One turn delay is messing with us

@iffritstorm said in North Africa Problems:

Hey all! Looking for some thoughts, or other players’ experiences. Perhaps I am overlooking something.

I just two finished games of War Room, four players. We’re all relatively new to the game, and thought we’d try out the North Africa scenario. It sounded really fun. I played Axis as Germany and then as Italy (random nations).

This is my initial impression of the North Africa scenario:

IT IS WAY TOO EASY FOR THE AXIS TO WIN.

The victory condition for the Axis is just to simultaneously hold Egypt and the Middle East. My first game, we managed to take both territories on Turn 3. My second game, we did it on Turn 2. If the Axis throw all of their resources at Egypt and the Middle East (and I do mean everything), there is nothing the Allies can do to stop them. There just isn’t enough there in the Med at the start of the game for the Allies.

Obviously, throwing literally everything at the Middle East opens up France and North Africa as free targets. And if the game went even a turn or two longer, the Allies would mop the floor with the Axis with their vastly superior Atlantic air forces and comparatively gargantuan production capacity.

But it doesn’t matter. All the Axis have to do to technically win is hold those two relatively sparsely defended provinces.

Perhaps our experience was a fluke. But running the numbers on the fights, the only one that seemed even remotely even was the first engagement in M-3. Even if the UK sends everything it can into M-3, it still favors the Axis. All other engagements in B5 and B16 were vastly Axis-favored.

We thought about some potential ways to even out the scenario to make it harder for the Axis to win quite so quickly. Would be interested in some thoughts:

Have a production phase on turn 1, allowing the Allies to have a stack producing on India that would be able to reach B16 on turn 3 at least.

Give the UK an extra unit or two on B5. It might really make enough difference to make the combat last a little longer, allowing the US to start bringing in planes on turn 3.

Use the English Channel Sea Zone. It would force the German player to at least consider holding back some units on France, lest the UK player attempt a D-Day style landing.

Thanks for engaging.

This scenario is the most puzzle-ish, and is often determined in the first couple rounds.

Odds are B5 will hold if Britain sends in the 63rd. If it falls, the Allies are doomed. But if it holds, there are ways the Italian transports may be prevented from landing in B5 or B16 on Round 2 (depending on the combination/collision of Allied and Axis orders, what ships survive the first round, oil left, and pinning).

If the Italians get struck in M-3, or they instead have to land in T5 on Round 2, they may be delayed long enough that Britain’s first round of produced units get to B16 first:

Britain:
Round 1: Produce
Round 2: Deploy
Round 3: Move to B16 via rail if possible, or move to B17 or M-5 if no rail.
Round 4: Move to B16 or B5

Italy:
Round 1: Move to M-3
Round 2: Move to T5
Round 3: Move to B5
Round 4 move to B16

or

Italy:
Round 1: Move to M-3
Round 2: Stuck in T5
Round 3: (maybe) Move to B16

By that time, the US and Britain may be able to get more planes to B5/B16.

I haven’t logged into this forum in many moons… there’s a bit more activity about War Room on boardgamegeek, and a lot more activity about on its Discord server:

https://discord.gg/ywrjTHD

@panther
Yes, I have seen it and I have to test it soon…

@Hopper1999 hi mate where in Australia are you

On the logistcs/budget aspect :

War Room: One game to buy. Everything you need is in the box unless you want the Jumbo pack expansion. You need a large round table for the map and another medium to large table for cards, pieces, battle boards and to roll dice. One game can be played in a single day once you have a good grasp of the rules.

G40: You have to buy both AA Pacific and AA Europe games to combine them. You can play with what’s in the box, but there are a lot of nice third-party (i.e. HBG) upgrades to customize your game, make everything look better and replace the out-of-box cardboard pieces (plastic factories, ports and airbases, damage markers, etc.). You need a large rectangle table to play. Can be played in a long day with experienced players who know when to give up.

GM36: No two boards are alike. You buy the map from HBG and then customize everything, from units to facilites, according to your own taste. It helps if you have a lot of other AA games to scavenge for pieces, chips and markers, but buying everthing will get expensive. Obsessive-compulsive types beware! Not all models and colors of units are available so painting pieces seems inevitable. Depending on the size of the map you buy (there are three, going up to 5x10) you will need a large room and and a very large table. The setup alone takes at least an hour and needs to stay in place for a long time since you can’t finish a game in a single day, so this is not a game for the kitchen table… But once you graduate from G40 to this, you will not go back.

@domanmacgee
I only recently got the game, sounds like an interesting experience. Although, there is never force advantage for the air battle stage therefore air units may always be hit fighters with 3-4 and bombers with 2-3 still crazy odds but I found with enough dice in a battle they seem to die in large numbers most battles with large amounts of dice just ends with both sides losing everything.

The Allies can leverage the Axis into bidding more than they want for turn order by every turn they trade (USA/UK/RUS) 5 OSR for 2 OIL from Venenzuela or Suadi Arabia.

Thus the Allies every turn get 2 oil which they use to bid for turn order, they do it every turn no matter what, that will force the AXIS players to bid at least 3 oil every turn if they want to dictate turn order.

Do not overlook the power of bidding and how it effects the orders and production. The Allies need to leverage their universal access to oil over the Axis, who have no access to oil at the start of the game.

Here’s a setup chart. It shows costs and piece values.

What happens is planes and ships can get bonus plane kills during all battles. let me know if you get this. Can PM me if you want.

9CFF0DA4-213C-425A-910B-457CC1274C21.jpeg

From the latest War Room update:

we are going with this rule for FA:  “In Surface Battles only: blacks and whites are misses for the side with fewer Surface Unit Types”.  Why?  It is simple.  While in the more extreme cases the math doesn’t deliver perfect equality, we believe after much testing that it is a strong enough incentive for a player to really try to bring multiple types.  All other other ideas that we tested were too bloody or too fiddly to resolve.  We’ve changed to Orange Zone Penalty to not involve black dice but rather reduce Orders by 3.