Thank you all for your comments so far :-)
Gen Con 2025 - AAR
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I forget what the appropriate Board for Tournament AARs is so apologies in advance. @Panther just move this wherever it needs to go. I don’t mind.
Intro Junk - Feel free to skip to the next section if you just want the game information.
I had the opportunity to go to Gen Con this year to play in their AA50 tournament (dubbed the “”“World Championship”“” by Renegade, even if such a grandiose title is a bit absurd IMO). It was a very nice experience as I haven’t been to a IRL convention since 2023 (and haven’t performed well at one since 2018, when my local convention stopped hosting A&A Events). The players I met were polite/good sports, even when the dice started going sideways as they tend to do. As with the AARs I once did for the Revised Tournaments I performed decently at in the past, this post is going to be a series of AARs breaking down the various games I played with a decent amount of detail.This is also an attempt to preemptively explain/defend my own strategies/decision making process for my games in the event that other coverage of this tournament misrepresents them.
DISCLAIMER: This is purely meant to be a review of the games I played for data collection and/or reflection purposes. No harm or insult is intended. If you were one of my opponents and something I said here rubs you the wrong way DM me (or post here) and I’ll edit this post to accommodate.
Tournament Format/other notes - Feel free to skip if you just want the game data.
The tournament ruleset was (roughly) as follows (a more comprehensive rules list can be found on the TO’s website: https://headlesshorseman2.com/gen-con.html):-Game: AA50
-Scenario: 1942
-Intercepts: On
-Dardanelles: Open
-Tech: Off
-NOs: Off-Battle Calculators: Not allowed, but you are allowed to write-out battle forecasts by-hand and attempt to reason out the odds for yourself.
-Time Limit: ~5:30 in theory, but in practice varied greatly. Players were expected to self-police how many rounds would be played. Games only end at the end of a full round (i.e. USA/China’s turn). Games can never end in the middle of a round, even if the 5:30 time limit technically expired. Generally, this means that games are expected to last 6 turns, but this is not a guarantee, as you will see in this report and in other coverage of this event (particularly the final, which I understand only lasted 5 turns).
-Entry Cap: 32 entrants, but technically up to 64 players can enter. Players are highly encouraged (but not required) to form 2-person teams. Players who elect to play alone may be highly encouraged by the tournament staff to partner with another single player to form an impromptu team for the sake of creating an even number of participants.
-Tournament Format: “Single Elimination, but after the first round some losers are allowed to advance to the second round via random selection in order to make the number of players in the second round a Power of Two (i.e. 4, 8, 16, 32, etc.)”. This is to ensure that no player/team ever receives a bye.
This year, 2 teams were “revived”, meaning the total number of participants was 28 Teams (2 solo players + 26 teams = 54 entrants, a very large turnout for an A&A event to be sure).
These two above points were personal sour spots given the tournaments official designation as the “World Championship” for F2F play. Past conventions I attended were purely 1v1 and used Swiss style preliminaries to determine the top 4 players for the playoff. This I would argue was a better format given the luck factor A&A is notorious for (doubly so given that the ~6 turn time limit will force many medium/large scale battles to be taken at ~60-70% odds, as there is not enough time for either side to build sufficient forces to take ~99% decisive victories unless one side played extremely poorly). If single elimination must be used as the format for whatever reason, I would at least advocate that the “advancing losers” be chosen via VC count (as in, a team that lost a 9/9 tie has priority to advance over a team that lost a 12/5 blowout or an outright concession).
That being said, the TO should be the one with final decision-making authority, as he runs tournaments for almost every edition of A&A in-print alongside the “world championship”, so I imagine at least some of these seemingly-questionable decisions are made as time-saving measures more than anything else. Additionally, Renegade are the ones who created the “World Championship” designation, rather than the TO, so keep that in mind.
The match schedule was as follows:
-Day 1: Round 1 @ 4PM Eastern
-Day 2: Round 2 @ 4PM Eastern
-Day 3: Quarterfinal @ 9AM Eastern, Semifinal @4PM Eastern
-Day 4: Final @ 9AM EasternThe requirement to play two games on day 3 (and the requirement to wake up early for the first one after a late night on day 2) made for an interesting experience, as it took a physical toll on the players involved. This will become evident in the report, as both sides in the semifinal make a fair number of mistakes to the point where, as the chess saying goes, “the winner was the one who made the second-to-last mistake.”
Now, with all of that out of the way, the actual game reports:
(1/6) -
Round 1
From what I was told, my opponents were the previous year’s champions. They played well save for the very last turn of the game, so that does check out.Side: Axis
Bid Die Roll: Lost
Bid: 0
(technically “Axis +2”, but the convention’s rules say that you may not bank bid IPCs. This may seem strange if you’re used to online play, where banking bids is allowed. There was also no rule against putting multiple bid units in the same territory, but the bids here were so low that it was never an issue.)J1:
Buy: 2 TT/1 BOMB, bank 5 IPC
-CV/2 FTR/BB attacks SZ35 (British India fleet)
-3 INF/2 FTR/BOMB attacks Yunnan (Chinese FTR)
-2 INF/TANK attacks Fukien (amphib, INF is from Okinawa, TANK is from Japan)
-2 INF/1 FTR attacks Hupeh (1 Chinese INF)
-2 INF/2 FTR attacks Suiyuan (2 Chinese INF)The point of this opening is that I do not attack Pearl Harbor. This accomplishes two things:
1.) Puts the odds of all China fights at ~99%. This prevents any disasters that could throw the game off the rails.
2.) Preserves most if not all of Japan’s fleet (it’s possible to lose the CV in India if the Allies roll well), which helps protect against USA later.
3.) Allows me to keep 1 INF in Manchuria and land 3 FTRs there, to prevent any Soviet walk-ins during R1.Luck-wise, the battles went well enough.
Collects 35, ends on 40R1
Buy: 8 INF
USSR went for what is considered the standard line for Allies at Gen Con:
-Attacks Ukraine with 3 INF/1 ART/BOMB
-Attacks Belo with 6 INF/FTR
-Attacks E. Ukr. with everything in range (3 INF/1 ART/4 TANK)The odds on these are:
Belo - 99%
E. Ukr - 97%
Ukr - 94% (odds of taking the territory, not winning the fight outright)This seems fine enough, but the odds of winning both E. Ukr and Ukr are .97*.94 = 91%, meaning that in roughly 1-in-10 games something is going to go wrong during this opening.
I bring up this statistic because this game proved to the “1-in-10” for my opponents. The Ukraine fight failed with 1 BOMB retreating Vs. the TANK. This led my opponent to retreat from E. Ukr. after reducing the German stack there to 2 TANK (the Germans rolled well on the first defensive combat roll, and the Allied Team wanted to prevent their TANKs from being destroyed by a German counterattack during G1 (they rolled Ukraine first and thus knew that the Germans had an extra tank available)).
The only compensation to the Soviets was that they cleared Belo with 0 losses.
Collects 25
G1
Buy: 1 FTR/9 INF
-INF+TANK from France load onto SZ13 TT.
-TT (INF/TANK loaded)/DD/FTR (Bulgaria-Romania) attacks SZ15 (Egypt SZ, 1 DD)
-2 INF/2 TANK/1 BOMB attacks Egypt (1 INF/1 TANK amphib)-2 SS/1 FTR (France) attacks Africa fleet.
-All other available forces strafe Belorussia.The point of the build is to compensate for the potential lost BOMB in Egypt with the FTR, and the INF are to fill production slots start a INF-push towards E. Ukr (forking Caucasus/Moscow) or Belo (forking Karelia/Moscow) depending on the game.
The Egypt fight stats are:
Fleet battle - 93% win, 4% transport survives (also a win), 3% loss
Egypt battle - 43% win, 8.5% draw (also a win, see explanation below), 48.5% lossThis fight is not necessarily intended to be a win (unless Axis receive a bid, in which case your odds jump to 68% (3 bid/INF) or 75% (4 bid/ART)). Rather, the intent is to reduce the number of units UK can possibly bring into the ME/India as much as possible. Reducing the stack in this way, even at the potential cost of the German Bomber, forces UK to vacate TJ during B1 or risk having the entire ME stack blasted away by the Italians during I1. In either case, as long as Germany isn’t completely destroyed on the Egypt attack (which can happen), the Euro-Axis will take the Suez during round 1, which will set up a 1-2 punch of India during I2/J3 (which is an excellent counter to a hypothetical B1 UK IC play). If UK does not build the IC Italy can just take India itself, which allows Japan to keep its fleet in better position to stave off advances by the US and play into the mid/late game at a large advantage.
The Belo fight is self-explanatory. Strafe the stack there and fall back to prevent any counterattacks. This puts the Soviets on the back-foot for most of the game, given the ~6 turn time limit.
In this game, the Egypt rolls went exceptionally well, and Germany took the territory with 2 TANK/BOMB left (so only 2 losses). This paired with the bad Soviet rolls during R1 caused major problems for the Allies for the rest of the game, to the point where if it was a casual game I would have offered to just start over for a more fair experience. Winning this way isn’t fun for anyone involved, and I hope I was able to get that feeling across to my opponents at the time.
Collects 34
B1
Buy: CV/TT/FTR
Nothing too special here. Fleet got consolidated as you’d expect and the air power from UK attacked the bare German navy (I rolled +1 there. They made the decision to drop both FTRs instead of keeping one for the CV). They also went to Norway for a walk-in (I moved everything to Finland during Germany’s NCM). Everything else is about what you’d expect, but I don’t think the India stack went back to Persia to cover the retreat of the TJ stack, which caused problems during G2.Collects 34
I1
Buy: 3 INF, bank 1 IPC
Nothing special here. Just walk-ins @ Egypt and TJ while shuffling forward the spares on the mainland. FTR went to Egypt to be in-range of a potential I2 India crush.
Collects 11, ends on 12A1
Buy: 2 CV/1 FTR
This was the usual Gen Con strategy for Allies, which is to move all units towards the Pacific to prepare for a KJF push. The East Coast DD moved to the Africa SZ along with Bomber support to clean out the German sub there.China bulked up it’s remaining forces in Ningxia to defend together. They built 1 INF in Chinghai (the territory next to USSR)
Collects 38
J2
Buy: 3 BOMB, bank 4 IPCs
-UK left their Africa TT in SZ33 (in 2-range from India SZ), so I sent an empty CV to kill it (this minimizes how many resources are left out of position for the critical fleet showdown that is fast approaching).-BB from India to SZ36 (SEA), all available transports to SZ36 (the ones from Japan pick up all available units from Tokyo, the one from China stops at Philippines and picks up the 2 INF there).
-1 INF (Suiyuan)/1 TANK (Fukien)/3 FTR (Man.)/2 BOMB attack Ningxia (main Chinese stack)
-1 INF (Hupeh) walks into Sikang
-1 INF (Yunnan)/2 FTR (India SZ, FIC) attacks Burma (1 INF)The IJN consolidates in SZ61 (China coast), the air ball consolidates on either the available CV or Manchuria. Everything is now in-range in case USA tries to move out during A2. This is also the point of the Bomber spam, stalling out the American advance in the Pacific by means of threat projection with high firepower. This will become evident as the game progresses.
Collects 37, ends on 41
R2
Buy: 7 INF/1 ARTStraight defense from the Soviets. Just a walk-in @ E. Ukr (I left it empty to do the Belo strafe) + a trade in Ukr. (I had 1 INF there to block). Siberia stack did not move forward. I suspect they feared the potential for the IJN to turn around and wipe them out with help from the air-ball.
Collects 26
G2
Buy: 10 INF/2 TANKGermany took all available air power to blast through Persia alongside the 2 Tanks from the previous turn. Normally this level of effort wouldn’t really be necessary, but given the single-elimination format I didn’t want to take any chances. Beyond that, all I did was walk forward with Germany across the front. I heavily stacked Belorussia with everything available to exploit the fact that USSR was building more-or-less all INF, and was thus not capable of effectively counterattacking (because their units were split between Caucasus and Moscow).
