Japan on New Guinea for setup?

Hi Galendae, it is tough being a newbie in this very unforgiving game. Let me guess the strategy? Germany bum-rushing Russia and taking Moscow before the other Allies can get in range to help. Right? There are plenty of players still trying to figure that one out as well. Practice a lot and work out a strategy that works and fits your style of play. Playing the Allies is a real tightrope act for sure! The Taranto raid and Battle of Tobruk by the London-English on turn 1 will certainly help neuter the Italians in the Med and start you in the right direction! Good Luck!

If I’m going - I’m going.  Russia and Mongolia are not very big deals as Japan.  If Russia goes aggressive, just counter-attack and start taking their money.  You should have enough transports to deal with their infantry push - especially if they go R1 or R2.

I agree that Japan should be split, and have two sz"s.

Then we could have Sea Lion on the Euro side, and Sea Serpent on the Pac side.

I attacked Russia G1 today, the axis lost, but I wouldn’t blame the German strategy for it. I would do it again for sure. Sorry for the lame report, but it’s past my bed time.

Slacker is right, yeah its not what we all expected but its still a great game and you should be happy with Mr. Harris taking his time to help improve the game experience. yeah its a pain to check the updates but its not all that bad. i still like both the 1940 games and the way my gaming group plays, we don’t think the OOB is totally unbalanced. yeah it needed a little work but not that much. theirs my 2 cents

@Frank:

But I have to say I like the Alpha set up much better.

It is incredible how much better it makes the game from both sides.

I would wait a turn and build an IC in a useful place. If you build it in J1, then it will mostly be used against China and perhaps Russia. HK and Singapore are way better options. From Malaya you can be in India in one turn (with fleet), in Australia, all of DEI and back to Japan quite fast. Land units are also quite close to Burma road (Chinese lifeline).

So if you decide to attack the UK on J2 then I would build an IC on J3 in Malaya or Kwantung. If you are going to wait longer then China (and perhaps Russia) may become too much of a pain and you need to transport units to the mainland.

My next game as Japan I will attack UK on J2 in Malaya. It gives you +3, UK -3 and ANZAC NO lost. And it is arguably the best place for an IC. For the attack I need a lot of transports, because I also want to take most of the other prices, like the DEI island, Phillipines and/or Kwantung. This gives your economy a major boost and the UK loses a lot of IPC income. I would also prefer to take DEI island from the UK instead of the Dutch controlled islands. You can take those later and the UK islands work both ways (more for you, less for them).

SHARED THIS ON LARRY’S SITE ALREADY, JUST WANTED TO SHARE THOUGHTS HERE ALSO:

Ok Larry,

Me and an official playtester of yours here in Michigan (his name is mentioned in the rulebook for Europe 40) played Global with the new setup given with all the aircraft taken away and such. Here was a short summary of what happened:

On the Europe side:

Germany played pretty predictably, sinking most of the UK navy, taking France and the Eastern European pro-allied and pro-axis neutrals with Italy. They continued to build on their air force to keep the UK from building ships right away. Began to stack some ground units as well. Italy expanded into Africa and shored the Middle East slowly controlling the Med.

UK responded by NOT attcking the Italian navy and pulling back the rest of the navy it had left until it could come back to England with a strong navy that included the US. UK took the Pro-allied Brazil and shucked the troops to Africa to help the SAfrican force which slowly pushed the Italians back up to Egypt turning the tide in Africa.

Russia stedily built a force consisting of infantry spiced with some tanks, artillery, tacs and mechs. Stacking behind some dead zones and waiting for the declaration of war.

US spent about 70-80% of its cash in the Pacific since it could not even approach Africa/Europe before a state of war.

Now for the Pacific side:

India with little cash built mostly infantry and stacked. Combined navy near India and activated the Persian troops to bring back and help defend India. In Global, India has a little more help from some extra troops west and a few ships, including one French destroyer to help defend. Also, it can fall back with its stack to West India if needed.

ANZAC naval base is much needed and I am glad it is there- balances nicely.

China was stonger, but does what it normally does and stacks at Yunnan to wait to wear down Japs. China units are really used as a delaying tactic for the India crush.

Japan didn’t see an advantage to the India crush in J1 but felt that the initiative came to them in J2. They didn’t want to wait until J3 because they felt the Allies would have established a long-term defense of India. So with that the Japs declared war on J2 taking back the Dutch East Indies and unleashing the fury. Japan built transports J1 and J2 and built more planes to replace the ones missing from the new setup in J2.

Now even though both Japs and Allies have the same amount of planes removed, Japan can build them faster and move them closer to the action (India). US could also build their planes back but it takes them longer to get them to the battle scene (India). Brit India and ANZAC can’t build much of an airforce because of the typhoon of Jap units coming fast, so India stacks and ANZAC tries to distract and/or try to send some units.

Japan can make the US wait longer to send ships and planes down to ANZAC by using its navy as a shield. I as Allies, I made tactical blunder ruining my chance to meet the Jap onslaught of India from behind through Australia. However, if not for this the setup seems very balanced and gave some options to both sides.

A hot topic question will be “what to do with the Russian inf on the Pacific side??”
It is very frustrating for the Russians, if you attack immediately, Japan will bring the heat to wipe them out with now China and Russia give large concessions to Japan $$$. If you stack and sit. Japan has to garrison Manchu with a small force but continues to spearhead to India. I figure as the Russians, you have to attack with the 18 inf at some point. The hard part is when. Timing is everything in this decision.

With US entering the war at turn 2, the US began to throw a good amount of cash to the European side, mainly because of the blunder in the Pacific- India would not last long now- 2-3 more rounds. I recovered nicely putting pressure on the French coast quickly until I made another tactical error involving Gibraltar- arrggh!!!- new rules and new map takes a little while getting used to.  :-(

Besides these 2 blunders, I thought the Global game was pretty fair and balanced with a slight edge to the Allies. I definitely think the Allies are a little easier to play because that sides is spilt into 6 sub parts (countries) that are easy to prepare while you are waiting for the Axis to finish. The Axis with so many more units in the beginning, take longer and you have to be very efficient both in the short-term and the long-term planning.

Anyway that was are anaylsis so I hope it helps.  :-)