A musical global war AAR...

[Centuur]

The French cruiser in the 0 box is disorganised to make the search die roll possible:

[Centuur]

The French don't find the moving Italian fleet. Note that there is a +1 to the die roll due to the weather (rain):

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The Italian fleet moves into the 2 box.

The Japanese put the loaded TRS at sea so they can unload the land units in China.

The German U Boote leave Kiel and go into the 2 box of the Faroes Gap.

Next is the naval combat phase. There are three sea zones where combat may or may not take place:

[Centuur]

The Italians can choose first if they want to initiate combat. They do want to in the Eastern Med:
They get a die roll of 10. The allies roll is a five. No naval combat occurs...
In the Western Med, the Italians don't want to fight. They decline the opportunity to initiate combat. Now, if only the French would play along and stay away too...

The Germans want to kill convoy points in the Faroes, so they initiate combat there next. The British react by flying the Skua into the sea area (the only thing this plane is good at, is SUB patrol). However, also in this sea area, searches are unsuccesfull.

Than, it is up to the French to initiate combat against the Italians if they want. They do. Search rolls are again done and again are unsuccesfull. It's not so easy to find the enemy at sea, is it...

In China, Chengchow is bombed again. Artillery opens again fire on the city. The target are the valian defenders of the city, who, by simply being at that important railroad junction, annoy the Japanese general staff at lot. The AA gun starts firing on the Japanese planes and uses all shots:

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[Centuur]

Some planes are diverted and can't find their targets. The attack is reduced by one factor, making this air raid not that good at all. Also, the Japanese gunners don't seem to be able to find there targets...

[Centuur]

Suddenly, in Belgium, artillery opens up and start bombarding the BEF in Antwerp! Germany has decided to see if they are lucky and can disorganised Gort or the MOT there, to make sure the CW can't debark both (or any) units into the port. And lucky they are, or are these gunners so good trained, that they don't miss at all, even when the weather is bad?

Von Rundstedt boards a train to Belgium. German units starts moving out of Poland and the Luftwaffe rebases towards the Western front, while the Flying boats rebases to Genoa.
A Japanese CAV moves in China in the direction of the partisan and two units disembark in the Chinese ports.

The phoney war has started! Boredom strikes the soldiers, while the snow piles up higher and higher. Also, the men are complaining about the freezing cold coming down from the Northpole. In the Netherlands, an “Elfstedentocht” was written out for the 21st of december, due to continuing freezing weather. However, blizzards forced the organisation to postpone the event (this is historical. And no, I didn't set the die rolls!). The weather roll is a 9, with a +2 modifier makes it an 11! Blizzards in the Arctic and Temperate, snow in the Med, Rain in the Northern Monsoon and the Southern Temperate and finaly storms in the southern monsoon zone...

And here is Vaughn Monroe, who is the first to have sung this song in 1945...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmgpydiqoQk

Of course, the Axis aren't happy with this song at all. They are loosing precious time in this foul weather... This doesn't look good at all...

[Centuur]

There is a 30% that the turn will end if all powers on the Allied side pass. That is considered to be to low. The CW and China take land, France takes a naval, the US and the USSR combined ones.

The US moves it SUB's towards Manila and moves a BB from Long Beach to Norfolk.

France wants to see if they can get a good fight with the navy against the Italians and they want to use this impulse to make sure that those units which need to be saved when Vichy as created, that those units will be in the right ports. And why not now, when there doesn't seem to be any threath from Germany during a blizzard turn. And maybe the French navy gets lucky...

Here is: “La Strasbourgeoise”, a French military song sung by the Cadets the Saumur:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlogKJhiGOQ

France moves a SUB and a cruiser into the Italian coast. France moves another cruiser into the Eastern Med. The TRS moves into the port of Point Noire. Another cruisers leaves Indo China and sails towards New Caledonia. In the Western Med, two additional French cruisers are put with the BB's in the 2 sea box. The Italians don't want to fight the French (since they are only there, to provide supply in Northern Africa, so they decline to intercept.

Than it is on to naval combat. The French decline to do Naval combat in the Eastern Med. Next they disorganise the cruiser to initiate combat in the Italians coast. Target is the Italian convoy point there... The German flying boat can be put into the sea area to intervene and they choose to do so, since there aren't any CW ships in the sea area.