Other than that, everything else marched forward. 2 INF stayed behind in Berlin to join the build just to make sure UK didn’t try for a lucky Berlin attack.
Collects 38 (E. Ukr. trade failed because the INF died)
B2
Buy: 5 INF/TT/FTR, bank 2 IPCs
They went all in to attack Karelia and got it. At this point UK was already getting air units funneled to Moscow ASAP because of Germany’s strong position.Collects 32, ends on 34
I2
Buy: 2 TANK, save 2 IPCs
I bought Tanks because UK’s fleet is in the White Sea, and thus unable to hit France on B3. These tanks will be making a beeline for the Russian front to make threats where possible.Regardless, the Italians sail through the Suez and crash into India with everything available. The forces in Europe walk forward to join up with the Germans where possible. They blitzed E. Ukr on the way as the Germans killed the blocker but failed to take the territory during their turn.
Collects 15, ends on 17
A2
Buy: CV/2 FTR, saves 4 IPC
Nothing special here. Just bulking up before moving out later.Collects 38, ends on 42
J3
Buy: 3 BOMB, banks 5 IPC
With India gone, I made a minor over-extension in what was probably the first mistake of the match. I moved the IJN to Philippines and took 6 land units (5 from FIC + 1 INF picked up in Borneo). The idea was to fork Hawaii and Australia, and force the US to make a move, but the Philippines SZ had a slight coverage issue, which will become apparent on A3.In Asia, I intentionally kept the last Chinese holdout alive because I wanted to start moving land units back to cover the inevitable advance of the Siberian stack.
Collects 37, ends on 42
Note that because I am spamming bombers and the Allies are spamming CV/FTR combos, and that Japan’s income is on-par with USA’s, Japan actually has the advantage in the Pacific the longer this stalling/buildup goes on for.R3
Buy: 7 INF/1 TANKSoviets continue to defend Caucasus/Moscow and trade. One neat trick was that they parked a sub in SZ13 (Italy’s SZ). If I were buying more navy, this could have caused annoying problems with loading/unloading, but it didn’t end up mattering here.
Collects 25
G3
Buy 7: TANK/1 INFThe point of the Tanks is to go for a timing-attack on Moscow for G5. UK hasn’t been giving the best support to Moscow or putting on the best pressure, and Soviets are still building mostly INF because of the extremely poor dice they got during the early rounds. Thus, the plan is to send the big tank stack to E. Poland G4, and then break for Moscow G5. If Soviets defend well and the odds aren’t looking good anymore, everything will go for Caucasus instead to go for a last-second VC grab.
The only battle other than walk-ins/blitz moves this turn was having the Belo stack turn around and smash Karelia.
Collects 41
B3
Buy: 7 INF/FTR, banks 3 IPCWithout much to do, UK gets the fleet back in the Atlantic and goes for NWE (it’s the only relevant target and could force a response from Axis).
Collects 31, ends on 34
I3
Buy: 4 INF/TANKItaly also doesn’t have much to do outside of their support role. They do take the India guys and charge down to Australia to soften up the VC for a future JP walk-in (or outright take it if they get lucky enough). The battle ends in a draw, which is good enough as now JP doesn’t have to send any fleet out of position to grab the VC.
Collects 14
A3
Buy: 1 FTR/2 BOMB, banks 8 IPCUSA makes their move, which is to specifically move to SZ58 (one SZ north of Iwo Jima, still borders the Japan SZ (62)). The Allied Team’s intent was to exploit the fact that the IJN based out of the Philippines cannot reach SZ58 from their current position, meaning the air has to go alone.
Collects 38, ends on 46
J4
Buy: 2 FTR/4 INF/2 TANK
The buy was to hedge my bets in case attacking the US Fleet fails, of course.When looking over the position, I came to the realization that the positioning of the US Fleet has one exploitable weakness in that it is not over an island. This means that the Allies need to mind their OOL or I can retreat and force the loss of multiple FTRs for free.
With that in mind, I attacked in everything in range. The battle was roughly:
4 FTR/8 BOMB
Vs.
SS/4 CV/2 DD/1 CA/1 BB/7 FTRObviously a terrible odds fight. I didn’t make any attempt at calc’ing it by-hand at the tournament it so my numbers here may be slightly off. The point was always to strafe, of course.
The second half of this plan was to move the Philippines fleet to Hawaii (save for 1 TT, which walked into Australia). The plan here of course was to do everything in my power to convince the USN to turn around during A4 to retake Hawaii instead of making a play in Asia.
The air battle worked. I lost a large number of air units but the Allied Team took CVs as losses before any FTRs, so I was able to withdraw after 1 round of combat and force the loss of 3 FTRs for nothing. This significantly weakened the USN, which would make it easier to kill on the following turn provided they went to Hawaii as expected. Going to the Philippines during J3 was definitely a major error.
That being said, that battle in the SZ could have very easily gone terribly for me and put me on the back-foot in the Pacific. I was lucky the Allied Team got the OOL wrong or things may have gotten very ugly.
Collects 40
R4
Buy: 7 INF/ART
Continued trades/minor pushes. However, the Soviets did divert their tanks + a decent INF stack from Caucasus to go to Persia. The intent of course was to get India back (since it was basically empty). They clobbered the small German/Italian force there no-problem, but now several INF are out of position for the planned Moscow push.Collects 22
G4
*Buy: 7 INF/2 TANK/FTR
Every single unit possible went to Belorussia to prepare for the final attack on G5.Collects 34
B4
Buy: 7 INF/FTR, banks 3 IPC-Picks up 1 INF from NWE + 7 from UK + all available air and attacks Karelia.
-Rest of the INF from NWE go to France.
-The INF/ART duo from South Africa have finally reached Egypt.The Allied team is likely thinking I am going to turn around to attack Karelia again.
Collects 38, ends on 41
I4
Buy: 4 INF, banks 2 IPCThe Italians in Russia join the main stack in Belo. The navy in Australia goes to the Philippines to get ready for a potential counterattack if the Americans go to either Pearl or Japan. All units in Italy proper go to retake France.
Collects 14, ends of 16
A4
Buy: 2 CV/FTR/DDThe buy is to land all the FTRs purchased the previous turn.
As hoped, the Americans turn their fleet and air ball around and pound Pearl Harbor to retake Hawaii. Destroying the US Fleet causes the Americans to lose most of their ships (everything except the Carriers and Battleship), and also take a few Bomber losses to make sure the Carriers and Fighters stay alive. This plays directly into Japan’s plan as you will see immediately.
Collects 38
J5
Buy: 3 BOMB, banks 4 IPCThe Bombers from Japan move out to hit Pearl. I don’t remember whether the Bombers alone sunk the fleet but even if they didn’t, the point of the attack was to do enough damage to the Americans that the Italian navy was able to follow-up and sink what was left before America could move again.
Collects 39, ends on 43
R5
Buy: 7 INF, banks 1 IPC
Everything began walking back to Moscow at this point, as my opponents sensed the danger they were now in. However, they also sent 1 INF to retake Archangel and also bought 7 INF instead of specifically buying 6 units for Moscow to marginally improve their odds of survival.The Siberian stack also moved up at this point, even thought it’s a bit late in the game for that to help.
Collects 29, ends with 30
G5
Buy: 8 INF/2 TANK
The Battle for Moscow was:
17 INF
1 ART
16 TANK
6 FTR
1 BOMBVs.
26 INF
1 ART
1 BOMB
5 TANK
5 FTR
AAI Calc’d the battle retroactively, and it says this was a 72% German win.
Germany won here, but not a lot survived. Only 2 TANK made it through for Germany (I purposely killed air first to increase my odds of holding the territory through the following Soviet turn). The Allied Team rolled much better than I did, but for some reason insisted on keeping their Bomber alive until after all of their Infantry died. I imagine this at least somewhat made them roll under for the battle.
Ends with 34. Stole all of USSR’s money from taking the capital so ends on 64
B5
Buy: 2 FTR/1 TANK/2 ART/3 INFGoes to France with everything that can make it. The force in Karelia tries to get in-range to relieve Moscow. The Egypt force starts taking free IPCs.
Collects 40
I5
Buy: 5 INF, banks 1 IPCAnything in-range gets into Moscow to help defend. I forget whether the Italian Navy needed to mop up the Americans at Pearl or not. I am assuming that they did.
Collects 12, ends on 13
A5
Buy: 2 TT/2 FTR, banks 4 IPCIf the Italian navy moved up, the Americans killed it with their air. Either way, the new navy stayed parked in U.S. West Coast to bulk back up.
Collects 38, ends on 42
J6
Buy: 3 BOMB, banks 7 IPC
Since America was all the way back home, Japan was free to hit the Siberians with everything in-range.Collects 40, ends on 47
R6
Can’t buy
Throws everything they have at Moscow. It fails.G6
Buy; 2 FTR/14 INF
At this point the game is effectively over, so I fan out, lock down every VC I can reach, and bolster Moscow and Berlin to stop any last-second tricks.Collects 42
B6
Buy; FTR/4 TANK/3 INF
UK All-ins @ Germany. It fails, then the Allies resign.Axis Win
Not much to discuss here. The miss on the positioning of the Russians doomed them. The attempt to break out of Caucasus and go to Persia specifically is what cost the Allies everything. I would have liked to play a more standard game without the Axis’s insane luck during R1/G1 because that set the tone for how the European half of the board played out and it made life very difficult for the Soviets/very easy for the Germans.
(2/6) -
Round 2
My opponents this time, by their own admission, were not expecting to win the tournament. From what they told me, they were happy to have gotten out of the first round this time. They were very friendly and we each let each other to make minor adjustments to previous moves as long as it wasn’t something that was a retroactive reaction to a die-roll. I think each of us changed one detail of our game (I let them modify a build, they let me play China’s turn when I forgot to at one point, since Japan hadn’t moved yet).Side: Allies
Bid Die Roll: Won
Bid: Axis +4, placed an ART in Burma
I was hoping they’d give me Axis +3 but I later learned that the attitude at Gen Con has shifted from “Allies are stronger” to “Axis are stronger”, so giving the Axis any bid was seen as strange on my part.J1:
Buy: IC/2 TT, banks 2 IPC
These opponents did what is more of less the standard Gen Con opening for Japan (with some minor adjustments), which is:
-BOMB/SS/DD/FTR (Caroline Islands SZ) attacks Pearl (usually they bring the CA also, but this team did not).
-BB/CV/2 FTR (DEI SZ) + 1 FTR (Formosa) attacks India fleet.
-3 INF/ART/FTR (Burma+FIC + bid) + 1 FTR (Man.) attacks Yunnan (Chinese FTR)
-2 INF/1 TANK (amphib) attacks Fukien
-4 INF (3 from Kiangsu, 1 from Man.)/FTR (Japan) attacks Suiyuan (normally they try to hit all Chinese territories, but this team did not attack Hupeh).These battles mostly worked, but Japan did eat some significant losses (1 FTR lost in Indian Ocean fight, 3 INF died in Yunnan). Sparing Hupeh was a strange move though in my opinion.
The IC went to the Philippines. The 2 TT were completely undefended in SZ62, meaning US Bombers could snipe them A1.
Collects 33, ends on 35
R1
Buy: 2 INF/2 ART/2 TANK
My USSR opener is:
-6 INF + BOMB to Belo
-All other units in-range to E. Ukr. (No. I do not attack Ukraine).
-NCM SS to SZ2 (UK Battleship).
-NCM all air + 2 INF from Kazakh to Caucasus.
-NCM 2 INF from Novo to Chinghai (Chinese border territory)
-NCM all Siberians in-range to Stanovoj, UNLESS Manchuria was vulnerable (it wasn’t in this game).
-NCM all other Siberians west.
-NCM AA from Leningrad -> Belo, NCM AA from Moscow -> E. Ukr.This idea is to prevent the E. Ukr. stack from being countered without heavy losses for the Germans. Additionally, if a strafe is attempted on the Belorussia stack and Germany accidentally takes the territory, the E. Ukr. stack + 1 INF/2 TANK in Moscow can step up and wipe them out.
The secondary idea is to have 10 INF ready to start making progress in China. The Siberians will, in most cases, step up to Bury during R2 to threaten Manchuria and (hopefully) force the IJN to turn around and fight it. If they don’t turn around, the Soviets go on a rampage in China and make a break for the coastal VCs. The 2 INF in western China advance slowly, using air support to pick off isolated Japanese land units and win the occasional territory back for China before their turn (which sometimes helps them build 1 more INF than they would have otherwise). If Japan is particularly thin on land units this can often snowball out of control and lead to China building 3/4 INF per turn, which is usually enough to either cripple Japan or force them to spend huge amounts of money to get under control (which draws them away from the other Pacific VCs).
In this game, there was nothing special to report about the opener.
Collects 26
G1
Buy: 4 TANK/CV/INF
For reasons I can’t understand, the Axis players at Gen Con were absolutely obsessed with German naval strategies. From what I gathered during prep/research, the winner of last year’s tournament used a Baltic Carrier to good effect against an unprepared opponent, so it looks like a lot of the other teams this year made it a point to copy the strategy and put their own spin on it.Carrier opening aside:
-This Axis team took a battle of 1 German Sub Vs. the American East Coast fleet. The odds of this are effectively 1/3 success (German sub wins) and 2/3 failure (US Destroyer wins, or draw, meaning the US Transports survive). In this game, it was a draw.-They sent a very large amount of force (DD/SUB/BOMB/2 FTR (1 from Germany, 1 from France) to attack the UK Fleet off of Africa.
-To support this move, they needed to NVM the French INF/TANK to libya via the transport and then move the Libya units to Morocco (to protect the FTR from Germany that needs to land in Morocco-Algeria due to only having 1 move left).
-The only other attack was a large ball of INF/ART/FTR attacking Belo (which had an AA). The AA missed and the Germans had good enough luck in taking Belo with low losses.
-The Axis Team intentionally held their Tanks back (from both Belo and Karelia), probably to avoid losing any in a counterattack on R2. They instead moved as many as possible to E. Pol. to create a main stack.
Collects 38
B1
Buy: 2 DD/1 CV, banks 1 IPC
Germany didn’t kill the UK Battleship G1, so I can move that to SZ6 (Scappa Flow) and place my buy there to completely shut down the German navy and then kill it B2 (if Germany abandons it) or B3 (if Germany insists on continuing their buildup). I moved the Canadians into UK (to block Sealion in case it somehow becomes relevant) and used the other available UK transport to dump 1 INF into Norway.Other than that, the rest of the UK plan is to consolidate forces in the Africa/ME/India area as quickly and efficiently as possible. There’s a total of 9 INF/2 ART/2 FTR/AA there, so if everything can get together, they can become a nigh-unkillable force in the region.
Collects 34, ends on 35
I1
Buy: 1 TT, banks 3 IPCAnd so begins the other trend of this tournament. Italian TT openers. This slows Italy’s momentum down but played right can lead to big pressure later due to the BB/2 CR combo they have for bombards. Faced with a start like this, it was tempting to have Allies transition into KGF instead of KJF, but given that the game only lasts 6 turns, that isn’t really enough time to effectively defeat Italy or Germany and offset the number of VCs you lose in the Pacific (3: India, Australia, Hawaii). You’d need to hold Karelia + take 2 Euro-Axis VCs to win the game in that instance, which is easier said than done when both Italy/Germany can just transition into spamming Infantry and positioning Germany’s strong initial army well to keep Soviets in-check.
Strangely, the Italians went out of their way to take Gibraltar I1. I thought it was a setup for a 1-2 Sealion attempt at first, but that wasn’t it at all.
Collects 12, ends on 15
A1
Buy: 2 CV/1 FTR
I ended up being so tired/nervous from the unexpected openings across the board that I completely forgot to have USA send a bomber to kill the two undefended Japanese Transports for free (NCM to join the Siberians). That was a major unforced error, but fortunately it didn’t cause any disasters.I open with USA in a near-identical way to how the rest of the players were doing it. I only start to deviate starting in round 2. I do sometimes send the East Coast crew to UK, but only if Germany built a TT G1 (signaling a legitimate Sealion threat).
There are two minor optimizations I do A1 that I did not see anyone else attempt:
1.) E. US Tank NCM to W. US (instead of going on the TT and not arriving there until A3).
2.) W. US TT goes to Hawaii and picks up an INF to bring back to W. US. Saves 3 IPCs later in the game if you need to fill more TTS.China walked into Shanghai, which was empty, and stacked Hupeh. I tried to place both INF in Hupeh (which had 2 INF present at end-of-turn) but it caused a rules dispute. I think it’s technically a legal move, as that’s how TripleA implements it, but I was already feeling very far ahead in the position and didn’t want to ruin the positive mood that we all had at the table, so I played by the other team’s interpretation of the rules in this case.
Collects 38
J2
Buy: 2 FTR/3 INF/TANK, banks 1 IPC
Japan spent the turn building up for a J3 India crush by moving their TTs into position (the one that started the turn in China picked up 2 INF from Philippines to drop in FIC). They did make a questionable play by sending the entire Indian BB + 2 FTR to kill the lone African UK DD (the FTRs NCM’d back to the India SZ to land on the carrier from J1). But other than that Japan’s turn was spent cleaning out Hupeh and Kiangsu.Japan based all of their air on the carriers and in Fukien at this point. I failed to properly evaluate the range on all the available aircraft at the time, which will cause some problems for me during A2/J3, as you will see soon.
2 of the INF from the build went to Philippines.
Collects 35, ends on 36
R2
Buy: 2 TANK/ART/4 INF
The Siberians and Chinese moved up to put more pressure on Japan (and to hopefully get them to turn around from India).East Poland was under-stacked, so I stepped forward with the E. Ukr stack + all air + the 2 Tanks bought during R1. The battle was:
3 INF
2 ART
6 TANK
1 FTR
1 BOMBVs.
4 INF
5 TANK
2 FTRI Calc’d it afterwards and it said it was 79% to win. I didn’t even want the kill. Just to clear all land units and maybe the Italian FTR if I was lucky, so I could retreat all the high-power Soviet units to E. Ukr. and continue stacking.
Instead, I ended up winning the fight with ~3 Tanks + the air left. This meant the tanks were going to die to the German counter, but now Germany is very thin on land units due to the naval buy, so my hope was to get them to stop building navy so UK can wipe the German fleet during B2 and clinch the game.
Collects 24
G2
Buy: BB/DD/2 INF/ARTThe Axis Team at this point seemed to be losing confidence in their game, and were adamant on matching the UK Fleet piece for piece. However, despite this, they refused to play defensively to conserve their pieces on the board, taking aggressive trades basically everywhere.
They did, however, exploit the fact that the UK Cruiser was isolated from the rest of the fleet, and destroyed it with a Bomber + 2 Fighters from the Baltic Carrier.
Collects 43 (NOTE: When attempting to recreate the game, I am not sure how Germany made 43 IPC on this turn, I was only able to figure out how to get them to 40. May have been an error at the table).
B2
Buy: 4DD/INF
The plan here is to just keep the naval arms race going as USSR gradually turns back and defeats the Germans, abusing the fact that, since Germany is buying so much navy, they aren’t buying land units to keep up the Russian front.The entire ME British stack united in Persia at this point, with two exceptions:
1.) The African INF/ART, who were stranded due to losing the TT during J2.
2.) The 2 UK FTRs (Egypt/Australia), who both NCM’d to Caucasus for reasons that will become clear during B3.The plan is that, if Japan takes the bait and walks in with their land units (the air ball won’t be able to land in India during the turn it’s captured), UK can easily recapture during B3, and it will take Japan a while to put its transports back into position to make another attempt.
I also tried to trade Norway, but good luck from the Germans meant they rolled 3/3 hits on defense, killing both landing units + my UK Bomber.
Collects 28
I2
Buy: FTR/TANKThe Italians charged Brazil. The idea is to steal money but also force USA to build in the US East Coast (and not in the Pacific). Unfortunately, the fact that Italy split their fleet during I1 meant that their full fleet could not make it to Brazil I2. That, paired with the fact that the US Transports from the E. Coast were still in SZ20 (Panama Canal) at this early stage in the game meant that it was easy for America to turn around and face this threat.
Collects 16
A2
Buy: 2 TT/2 BOMB
The idea with the Bombers is to use their 6 movement to project threats across the board and scare Japan into not building anymore navy (or into trying and being destroyed constantly until the game is over). The transports are for running across the Pacific and lunging at the 3 Pacific VCs (Manila/Hong Kong/Shanghai) to K.O. the Axis.To that effect, I moved the entire US Fleet to Iwo Jima and took the island. The hope is that Japan will turn around and only be able to face EITHER the US Fleet OR the Siberian stack, or try to fight BOTH and fail. If the American fleet survives, it + the Bombers will do significant if not fatal damage to the IJN on A3, but if the Japanese destroy the USN it’s OK as long as the Soviets get through and start causing chaos in China.
In the Atlantic, two of the US Bombers + the Panama Canal fleet had to turn around to deal with the Italians.
China walked forward and took Suiyuan. Their placement was in Sikang to prevent tank blitzes.
Collects 38
J3
Buy: 2 DD/6 INF, banks 2 IPC
The entire IJN moves to Philippines to prepare for combat while the transports go to India to link up with the fleet that went to Africa during J2 (and land in India in-force). They also try to desperately reinforce Manchuria against the incoming Soviets.Destroyers go to Philippines SZ. INF go to Japan to prevent a US capital takedown.
Collects 37, ends on 39
R3
Buy: 6 INF/TANK, banks 1 IPC
I bought INF-heavy because of the losses I took during R2’s big attack. The Soviet’s big play this round was to crash the Siberian stack + Bomber into Manchuria. Other than that, they took a walk-in at Belo and took the time to rebuild. My current thought is to not take big risks in Europe because USA is going to win the game for me in the Pacific very shortly.Collects 22, ends on 23
G3
Buy: 3 DD/TT/INF/ART/TANKBased on what the Axis Team was discussing at the time, they seemed convinced that this buy was maintaining fleet parity with the UK, and was thus good enough to ward them off. This, however, failed to take into consideration the fact that the 2 UK Fighters in Caucasus can reach the Baltic in exactly 4 moves (meaning they can land on the Carrier I built B1, as long as it joints the combat). As you’ll see during B3, this mistake proves fatal for the Axis.
Germany tried transitioning into an economic game by charging its tanks into Africa. They also went heavy into Belorussia in an attempt to scare the Soviets into turtling Moscow.
Collects 43
B3
Buy: 2 FTR/INF/TANK, banks 1 IPC
The battle for the Baltic was;1 CV
7 DD
4 FTR (2 from SZ6, 2 from Caucasus)
1 BBVs.
1 SS
1 CV
5 DD
1 CA
2 FTR
1 BBI calc’d it afterwards and it was a 77% for UK to win.
The British also easily retook India.
Collects 29, ends on 30
I3
Buy: DD/TTThe Italians decided to spend the turn killing the US Transports off of Brazil without landing, as they wanted to guarantee the bombardment on the following turn (as bombarding this turn would have meant letting the US Transports live). This will prove to be a fatal mistake for the last of Italy’s navy, as will become obvious during B4.
Elsewhere, Italy retook Poland and pushed its last two NA/ME INF forward into Persia.
Collects 14, ends on 15
A3
Buy: 2 BOMB/FTR/INFThe FTR/INF pair are to defend US E. Coast in case something goes wrong during B4.
I sent the USN to destroy the Japanese fleet at the Philippines. The lone transport from Iwo Jima sacrificed itself to attack Shanghai with Bomber support.
