Has anyone tried a J1 invasion of Alaska?

The new setup flops everything on it’s head.  You NEED to have a gameplan when you make your turn 1 buy.  If you buy three transports there needs to be a reason, and not just you want to take everything.  I have a plan I want to try out that involves 2 turns of all transport buys for a J3 attack, but I haven’t tried it yet

no.

it seems like no one is answering the threads question.

japan initial purchases are transports, then subs and destroyers to keep usa back. they have enough tacs already
china they can not purchase tacs
uk needs to buy ground units
anzac needs to buy cheap naval units
usa is the only country that i would even consider a tac purchase. then give my head a shake and realize that i need more important units.

Well, Kat, here is the dilemma:

If you allow Japan to take Hawaii, the following turn Japan swings down to Australia.
Add up the victory cities: 2 starting cities, Phillipines, Hong Kong + Hawaii = 5 total.
Sydney is 6. No need to slog through to India.

If you surrender Hawaii on J2, Japan could conceivably win the game outright on J4.
J3 fresh troops from Japan land on Hawaii. New Zealand falls. Don’t forget Australia does not get to scramble fighters because they are considered a continent, not an island.
Third CV returns to Phillipines to help with ANZAC attack.
J4 fresh troops arrive in Hawaii; existing troops shuttled to Queensland or New Zealand, depending where ANZAC defends.
At best Sydney holds out until J5.
As Japan I could send out DD screens to delay US counterattack.
Also, if Hawaii falls on J2, virtually every fighter in Asia I have will be in Hawaii by J4.
The scrambling rules allow ALL fighters to defend sea zone around Hawaii.

So my group has completed a game where Japan went for America.  We figure that whether or not Japan wins is dependent on a few things.

I don’t remember whether the final assualt on WUS happened on J3 or J4.  I think it was J4, and they waited until J3 to attack Alaska?  Either way, the statistics were about a 45% chance for Japan to take WUS.  They needed some AA misses to throw it in their favor.

There really is little that the UK and ANZAC player can contribute to the defense of WUS.  The best thing for them to do is go crazy in the absence of the Japanese forces.  By the time America fell, the UK had liberated most of China, and had several rounds to build up a navy with the help of the DEI income.  Australia also had a bonus going on, adding 2 loaded carriers to supplement defense of the UK fleet.

Japan thought about going straight for Australia, but the UK fleet with transports(deploying from  Kwangtung and Kiangsu factories) was already threatening Japan.

While America had fallen, they only gained +10 income from America, +Mexico +Alaska, while giving up on their territories in the Chinese mainland.  They were being out produced by the Allies, and out of position to restablish a hold on the mainland.

makes me wonder how much the game was actually “playtested” honestly.  The errata is going to be bigger than the rulebook.

Maher C.

I think that they should re-issue a second edition and provide it to those who bought this shabbily tested game (don’t get me wrong, I like it and it has potential).  The should as least give those that purchased the disaster version with some sort of coupon or rebate.  Yeah right, like that’s ever gonna happen.

Sure, my opponents did in our first game: I was the Japan.

I attacked the US navy at Hawaii with my huge Imperial Navy: obviously I destroyed all while they don’t scrambled any fighter nor tactical bomber. At his turn, the US player counter-attacked my ships, destroying all them… We closed the game and immediately started a second one: there’s no fun in playing Pacific without ships! :D

What about using DDs in conjunctiion with SSs?  The subs can soak hits in the early rounds right, for only 6 IPCs instead of 8 IPCs.  I understand the extra #3 attack over a #2 gives the DDs a slight plus for the IPC cost, but i think adding a couple subs could give a small bonus to the final numbers.

Why are you guy so focused on those NO’s? I mean it’s only a bloody 5 IPC, you don’t even get a tank for that price.  :wink:

I’ll take a look on what you posted about the US troops from the Phillippines whether they can be put safe or not. The UK BB and transports are really going to hunt you. They can join the India ships and Anzac fleet south of Java to make a nice 1-2-3 punch with the US later on in the game…… That’s why that BB must die no matter what.