Russia's National Objective Met by Declaring War on Japan?

The most effective russian players I’ve encountered are the ones that are able to build up a force that is able to threaten a counter on a german stack. If a good german player wants to go for Moscow they are able to get it, however I’ve seen plenty games where the UK/USA are putting enough pressure on the  German player for him to stop just in front of Moscow. If the Russian player only has bought inf at this point there is not much of a threat for the German player to keep russia contained and slowly kill it economically. However if there is a stack of paired inf/art the pushback power is a lot bigger and thus Germany can be challenged and Russia may be able to break the German wall.

@simon33:

DOW G1 is not normally advised. Those 3 tanks in Gr Sth Germany are better used assisting in France.

Getting Russia down is the one and only objective Germany has in that game. So DOW1 on Russia is a but risky but a valid strategy because it take several Russian units out.
In order to compensate the missing tanks Germany should definitely let 111 or 110 go or even both seazones to get firepower at France with the Luftwaffe.

Exposing air to the French AA is a calculated risk Germans can definitely take.

It is a general mistake that beginners stretch the German forces too much at G1 (often attacking Normandy and SF that turn). Diluting the France attack to 90-95% odds not yet understanding that 95% and 99% makes a HUGE differences. You could describe it in other words: 95% is failing 5 times as often as 99% and even more important: winning is not everything. Germany taking France with 1 tank remaining is a pyrrhic victory and Germany is almost lost when losing almost all ground units in France G1.

Thanks for the recap on the stages of the Alpha’s. I do like the newer rules I think compared to the OOB rules. Just gatta break the group on the next new game.

BH

I have to say I like the idea of giving all nations more money.  Perhaps each nation collects their normal income + national objective income and then adds 2d6 bonus economy to add in randomness?

That should only average an extra 6 IPC per nation (6.090909… really) but would be flexible enough to give only +2 or as much as +12 both of which could add some flair and randomness to the game.

I find this exactly the strategic dilemma for Japan!
Japan strengthens its position when DOW J2 but that may weaken the German/Italian positions. Some US players are even ready to go for Gibraltar and start projecting a threat into Europe in US 2 .

If UK DOWs UK2 as general play, it may just end up strengthening both axis nations. But I can see it working in some cases, especially if the German threat levels are low in Europe and Japan is out of position with its fleet.

Dang it! Forgot that one. Just edited my previous post. Thanks ghr2.

@larrymarx:

Thanks for the responses. The fleet move to take Persia and Iraq probably isn’t a good idea then. Now here’s another question: if Japan declares war on Britain while already at war with Russia, can the US player then land his aircraft in Russia? Russia is not yet at war with Germany or Italy.

Only if the US is at war can it land aircraft in non-US territory

@The:

@calvinhobbesliker:

No, it won’t affect UK either. However, a DOW on UK allows US to DW on japan and Germany and Italy

I thought that a dow on UK doesn’t affect US so it can’t DW any Axis unless an axis power has DW on US

No, like in P40, an unprovoked DOW on the British Empire=US getting to declare war on next turn