(This won't be a particularly long or detailed AAR as I'm just not good at remembering details) Brian, Bill, and I played about 2 game-years, starting with the 1939 scenario. Brian was the Axis, Bill was the Soviets, and I was the Western Allies. Germany started right by taking out Poland very quickly, though I think that he needed to use 1 or 2 more special actions than he intended; I'm not sure. Bill and I built up the French and British armies as much and as quickly as possible, and had a fairly impressive force in Pas de Calais. I built up my ASW when I could, but didn't worry about fighter, bomber, or flak points as Germany seemed to be paying no attention to those, either. He finally invaded the Low Countries during the tail end of the particularly cold winter of '39-'40 (snow was rolled on both variable weather turns), and took Belgium and Holland quickly. He waited for a turn (and clear weather, rather than snow) to attack France from Belgium. Bill moved a couple of extra units to Pas de Calais, as we noted there weren't extra forces to move into Metz (Brian left a few forces to guard the German border, but we felt more comfortable defending and didn't take the bait). The fight for Pas de Calais was extremely bloody; the large French army dealt a terrible blow to the German infantry. I believe that he had 2 infantry units left by the time he took Paris and declared Vichy. I was able to retreat the 3 infantry units (2 at cadre level, one at, I think, 2 pips) and the one GSU back to Britain. Germany was distressed at the amount of rebuilding that he had to do, and started positioning his forces for the attack on the Soviet Union. Bill was doing what he could with the limited Soviet income and placement restrictions, and I tried to build up my forces again. I built another fleet point in the Med (3-2 vs. the Italians now), and I had replaced the 3-step infantry at Malta with a 4, recalling the amazing Italian conquest of the island in our first game. I had also been pulling troops from Africa to build them to max level (can't do that there, unfortunately). It was obvious that Italy was positioning for another assault on Malta for a few turns, but I was surprised when it happened, as I had bought my fleet the previous turn and put it in the Med, and still, Brian attacked, transporting 2 infantry and sending an airborne along as well, with a GSU for support. His invasion ran afoul of my fleet and he lost one fleet point, then the Malta garrison dealt a blow to what forces were able to land (3 hits, I think?), and he pulled back his forces (my fleet failed to intercept) in disgust after failing to hit with what he had left. During his final supply phase, we noted that as I still had Malta and Italy had only one fleet point left, he had to lose one of his 3 units in Africa as it was out of supply and he had used his Italian special action for the amphibious invasion. I took advantage of my 3-1 fleet superiority to get forces, including 2 GSUs, to Africa (if you have more than a 2-1 fleet advantage, you can't be interdicted during strat moves) in the hopes of causing Italian morale collapse quickly. This was the show, pre-Barbarossa. I had a total of 3 ground units (1 armor, the rest infantry) and 2 GSUs. Brian built a second fleet point for Italy and was able to put 2 more units in Africa, but I attacked anyway, won, and used an action to get 2 more units down from Britain to reinforce the front. Over the next several turns, I made my way back across the Libyan border (I pulled my forces back to Alexandria before the war with Italy started, and when it did, he took advantage of that by crossing into Egypt) and headed for Tripolitania. Brian loudly complained about Mussolini, and sent Rommel down to Africa to try to keep Italy in the war; by mid '41, I had my 5 units and 2 GSUs facing 4 Italian and 2 German units (at the beginning of '41, Italy built a 3rd fleet point. I didn't build a 4th as I wasn't able to get quite enough money to increase my ASW; Brian had good U-boat rolls and a very large U-boat force) and I didn't want to have to spend another extra point for naval maintenance until I got that next ASW point. Brian was also a bit frazzled, I think, by the bleeding the German army took in France and disastrous attack on Malta. He launched Barbarossa WAY too early - late '40 - and only got a short ways into Russian home territory before getting bogged down by weather and particularly the 50 extra steps of Soviet conscripts. He said after that he was nervous about the Soviets going from 9 to 17 WERPS a turn, forgetting that as he was getting 48, he'd be out-building Russia by almost 3-1. Brian doesn't usually make mistakes like that, so again, the new system plus earlier bad luck and mistakes affected him, I think. We called the game in the middle of '41 as Russia was pushing Germany back slowly. I had just built my ASW for that year (finally!) and was about to build another fleet point to supply a larger force in the Med and attack the Axis (it was still my 5 units/2 GSU facing his 6 units, both forces maxed out due to supply), and I decided to land a small force in Normandy and attack Paris if the landing went well (it landed successfully, but he doggedly kept me to the beaches). I knew that I couldn't exploit this and that he could knock me back into the sea, but he'd have to buy more special actions (he didn't save any for the Allied turn) and so I thought it would help the Russians, distracing Germany by forcing him to spend actions to move forces to push me back, and then get those forces back to the East (he didn't have that many forces in France). All in all, a fun game, if presumably frustrating for Brian. As we're all used to Axis & Allies for this level of strategic WWII game (we haven't cracked A World At War yet), Brian in particular probably had trouble adjusting his thinking to account for the new system. We're all looking forward to playing again. -- Mark Christopher | "Time is a great teacher; unfortunately it kills ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar. Now with Pop-Up Blocker. 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