Mainah (X) v Stough (L) OOB III

[mainah]

@Stough
It’s not. Italy controls Trans-Jordan. To go through the Suez canal, your side must be in control of both Egypt and Trans Jordan at the beginning of the players turn. So if UK recaptures Trans-jordan this turn, it can not go through the Suez canal, as it was not in control at the beginning of the turn. But on the next anzac turn, anzac could, as it was in allied control at the beginning of Anzac’s turn.

[Stough]

Ah. I see.
Also. Why can’t I attack the transports off of Italy with my planes, this also makes no sense to me.

[mainah]

@Stough
Its 3 spaces to get there. You have no adjacent landing spot. closest is Malta, but thats 1 - SZ 96, 1 move to Malta - for 2 total moves. There is no airbase in Egypt.

[Stough]

Jesus. Will I be able to move to the Med in my NCM?

[Stough]

You answered that already. That blows, not the rule, the circumstances I placed myself in. This game is over before it even began.

I’ll soldier on, but we have already arrived at the wings off a bug portion of the game.

[Stough]

What a bummer, despite the loss of Gib I was pretty pumped about this game.

[Stough]

There is no coming back form this. IF UK has to waste their time fighting an equal Italy, everything else falls. I’ll tap out.

Ready for game 4

[mainah]

@Stough
This is a harsh lesson. Funny - I didn’t learn it till a few weeks ago, on my third game.
Gib is key. and Sometimes you lose it - for a bit. Perfer not to, but it happens. Here, it’s not so much that you lost it - you are at least 2 turns out from regaining it. You gave me an opening to resupply it on G’s turn. That was key.
That’s 4 turns you can’t threaten italy proper through the eastern med- and then, you need at least 1 UK and 1 US loaded transport, plus the air you have - and Italy with a little G help will keep the Eastern Med fleet next to Egypt. So you are 6 turns away from threatening Italy proper. That is huge breathing room for the Axis.

[mainah]

@Stough
Ok. Axis normally sets up. Do you want to have a go at it? There is a link for a youtube tutorial on Triple A’s home page.

[Stough]

All very true.
Gib was an enormous blow no doubt. At that point, my goal was for you to load up Gib, and then strand them. And KJF.
But that , or anything, doesn’t work with a pumped up Italy and no way to reasonably take them down.
I had a small chance if I placed a navy in UK4 in the Med. No chance without.

[Stough]

Yep; I’ll check it out.

[mainah]

@Stough
I’m going to be a bit blunt - but its all for constructive purposes.
Yeah - that was my last run to gib. Plan from here was to reenforce africa just a bit - to slow you down. And take trans jordan again for 1 more round if opportunity presented. Ger was to station the 2 figjters from gib to southern italy, along with the tac. Plus another DD and a couple of subs, for 2-3 turns - med secure through the next 4 turns solid. Another turn or to before you strangle the med. Thats8-10 turns of italy making decent money and setting up a proper defense of southern europe.

KJF would have been hard with your fleet moves. Even if you cant advance the fleet, try to keep it (assuming less than a 75% attack from japan) in Queensland. You need to provide enough of a threat that j cant move his whole navy and more importantly air at will.
And china’s stack is gone next turn. Better to hold territories at the front with 1 guy. Bleeds japan more, stretches his forces along a large front, and elongates japan’s logistics train.
But hey! The axis are much easier to start with, and easier to learn and appreciate, especially after the allies. I should know. That’s how i went from my first insane but kicking to a more civilized but still stern but kicking. On the receiving end. Smaller focus, more forces at the beginning, so minor purchasing or positioning mistakes are not catastrophic 3 turns later!

[Stough]

Yep, I wanted you to take down that stack. It was calculated to move my timeline in China forward, reduce your land units and bring more units to China.

Anyhow, my intent in this game was to converge on Japan from 4 directions simultaneously. 5; if you count the Med fleet along my Indian advance. ( I was thinking of adding the US transports in the Atlantic and swinging them to the Far East Asia, but dropping them in North Africa seemed more useful.)

My Russian/Chinese were 1-2 turns behind that timeline. So, I was in a position of attacking in echelon, which I am not a fan of, or attacking en masse, which is much better. The Chinese gambit was an effort to speed up the timeline. In the end, the Chinese would never take Kiangsi, the Russians would, or the Indians. Hence my view of their forces as expendable early. At some point, someone has to come out and fight. I wanted the Japanese to be weaker when that happened. Keeping the Chinese stack meant just pushing you back into an ever enlarging stack, which would have been difficult for the Russians to take down. In a sense, it was exactly what you did with your Japanese Air Force in the last game, I just did it 4-5 turns earlier.

At the end of that convergence, if successful. Japan would be back on its island, so I hoped, and then I could work on reducing and defeating the other two Axis.

Keep in mind, I haven’t played enough games to full length to know what the timeline will look like around turn 7-9. Without practical experience of seeing what/how/where many units are on the board on those turns, I have no idea when to push or how long I can hold back.

Also, this is my first KJF- which I’m starting to like a lot as a strategy.
And I have some ideas on how to do that that I haven’t seen discussed on the boards; at least not yet. Maybe these ideas are foolish, but without playing it out, I’ll never know.

The good news is I should by trying them on a version that is not OOB, since that is the preferred version of play.

What you are teaching me is that if my foot work sucks, no amount of strategy will overcome it.

Thanks for the lesson. Because my footwork is pretty terrible right now.

In the meantime, I have started listening to the world’s most boring youtube video and hopefully, with my magic decoder ring , will be able to set up a new game with me as the Axis.

I am not optimistic about my chances, but it’s going to feel great to be able to attack.

[Stough]

BTW- are you getting the email for game IV?

[Stough]

Sorry, not the email, but the forum notice.

[mainah]

@Stough
Not yet

[Stough]

try this https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/35884/mainah-v-stough-oob-iv/4