking.  Anything else to consider?
5. Relying on the HBG site sounds good in theory, if I could just click on whatever I want and get it… but I’ve heard some grumbles about stuff often being out of stock… is that still common or will I have issues getting things off the HBG site?

Thanks again for any help/suggestions… its been a LONG time since I’ve played A&A, and while I do have a goal of eventually picking up A&A 1942 SE, I think it’s probably best to take baby steps with my young children and graduate them slowly from Risk… I just want the A&A set we move to, to be as complete and ready for a fun experience as possible, and I’ve heard a lot of grumbles about the A&A 1941 set to be short on units.