The fleet battle was:
2 CV
1 SS
1 DD
1 CA
4 FTRVs.
1 SS
2 DD
1 CV
1 CA
2 FTR
1 BBI retroactively Battle Calc’d it and it said 82% chance US Victory.
America’s attempt at sinking the Italian Battleship @ Brazil failed. The Shanghai attack also failed but succeeded at its true goal of grinding down the stack there to the point where the Soviets could finish it.
China took Hupeh by attacking with 3 INF.
Collects 38, ends on 39
J4
Buy: CV/2 FTR/INF, banks 2 IPCThe Axis team were in panic-mode at this point, as they did not expect the USN to be able to defeat the IJN. Instead of splitting their forces to mop up the USN and also try defending Shanghai, they sent 100% of everything @ Philippines and then NCM’d to either the Philippines SZ or back to Japan. This left Shanghai mostly undefended.
Collects 30, ends on 32
R4
Buy: 2 TANK/ART/3 INF
Sensing the end drawing near, USSR charged both the German Belo stack and the 1 remaining Japanese land unit in Shanghai. The Belo fight was roughly as follows:11 INF
2 ART
3 TANK
1 FTR
1 BOMBVs.
9 INF
1 ART
6 TANK
AABattle Calc’ing afterwards says this was a 53% chance to win. The point wasn’t to win though, it was to grind down the German stack and then simply retreat to Moscow if needed. With Germany’s fleet destroyed Germany had basically no land units with nothing to show for it. UK was set to ramp up TT production and start landing all over Europe (they already did one landing in Poland after winning the naval battle on B3).
Collects 25
G4
Buy: 6 TANK/3 INF/ARTGermany loads all African troops onto the nearby Japanese transports (the ones from the India attack on J3) as part of a scheme I never got to see play out. Germany attempts to assume a defensive position in the Atlantic.
Collects 40
B4
Buy: 3 TT/3 INF
I send all available UK Air (3 FTR) from London to hit the Italian BB and NCM to Brazil. This makes the Axis Team resign, as their last hope in the game had apparently been to sneak the TT into Washington for a surprise Axis victory. At things now stood, Axis were going to lose by OOB Rules imminently, so their team gave up.Allies Win
The Philippines IC was a novel idea, but it never accomplished anything of note. I moved out super quickly with the US Fleet because of the total lack of naval units build by Japan early. I was hoping to capitalize on their fleet being thin, and the Philippines IC (that now needs to be defended lest the Americans capture it and start pumping out units right next to Japan) ended up being an albatross around the IJN’s neck, as they were compelled to put themselves into a position where the Americans could easily rout them. This was a much more decisive game than the first round was. I don’t think the Japanese and German strategies paired with each other well, as both seemed oriented towards defensive play (under these rules, Axis have to capture 2 VCs to win unless they make an extraordinary amount of progress economically so as to surpass the Allies, which is difficult to do in just 6 turns or so).
(3/6) -
Round 3
This round happened at 9AM on the third day of the convention, so everyone in the hall was very tired at this point. My opponents were experienced players, but brought up at one point that they preferred other versions and were just playing AA50 because it was the “world championship”. Despite this, they played a solid game once we got out of the opening phase (which as you will see, was almost identical to the round 2 game).Side: Allies
Bid Die Roll: Won
Bid: Axis +4, placed an ART in Burma
This is the same bid as the previous game. It was here that I was told my bidding strategy of trying to get a lower bid by starting high was considered backwards now, due to the perception shifting to “Axis are stronger”.J1:
Buy: CV/2 TT, banks 3 IPC
This team opened nearly identically to the previous team. For brevity, I am only going to highlight the differences in moves:
-CA brought to Pearl
-BB/CV/2 FTR (DEI SZ) attacks India fleet.
-3 INF/ART/FTR (Burma+FIC + bid) + 1 FTR (Formosa) attacks Yunnan (Chinese FTR)
-3 INF (1 from Kiangsu, 2 from Man.)/FTR (Man.) attacks Suiyuan
-2 INF (Kiangsu) + FTR (Japan) attacks HupehCompared to the previous match, China rolled very poorly here, to the point where Japan did not take many land unit casualties at all. This will cause China/the Allies a great deal of trouble in the midgame, as mainland China will become very difficult to clean up.
The only questionable play by my opponents here was that Manchuria was left empty, which allowed USSR to walk-in during R1 and immediately start causing an annoyance for Japan to slow them down elsewhere.
Collects 35, ends on 38
R1
Buy: 2 INF/2 ART/2 TANK
My opening was 100% identical to the previous game. My luck was very good here, with no losses in Belo and minimum losses in E. Ukr.Collects 26
G1
Buy: CV/TT/TANK/ART/2 INF, banks 1 IPCThis variation of the Carrier plan is more blunt about threatening a Sealion, with at the expense of drastically reducing the number of land units built. This could be bad for the USSR Vs. Germany front if things aren’t played carefully in that part of the board.
Unlike the previous game, this Axis Team played the Carrier strategy more straight. They attacked the UK Battleship fleet (but had a lower-end result, only the German Bomber survived) and made more conservative plays across the board (the only real action was a mid-sized push into Belo + attacking the UK Africa fleet). They did make a minor error by moving the Finland INF into Karelia instead of pulling them back to cover the German air that attacked the UK Battleship. This let UK hit Norway on B1 as you will see.
In Belo, the Germans had very good luck, winning a perfect fight with 0 losses.
The German Sub from the Baltic moved out to SZ7 (English Channel) with the intent of threatening any loose UK fleet buys.
Collects 38, ends on 39
B1
Buy: 2 DD/CV, banks 1 IPCThe UK battle plan from me was more or less the same as the previous game, although without the UK Battleship surviving I think in hindsight that placing my units in SZ3 (where the Cruiser is) might have been the better play. Regardless, the British took Norway successfully by sending a loaded TT from Canada + all air. The Axis Team refused to take the Bomber as a casualty first (correctly guessing that I would have just retreated my air had they done that), but making that decision with only 3 INF present meant that they only ended up getting one hit during the combat, making UK’s job easier.
Collects 34, ends on 35
I1
Buy: 2 TANKWalk-in @ Egypt. Europeans move up to cover E. Poland and Bulg. Nothing special here. The buy suggests aggression on the Russian front but that wouldn’t end up being the case.
Collects 12
A1
Buy: 2 CV/1 FTRMy opening is the same as the previous game, with the only exception being that the DD/2 TT from E. US move up to UK to drop the 2 INF/ART on London. This is to block a potential Sealion in case the Axis try it. It’s also to bait the Axis into attacking the American fleet instead of just dealing with the main Royal Navy stack that’s starting to form.
China gathered up in Ningxia (northern territory). They got to place 2 INF because USSR took Manchuria and those 2 INF went to Manchuria. This caused a rules dispute, as my opponents incorrectly thought China’s piece placement limitation applied to territories where there are 2 or less friendly units (it doesn’t. It only applies to Chinese units already-present in a territory).
Placing the 2 INF in Manchuria was important because it created a 5 INF stack on the territory (with another Soviet 3 INF stack behind it in Bury). This poses a significant challenge to Japan despite the fact that almost all of their land units survived J1.
Collects 38
J2
Buy: DD/2 FTR/ART/2 INF
As hoped, Japan turned around to hit Manchuria, meaning India would not be in any danger for a while. They also pulled a battleship from India to deal with the UK boats off of Africa. Other than that, it was more advancing in China with surprisingly poor dice from the defending Chinese.Collects 37
R2
Buy; 2 TANK/4 INF/1 ART
Faced with overwhelming odds in China, I actually have the 2 Soviet INF there back up to Novo and link up with the last Siberian INF who started the turn in Urals. The hope is that, if Japan walks forward next turn, the 2 INF can come back with air support to clear out the territory and restart the China fight.For the German front, all I could really do was shuffle my stack into Belo to counter the German presence there. The battle had perfectly average luck from what I could remember.
NOTE: This actually means that I missed the chance to snipe the German TT that’s sitting un-escorted in the Med at this point (the Italian Fleet moved to SZ15 last turn). I attribute the error to fatigue (this is the 3rd day of the tournament and 4th day of travel, and this game took place early in the morning. I usually work late shifts and wasn’t really used to be up earlier in the day). This wasn’t a fatal mistake, but it’s a premonition of some larger errors that will cause problems for me later in the tournament.
Elsewhere, I sent the next wave of Siberia stack into Manchuria with a Bomber for support. This set up the following fight:
4 INF
1 BOMBVs.
3 INF
1 ARTCalc’ing the battle after the fact revealed that it was a 75% chance to win. This was good as Japan was starting to run low on land units and I was hoping to ramp up US Naval pressure to force my opponents to choose between building fleet to stave off the Allies Vs. trying to keep up the shuck into China.
Soviets won here with 2 INF/BOMB remaining, which was good enough to make sure China can place another INF during USA’s turn.
Collects 24
G2
Buy: CV/FTR/2 INF/ART/TANKRather than charge the Baltic fleet into the UK fleet, the Axis team instead opted for a defensive naval buildup. They also committed to making aggressive trades across the Russian front, which might be a bad pair with the naval buildup strategy, since they aren’t building many land units to replace the ones being lost to trades.
They did, however, send the SZ7 SUB + the 2 German Fighters from the Carrier to sink the US fleet off UK. This effectively marooned the American land units on UK, which is fine, since making that play meant that the main Royal Navy survived.
Collects 41
B2
Buy: 4 DD/1 INFThis is the same buy as last game because the situation has become more-or-less identical to that game. I am building more navy to compel the Germans to spend a disproportionate amount of their income on navy, which will give the Soviets enough breathing room to eventually start winning in Russia.
To that end, the British fleet united in SZ6 and traded Norway (only with 1 INF, since I am trying to stay way of the looming menace of Sealion should the Axis roll well).
Japan had put some blockers (1 INF/1 ART) in India to apply light pressure to India during J2. I tried taking the 3 INF/2 FTR available in the ME to do a strafe, but it went extremely poorly (lost everything except 1 FTR, which failed to take the territory. This would cause problems for my timing on killing the German Baltic Fleet. I really should not have taken this battle. Instead I should have repeated my strategy from the previous game, which was to make one cohesive ball in Persia and counterattack India in-force on B3.
Collects 31
I2
Buy: TT/TANKItaly completely changed course from what they were originally doing and made a run at Gibraltar. They appear to be setting up the same Brazil attack from the previous game. The only difference here is that the timing of it combined with the lack of an Atlantic American fleet may make defending the play harder than it was in the previous game.
Other than that, Italy seemed primed to make a push for Africa IPCs and helping Germany stack up in Europe.
Collects 13
A2
Buy: 2 TT/2 BOMBI elected to go for an air strafe against the IJN based in SZ62:
4 FTR
3 BOMBVs.
1 DD
2 CV
4 FTR
1 BBMy plan was to get 3 hits during the first round of combat to sink both carriers, then retreat to force Japan to waste 28 IPCs to rebuild and, with any luck, not attack the advancing US Fleet @ Iwo Jima. However, due to a combination of fatigue and rushing, I neglected to respect the fact that the Japanese had most of their navy in-range to counterattack the USN (2 FTR @ Fukien, CV/2 FTR @ SZ36 (FIC), FTR/BOMB on-land in Japan). This would prove way too much for the Americans to handle at this point. Strafing the fleet I think was the right call, as the attack itself accomplished its objective, but I should have just landed all the air in Manchuria and put the USN @ Midway instead of going all the way to Iwo Jima. As-is, Japan gets to unleash a nasty fleet counterattack that you will see right now (although it may have worked out for the best in the grand scheme of things).
China places in Manchuria to continue annoying/slowing-down the Japanese by threatening Kiangsu.
