Axis & Allies Global 1940

Friday 5 Nov 2010 was Deepavali, a public holiday in Malaysia. Instead of lazing at home or wasting our youth at shopping centres, Allen, Heng, Wong and I spent a productive work-like 9-to-5 day at Allen's place, playing for the first time Axis & Allies Global 1940 (AAG40), which combines Axis & Allies Pacific 1940 (AAP40) and Axis & Allies Europe 1940 (AAE40) into one monster of a game. I have played half a game of AAP40 once, but have not even played AAE40 by itself. Here's how our game went.

We all reached Allen's place before 9am, all having already eaten breakfast. They have even printed out the reference sheets that I sent just a day ago. I had originally planned to arrive slightly earlier to set up the game, but Heng and Wong arrived very soon after I did, and we ended up all setting up the game together. Setup plus a quick overview of the rules took us an hour, I think about 40mins for setup, 20mins for rules.

Note: Sorry that some of the photos are blurry. Many were taken in a hurry while playing.

The starting setup. We had to play on the floor because the game board was just too big.

From the point of view of the Germans. Lots of U-boats (submarines) in the Atlantic ready to sink merchant ships (reduce income of the Allies). France is moderately well defended, but everyone knows it will fall to the Germans soon.

In AAG40, Russia and USA are initially not at war, and may only join the action in Round 4, unless provoked, by being attacked, or USA may also enter war if Japan attacks UK or ANZAC. This is one of the key differences between the 1940 series and previous A&A games. You start at an earlier point in history.

Heng and Allen contemplating the board. Heng played Germany and Italy, Allen played Japan. Wong played Russia, France and China. I played UK, ANZAC and USA. We decided on the country groupings up front, and then randomly assigned the players.

France had just fallen to the Germans. A French destroyer and a British cruiser have been sunk off the coast of Denmark. Heng didn't attack the my two British battleships.

After Japan's first turn. Allen pushed inland into China. He also interrupted the Burma Road on the left. Keeping the Burma Road open is important for the Chinese because it gives a bonus $6 and also allows China to build artillery. Normally China can only build infantry. Japan bought two minor factories on its first turn, and at the end of its turn, placed them in Kiangsu and Manchuria.

Japan attacked Russia early. All those planes were attacking Amur. In hindsight, Wong (Russia) probably should have moved his two stacks of infantry up from Buryatia and Sakha.

UK quickly claimed Sumatra and Java. In AAG40, the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) can be claimed by the British or ANZAC and will generate income for them. If Japan enters them, it is an act of war against UK/ANZAC. However Japan can attack French Indochina without provoking UK, ANZAC or USA.

The British Royal Navy had sunk the German fleet off the coast of Denmark, taking revenge for the small fleet lost earlier. I wished I could enter the Baltic sea to sink that lonely German transport. In AAG40, to go past certain straits or canals, your side must control one or two specific territories next to the straits or canals. In this case, Denmark for the Danish Strait. For the Suez Canal, you need both Egypt and Trans-Jordan. For the Strait for Gibraltar, you need Gibraltar.

The two British battleships were tilted to one side to show that they had taken damage and needed repairs.

Egypt fell easily to the Italians. I didn't put up a good enough fight. I had evacuated Alexandria to stall for time. My ships in the Mediterranean ran away via the Suez Canal early, and eventually went to fight in the Pacific arena. My ships near Gibraltar never entered the Mediterranean. They had gone north to fight the German fleet. So when the Italians did an amphibious landing to attack Egypt, they could do shore bombardment. I didn't have any warships to distract their warships.

that caramel truck at the centre is a mechanised infantry, a new unit type introduced in the 1940 series. Cost $4, attack 1, defend 2, move 2.

USA couldn't fight yet, and on its first turn it amassed its units in Hawaii, while building more in San Francisco. All my early builds were dedicated to the Pacific theatre.

In the 1940 series there is now a new type of plane, the medium sized tactical bomber. Cost $11, attack 3, defend 3, move 6, and attack becomes 4 when paired with a fighter or a tank. It's cheaper than a bomber and more expensive than a fighter. You can think of it as getting a cheaper bomber with better defense, though shorter range. Pretty decent.

China (light green) counter-attacked in order to reopen the Burma Road.

They were successful. When placing new troops, the new troops were placed in the newly recaptured territory to defend the Burma Road. This is an exception unique for China. Normally you are not allowed to build units at newly captured factories. However China doesn't use factories. New units can be placed anywhere.

All the above happened in Round 1 of the game, and it took us slightly more than 2 hours.

