Setup and preparing to play

            I have decided to play the campaign game because why not jump right into the deep end? Besides, the campaign game gives you chance to see the ebb and flow of the war in its entirety, which I think makes for a more compelling narrative.

            I’ve decided to play with 5 variants for each side. I will have to just pretend that I don’t know what the Allied variants are, since I can’t think of a way to do it secretly.

Axis Variants

12 – Italians locate flaws in British harbor defenses in Med. Make a single attack on a  fleet using the 28-30 column.

13 – Gain a +2 for this year only for diplomatic rolls for Iraq, Persia & Egypt.

18 – Free Russians from varied occupation policies, allows building Free Russian troops on the East Front.

19 – East Front Winter rolls are at -2 from better winter preparations.

20 – Germany gets +5 added to her BRPs & Base each turn during ’42.

Allied Variants

3 – Better French pre-war prep, all Infantry & Replacement units are available At Start and add (4) 2-3 to Allowable Builds.

6 – Successful 5 Year Plan, Russia Gets BRP base in ’40

7 – Full Anglo-French cooperation, diplomatic die roll -1 when France falls

20 – Add an American 9 factor fleet for free in Spring ’43

27 – Nazi atrocities made public US – Axis Tension +3 Spring ’41

            This gives an interesting range of possibilities for me. Being able to build Free Russian troops (1 factor for every 10 Russian factors destroyed since the last build phase) could be very handy once war with Russia occurs. The free surprise attack allowed by the Italians on the Royal Navy could be very handy when festivities start in Med, as could the bonuses given to diplomatic rolls for Iraq, Persia & Egypt.

            The two French variants could really be a pain. They get to deploy all their Allowable Build infantry and replacement units at start, and then get 4 extra 2-3 infantry in Allowable Builds, and the English can stack with them and provide Defensive Air Support for French units. Boo
            The other variants seem like they will not be earth shaking. having an extra American fleet will probably suck for me, however.

Diplomatic Stuff

At the start of the game all the countries get there basic allotment of Diplomatic Points (DP), as follows:

Germany: 3
Italy: 2
Britain: 3
France: 2
Russia: 2
USA: 3 (but she can’t use any until the US – Axis Tension table rises to a certain level)

For 1939 I allocated the DP’s as follows:

            Germany: 2 in Belgium, 1 in Egypt
            Italy: 1 in Belgium, 1 in Egypt

            I figure that I can cause some mischief for Britain if I can get a couple of Wafdist partisans to pop up in Egypt, and I thought I’d see if intimidating Belgium/Luxembourg might be useful. I opted against putting any DP into Poland because having them as a minor ally doesn’t seem that useful, it’s also a long shot with the small amount of DP available.

For the Allies I rolled randomly and then chose whatever country seemed most useful/realistic that was near the random result (if the actual rolled results was impractical, etc).

So the Allied allocation is as follows:
            Britain: 2 in Poland (oops, maybe I should have put some there!), 1 in Greece
            France: 1 in Iraq, 1 in Ireland
            Russia: 1 in Yugoslavia, 1 in Turkey

            I know some of these choices seem useless for the Allies (Iraq, Ireland), but that is part of what makes this interesting (for me at least, hopefully any readers as well).

            Ok, so the results of the pre-game diplomacy rolls are as follows.

I chose to roll for Egypt (mainly because I am not in a position to take advantage of a good result in Belgium) and get a 2 modified to a 4 for “No Effect”, I guess that the Wafdists are holding out to see how things develop.

For the Western Allies I roll for Ireland and get a 1 modified to a 0 which results in Ireland being tranquil for the rest of the war. No chance for bonuses for my U-boats later on… poop. Finally, Russia rolls for Turkey and gets a 4 modified to 3 for no effect, clearly the Turks are unimpressed.

Next up: Fall ’39 turn

At Start: Fall ’39