Collects 38
J3
Buy: 2 CV/DD, banks 1 IPC
As hoped, Japan spent their entire round of income rebuilding their losses from the US Strafe. However, as feared, they were able to move out with most of their available fleet and air power to attack the USN @ Iwo Jima. This battle was roughly:1 SS
1 BB
9 FTR
1 BOMBVs.
1 SS
2 CV
1 DD
1 CA
1 BB
3 FTRA retroactive battle calc shows that the Japanese had a 92% chance to win, but they only average about 6 surviving attackers. This detail will matter as we continue into the late game, since Japan will have to keep replacing their losses at the expense of land units.
In China, they actually began to turn around most of their forces to defend the coast against the Soviet incursion (save for 1 INF that walked into Chinghai). With their amphib, the Axis Team actually opted to attack Buryatia (to snipe the Soviet Bomber) instead of Manchuria. Their explanation at the table was that they assumed the Soviets in Manchuria would turn around to counterattack Bury instead of simply walking forward to get deeper into China.
Both attacks were wins for Japan, but the land battle in Russia went badly for them (only 1 ART survived). The Axis team didn’t seem happy with how many units they lost killing the American fleet but looking at my report Vs. the Battle Calc forecast it was more or less the expected result (1 BOMB/1 BB/5 FTR survived, so 7 units total, which is actually one better than the foretasted 6 survivors).
Basically all air landed on the newly built carriers + the one that came up from FIC. The Battleship that had killed the UK Africa fleet was now back at India.
Collects 36, ends on 37
R3
Buy: 2 INF/2 ART/2 TANKThe Red Chinese in Manchuria continued walking south to take Beijing, while the group that backed up to Novo last turn went back into Chinghai to retake it from Japan.
On the Russia front, Soviets committed to trades wherever they could, but moved the main stack from Belo back to E. Ukr. to get away from the section of the German army that was in Karelia. Soviets ate quite a few unit losses on their trades but got the job done everywhere. They also used their FTR to snipe the Italian Transport built during I2 (it was alone).
Collects 25. My report says it was 28 but I have no idea how USSR could have been making that much money given the board position in my attempted recreation.
G3
Buy: CV/FTR/3 INF/2 ARTThis is the 3rd Carrier the Germans will be having on the board. They moved all available land units into Belorussia to threaten a Moscow K.O. They started making small land grabs in Africa as well.
Collects 38
B3
Buy: IC/2 DD
The IC buy was a response to the destruction of the USN. The idea is to lock down India so Japan can’t take it. Nothing more/nothing less. In hindsight it probably was not necessary but only about 1.5 hours of game time (out of 5.5 hours) had elapsed at this point, so I knew this game was going to be a lot longer than just 6 turns.The Persia stack relocated to India to defend the newly built factory. The Tank blitzed on through to Burma.
Collects 31
I3
Buy: 2 TANK/INFItaly runs to Brazil, and moves up to Persia to get some extra income. Italy is making their big play to force America to build in the Atlantic for a turn.
Collects 17
A3
Buy: 2 FTR/2 DD, banks 2 IPCI am forced to deviate from my original plan of bomber spam due to the fact that my fleet got wiped out during J3 earlier. Additionally, I need to cover US East Coast in case Italy really does try to move up and take Washington. FTRs will cover both goals as they can be in Washington on the turn their built before flying to the Pacific to land on newly built Carriers out of W. US during the following turn.
America’s remaining Bombers destroy the remnants of the Japanese fleet that attacked @ Iwo Jima and NCM to join the allied stack forming in Shanghai.
China also moves forward to Shanghai and places its INF there.
Collects 35, ends on 37
J4
Buy: 3 INF/ART/2 TANK/2 TTJapan sends all of its new carriers out to destroy the US Fleet I built during the previous turn. This at least draws them away from China, which is an acceptable result, but Hawaii is now in danger.
The lack of land resources in China is tarting to show at this point, as Japan lost almost all of their remaining land units retaking Shanghai, but they did just start building a new land army, so that will help them as we move towards the endgame.
Collects 37
R4
Buy: 5 TANK
I am forced to turtle in Moscow for the turn due to the fact that the Belorussia stack backed by air power is actually an extremely powerful force capable of ending the game in Germany’s favor.Meanwhile, Russia sends a small force from Ukraine into Bulgaria-Romania as a distraction, hoping to draw Germans away from Moscow for a few turns. They also continue to be annoying in eastern China, putting China back to two territories again (meaning they’ll be spawning yet another INF later in the round).
Collects 27
G4
Buy: 4 TANK/3 INF/2 ART, banks 1 IPCAt this point, the Axis Team made the same miscalculation mistake regarding the UK FTR in Caucasus that the team from the previous match did. They believed the Atlantic was a stalemate and that they did not have to build more navy because of UK’s pivot to India.
To that end, they retreated the Belo stack to Karelia, as at this point it accomplished its objective of making the Soviets retreat to Moscow. However, they also started taking aggressive trades in Russia again. It’s possible that due to the stress of playing early in the morning (and at a relatively fast pace for F2F, as only about 2.5 hours had passed by this point), they didn’t realize that their main land stack would actually be quite fragile without air support, and thus the stack should stick together as much as possible to preserve HP. Then again, they didn’t realize the Baltic was lost, so that’s probably why they were comfortable playing aggressively on-land to a point.
Collects 40, ends on 41
B4
Buy: 2 INF/TANK/2 DD
The land units are for India. The navy is for Europe, in case the sea battle is going badly and I need to retreat.Anyway, the stats for the Baltic fight were:
1 CV
8 DD
1 CA
3 FTR
1 BOMBVs.
1 DD
3 CV
1 CA
6 FTRCalc’ing this retroactively puts UK’s odds at 73%. Not a great fight but given that up to 6 German Fighters could be killed, it was too good of a chance to pass up, especially since I have another wave of Destroyers behind the build anyway.
UK won the fight, but only the Bomber and the Carrier + FTRs survived. This allowed a UK Transport to send an INF/TANK combo to take Poland from Germany, which messes with their logistics for the turn.
In the ME/India/SEA area, the India stack had to go back to Persia to deal with some Axis troops that stepped forward the previous turns.
The 2 INF from E. Canada also NCM’d to E. USA to prevent any attacks from Italy.
Collects 30, ends on 32
I4
Buy: 3 TANK, banks 2 IPCThe destruction of the German Baltic fleet sent the Axis Team into panic mode. In a bid to end the game, they charged the Italian navy at London. To be fair, they had 17% odds, and victory would have ended the game outright.
The other Italians went to go counterattack Poland and Bulg.-Rom… They had poor dice everywhere except Poland.
Collects 16, ends on 18
A4
Buy: CV/2 DD/SS, banks 1 IPCAs discussed previously, the FTRs from E. US go to land on the new carrier. This is basically a passed turn by USA.
Collects 35, ends on 36
J5
Buy: 2 FTR/2 INF/2 TANK, banks 1 IPCThe IJN moves up to Hawaii and takes the city, but does not engage the 3rd USN. Japan stacks up in China but is mostly focused on establishing a shuck line, so does not set up any potential attack on India (they landed in Fukien, the Transports + the Battleship that is finally now back in-position are in the China Coast SZ (SZ61).
Collects 36, ends on 37
R5
Buy: 6 INF/ART/TANKWith the Baltic fleet dead, Germany is no longer a serious threat, so I start taking trades far and wide and move the main stack to Belorussia with the hopes of getting Karelia to move back.
Collects 26
G5
Buy: 4 INF/2 ART/2 TANK/FTR, banks 1 IPCGermany take some more trades in Russia, but is falling back in general. The Axis Team wants to hold Karelia at all costs.
Collects 38, ends on 39
B5
Buy: 2 TT/1 DD/3 INF, banks 1 IPC
The entire build is for the Atlantic. It’s time to power up and start destroying Germany, since Japan is pretty secure in the Pacific.UK starts attacking everywhere they can to cause problems for the Axis. TJ, FIC and Poland all go down.
Collects 34, ends on 35
I5
Buy: 3 TANK/1 INF
Mostly a passed turn. The fleet starts falling back towards the Med.Collects 15
A5
Buy: 4 DD/1 INF, banks 1 IPC
At this point, there was still plenty of time left on the clock (only about 3.5 hours had passed of the 5.5 hours time limit), so I was in no rush to build up for a last-second VC grab. I instead pushed to scare the IJN away buy building a large navy again. This did once again mean that America’s turn was basically a pass.China continued to step forward and recover lost ground.
Collects 34, ends on 35
J6
Buy; 3 INF/3 ART/BOMB, banks 4 IPC
The IJN runs to Australia. Japan starts using is shuck to fight back in China.Collects 36, ends on 40. My notes say the only collected 33, and ended on 36, but that doesn’t line up with my recreation. It’s possible the Soviets survived with more when they attacked back into Chinghai and were taking Chinese territories at a faster rate than what ends up being show in the TripleA recreation I put together
R6
Buy: 3 INF/2 ART/2 TANK
USSR moves everything in-range to Belorussia to truly deadzone Karelia. No need to make the attack prematurely and risk losing.Collects 25
G6
Buy: 2 FTR/2 TANK/2 ART/2 INF
Germany begins falling back in general, consolidating their stack at Karelia as much as possible.Collects 38
B6
Buy; 3 TANK/5 INF/ART, banks 1 IPC
Not much to say. UK just starts landing everywhere they can to rack up IPCs. I also made sure to land 1 INF in Baltic States to block German tanks in Poland from reaching Karelia next turn.Collects 36, ends on 37
I6
Buy: 3 TANKIn another desperation move, Italy goes to Caucasus to try a lucky landing. They also fanned out and made attacks with their Russian front units anywhere they could think to do it. All attacks except Caucasus succeeded.
Collects 19
A6
Buy: 2 TT/2 DD/INF, banks 2 IPC
The naval buildup continues. 1 INF/1 TT go to US East Coast to get Brazil back (in cast the game ends up being a VC Tie).China continues to do its best to stay alive and inconvenience Japan.
Collects 34, ends on 36
J7
Buy: 3 INF/2 ART/TANK/DD/FTRJapan finally clears out China, and has set up a force to potentially crack India on J8 (the IJN is now in Borneo, and all Japanese air is in/around SEA).
Collects 39
R7
Buy: 7 INF/1 ART
The Karelia battle was:4 INF
3 ART
18 TANK
1 FTRVs.
7 INF
1 ART
12 TANK
2 FTRAs with all the other major battles, I calc’d this one after the game was over and learned that it was a 89.5% chance for a Soviet win. My opponents seemed convinced that it was “dead-even”, but I think they forgot that all the German Fighters were killed when the Baltic Fleet was sunk (their presence would have made the battle pro-German, of course).
Collects 23
G7
Buy: 2 TANK/4 ART/4 INF
The Axis Team decided to play on despite the situation being more or less hopeless at this point. I think they were under the impression that Japan would be able to grab India and then hold it against a Soviet counterattack.At this point, all they can do is shuffle units forward around the map trying to get what IPCs they can.
Collects 34
B7
Buy: 3 TANK/3 ART/3 INF, banks 1 IPCAt this point, everything in-range is pulled to India to try holding the incoming Japanese attack. I do use the Bomber I sent to Africa to help pick off one German unit on its way out, though.
In Europe, UK takes Poland again to keep hammering the German logistics chain.
I7
Buy: 3 TANK/ARTEverything turns around to save Poland. Elsewhere, the last Italian INF in Russia takes 1 IPC of territory.
Collects 20
A7
Buy: 3 BOMBRetakes Hawaii and Brazil. With Bomber pressure the Americans now have the advantage in the Pacific again.
Collects 38
J8
Buy: 3 BOMB, banks 3 IPCAt this point, we both agree that Round 9 will be the Final Turn.
Japan goes all-in and attacks India with everything in range. I do not have the exact calc from Gen Con because I didn’t calc the battle.
AA hits rolled extremely well, getting 2 hits on FTRs. This let the British hold, but Japan kept enough stuff around to make a second attempt on J9 feasible.
Collects 41, ends on 44
R8
Buy: 4 TANK/1 INF
The Tanks are for Caucasus in case I need to do a last-second India save.Soviets start mopping up in Russia.
Collects 27
G8
Buy: 8 INF/ART/TANK, banks 1 IPC
All Germany can do at this point is stack Baltic States as much as possible and hope for a last-second win.Collects 32, ends on 33
B8
Buy: 4 INF/2 ART/3 TANK
All UK needs to do is keep stacking India, make Karelia un-killable, and set up for a last-second VC grab in Europe.Collects 30
I8
Buy: 2 TT/2 INF
Italy’s last-ditch effort is to make a play at Caucasus next turn.Collects 14
A8
Buy: 3 BOMB, banks 2 IPCThe US Fleet walks across the Pacific, mowing down the blockers set up by Japan. Now America can grab an extra VC (Australia, Philippines, Hong Kong, Shanghai) on the final turn unless Japan does something.
Collects 38, ends on 40
J9
NO BUY
Japan throws everything they have at both India and the USN. The attack against the navy failed and at that point the Axis gave up (because USA will get an extra VC).Allies Win
I mostly won this game because my opponents matched my rate of play, meaning that Allies had more time to come back from their initial setbacks in the Pacific. Had I played USA better on turn 2 I think this game could have had a much earlier and much more decisive conclusion, but that’s not how things played out.
(4/6) -
Semifinal
This round happened immediately following Round 3, which only about 2 hours for a break. This meant that everyone involved was utterly exhausted before even sitting down to play. My opponents were none other than this website’s own Dave Jensen and his partner Mike, so I was playing someone I actually know semi-personally. It made for an interesting, but blunder-filled match, as you will see below:Side: Allies
Bid Die Roll: Won
Bid: Axis +0
Dave wanted Axis. I was hoping to get Axis +3 so I could show the strategy I used in round 1, but no luck.J1:
Buy: CV/2 TT/INF
This team opened nearly identically to the previous two teams. For brevity, I am only going to highlight the differences in moves:
-A second FTR (From Japan) brought to Pearl, but they DID NOT bring a DD
-3 INF (Burma+FIC) + 2 FTR (FIC, Formosa) + BOMB (Japan) attacks Yunnan (Chinese FTR)
-Suiyuan not attacked (normally they try to hit all Chinese territories, but this team did not attack Suiyan).
-3 INF (Kiangsu) + FTR (Man.) attacks Hupeh.In China, the rolls were average here. However, at sea, the Allies rolled high. Japan lost 1 Fighter in the Indian Ocean attack and another at Peal (although that one was an intentional loss because it flew in from Tokyo).
One interesting thing that was tried was that the Axis Team actually retreated from the Pearl Harbor attack after one round of combat (sparing 1 US Fighter). It was an attempt to save the Japanese Cruiser, but you will see later that this does not work.
Collects 34
R1
Buy: 2 INF/2 ART/2 TANKI made the same play as the other two games where I was Allies. However, looking at the board state again, it might have been good to try pulling a Bomber and going for Manchuria, since the Chinese @ Suiyuan could have NCM’d forward to join whatever Soviet INF survived + place the free Chinese INF there as well. That would made made a very painful position for the Japanese to navigate. However, I will stress again that both teams were exhausted from 3 consecutive days of playing + a very early morning start, so big misses like this will come up often.
One such big mistake is that I completely forgot to NCM the Soviet Sub to join the British Battleship. Given how both sides rolled on the following battle (more on that during the German turn recap), this wound up causing problems for the Allies that cascaded all the way to the very end of the game. Very unfortunate.
We also found an issue with the board setup (USSR was missing a Tank that was supposed to be in Caucasus, I think there was a missing piece for Germany as well), which caused some delays. This was not the reason I missed the sub move though. It was just fatigue on my end.
Luck-wise, E. Ukr. went well. Belo was about average.
Collects 26
G1
Buy: CV/TT/4 INF/ARTIt was yet another Carrier opening. This time however, the Axis Team was better prepared, making sure to also put the 2 INF from Finland in Norway to deter any attempt by UK at killing off the German air units.
My mistake with the Russian sub placement cost me terribly here, as the Axis Team only got 3 hits on the first round of combat (1 from Subs, 2 from air, so the Soviet sub could have soaked a hit). Both British units hit during the same first round of combat, meaning the German subs were dead. Had I not neglected the Soviet sub, my Battleship would have had one more chance to shoot down a British Air unit (probably a Fighter), which could have fundamentally changed the course of the game (basically, without the extra Fighter, UK has a chance at punching through Norway and getting the Bomber during B1, which would deny net 2 air units to Germany for the G2 fleet battle, meaning UK would have a faster timeline to getting naval supremacy in Europe and busting the Carriers).
So all-in-all, very bad mistake from me with the Soviets. A near-fatal one, as you will see in the coming turns.
Elsewhere, luck was mostly average, but the Germans tried a strafe against Belorussia that has absolutely awful luck. Something like 1 hit on the attackers’ roll Vs. ~4-5 hits on the defenders’ roll. Very bad luck for the Axis Team that screwed up their momentum Vs. USSR for a fair amount of the game.
With their NCM/placement, Germany primes itself for a potential Sealion if the Allies get too complacent, much like the previous opponent.
Collects 37
B1
Buy: CV/2 DD, banks 1 IPCDespite the poor odds, I made an attempt at strafing Norway anyway. My hope was that the Axis Team would take the Bomber as a loss during the first round of combat, which would let me just retreat the air units and let the land units (if any) die (I would have also sacrificed the UK Bomber here if needed).
Ultimately, neither side got what they wanted. The Axis Team only took INF as casualties, but only got 2 hits on defense, so all of UK’s air units survived the battle.
Collects 31, ends on 32
I1
Buy: TT/INFLike with the other Axis players who spent I1 building a TT, Italy is forced to play slow here and keep its fleet stationary. This slows their momentum but given how the rest of the game played out it, they will end up getting a lot of mileage out of this second transport.
Collects 12
A1
Buy: 2 CV/1 FTR
The same buys/moves I did for the rest of the tournament. Mostly similar to last round as the E. US forces need to step up to block Sealion.The only notable difference, of course, is that I sent 1 SUB + air support to kill the stray Japanese Cruiser from J1. That unforced error was probably just due to player fatigue.
China tried taking 4 INF Vs. 2 INF @ Hupeh (a 77% exchange), but I had to retreat after China missed the first roll and Japan got a hit. This would cause problems for China in the short term due to the large number of Japanese land units on the board (although it wasn’t nearly as bad for China as most of game 3 was).
Collects 38
J2
Buy: FTR/3 TANK/3 INF
The buy is so land-heavy because the Axis Team actively believed the US Air Stack (1 FTR/3 BOMB) in E. Canada was a bluff, and that it was actually meant to fly east and counterattack whatever German Navy was left in SZ6 (Scappa Flow) in the hypothetical where Germany attacks into the Royal Navy and wins.Japan sent 2 Fighters to go kill the UK Africa fleet with no Battleship to escort. I got a lucky hit so that marked 3 dead Japanese Fighters since the start of the game, a very good amount of luck for the Allies that should have made America’s job much easier. The other Fighter has to NCM to Egypt and slowly make its way back to the Pacific later.
That aside, the rest of the turn was mostly standard. Japan killed the American sub from A1 and made major progress in China. The entire IJN (except the 1 Destroyer who killed the American Sub) piles into SZ36 (SEA) to prepare for a J3 India takedown.
Collects 36
R2
Buy: 2 TANK/4 INF/ART
Same buy as the other games.This time, I made sure to move the Soviet sub to join the main UK Navy.
I considered trying to take Belorussia, since it was actually relatively lightly defended at this point, but faced with 2 German Transports + all the air + the small German stack in Baltic States (the one that did the botched strafe on Belo during G1), I was too afraid of being counterattacked. In hindsight, it may have been better to force the issue, since if Germany attacked the Soviets at Leningrad, they wouldn’t have been able to hit the Royal Navy, which would have given me enough time to build up to a point where Germany couldn’t kill it anymore.
However, in the game, I moved my stack back to E. Ukr. and took aggressive trades in E. Pol. and Ukr. Hoping to lull the Germans into another game where they spend too much money Vs. UK’s navy and eventually get overwhelmed by the Red Army.
I also moved up the Siberians as usual, and sent my Bomber + 2 INF into China to get a territory back for China.
Collects 27
G2
Buy: CV/INF/2 ART/2 TANK, banks 2 IPCGermany blasts the British fleet (at the cost of a DD/SUB/FTR), but otherwise plays passively, stacking up E. Poland and slowly walking forward in Africa. 4 more land units (3 from Norway, 1 from Germany) are funneled into Karelia to lock down the territory.
Collects 35, ends on 37
B2
Buy: 4 DDI trade Norway and unite the India/TJ stacks @ Persia to dodge all possible attacks. The British Fighters from the Pacific half of the board are also ready to go in E. Ukr. in case an opportunity to attack or land on a newly built Carrier comes up.
Collects 32
I2
Buy: INF/ART/TANKItaly rams as much stuff as they can into Persia to keep the pressure on.
Collects 13
A2
Buy: 2 TT/2 BOMBI continue my normal plan, bringing the fleet up to Iwo Jima (and also snipe the stray Japanese DD with air power). This scares the Axis Team as, since they bought almost all land units last turn, are mostly unprepared to fight the USN at this stage (and are out-of-position to try any counterattack due to being in SEA for their own attack @ India).
In Europe, the US DD/2 TT go to SZ6 to join the rest of the British fleet (1 CA/4 DD, now 5 DD thanks to the Americans). I also put the extra US Fighter in Bury to force Japan to bring more things there to deal with the Soviet stack (I am also hoping that the Fighter will deter an attack and allow the Soviets to break into China as they did in the other matches).
China had nothing to do but unite its remaining stack with the Soviet one and hope to hold on.
Collects 38
J3
Buy: CA/3 DD
The point of the buy is that the Axis Team wanted to bet the game on the outcome of a naval clash, rather than allow the Americans to deadzone the Japan SZ for the entire game with Bomber spam buys. Dave was the first one to correctly intuit what I was doing with the Allies, so kudos to him for figuring it out under the pressure of a live tournament game.Japan made more gains in China, set up next to India (which I left open, but there is a large British stack on Persia threatening a counterattack), and moved the entire fleet back to Japan SZ, where they attacked the Siberian stack. The US Fighter put in work, and made sure all Japanese land units died as well. Tokyo is now basically defenseless, and on America’s turn I will consider whether to attack.
Collects 36
R3
Buy: 3 TANK/4 INFI forego the chance to snipe the German Med. Transport to send both Soviet air units into China to make another play there. It works again, and now Japan is starting to finally get thinned out in China after their very good early game.
On the Russia-Germany front, I made the decision to stack up in E. Ukr. and send a force south into Bulgaria-Romania. In hindsight, this was a positional error, just like last turn. Not stepping to Belorussia is allowing Germany to keep making attacks against the Royal Navy without any threat of a counterattack from USSR -> Karelia. My strategies with USSR and UK are not in-sync like they were in the other two games where I was Allies, and it is costing me badly here.
Collects 28
G3
Buy; CV/DD/FTR/INF, banks 2 IPC
Germany attacks the British fleet with everything in-range except for their Cruiser, as the Axis Team thinks it would be better to keep at least one boat back in case the attack somehow fails.The fight was, from what I can recall:
2 CV
4 FTR
1 BOMBVs.
5 DD
1 CACalc’ing this now as-written says it’s a 88% chance win for the Germans, but that they should expect to have 3-4 attacking units survive. It was smart of the Axis Team to bring the Carriers to soak hits, as without them the odds drop to a miserable 49%, a virtual coinflip.
