Get the Brit Inf back in Egypt and a Russian Bomber for 2nd Edition

@ampdrive said in How to deal with the insane russian NO:

@shadowhawk Not really true “nothing stops russia” from moving into iraq or finland.Russia needs to be at war on the Europe side.

True they need to be @war, the moment they are at war they can take iraq ( Uk can just take north persia so they can blitzz through.

We have a name for this maneuver. It’s called “The Russian Cheezewhiz”

@hecatomb:

…
Or:
4) An ANZAC-Bomber was visiting that airbase.

Awesome, never thought about that. That would be one cool bid :)

(could also bid 1 french bomber, for the lols :) )

I read this about Stuka:

The dive-bomber was a purpose-built aircraft, designed to drop bombs with pinpoint accuracy on frontline battlefield targets. To support their panzer offensives, the Germans developed close air support into an art form and the Stuka was central to this effort. The secret of German successes in this field was the close integration between air and ground units. Stuka squadrons worked hand-in-hand with ground units so they could intervene rapidly at the decisive point of the battlefield. These highly specialist squadrons were in the thick of the action and developed an impressive reputation. The need to fly deep into the heart of battle meant Stuka pilots suffered some of the highest casualty rates in the Luftwaffe, and as a consequence became some of the most highly decorated German servicemen. Hans-Ulrich Rudel was the most famous Stuka pilot and squadron commander of the war. He was also the most highly decorated German soldier of the war, being the only serviceman to receive the Knight’s Cross with Golden Oak Leaves with Swords and Diamonds.

This give the general tactics. Does Variable depiction a special case of the above Stuka tactics?

never say never in the world of Axis and Allies.  I’m pretty sure I’ve found a way, but as stated, has enough drawbacks of its own.  I could show you in a friendly game.  8-)

btw, question; do you prefer the axis because you think they are better with perfect strat, or because you think it is easier to not lose the game to mistakes?

in most axis games I have played, the allies have been the harder side to play, but they have also been the stronger side. for me it seems like the playtesters have not been skilled enough to play very good, so they have concluded with that the allies need more help. then when the game is released, the game will be fairly even when people play it the first time, but later the allies will will, because learning how to play them gives much more strength than learning now to play the axis.

If I played the same every single game, I would be bored out of my mind. Axis have more options than allies and are the ones in the most control of how the game develops.

To answer your question. I prefer axis because of 1) fun 2) if you get diced throughout the game, you can always just go for the win. 3) axis have to perform or they lose especially if usa is going full pacific (puts germany/italy on the clock for africa and russia).

Did I mention that the allies are boring? Axis do this -> allies got to do this. Axis indirectly control the outcome of what you do and the impact or effect you have on the axis doesn’t come to mid/late game.

Everyone’s axis 1-3 purchases and moves are always the same. HMMM I WONDER WHY. I mix my stuff up depending on my mood and who I play against, but most people have a set way of doing things.

I have a set way of doing this as the allies depending on what the axis purchases / strategies are.

Example sea lion feint -> 1-3 inf rest artillery/mech/tank russia buy. usa 3 bomber 2 dd or 3 bomber 1 carrier. UK 9 inf 1 art.

I always hit 97 and the sz below it as uk, i hate getting diced in one of those spots, because it sets me back a whole round, but the outcome is very good when you win… even if he did not scramble outcome is still good, because you do get to convoy italy… if italy sinks it, he has less stuff than germany so you get to fire more than 1 round typically and that means the french fleet can move.

germany can’t move his naval to take gib or morroco or take uk if japan wants to war round 2. If he does this and puts japan off another round, japan is screwed in pacific, that’s so much income for uk pac and anzac and japan income is put off from being big another round.

so it is an ultimatum the axis face. best move is to just shuffle in the baltic and go barb, let japan explode. Sometimes japan waits to war and I lose UK. That’s fine. I bought offensively with russia and usa. I am ready to push romania push yugo push northern italy and push into rome with my russians. usa can always land air units to help hold. it is beautiful and it is awesome.

The only time I enjoy allies is when germany takes UK over, because the run for italy with russia is too funny, plus I bought plenty of time in pacific by making japan wait till round 3 to declare war… so I don’t have to buy anything for pacific till round 4.
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in all fairness the guy could not scramble 97 if he wanted 80% at UK. he also had to buy more naval to defend against 2 fighter and 3 bomber from usa the turn he took uk over (so he had to drop 3 destroyers down off normandy)… I think he also bought infantry for germany and air to hit usa if he moved up. he took uk with only tank 2 bombers and a tactical left.

I pulled the pacific fighters into the atlantic side of the map. so I held yugo because of the UK air plus usa bombers. USA moved by gib the turn uk got taken with 4 fully loaded carriers and that starting cruiser the round london fell and it got sunk so germany had to get carriers off normandy to land his air (this was where his london income went to and infantry/art for germany/west germany.

