Great content Carlos, thanks for posting!
From my research I understand that there are several strategies to expand your M’44 collection. I’d like to share a few of them, but keep in mind my strategies assume that players will not sell their content at a later time…
1) Start with another copy of the base set.
This might not be the most obvious one, but in my opinion it can give you access to tons of material. For once, you will have twice the amount of Allied and Axis troops as well as 2 regular boards, which will allow you to play Overlord with the two decks. This might not unlock tons of new scenarios, but you will likely be able to play a significant amount of new ones from the website. I’d think that if your priority is to play with a larger group, this might be the cheapest way to do it.
You don’t even need the Overlord expansion! There are instructions on how to play Overlord with 2 copies of the base game available on the manual.
From here, you could buy 2 Winter/Desert boards to play scenarios in a different setting, but for that to work properly you might need 1 copy of the Terrain Pack and Winter Wars. Keep in mind that the Winter Wars expansion should really be bought along with the Breakthrough board. If you get the boards and all of the winter and desert hex tiles, you will be able to play virtually every scenario that doesn’t use special units regardless of faction, just using the Allies and Axis troops to represent both sides of the conflict.
I think this is also interesting because some of the Army packs, especially the Pacific Theater expansion, are sometimes hard to get, and the base game is much more likely to be in stock!
2) Start with the army packs
This would be a good way to experience all the good WW2 content that M’44 has to offer across the different conflict regions. For this strategy, I think it might be worth it to start with the Pacific Expansion. The reason for this is that there doesn’t seem to be any other expansions or boards needed to go through all of the content, which is nice. You’ll get a chance to take a look at another completely different war front.
After getting Pacific Theater, purchase a Winter/Desert board and choose your next expansion. Either of them will bring in new battle mechanics and scenarios, so I’d just go with what interests you the most (…or whatever is still in stock). I think this path is best for someone who knows he/she will not have many chances to play Overlord length games, or perhaps someone who wants to experience all of the 2-player game content before expanding out into larger content.
I would guess that players wanting to max out their 2-player experience might also be interested in adding longer battles and also add airplanes. In either case I think you will get your money’s worth, at least if you purchase from retailers. For longer battles, go for the Breakthrough + Winter Wars expansion (they are really meant to be purchased together), and buy the New Flight Plan expansion to add flavour to pretty much all existing scenarios!
3) Start with what might be hard to get in a year
This is a particularly devious way to get all of your M’44 content, as long as you’re sure you want everything you can get your hands on. For example, currently there are still copies of Overlord maps - “Through Jungle and Desert” and “Battles of Khalkhin Gol”, which based on previous battle map history, will not be reprinted after they are all sold. At the time of wrinting, there are still some stores that say they have the Campaign Book Vol 2 in stock, so you could also get it if you can find it.
Days of Wonder periodically reprints the base game, army packs, winter wars and the terrain pack (this has happened several times in the past), so don’t be tempted to pay fortunes for a second hand version if you feel you can wait until a reprint run. This means that all of them will be relatively easy to find over time, and it might make sense to purchase New Flight Plan. The first Air Pack was never reprinted, and if New Flight Plan goes the same route, you might want to get it while you can.