[Centuur]

Mistake made... [;)]

[Centuur]

Of course I want to put the SUB's into action here:

[Centuur]

Search rolls are a 9 for the allies and a 2 for the Axis. There might be a naval combat in this sea area, since the Axis do find the enemy. They can choose which boxes are included in this combat:

[Centuur]

Lets take a look at the naval combat charts first, to determine if we want to put the ships in both allied sea boxes in the combat or not...

[Centuur]

I've got 2 air to sea factors on the flying boat. Not much, but I've got surprise points to spend, and since there aren't any Allied planes in the area, the Italian ships are save, for the moment. Also, the French only have one anti-air factor available (which uses the same row as the surface factors column, cosmetic bug here) which won't result in any damage to the Flying boat. And as the more ships attacked means the more damage done, the decision is made to include both allied sea boxes for the attack.
Next comes the question if I want to avoid naval combat. This might come in handy, when you've got a lot of surprise points and are facing a fight with an overwhelming enemy or if you just want the fight to be over, since you don't want to give the enemy a chance to pound on your precious convoy route or TRS, for example... However, I am pretty sure the French will be expelled from this sea area during combat, so I decline not to avoid combat. I could also choose the type of naval combat here. If you don't spend the points to choose the type of naval combat, this is the order in which the type of naval combat is decided on:

If you got air to sea factors present, you can choose a naval air combat
If the enemy got air to sea factors present, they can choose a naval air combat
If you got a sub and the enemy got convoys present, you can choose a submarine combat
If the enemy got a sub and you got convoys present, they can choose a submarine combat
If neither of the above is chosen, than it's a surface combat.

This means that it isn't that easy to get a blazing gun battle using the big BB's at all. Planes are first and submarines next.
I want a naval air combat and get to choose this first, so I don't spend surprise points to choose which naval combat takes place.

[Centuur]

The choice comes back to me and “yes” it is...

[Centuur]

Next comes the message that there are no units capable of fighting an air-to-air battle. Had there been FTR's on both sides in the sea area, that would have happened. After that the message appears that there are no Allied bombers in the sea area either, so there will be no attacks on the Axis ships..

Next is the spending of surprise points on the anti-air of the Allies. Since the column there already states “No effect”, I decline spending surprise points...

[Centuur]

Even with the “no effect” in place, the French cruiser defends itself (cosmetic bug?)...

[Centuur]

Next the spending on surprise points on decreasing the enemies naval combat column and increasing my own naval combat column. Since there are no allied bombers, I don't need to decrease the enemies combat column. But I can spend 6 surprise points to increase my naval combat column from “no effect” too 1 damaged and three aborted! Now, isn't that nice...

[Centuur]

The Flying boats attack the French SUB, damaging and aborting it. The cruiser also gets aborted. The sea area will be empty, so the attack on the Italian convoys ends. The resource from Sardinia will be transported to the Italian factories this turn. Would one of the French ships have survived, there would be new search rolls and another combat round could be made...

[Centuur]

Now, the French ships need to abort to French controlled ports. The French sub can't be intercepted, but the French cruiser can be intercepted...

The Italian fleet in the Western Med tries to intercept the cruiser but fails (4 rolled). If they would have found it, it probably would have been shot to pieces...

This ends the first naval combat in this AAR. I won't do all of them as detailed as this one. But since it was the first, I felt I was good to show it here with almost all screen shots included, so that any new players will get to see how things are done...

And here is the Royal March, which is also present in the game as the Italian national Anthem. Personally, I like this version above the one which is in the game at the moment...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXjFeoDl8LE

In the Western Med, the French decide to initiate combat. Again both sides don't find each other (allies role a 6 and the axis a 9).

After this, the Italians decide to initiate combat in the Eastern Med. There is a 6 for the Axis and a 4 for the French. Since there is a +1 due to weather conditions, both sides don't find each other.

In the USSR, a Mech is railed out of Odessa and joins Zhukov in Eastern Poland. The Bessarabian army still continues it's movement into Poland...

The CW makes some minor movement in the United Kingdom. Unfortunately, with all the problems in Antwerp, they can't put the two corps in the Northsea on shore. The division gets put into the port, but the other two stay on board of the ships. The men are getting sea sick due to the storms and conditions are horrible on the transports...

In China, the “catch me if you can” war still continues...

[Centuur]

Now, that was a close call:

[Centuur]

All axis major powers take land actions. Not that they are going to make any attacks, but units need to be moved to better positions...

In China, Japan decides to encircle the city of Chengchow. Of course, there isn't going to be an attack this impulse (since the odds are horrible in this weather, but preparations are underway. Also, the CAV is moving towards that partisan unit sitting on top of a resource...