The Axis Advantage is Bigger Than You Think.

We had a game where Axis totally dominated, I mean, allied pieces were basically off the game board, put away, done. We called it day, left the game as it was, one of the players came back over the next day, and it was Germany/Italy VS Japan, where within 5 hours, Japan ruled the world :)

We only did something like that once, but was a cool variant. I don’t think I would like to start that way, but continuing a war after its over by a new declaration or war was a nice touch.

Ignore this topic the link has been updated, if you want to view the rules to the variant go to Axis and Allies Cold War Variant 2

AxisandAlliesColdWarVersion.pdf

Those are some good ideas. I think to make this game balanced, I do need to make some adjustments. Just giving Italy the Axis NOs and ANZAC the Allied NOs doesn’t quite work. It seemed to be working for a while, but once ANZAC got the upper hand, it just gradually got worse and worse for Italy. I know that happens even in some games of regular A&A, but I don’t think there was any hope of Italy turning things around once ANZAC started getting ahead.
We just finished this game tonight. It took 15 rounds before Italy surrendered. For the first three rounds, Italy really grew and just about closed the gap between them. Rounds 4-8 were somewhat even between the two. If Italy did well on one front, ANZAC was doing well on another front. From Round 9 on, Italy was more and more defensive. ANZAC managed to take Japan and pretty much ruled all the Pacific and Asia within the next 2 rounds. Once all other Italian presence was eliminated, all ANZAC had to do is keep pounding on Europe until something gave way. Between amphibious landings every turn in Western Europe and a flood of tanks, mechs and planes rolling in from Russia, Italy was finding it harder and harder to maintain any kind of border.
For a while, whenever ANZAC would land somewhere in W Europe, Italy had enough to take it back. There were a few sparks of good for Italy, like when they sacrificed most of their European air force to kill the ANZAC fleet outside of England, including a stack of transports. That delayed ANZAC for a couple of rounds, but soon they were making landings again and Italy couldn’t afford a whole new air force to risk against the navy.
While playing the game this way makes each round go somewhat faster, it is pretty hard keeping track of all the different fronts. You literally have attacks going on in every point of the map on some turns. It’s a little easier when Germany is dealing with England and Russia, Italy is dealing with the Med and Japan is dealing with China and the Pacific. Still, it is kind of cool to be able to carry out ALL your ideas in the same turn.

@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.

In my opinion, it’s important to try and take out both UK DD’s, one SZ w/a BB in it, usually SZ111 and SZ112. And also take out the Transports, which means SZ109 has to go. I know that’s a lot to ask of the Germans, especially SZ109, since the UK can scramble 4 FTR’s. The only other strategy I believe is to take 2 Subs and attack the CC in SZ91, instead of attacking SZ109 and then use the 3rd German sub to attack SZ111. Or, you could take the 3rd German sub against SZ106 to ensure the DD’s & Trans death. That way, the UK only has 1 DD that can counter attack the 2 or 3 subs(depending on how many survive) in SZ106. You can use the German subs to take away some IPC’s in the convoy zones. The BB & DD in SZ111 is easily taken out w/the 3 FTR’s & 3 Tacs you can get on it. Yes, you may lose 1 FTR most likely but it’s well worth it to kill a UK BB.

@SalothSar:

@MarkVIIIMarc:

Trick will be not letting the americans pull any gimmicks like taking over rome.

If you bomb the NB in Gibraltar you elimnate any USA gimmicks

If you hit more than 3 damage (and not get shot down by the AA)

@Sgt.:

In AAP40 my one game as Japan resulted in a pretty easy win due to going all out on J1. But in Global you have to consider the USA getting that massive IPC boost if you attack UK/ANZAC. I find the best strategy is to focus on taking China and killing any Russian INF that get too close. Dare the UK to attack you early, if they do you get a free shot at the DEI.

That wont work as easily with alpha set up… J1 attack in Alpha is usually a bad idea if the allies know what they are doing.

Nice, well with depreciation of the dollar I would say that would probably be about what I pay for something like that as well. I will have to do some digging to find a place that does that, because I do admit that the ridges irritate me, not to mention the board separating from time to time if someone hits the edge or something.