I spent probably a maximum of 5 minutes doing the first Axis turn and this is the result of turn 1: Opinions may vary here, but if this was the result of my first turn of war starting from the 39 scenario I would consider the USSR already defeated. This is before the Allies even have an opportunity to have a turn. So my belief here is that the 1941 scenario is completely broken and is useless as a PvP option. The USSR in this case is set up so badly that it lost literally a third of its army before it could even make a move. To a lesser extent I think the same is true for the 1940 scenario, but for completely different reasons (i.e: the Allies start with more MM and escorts than would be even possible to build given complete focus on that in the 1939 scenario).
My purpose here isn't to bitch, but given the complete imbalance of these non-1939 scenarios, I really wonder why they are even included? If we want to give realistic 1940, 1941, or 1942 options to players, let's at least give them scenarios where the starting position of the players is somewhat balanced..
As for defending in Russia, I have a lot of ideas there I'd like to share, but I'll have to run through from the start of the 1940 scenario to set up a more realistic starting point, which I just don't have time to do right now - so I'll save that for another post.