So I had a fun push for yogo at 55% chance to defend. He attacked because it was the only way to save italy. the first round of attack did not go well other than I lost my bombers for usa so in terms of total unit value he was up, but he couldn’t continue or risk germany being taken… So yeah I took italy when he got to liberate it, europe was a mess. Was a pretty cool game, the most fun I had as allies.

most of the time russians just hold romania for some time. usa liberates uk eventually. blah blah you know how those games go.
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I do like to play allies when I see that no one online knows what the hell they are doing as allies… I’ll take it.

retreating from the med isn’t good.  ur basically saying “here ya go dude. do whatever you want.”  the biggest thing holding italy back is the time it takes to secure the med.  pulling back speeds up the process.

let america/anzac deal w/ japan.

Strategy Summary:
Using 7 starting pieces and 5 purchased pieces on turn 1 assemble a Far East Task Force
Prepare a Russian turn 2 Declaration Of War against Japan.
or
Bait Japan(surprise them once per player) into a J1 DOW.
Use Far East Task Force to secure Burma road turn 3, India turn 4, and redeploy air to USSR by turn 6 or 7 for defense of Russia. 5 Russian air units are a nice scramble/carrier cargo in India on turn 3.

Note: The India DOW against Japan turn 1 discussed below is designed for the surrender London Strategy I have proposed elsewhere, simply ignore to evaluate this proposal independently.

Strategy Details:
Turn 1:
Purchase 2 fighters, 3 Mechanized Infantry.
Deploy 17 infantry, 1 AA gun to Amur as bait(above Manchuria+Korea).
Deploy 1 infantry to Yakut S.S.R. to redeploy against a blitzing tank later.
Deploy 1 armor, 1 Mechanized Infantry to Volgograd(Southern Victory City/Factory).
Deploy 2 fighters, 1 Tactical Bomber to Russia(non-surprise/feint option) or Caucasus(feint).
Deploy 1 Armor, 1 Mechanized Infantry to Caucasus(feign a Middle-East staging, prevent a German 5 turn assault on Moscow).

At this point, few Japanese players are expecting Russia to deploy 7 land units and 5 air units in China, so they may choose to seize Amur. This is a critical blunder and should be avoided as you consume 10-11 land units in Asia plus 2-3 air units to destroy that force, without pulling your entire fleet out of position. These 11 land units are needed in China. In my opinion.

China turn 1:
Build 4 Infantry
Deploy 12 infantry to Szechwan, 1 Fighter
Alternative: Attack and kill 1-2 Japanese land units(if 3-4 are present, soften up for India) with 3 infantry and 1 Fighter leaving 9 units plus fighter in Szechwan turn 2.
Collect 8-9 IPCs

_India turn 1: (hinges on if US enters the war turn 2 by surrendering London, disregard this section for independent review of USSR tactic)
Purchase 1 air craft carrier. Save 1 IPC.
Declare war on Japan
Deploy 6 infantry and 1 Artillery to Burma
Capture(preferred) or Clear Yunnan with 2 infantry and 3 planes, land 3 planes in India.
Deploy 1 DD to sz 37 block Jap Navy
Deploy 1 Transport to Sumatra, secure 4 IPCS with 2 Infantry from Malaya.
Deploy 1 Infantry from Malaya to Shan State
Deploy 1 BB, 1 CA to sz39 to protect carrier build.
note Deploy 1 DD french sz72 and 1 DD UKsz71 to sz 75 (in range of sz 39,76,80,41,57,60 as needed)
Collect 21 plus, 5 IPC NO, plus 1 saved for 27 IPCs.

Anzac turn 1: Build 3 infantry save 1 IPC
Deploy 1 fighter to UK carrier
Deploy 2 fighters all land to Queensland to secure landing for US planes on turn 2.
Deploy 1 transport and 2 Infantry to Java_

Russia turn 2
Deploy 2 armor, 5 Mechanized units to Sikiang, China via Kazakhstan (DOW on Japan if needed)
Deploy 4 fighters, 1 tactical bomber to Szechwan to protect 10-13 Chinese units from Jap air attack.
Deploy Amur forces if alive to capture or clear Manchuria and Korea(lower priority)

Now Japan turn 2 must use caution if they hit Amur. They have too few units(11-12) to stack in Kweichow as Russia can hit those units with 7 land and 5 air, clearing that stack.
If they stack in Hunan 12 units (assumes fleet elsewhere unless Amur is ignored), then China moves into Yunnan with 10-12 land units builds 2 more, 7 UK units merge in, along with 7 USSR units on turn 3 prior to J3 assault, plus as many air units as desired up to the allied total of 5 USSR+ 3 UK + 1 Anzac = 9 by turn 3, 11 by turn 4 or later when other 2 anzac land on carriers. US planes to follow as an option from Australia.
These leave china with 26-28 land units plus 9 planes in Yunnan(1 more land if Shan state infantry is alive to move in), vs Japanese 12 land units and typically 12-14 air units even if all 20 air units can hit, its not pretty.