At the table, the Axis had a middling first round of dice, and we were left with something like:
3 FTR
1 BOMBVs.
2 FTR
The Axis Team considered retreating at this point, not wanting to lose more air, but ultimately decided to press on out of a desire to kill the Allied Transports and not give the 2 FTR/1 BOMB a chance to counterattack the Baltic Fleet and wipe everything out. This ultimately proved to be the correct decision, as the Germans got all their hits on the next round of combat and the British got 0 hits back. Luck aside, it was right to lose the air to ensure the British fleet was 100% killed off for a second time, as this slowed me down significantly during the transition from mid -> late game.
In Russia, the Germans tried to take advantage of how out-of-position I was in E. Ukr. by walking their main stack into Belorussia. Their hope was that I would retreat the Soviets to Moscow in the face of his numbers. However, I think the Axis Team accidentally counted their air power in with the Belo Stack, as they diverted a large number of troops from the potential stack to go retake Ukraine, Bulgaria-Romania and Norway from the Allies there. You will see on R4 that the Soviets would have an easy time killing the German stack.
Elsewhere, the Germans in Africa ran south to gobble up IPCs.
Collects 40, ends on 42
B3
Buy: 1 CV/2 DD, saves 2 IPCI leave a blocker in Persia but move the main stack to India (to hold it now that the Japanese fleet is out of position). In retrospect it may have been wiser to repeat my strategy from Round 3 and make now the time to try for a UK IC in India. That plus the stack would have prevented India’s fall to the Axis, which could have made a huge difference in the outcome, as you will see.
The Fighters from E. Ukr. NCM to SZ6 to land on the newly built Carrier. This probably should have been at least partially set up earlier to boost UK’s odds Vs. Germany as much as possible.
Collects 26, ends on 28. My notes say UK collected 33 and ended on 35 but I’m not sure how that could have possibly happened unless I got something wrong in setting up my recreation board. Please refer to whatever video gets posted on YT later to see how this happened.
I3
Buy: 3 INF/ARTUsing Ukraine (captured by Germany earlier) as a can-opener, the 2 Italian Tanks in Russia blitz to Caucasus, joined by the Italian Navy picking up everything in-range from in/around Italy. This brings an impressive 2 INF/ART/3 TANK stack into Caucasus to crush it. The blocker in Persia is also crushed by the TJ stack (in hindsight, it probably would have been smarter to either stack Caucasus with the British (and accept that India is lost/needs to be retaken on the final few turns), or build the India IC and let the Soviets/Italians trade Caucasus for the rest of the game).
Regardless, the Italians get Caucasus, and thus reach a strong/stable income level.
Collects 18
A3
Buy: 3 BOMB, banks 2 IPCAt this point, I make the grave mistake that costs me the entire match (and thus the tournament). According to my notes, the fight for Japan’s SZ was:
2 CV
1 DD
1 CA
1 BB
5 BOMBVs.
3 DD
2 CV
1 CA
4 FTR
2 BBThis fight, of course, is suicide, with 1% odds to the attacker.
But if you read that spread again, as I did while typing this report, you’ll notice that THE FIGHTERS ARE MISSING FROM THE US SIDE
Yes, as it happened, I completely missed the 4 American Fighters (from the Carriers, of course). Adding them back in boosts USA’s odds to outright win the game to 76% (well, 76% chance to win the fleet battle, then 70% chance for the American Tank off Iwo Jima to successfully 1v1 the lone Bomber in Tokyo, for a grand total of .76 * .70 = 53% chance to outright win the game on the spot, and if the Tank failed to win in Tokyo, it was fine, since the other transports could have moved up from W. US to force Japan to spend a turn building all land units while the Americans sped off to win in China/Philippine.
But, in the actual game, I panicked when I saw the calc, and tried moving the Bombers + extra transports up while sacrificing the first Transport (with a Tank loaded) to take Shanghai (in an attempt to draw Japan’s few remaining land units to move away from the front lines). Even this was a bad play, as the fleet should have at least retreated to draw the IJN away from coastal China for another few rounds.
The American bombers all landed on Iwo Jima as well, when they should have at least gone into China to continue the task of cleaning up Japanese land units for China’s sake (there was still one Japanese land stack + a few blockers roaming over there).
As for China, all it could do was attack a blocker and continue trying to keep its last stack alive.
Collects 38, ends with 40
J4
Buy: IC/BOMB/SUB, saves 3 IPC
The build is to account for the American bomber spam, as the Axis Team deemed it too expensive to keep building escorting boats for the Transports while USSR/China had made massive inroads in that part of the board.Japan, of course, massively capitalizes on my indecisiveness as the Americans during A3, and wipes out the entire USN for the cost of most of Japan’s ships. To complicate the issue, the Axis Team decided to split their transports into 3 separate SZs, none of which were the one that contained the surviving IJN. This meant that America would need to choose between cleaning the Transports and cleaning the IJN during A4, which made America’s bad position infinitely worse.
They also played in China, continuing to swap land territories there.
The IC goes to Manchuria.
Collects 33, ends on 36. My notes have them lower than this. That, coupled with UK’s income being lower than expected suggests to me that UK sneaked a Tank into SEA at some point. You’ll have to see if that was the case in whatever video of this game gets uploaded later.
R4
Buy: 5 TANK/1 INF
The build is forced because USSR only has 6 production slots due to Italy taking Caucasus.The battle for Belorussia was:
9 INF
1 ART
11 TANK
1 FTR
1 BOMBVs.
13 INF
1 ART
6 TANKLike all the other major battles, I calc’d this after the fact and ended up with 83% for USSR. This proved accurate, as the Soviets won big here and crushed through the German stack (although Soviets lost all their INF/ART, so were left with only tanks at this point).
Soviets also continued doing their best to keep playing in China.
Collects 18 (as you’d imagine, losing Caucasus hurt)
G4
Buy: DD/3 ART/TANK/5 INF, banks 2 IPC
The buy was a reaction to losing the entire German land stack. The Axis Team’s priority has shifted to defense in Europe and letting Italy win the game via Caucasus/India.To that end, Germany’s turn is passive, shoving as many things as possible into Caucasus/Karelia as possible while slowly/carefully advancing in Africa.
Collects 40, ends on 42
B4
Buy; 2 TT/1 CA, banks 2 IPC
My notes say I also bought a Destroyer. It might have something to do with whatever extra money I had from playing in SEA (which I didn’t record here sadly).I had the India stack attack the Persia stack, because I wanted to make sure it didn’t get to Caucasus during I4. This proved to be a bad idea because I ended up retreating with a Bomber left Vs. his Tank. This would prove to be the last mistake I’d be allowed in this match, as you will see shortly.
Collects 25, ends with 27
I4
Buy: 6 INF
The specific placement is 3 to Caucasus, 3 to Italy. This is so Italy can get all possible bombard shots during I5.Italy diverts 2 Tanks to smash into India and capture it, the final punishment for the combination of:
-USA’s failure to kill Tokyo or at least destroy the IJN during A3.
-UK’s failure to build an India IC after the Sealion threat was neutralized (The time for this would have been B3, after the second wave of German air/navy was sacrificed to destroy the second UK Fleet).-UK attacking Persia and retreating the bomber during B4 instead of either holding the ground or staying to win the land battle (which would have forced the Italian navy to amphib India to take it, or spare India for the time and have Japan do a walk-in, which could be dealt with more easily for reasons that will become clear towards the end of the game).
Axis now have a large enough VC Lead that Allies would need to recapture 2 before the end of the game to be able to win.
Collects 23
A4
Buy; 3 TT/1 ART/5 INF
Out of desperation, I attempt a last-second Europe switch to try sneaking into France on A6. This is something that worked occasionally in-practice, but under the stress of the situation I forgot the critical detail that this last-second switch was only helpful in positions where Japan was already dealt with (this was not one of those positions, seeing as Japan still had navy alive + an IC in Asia that I had no way of taking).In retrospect, even if I did insist on going down this path, I completely neglected to factor in the 3 US Land Units (2 INF/ART) that were already in the UK from the A1 anti-Sealion buy. That’s 10 IPC I could have spent on a FTR instead, which would have been one more HP for the final battle. Not relevant given the much bigger mistakes that lead to this moment (up to and including this entire buy!), but it’s an efficiency thing.
I fell for the trap laid by the Axis Team badly here. Thinking their objective was Australia (another VC), I sent two bombers to kill 2/3 Japanese Transports (the two that were in range of Hawaii), and sent the rest to attack the remnants of the IJN. This was a miserably poor move for multiple reasons:
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I spared a Japanese TT, which will cause issues immediately that will cascade for the rest of the game.
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The IJN Remnants (2 BB/1 CA) were harmless in their current position, as there were no accompanying transports. They could (and should) have been left for later.
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There was another loaded carrier beyond the fleet I was targeting. My attack on the fleet was meant to stop them from uniting during J5 but I failed to account for the sheer amount of attrition I’d be taking + the fact that I did not build another wave of Bombers, meaning attrition losses would not be replaced. This means that despite destroying this fleet, I would not be able to destroy whatever navy Japan follows-up with on J5, which is exactly what ended up happening in the ame.
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Because I got tunnel vision on Japan’s various ships, I lost focus on the potential to do something about the Japanese air ball, which was currently defending the Manchuria IC (if I remember correctly), and thus in-range for a high-value piece trade.
These misses would have fatal consequences as the game nears its conclusion. To top it off, the bombers attacking the IJN have horrific luck and are all shot down (the battle was a tie). The survivors NCM to Australia to prepare a possible strafe against India to remove the defenders there.
China has nothing to do but place blockers everywhere to contain Japan’s stack. They have no way to stop the Manchuria factory as it begins to pump out troops.
Collects 38
J5
Buy: 3 TANK/4 INF/TT, banks 2 IPCOne of the Transports I let live (@ Wake Island), runs back to SZ61 (China Coast) and starts ferrying new troops to the mainland. In general, Japan begins to dominate China due to how thin the numbers of both sides are.
I don’t realize it at the time, but all Japanese air units are currently in-position to NCM to India during J6. This is why I said it was important for UK to stay there or otherwise prevent Italy from being the one to capture it earlier in the game.
Collects 35, ends on 37
R5
Buy: 6 INFThe Soviets technically had the option of taking Karelia, but because Allies need to get 2 VCs before the game ends, they’re instead forced to smash all their tanks into Caucasus and Persia (and enough Tanks in Persia to prevent and Axis blockers from getting into position). This is why UK needed to kill the Persia stack during B4 earlier, to prevent Italy from locking down Persia and preventing USSR from taking it on R5, after which they could have just left a blocker and locked down India for the guaranteed win.
As it happened in-game, Soviets got both territories easily, setting up a final battle over India on R5 that would determine the fate of the game.
Collects 24. My notes say USSR was down to 19, so Germany must have made progress in the northern part of Russia (Archangel/Urals/etc.) that I didn’t notice during my recreation attempt. Like the other inconsistencies, please refer to whatever video gets uploaded for 100% accuracy
G5
Buy: SUB/2 DD/5 INF/SBR Repair
Apparently I did a SBR against Karelia at some point during the game. I didn’t note that I did one but I did note that Germany repaired the damage at this stage. It makes sense, given that Germany’s goal now is to lock down the European VCs as much as possible and win with India.Collects 46
B5
Buy: 2 DD/2 INF/ARTAll UK can do at this point is make a desperation play in NWE to try tricking Germany into over-comitting there during G6 (and dropping their guard on France).
Collects 25
I5
Buy: 4 INF/2 TANK, banks 1 IPCItaly throws everything they have at Caucasus to reduce the Soviet Tank Count. The bombards do massive damage, and the Red Army is crippled (but Caucasus does hold).
Collects 17
A5
Buy: 3 BOMB, banks 2 IPC
The buy is for E. US. If UK can take NWE next turn the Bombers can support the 3 TT/5 INF/ART play from last turn as they attack from Canada -> France as a Hail Mary pass.The only thing America can do at this point is use the Bombers from Australia to clear out India. They succeed at this.
China lunges forward with the last of their INF. They’re one tile away from a VC, but they’re not going to make it.
