Too Lazy To Play? Listen to us play!

Our army knives are bigger than their army knives though. Waaay bigger.

@Marshmallow:

What if we turn the question around and asked what power you think would be the most fun for a new player?

That’s a hard one… because “fun” usually means involvement… lots to do… but the countries with lots to do are also the biggest impact players… so while something like Germany or Japan might be a lot of fun because there’s “lots to do”, its easy to make a bunch of mistakes that will cost you the game playing one of them… conversely, the US and UK can often be considered fun because of either lots of forces worldwide and/or a big budget to buy things… but once again, to a new player, trying to grasp all the amphibious needs of both the UK and US can make for major mistakes if not handled well.  I think the safest countries for new players are either the USSR (just buy infantry and hold on), or the lesser powers (Italy/Anzac, etc)… but then of course, these countries aren’t very fun.

Of course if you’re going to make an omelet, you gotta break some eggs… so toss a new player on something and give it a go.

Welp just to give you guys an update, we did not switch over to 2nd edition.  Everyone just wanted to start playing and get started.  So we stuck with 1st edition.

Allies crushed the Axis.  The person playing as Germany/Italy ignored Russian almost the entire time.  They built navy after navy with Germany and no ground troops.  Needless to say, Russia took Berlin and USA took Rome.  At the end, Japan had their navy intact but lost all of china.  They had just Korea and Shanghai they took back when we quit.  And Russia was making 114 IPC’s per turn.  XD

Perhaps we’ll look at the rules for 2nd edition for the next time we played.  Although, our games have usually been quite competitive and the record is now 4-3, Allies favor.

@knp7765:

The only issue I had was with the giant ANZAC infantry units. They are a head taller than all other nations’ infantry and really look weird on the board.

Also, their round base has a larger diameter than the standard A&A infantry base, so they don’t fit in the central depression of standard A&A mini poker chips, which is a bit annoying.

Yeah, I loved the intent behind the NOs but in practice it just means US does KJF so they can protect their production.

If America even helps Europe anymore it’s either sending bombers to UK or helping Russia from the Japan side.

If the US keeps investing heavily into the Pacific, Japan has two choices:

Get all the IPC you can early (per Cow’s strategy) or…

Play turtle in SZ6 and take the long road into Moscow from the East which generally requires an IC on Manchuria/Korea or both.  In particular you let the US spend its IPC to get a fleet to take out yours in SZ6 and utilize Kamikaze to disable CV so the US aircraft cannot land and have to splash.

You have opportunities to get the Japanese Air Force into Europe as early as J4 (J1 Chahar, J2 Suiyuyan, J3 place AB on Suiy, J4 fly as far as Leningrad (Kansu - Novo - Volo - Arch - Novg).

With the AB at Nov, J5 will be a full pummel of Moscow’s MajorIC allowing German Air Force to assist in the advance of its ground units towards Moscow.  You can also open up doors for the Germans to blitz by trading Jap aircraft to open up spaces the Russians thought they had defended.  J6 is a suicide of Aircraft against Moscow to weaken the garrison on Moscow for a G7 attack there.

You can also decide to rush for an India Crush and instead of turning to face the Allied fleet Post India Crush, race instead towards the Med to assist Italy in taking and holding Egypt with your fleet.  Building IC in Kwang and FIC assist in getting more units on the board once you sacrifice SZ6 to the US.  Realize you can stop the US from loading units onto a TT from an IC in Korea every round by just buying a DD in SZ6.

I played a version of Cow’s J1 attack where I had the US fleet chase me around the Pacific - sent a TT with a small fleet of CV, CR, DD and TT (with 2 Inf) from SZ6 to Caroline to Line and was in position to land Jap units at the Panama Canal.  I ended up taking NZ instead of Pamana due to a 10 SS purchase by the US when I was at Line Islands.  The US/Anzac eventually chased down and sunk that fleet, but that occurred by the time I got it all the way back to Java and had crushed India - sometime around round 6 or 7.

Just remember, even if Japan loses Tokyo, the Axis still needs to lose Berlin for the Allies to claim victory.  There are plenty of possibilities for Japan to assist in the European theater for the Axis win in Europe.

As for the Pacific - I have played Japan the last… 6 or so games and I have yet to win in the Pacific.  The closest I came was with Cow’s J1 attack but I was short 1 TT to take Hawaii which was unguarded.

@JimmyHat:

Darklands is the greatest RPG ever!

I don’t have the time for RPGs, to many A&A wars to wage.

Agree that the first UK move should create a seal to protect Egypt from Amphibeous landing.

Pacific after Fr2 sm.jpg