This was round Round 3. Germany finally attacked Russia, pushing towards Archangel in the north, and also attacking south. The Germans had been efficient in gathering support (i.e. free infantry) from pro-Axis neutral countries. This is a new concept in the 1940 series. You can enter a friendly neutral country (i.e. pro- your side) during non-combat move, and it becomes your territory, not only giving you a one-time infantry bonus, but also long-term income. Finland in the north, and Bulgaria in the south, were both pro-Axis, and both had been claimed by the Germans.

Egypt had fallen to the Italians. UK had built some units at the minor factory in South Africa. They were now trudging slowly north.

Japan interrupted Burma Road again. Look at that stack of 8 Japanese fighters and 5 tactical bombers in southern China. There are more further north next to Mongolia. The Japanese has so many planes! They do seem to be short on infantry (but then they are cheap), and transports. Allen didn't buy transports early and opted to build 2 minor factories on the Asian mainland on his first turn.

The British troops (biege) had slowly advanced to Burma and Shan State. ANZAC (grey) had sent their fighters to South East Asia. Some British ships from the Mediterranean had reached West India. They would eventually combine with the Indian Ocean fleet to fight the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN). This was Turn 2. Hong Kong had not fallen because the Japanese had not attacked yet.

USA continued to amass a big fleet and a big air force in Hawaii. Some of these planes had flown all the way from New York. The Americans wanted to put more focus on the Japanese.

The Italians were unstoppable in Africa.

This was Round 3. Japan had attacked UK and USA, so USA could start attacking now. Hong Kong fell swiftly, and the Philippines too. Learning from my earlier game of AAP40 with Han, I had vacated the Filipino bomber and fighter earlier. The Japanese had built some transports by now. The Imperial Japanese Navy were split into two groups, one defending the homeland and the other in South East Asia.

The Japanese/Russian front had been very quiet after the first skirmish. Japan was planning to advance towards Moscow via China and not Siberia.

A British fleet had assembled in India, preparing to take on the IJN.

Off the coast of UK, the British fleet had been wiped out by the German air force, with heavy losses on the German side too. Germany then rebuilt their navy, and they gained naval superiority. The British only had a few destroyers offering token resistance. With Operation Sealion being a real threat, UK had to stock up on homeland defense.

One new concept introduced in AAG40 is that the British European funds and British Pacific funds are tracked separately. Money for one arena can only be used for purchasing units in the same arena. This means less flexibility, but one advantage is if a British capital falls, you will only lose part of your money. The other arena is not affected. Calcutta is the British capital in the Pacific arena.

The first major movement of the US Pacific fleet was to go north to the Aleutian Islands. My bombers would be in range of the Sea of Japan there, and if I later recaptured the Soviet Far East from Japan, they could be based there and could be used to strategic bomb Japan.

In the following round, the US Pacific fleet struck at the IJN off the Japanese homeland. Three fighters in Japan scrambled to help defend.

The Japanese were outnumbered and had poorer die rolls than the Americans, and thus lost the battle. I made a mistake here. A damaged aircraft carrier should not have been able to carry planes. I should probably have lost an additional plane and carrier. Sorry Allen... (he played Japan)

US eventually captured the Soviet Far East. Those transports were quite safe because no Japanese planes or ships were in range. The Aleutian Islands had a very busy temporary airport.

Start of round five. That Aton box cover on the right was one of our dice trays.

The world map at the start of Round 5, the final round that we played. I had to leave around 5pm, so we agreed to stop after finishing Round 5. On the left, some Americans had just landed in North Africa. In the UK, the Germans had attempted Operation Sealion twice, the first time successfully capturing Scotland (but it was later recaptured by the British), and the second time failing to capture England. UK had 4 fighters defending, which helped tremendously. However UK didn't have the money to build a fleet to repel the German navy. It needed USA to help in the European theatre. It was in bad shape economically because its income from Africa had been taken away by Italy. Italy was undoubtly the most successful power.

In the Middle East the Italians had a small army, and they had gained the support of pro-Axis Iraq. The Russians had presence in the Middle East too, having gained support from the pro-Allies Persians. China was now completely overrun by the Japanese. Japan was coming at Russia from the backdoor. Japan was also eyeing Calcutta. They still had a huge air force, but one difficulty was the shortage of ground troops, and the distance to Calcutta. Half the Japanese navy was gone, and the other half was about to clash with the British Indian fleet. The small ANZAC fleet, which had been so painstakingly built up, was utterly destroyed by the IJN off the coast of Papua New Guinea. The freshly built (and now rather lonely) aircraft carrier had to run away to Adelaide to keep itself out of range of the IJN.

A closer look at the Pacific arena. Hey Allen (Japan), you had a damaged carrier carrying a fighter too! So, fair enough ya, we applied the wrong rule consistently.

A closer look at Europe. The Germans had just attacked and captured Archangel, a very important city. They still had a huge stack of tanks left after the battle. The Germans were now building lots of infantry. The Italians were so rich that they had been building bombers. UK was rather helpless, and the only thing it could think of was to build bombers to bomb German factories.

Supported by its massive air force, Japan recaptured the southern Chinese provinces and French Indochina. The British was looking a little shaky now in South East Asia, and would need to churn out more defenders quickly in India. Well, at least I had recaptured Sabah (then known as North Borneo), my homestate, where I would be born many years after the end of World War II.

The Italians didn't give the Americans any time to rest after landing in North Africa. With the help of its bombers, Italy completely wiped out the first wave of US troops.

Africa was firmly under Italian rule. We ran out of Italian markers and had to use German markers flipped upside down. Julius Caesar would have been proud.

End of Round 5. We played in a bit of a hurry and didn't do all our purchases. We mostly did the fighting. USA had a medium sized navy in the Atlantic now, but the Italian navy supported by their bombers would be a big threat. Plus there was still the German navy to contend with. Thing were not looking so good for the Allies in Europe. Losing Archangel was a big blow to Russia. Now it had to try to hold out against the next German assault, likely to be against Moscow.

In the Pacific theatre, the British India fleet had destroyed the other half of the IJN, off the coast of Philippines. Japan had built 8 destroyers to try to fight off the US fleet camping outside Tokyo Bay, but that didn't work. Then again, we played the carrier rule wrong, so if we had played right, I (USA) might have lost the second sea battle in the Sea of Japan. Japan still had a huge airforce in China. It still had 2 factories from which it could churn out land units to threaten India and Russia. USA was not quite ready to invade Japan yet. Not enough transports and land troops, and also it had not maintained a supply of warships to deploy to the Pacific arena. So although Japan was now humbled due to the loss of its navy, it was not going to fall any time soon.

My thoughts after this marathon 8-hour game session is: I had a wonderful time, but I am actually not keen to play AAG40 again. The problem I have with it is its ROI - Return on Investment. Given the A&A game system, I feel playing AAG40 is too much time and effort spent for the amount of enjoyment gained. The game is too long. I don't have any problem with any specific element changed in or added to the 1940 series games. However all these things add up and make the game longer than I like. In A&A there is a lot of "work" - buying stuff, calculating money, moving troops, rolling dice to resolve battles etc. To play A&A well, you need a longer-term perspective. It is an economic game. You need a strong economy to build troops to fight. You often need to plan quite a number of turns in advance, making sure you buy the right unit types to send to the right fronts. There is long-term strategy, and it is important. However, there is a lot of work involved in executing your long-term strategy. That's how the system is.

To complete a full AAG40 game will probably take 12 - 16 hours, likely longer if all players play well. In that amount of time, I'd rather have played 4 games of Indonesia, or Die Macher, or separate AAP40 and AAE40 games, maybe even do a marathon of Axis & Allies Battle of the Bulge, Axis & Allies Guadalcanal and Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition (AA50). In 12 hours I can probably play 5 games of Through the Ages. Not to say that AAG40 is not fun. Just that there's too much effort you need to invest. If I want to play a global A&A game, I'll play AA50. It's not that much more complex than A&A Revised (2004), and I think it also isn't that much more complex than A&A Spring 1942 (the current more mass market version of the global A&A game).

I may be a little biased by the fact that we did not finish our game, and did not even reach a point that one side could concede defeat. Overall the Axis did better, but reaching 14 victory cities was not exactly on the horizon yet. They had 10 - Berlin, Rome, Warsaw, Paris, Cairo, Archangel, Tokyo, Shanghai, Manila and Hong Kong. The next 4 would probably be Moscow, Stalingrad, London and Calcutta. The rest would be a little hard - Ottawa, Washington, San Francisco, Honolulu (no IJN), Sydney.

I wonder what's next in the A&A franchise. I hope it will be a battle specific game, like Axis & Allies Battle of the Bulge or Axis & Allies Guadalcanal. The A&A family is still my wonderful justification for playing with toy soldiers.

Heng, Wong and Allen saluting Hitler. Well, actually it should be Mussolini. Italy, played by Heng, was most successful.