Collects 38, ends on 40
J6
We declared this as the final turn after a brief debate (in retrospect, given the board state, I should have argued more strongly for a 7th turn to give Soviets time to amass enough force to take India, as the Western Allies had no prayer of breaking into any of the German VCs at this point).Buy: Irrelevant
In the “checkmate” move of the game, Japan kills the last Chinese holdouts that were in-range of any VCs then NCMs their air ball to India to lock down the VC.R6
USSR’s odds at India are only 12%, so I use the last turn instead trying to gobble up as many IPCs as I can in case I get lucky with UK/US. If I’d stopped to think I would have realized that their odds of success were much MUCH lower than 12%, and just taken the shot @ India.G6
Buy: 2 FTR/3 SUB/DD
Their buy is to lock down the Baltic as much as possible so UK can’t sneak in and take Poland.
The Axis Team didn’t fall for my plan. They min-maxxed NWE and France to mix defense and offense.B6
The only way out I can see at this point is taking 1 INF + air to hit NWE and some spare units to try rigging a hit in France (since the other 6 Italian land units are going to move up during I6). In retrospect I should have just sent the air to France and all land units to NWE, even if the effort is futile at this point anyway.I lose the NWE fight and then give up, since now the American Bombers can’t help fight in France during A6.
Axis Win
(5/6)
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FINAL NOTES:
In hindsight, the main reasons for my severe shortcomings in the final game (mostly the obvious missed moves, which are very painful to discover when going through the game notes line by line to try recreating them) are the following:-
Lack of a partner. Gen Con’s format is 2v2. I do not like this format as I believe A&A is best played 1v1, but I did not go solo to “prove a point” or anything like that. It just happened that everyone I knew who could have teamed up with me had other commitments and couldn’t make it to the convention. Maybe another time. I even agreed to be paired with the only other solo player at the convention to reduce bracket size, but in the end that would have caused an odd number of players, so we both went solo (I believe the other solo guy lost in round 1, which was sad as he seemed nice enough).
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Overdoing it on practice right before the tournament. In short, the night before I drove out to Indiana I stayed up until about 5:30 AM doing last-minute practice work. This accomplished nothing but trashing my sleep schedule before the convention. If anything, it’s remarkable I played as well as I did in the early games (although there are still plenty of minor piece movement mistakes and sub-optimal attacks that I should not have taken).
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Not bringing snacks into the floor. I did all my eating at the stalls outside, as for some reason I convinced myself that foodstuffs weren’t allowed in the actual hall. I really should have known better, since I was drinking water basically constantly and opponents were drinking water/soda/etc. with no issues. My opponents in the last round had energy bars, so they were clearly better prepared than I was.
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Playing too fast. I was a bit nervous during my games due to wanting to 100% make sure to play 6 full turns, since that’s the turn count I practiced for. Against my Round 3 opponents, I even especially made sure to play as fast as I could to force the game to go for extra turns (if you check my report, you’ll actually see that I was technically losing on turn 6. It was only during turns 7 and beyond that the Allies really started to overwhelm the Axis). Similarly, I feel that the Semifinal game could have become a win if I had a 7th turn to work with (this isn’t a complaint, we mutually agreed during the very start of J6 that it would be the final turn, and my opponents were even generous enough to let me modify my US unit placement to accommodate the fact that it was the final turn).
That being said, me playing fast caused me to miss a lot of obvious errors across all my games. I got away with it during the early rounds, but in the semifinal things like missing the Soviet sub movement R1, miss-counting the size of my own US Navy A3, and miscounting the range on the Japanese Air Stack during the final turns basically cost me everything. If I had played more slowly/carefully, I probably would have noticed at least some of the more obvious blunders.
- Letting my physical fitness decline in the month before the event. Self-explanatory. I cut gym days to grind A&A instead and it probably impacted my ability to play/think effectively for longer stretches of time. You may think this is a strange thing to comment on but at least personally I need to keep good cardio to be able to put out A&A-levels of focus for multiple 5.5 hour stretches without getting tired or distracted.
I am attaching three files here. They are my best efforts at recreating the 3 games I played off-camera in TripleA. They’re based on notes + memory, so they are likely not 100% accurate. You should mostly just use them as a visualization tool to follow along with the summaries above.
Shout-Outs and Thanks
Even though I lost in a very sloppy fashion at the Semifinal, there are still two people I would like to thank.First, @The_Good_Captain, for always being a friend and at least dipping your toes into F2F-style play for a fewrounds (since we both know your true calling is strict Online Play). You listened to my crazy ideas/theories much more than you really needed to, and were a good support system while I was between matches at the convention. You also put a lot of work in for pre-gaming Battle Calcs on a lot of common fight patterns (Without which I would not have been able to play as quickly as I did during Round 3, and I would have likely lost the tournament right there). One day when our actual lives are more settled we’ll have to actually make a team and sweep through.
Second, and more importantly (sorry TGC), @Slip-Capone, who spent almost as much time as I did labbing out the strategies for both sides, stayed up with me until God-knows what time discussing strategies, hypothetical counters-to-counters-to-counters, and even ran his own solo games to test strategies he would never even get to use personally (If it comes down to it one day, I will pay to fly you up here from Australia so we can team up properly). If anything, this performance was a disservice to the sheer amount of blood/sweat/tears you selflessly put into helping me prep, and I owe you the world for it.
@djensen tagging you because at Gen Con you asked for my write-up/calcs sheets during our game so you can have a more complete data set for whatever you’re getting up to with the one YT Channel (BGN?) that was taking recordings. They’re in the relevant section on our Semifinal Game. Thanks again for the fun match even if it was stressful at the time.
(6/6)
genCon-Round-1.tsvg
genCon-Round-2.tsvg
genCon-Round-3.tsvg -
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@DoManMacgee said in Gen Con 2025 - AAR:
I forget what the appropriate Board for Tournament AARs is so apologies in advance. @Panther just move this wherever it needs to go. I don’t mind.
Totally fine here, as these are AAR about the OOB-game.
Thank you for the write-up. Interesting read.
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Wow. Thank you for providing such a detailed rundown of your games! I was also playing in the tournament, (I think you may have even helped me set up a board at one point.) . My brother and I were also semi-finalists, but on the other side of the bracket. I very much appreciate getting a chance to read an overview of many of the other games I didn’t get to play in!
I did not keep as detailed notes as you did, and could never hope to provide as detailed a blow by blow, but I will confirm that the German Carrier absolutely seems to be in vogue for Axis Players, though I agree with you that I think its over-valued. I will say that for all four of my games, the bid went to the Axis, and I never got a sense that anyone felt that was unexpected. I guess our side of the bracket generally thought the advantage was with the allies, and your side felt differently. I’m very curious to see how the bid went for the championship.
More importantly, I want to say that I could have written this post about your final assessment of your experience after last year’s tournament, which was my first experience at GenCon. The only differences would be that I played with a partner, so I could remove that mistake, but would have to add that I booked my hotel too late, leaving me with a cheap a hotel, too far away and lost sleep to a crappy bed an unnecessary travel back and forth
We played too fast for our own good. We tried to cram in too much practice just before the tournament. We did not bring enough snacks to the hall and had to fight through the convention crowds to grab meals between games. All of it derived from a severe underestimate of how a lack of sleep would effect our play. We lost on a mistake I would not have thought we would ever have made, and it was far from our only error.
If you have not played in GenCon or a similar tournament, you have to know that you will try to play at your max speed to get in the most game you can. Going fast and not sleeping is a recipe for mistakes no matter how experienced a player you are.
Reading the above give pause to new players that are considering attending a GenCon tournament. Let say that having made some small adjustments for our second tournament, I am far more satisfied with how I played. I won’t say that we didn’t have some small errors as the tournament progressed, but nothing that cost us the game, and at that point our opponents were also having small mistakes too.
The trick is to ensure you’ve got enough sleep and awareness that you won’t miss the devastating mistakes that will cost you the game. It is not hard to do, you just need to go in with an appreciation for what its like deep in the tourney. Hopefully this thread is enough to provide that for anyone considering attending for the first time.
Very small side note: You were correct that you could have placed the new Chinese infantry in Hupeh in your second game. The limit of three per territory only applies to the number of Chinese units in the space before you place. If the number you place causes the territory to exceed a number of three, that is ok. The believe that you can never have more than three Chinese units in any territory is a persistent misconception that stems from the fact that the wording in the original 2008 rulebook was not very clear. It was clarified in the official Errata that is available on this site (https://www.axisandallies.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Axis-Allies-50th-Anniversary-Errata-FAQ.pdf) but a lot players learned this game from that original rule book.
I think you were right not to make too big a deal of it though. One of the best parts of these tournaments is the spirit of fun and comradery between opponents, and its not worth spoiling that if it won’t have a major impact on the game.
Thank you again for the detailed recaps! I sincerely hope to see you at a future tournament.
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@PizzaPete said in Gen Con 2025 - AAR:
I’m very curious to see how the bid went for the championship.
It was Axis +0. @djensen can attest to that.
More importantly, I want to say that I could have written this post about your final assessment of your experience after last year’s tournament, which was my first experience at GenCon. The only differences would be that I played with a partner, so I could remove that mistake, but would have to add that I booked my hotel too late, leaving me with a cheap a hotel, too far away and lost sleep to a crappy bed an unnecessary travel back and forth
I wouldn’t say my “playing without a partner” was necessarily a mistake. I tried convincing any relevant A&A player in my life to partner with me. It just didn’t work out (and I didn’t want to miss the event outright). That being said I will continue to advocate that 1v1 should the official format for tournament play, even if I am in the minority. Most of the teams I played against were basically “the main player” and “the advisor who catches mistakes” anyway, in my opinion.
We played too fast for our own good.
Yup. Although playing fast is necessary in some cases to force extra turns in the format as-is. I needed to force extra turns in game #3, for example, or I would most certainly have lost.
We tried to cram in too much practice just before the tournament.
I can relate to that for other games, but I spent about 7 months prepping for this specific tournament format and have been playing semi-actively since 2008 (although I have never bothered with this one in Online Leagues, so my level of play isn’t as high as something like Revised for 42SE. Online Format Vs. F2F format are basically completely different games anyway, so that sort of experience wouldn’t necessarily help beyond a firmer grasp on the openings).
We did not bring enough snacks to the hall and had to fight through the convention crowds to grab meals between games.
Yup. At least the Gen Con food is pretty good as far as convention hall stuff goes (I’ve played TCGs for most of my life, so I’ve had way worse).
All of it derived from a severe underestimate of how a lack of sleep would effect our play. We lost on a mistake I would not have thought we would ever have made, and it was far from our only error.
The 9-hour car ride on top of everything else was something I forgot to mention on my end. I’d like to imagine the lack of sleep affects everyone (mostly) equally though.
If you have not played in GenCon or a similar tournament, you have to know that you will try to play at your max speed to get in the most game you can. Going fast and not sleeping is a recipe for mistakes no matter how experienced a player you are.
I have about 3-4 years worth of playing other multi-year conventions for A&A + a lot longer for other games, so I at least knew about this stuff going in. It’s very good advice to give new players coming in off of YT videos and such, though.
The trick is to ensure you’ve got enough sleep and awareness that you won’t miss the devastating mistakes that will cost you the game. It is not hard to do, you just need to go in with an appreciation for what its like deep in the tourney. Hopefully this thread is enough to provide that for anyone considering attending for the first time.
Yeah. In my case I think physical conditioning is also a big factor. I should not have been skipping gym days in the month before the tournament for sure. That sort of thing was never a problem for me in the past but I just do not have as much natural stamina as I did in my teens/20s. Part of getting older I guess.
Anyway, thanks for the comment! Sorry that you were also not able to win it all. I can’t make it to the Dayton tournament later this year (just not in the cards money/time-investment wise, as November is crunch time for both my job and wallet due to Christmas), but will hope to come to more events next year.
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