Unit Buying Phase

As Simon says you can’t move any of your ships in that sea zone on NCM. There is a provision that allows you to move them to flee the sea zone on the Combat Movement phase without taking them into combat. The real purpose of the move though is to prevent any transports in the sea zone from loading ground units in that sea zone. You can still move to another sea zone on Combat Move and load ground units as long as it is a friendly sea zone. If you haven’t seen the video it explains everything;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pkj_9K3lfQk&t=166s

sub 3 mech 2 tank if you g1 dow russia.
sub 2 bomber standard g2/g3 dow russia or invade london.

The gold standard of buys. Everything else is sub optimal. Why is that? For the G1 dow Germany is attacking 7 infantry, france (all in, no normandy or southern france, can’t risk losing mech/armor for 2 or 3 ipc better to let italy do it and use arty round 2 for normandy) attempting to strafe yugoslavia, sinking one of the two fleets (usually the bship 2 cruiser), sinking dd trans with 2 sub, and sub to sz 125 to prevent Russia NO.

For a standard game the 2 bombers have more potential. They sink naval, you could fly everything to southern italy and attack egypt, if allies park on syria with air you can attack it, bombers could bomb london and you can buy transports to take uk out of the game if UK disrespects you. The bombers are able to attack and take russia in later rounds unlike naval. Oh and bombing the Russians typically puts on a hurt G4/G5, which can occur before allies start flying fighters in.  You do whatever attacks you prefer g1.

Since you use marines as an example, it seems you are playing g40 mod3, in which case sub optimal strategies become better… but g40 mod3 still heavily favors axis. Germany still brings in the pain train, except instead of a 21 ipc bid you get NO money. So initial allies attacks and defenses are diminished, this puts more pressure on the axis to play more aggressive, which they want to do anyway.

@ShadowHAwk:

@Caesar:

Yes, this usually get abused by the Allies since they have more aircraft and more carriers to move around, sometimes I will let US carriers just carry a single plane so ANZAC and UK can launch raids on weak targets to have a place to land.

Or worst, have 1 anzac, Uk plane on a US carrier, carrier moves 2 spaces in non combat plane can safely attack 4 spaces away.
You really sure those transports are safe because of your blockers?

Carriers are awesome like that, it’s one the reason why I build the Graf Zeppelin on G1 just encase I sent the Kreigsmarine to back up the Italians.

@Karl7:

In some 300+ G40 games, I’ve never bought a battleship unless the game was already won I could do whatever I wanted.

I can’t remember the last time I bought a battleship in a game. If I am going to spend 20 IPCs on fleet, I consistently purchase a destroyer and a cruiser – this hits on average more often than a battleship, has the possibility of generating two hits on both attack and defense, and might increase the number of units required to successfully attack my fleet (the math on this one is a bit fuzzy since there are so many variables involved in fleet attacks), and gives me an extra unit that I can detach for a separate mission if necessary.

On the other hand, I have purchased AA guns occasionally, when I expect the number of planes attacking to exceed the number of AA shots I currently have available and/or when I need to empty the treasury because I know the capital is going to fall. Other than that, AA guns would be my second least purchased unit.

Tactical bombers are also rare purchases for me, but I do purchase them occasionally (more often than AA guns).

Marsh

either one side says I concede or we take out all the capitols of the respective sides.

Thanks for the answers.

They are at war, with Japan, per the original post.