Japans land movements get tricky if they can not land air units to protect them, this keeps China in the game multiple rounds, and using can opener maneuvers, you can drive Japan back since 12 units from Russia are a size-able threat.

If India goes fleet with heavy air support, then Japan must choose whether to sink it since that raises the potency of the US fleet off Australia. See actual play test description below for large naval battle composition.

Unless Japan stays focused like a laser this situation creates opportunities for China/and its allies.

I welcome your comments upon any of the merits or lack there of, of these proposals and plans.

(Sorry for my absence, I have begun to focus on Allied strategies now.)
Maroon text is background information, skip if you just wanted strategy details
Recently, I began to seek ways to address my biased perceived weighting of Alpha2 towards the axis.

Summary: Germany takes UK by turn 3 or 4, Russia can move into Germany on turn 4 but is often driven back. Japan destroys China by turn 3 or 4. US spins its wheels staging in the Pacific to keep a powerful Japan from ending the game, Europe grows into a forest fire that the US struggles with after the focus lifts from Japan. <biased view=“” based=“” on=“” my=“” observations,=“” feel=“” free=“” to=“” disagree=“”>While testing a failed Russian navy concept(I had to try it once before I rule it out), I took two things out of this:
1st: A Russian navy was ineffective, but a one destroyer build with a starting sub and scramble from sz 127 shows promise of keeping the sz125 Russian Objective 2-3 rounds without a moderate German naval/air effort that could draw assets away from the US on those critical turn 4-6 maneuvers.
2nd: Russia’s first turn build is expendable in a 10+ turn game with a SeaLion Threat.

Summary: Having concluded(perhaps shortsightedly) that Russian offensives against Germany are ill-advised, and that having Russia sit and build up while doing nothing until turn 4 is also ill-advised, the logical focus of early efforts is in Asia.

Note: The below strategy was play tested 12 turns in combination with a surrender London, and Turn 1 DOW against Japan by India and Anzac after a Japan DOW turn 1 on Russia’s bait.
Japan had 2-3 critical choices to make, all of them could have changed the outcome which was: Japan was brought to her knees, with no American builds in the Pacific until turn 5, and 1 UK carrier built in S. Africa on turn 1.
Starting US Navy was forward deployed and used in Pacific when it entered the war on turn 2. Japanese navy was stacked off of French Indo China to threaten an India first campaign.
India and Anzac collected at war NO’s on turn 1 (Anzac did not have the island NO)
(all Mediterranean forces were stacked in sz92 Gibraltar turn1. 2 Land units(London/Scotland) and 3 planes were landed on Algeria(sz109 transport was critical) to prevent an Italian landing site for a German air assault against the UK sz92 force G2, (1 DD was left to block Italian bombardments/naval assault in sz 94) Turn 2, UK Navy Reinforced US navy in sz91 Gibraltar.
Buy turn 3, India was able to stack:
3 carriers, 1 BB, 1 Cruiser, 2 DD(French/UK), 9 fighters(3 Anzac,2 UK, 4 USSR fighters-3 scrambled
vs. the Japanese fleet able to hit it by turn J4:
3 Carriers, 2 BB, 2 CA, 4 DD, 2 subs (Japan had moved fleet to Philippines turn 2, as one transport was  used turn 1 against Amur, 1 was in Japan, and with only 1 transport, India first was not viable.) This was the second critical choice that failed to see the potential of the Indian navy on one side, the US navy off of Australia, and the cost of the first critical decision to hit Amur depleting Asian land units and pulling 1 transport out of range.
Egypt did not fall in 12 turns stacking 5 UK fighters (2London,Scotland,Gibraltar,Malta) plus 1 Tactical on Egypt turn 2 as US planes landed on UK/US fleet, causing Italy to drive through Middle-east to grab Volgograd rather then engage 15 land units, 6 air in Egypt. Italy was not safe to move away from scramble air cover for first 3 turns, as a 6 UK air force would scuttle 1 BB, 2 CA, and 2 DDs in 3 combat rounds. (3 hits round 1, 2 round 2, 1 round 3 vs. Italy 2 hits round 1, 2 round 2, 1 round 1 leaving 1 French fighter to sink unescorted transports if all UK air lost) this forced an Italian carrier build on turn 3, and fleet was able to move out turn 4….by then 5 US air offered a one , two punch threat.
In fact, the axis were forced to use a turn 2 neutral crush on Sweden, Spain, and Turkey just so Italian units could be transported to turkey when fleet was able to deploy on turn 3, this also permitted the axis to stack 30+ units on Gibraltar by turn 5 as Germany went navy for first 4 turns to drive the US away from Gibraltar since Germany was out producing the US due to capital plunder early on.</biased>