Opening w/japan…

I do agree that beginners should stick to the London factory.  It does require skill pulling off the india IC.  But It just depends on how you and your allies play the game.  If each of you are gonna do your own thing, the game will certainly be over quicker than usual.  Thats the key…… Teamwork and persistance.  Control the game by limiting the enemy of options.  Do this and you’ll win no matter who you are.

Correct.  However there is a good debate on whether or not England should leave 1 infantry as a picket in India.  If you leave 1 guy, then Japan has to dedicate 2 infantry and maybe some air power to take India, which means less forces in China.  If you pull the guy Japan can just walk in.

On the other hand, a full retreat might entice Japan to go hard into China leaving only one guy in India and thus allowing England to have two rounds of owning India (one round reclaiming it, one round before Japan can attack it again.)

I find it is not cost effective to go island hopping unless I am in full KJF mode or the Japanese were foolish and put their fleet in the Med and then let me close the Suez trapping them between the allied fleets and a close canal.

Gotcha, forgot that caveat

I like to build transports first because they can get free units off the islands and also help capture Hawaii, Aus / NZ, India and Madagascar.

Bah, I’ve seen 1 inf destroy 9 inf and a tank.  (Guy kept saying “he’ll eventually die!”)

Yep… I had that argument with Tri in one of our earlier games…  I was using the box rules which implied somethign else, he was using LHTR, which are explicit.

Variant 3 will make subs more or less useless against a Japanese fleet with at least one BB. So I think it is better to not mess up too much with the rules and vote for variant 2 or 1. In plain english, it is not worth fixing a rule that is supposed to fix another one. Things can get too complicated if one does! :wink: