Spain and the Axis

We played with dice, not low luck.

@General:

If you do it early enough you can take Gibraltar without the need for a navy. It does open up more landing spots for the Allies but taking the base from them is a hindrance to the American player. And if you maintain parity with the Soviets above the Black Sea you can then undercut them through the Caucasus.

Unlikely to be worth it though. Opening up the weak points in both Spain and Gibraltar doesn’t help the Axis. And those 8 inf in Turkey are a real pain to take out.

@Cmdr:

Other that that, I am wondering what the point is on taking India with Germany.  Other than the “cool…” factor of course.

I didn’t see the time frame that Germany intends to take India, but I would surmise that its a ploy to allow Japan to fry other fish in the Pacific for an Axis win in the Pacific?

Although if the German Air Force is anywhere other than in Europe I’d presume the US would make full investments into the Pacific to prevent the Axis win in the Pacific.

So I take it you suggest keeping manch kaput and move korea into manch and keep kaput.

guess you doing J3 declare war. but then your transported will get blocked so you can only nab malaya borneo and pinoy. (I guess you can hover over a spot with the transport that starts from japan over sumatra).

but if you leave them there on J1 russia moves west and enters through the backdoor of china, he’ll get to kansu before you.

@Robson:

@AllyAxis:

Was thinking about this strategy for Alpha 2+ global.

Has anyone done it successfully?

Attack J1 soviet far east, amur, sibera.  build a Major in Manchuria and keep UK India /china relatively occupied .  pin down the US fleet with carrier builds and park fighters on it to keep the US building in the pacific.

Get my Italians to clear Soviet buffer troops (usually one or two units between main armies)  and get the Italy Germany one two punch going.  I found that my mech tank builds were very effective and getting to Russia quickly to support.  but I may not build as many mechs this next game.  I was matching them tank for mech.  but that may only be necessary for clearing forces (IE forces trying to take rostov , caucus ) on the way to moscow.

Can Japan really turn the tide tho in the All Axis on the Soviets strat?  thoughts anyone?

Hi James,

I did it once succesfully. First turn I took France, Normandy and Southern France with Germany, so Italy can move  the troops from Northern Italy to Yugoslavia which was already taken by the Germans Round 1. With this support and Japan invading Russia Turn 2 and building a major Factory in Korea Russia was down.
The negative side is, that India and ANZAC had no problem to survive and invade the money islands.

Greets RobbyWestSide

Thanks Robby!  Glad to hear from you!  I have been taking Yugoslavia with the Italians,  but getting them into the eastern front faster is a nice key.  In my last Europe 1940 game I started with an Italian turn 2 attack and then reinforced with Germany.  Sounds like Cmdr Jennifer agrees with the Italians take, Germany re-inforces one two punch in the East.  I will definitely consider taking china from the rear,  but at the same time I need the 12 IPC’s to keep Japan viable if my resources and ground units aren’t going after the DEI  or UK india too hard.  excited to see this play out friday evening.  If my 2 other players show…  and I get to play the Axis which I should since its my turn.  I just have to watch out.  The Axis Cannot make major mistakes,  but the Allies can make plenty and still win the game.  Time is on the side of the Allies in the long term with the Awesomeness of the US’s 70+ IPC’s…

Thanks for all the input everyone.

Let Japan die and go for the Europe Win.

I ahve drawn some of the same conclusions and so what I have been trying is push with Italy and push hard to take the Middleeast. If you can get a factory in Iraq and then a factory in Persia you can push out from their. I put almost nothing into my transport fleet which was hardly added to after Taranto happened (Germany went for a G1 Romanian Major which to be honest has proven extremely useful!) The Brits managed to retake Egypt but Italy is still at roughly 25 IPC and has for more forces between Iraq and Persia. Britain is going to need to back up soon or risk losing their forces in Egypt. The other Italian option is push further into Russia. The almost continually have Caucus and are threatening Volgogrod heavily. Germany has the Russians runnings scared from the massive force they moved in with the factory in Romania and has both an army group north and south which outnumbers the Russians allowing the Italians to get away with a little more. For Italy I chose to build up the air force rather than navy and the navy I do have is subs which are blocking Britain’s money in Egypt and also poised with two bombers to push off a Gibraltar or Morocco landing force. I have four subs and two bombers that can hit the Atlantic side of Gibraltar. Germany also has 2 bombers and 5 subs that can hit that same SZ keeping the Allies from landing in North Africa, they are instead landing in French West Africa and bring in reinforcements that way.

@Wakrob:

As per my play with A&A1940 Europe, I feel Axis has it very rough in the Global version.

Our game-
G3 takes London after obliterating Brit navel presence in the first two turns.  I hadnt realized how many planes could get there.
Japan chooses not to go to war with anyone but Russia until J3.
Italians rolled bad in almost every engagement.

I think slow rolling Japan might have been a bad idea.  The money it prevented US from getting seemed more than offset by the easy Dutch/ANZAC National Obj bonus’ the allis got.  And Italians never had much luck, Cairo never fell.
But you’d think taking 35 IPC’s from London and pretty much locking UK out of the game on the western hemisphere should be an easy win.
Germany staled out in Russia after taking Leningrad.  US eventually staged 7 full transports, 2 full Carriers and a Battleship off Gibralter.  Germans 4 Fighters and 4 Tact Fighers guarding London decided to strike first at the fleet and failed.  US takes back London next turn easily.  Axis player concedes at 1:30am in the morning after about 7 turns.
German had held London for about 4 turns.

My opinion stands that Axis have it very hard in this A&A version.

Wak

ARGH!!!  You had the game man, you had it!  If Germany can knock England out of the war it is very difficult for the Allies to come back from it.  Attacking the US navy from England is difficult if not impossible since they can build twice the amount of IPCs you’re making every turn in the Atlantic.  You had 8 planes in England, all you had to do was shuck enough infantry there to defend it and you’re golden.  Let the Americans be the ones sinking tons of money into transports to retake England while you’re already sitting pretty with your own transports and tons of inf from W. Germany to reinforce.  With 8 planes as defense those 7 loaded transports would have had no chance if you’d had a stack of 10+ infantry present.

I’m guessing sorry-bitch-ass Italy was in danger so you felt you had to attack in the Atlantic to save them.  It was easier to me to defend against the US Gibraltar threat by reinforcing Italy with my own inf/tanks from W. Germany fora few turns until they get enough infantry made to hold the capital.