My next game as the Allies I’ll have a 14 IPC bid. Hopefully even without an artillery in the Far East the fighter and infantry purchase will work.
Thanks all for the replies!
So a follow on question would be, is this an optimal use of the bid?
I suppose that is too broad of a question. To narrow it, assume
A) a BM3/4 game where bid is 13, so that this would take the entire bid.
B) evenly matched opponents.
@surfer top value is a fighter in Scotland. It preserves one of the fleets and can be used in the UK1 counter strike. Probably adds 25 TUV of benefit immediately on turn 1.
For 3 PUs, you can gamble on a Yunnan infantry if you are going against a better foe and need dice on your side. Against equal or inferior opponents, an inf in Africa will help swing the tide of a battle there.
This gambit is actually quite good if you look at it.
With low luck you would trade air for air with japan having the more expensive units lost.
If a dice game its also japan that will lose the more expensive units and slowing them down.
The UK fleet is funny to have but it cant go anywhere so it will be destroyed G2, so well sure you got a fleet and you can move it for 1 turn.
You already won the med anyway so this move will slow down japan and with them slowed down US can go a lot heavier into the european side of the board.
Going for the true and tested strategies all the time makes the game more of a predetermined chess match.
Well, my N=1 attempt at this bid failed spectacularly. I bought 1 ftr for Moscow and 1 inf Yunnan. With the expectation of R1 moving 2 ftr + 1tac to Yunnan, I decided I would have to scramble on an G1 air attacks. I got good rolls and took out 5 ftrs losing 3. Everywhere else Germany
did very well, and my home fleet went to the bottom.
Japanese decided to attack and killed 6/8!! My return fire was 2/8. Next round eliminated the remaining 2 ftrs, but they did hit as they died. TUV change = +33 Axis (expected -9).
Of course, this was extremely bad luck/dice. Even 2 more hits would have at least traded 3 ftrs for 2. But it was the aftermath that really gave me pause for this gambit. In the Med, without an additional unit (sub) to attack SZ96 and wanting to setup for Gibastion, I was forced to attack with ftr + tac and hope for 66% chance DD misses…it didn’t.
So I’ve moved to SZ92 with fleet. But protecting Egypt will be difficult (again bid unit in Africa usually helps here). Russia is weakened considerably. China has a little boost because the 4 hits killed the land units so they have artillery, but little top cover.
I don’t like these quick holes created in the Allied lines if the 50-50 goes bad, and as @AndrewAAGamer pointed out, because the attacker gets to decide if the battle continues, it’s not really 50-50.
A second Russian fighter bid makes it very unfavorable for the Japanese to attack Yunnan on J1. There is a fair chance that Japan would lose a plane during the first round of dice rolling so not worth trying to see what happens with Lady Luck.
@Arthur-Bomber-Harris Agreed. Adding a second ftr so that you have 3 ftrs + tac makes this gambit into a much stronger defense. IMHO, the whole point of the bid is to just deter, the Japanese from attacking. I want the artillery bonus and keep the Yunnan troops. I can position a large land force in Szechwan to continue to gain Yunnan bonus and stop any Japanese expansion to Burma. The Russian help will soon melt away and help deter the Germans, but that is fine as the point was to delay so the US can get involved.
So in OOB with bids ~ 60, it would be a useful tactic.
But I generally play BM4 games, and the bid is around 12-15. No second ftr.
I guess I need to play OOB…
@surfer said in Japan response to aggressive Russian T1? G40 BM4 or possibly OOB:
I guess I need to play OOB…
YES!!!
That’s why I like low luck. I like predictability with dice.
@SuperbattleshipYamato even with low luck, Yunnan attack on J1 still is a gamble when reinforced with 2 russian fighters and a tac. Hardly changes anything in the strategy.
As a relative novice player, dice games gives you a better chance of winning. Maybe that attack on Mosco on turn 6 goes egregiously wrong and you pull out an unexpected win. With Low Luck, many of your games are probably decided by turn 4 as there is no coming back from strategic blunders.
I meant low luck would’ve made the Yunnan Japanese victory in Surfer’s game not as one sided as it was.
@SuperbattleshipYamato Perhaps, but I find that low luck really changes game play in a manner that benefits expansion over defense.
Regardless, I didn’t like this gambit with just 1 ftr buy for Russians. The main thrust of the bid/ play IMHO is to prevent the Japanese from even trying to attack because they would be wary of the downside. That is not accomplished this way.
@Arthur-Bomber-Harris
Low-Luck is good for trying strategies as you dont have luck to factor in but for real games its rather boring. You can just calculate the optimal attack force and you can calculate if you can move forward or not.
With luck there are some variations that might throw a wrench in your plans.
Though luck should be limited imo so that there are no extremes happening.
What would happen if you combine OOB the 1 fighter for russia with a more agressive mech-arm + air move into china from russia and a UK1 attack/DOW on japan.
If you can grow china at the start it can become a real pain and both anzac and UK got good income to challenge japan on the waters. Leaving the US free to build up a force to attack germany as soon as its free.
Yeah, you’re right.
