What is the most unusual/annoying/strange allied bid

Maphead and I won this tournament last year at Gencon.  We will be playing the 42.2 tournament this year, see you in Indy!

The Axis have a distinct advantage in this version, which is not as “structural” as their advantage in G40.  the Axis start with less stuff, but mostly, its because the Axis have less time to recover their position and go into rage mode, and during the tournament there is only time for 7 turns.  The Allies only have a limited amount of time to challenge the Axis income position, their push has to culminate in the game-ending time.  I believe that you have to get 125 income on the board with the axis at game end.

We played 5 “official games”

Kantcon; Allies (Maphead+Taamvan) vs (Bob Roby, Grandmaster) Axis;  Allies bid +6, goes to Russian infantry.  We used our KGF plan, it worked well but this was largely due to luck.  3-4 fleets have to be protected, Greece backdoor shredded the key income.

Gencon Qualifier;  Allies (M+T) vs Jason/James (Axis).  No Bid. Axis victory.  We lose.  KGF didn’t work at all this time.

Gencon Qualifier 2: Axis (M+T) vs  Axis.  No Bid. Axis victory.  UK made a grand sacrifice turn 1, which Japan exploited, conceded turn 4.

Gencon Semis; Axis (M+T) vs  Bob Roby and Veteran Jake (Axis).  No Bid. Axis victory.  Won by amazing luck against 2 very vet players.  total luck in the atlantic, subs survived somehow.  All the German troops survive the open in one territory, which caused Russia’s position to erode quickly.

Gencon Finals; Axis (M+T) vs Jason/James (Allies) No Bid. Axis victory.  Hard fought, game culminated in a huge fleet contest over java which the Japanese won by the skin of their teeth, which allowed them to retain key income.

As you can see by these game reports, the key to winning was playing the Axis.  In a longer, AAA game, that goes to 10-12 turns, im not sure the Axis has such an advantage, because of the ever-increasing amount of allied pressure on the income.    In the tournament play, the Axis really only need to 1) retain all their income to start 2) gain any 2 other regions and hold.

A region is roughly defined as any two of most of (Africa, china, inshore asia, spice islands, Australia, east Russia, south Russia, north Russia, a capital).

The tournament game works a bit like football or rugby, the Axis have to push the income to a level somewhat above the 125 because they get pushed back down the line by the allies as the last turn concludes.  If you are still “over the line”, you win.  If you can interfere with the Allies ability to hurt your income at the last minute, you pretty much win.

The Allies need a bit of at least 8 in order to change these considerations around.  This should be a DD with the scapa flow fleet, so that Germany has to commit more resources to this attack and potentially flubs it.  Even with this change, the Allies are still at a bit of a structural disadvantage because this is a economic victory scenario;  the allies need to “load the shotgun” by turn 5-6 to make a huge push on the final turn without being picked off or screened off the income.

The territories that are worth 1 don’t change the game.    I would suggest studying the territories that are worth 2, 3 and 4.  If the Allies can set up on the Pacific side near austrailia, on the final turn, they “unload the shotgun” and retake the money islands and Malaya.  Japan must confront them here before they spread out.    A factory on Hong Kong helped me win the game, because I could place BBs near the fight, with a NB for free.  Roby pointed out to me what a powerful defensive Axis base this square is.

On the atlantic side, its a bit more difficult to hold all the $$.  Use your Italian can opener as the Axis to take the $$.  Ignore Africa.  As the Allies, you have to prepare to block Gibraltar, or turtle the facing squares that are worth 3 and 4 (s france, rome, south Italy…)

One strat we did not use that was fairly powerful is to build a factory in Persia.  DO NOT FORGET TO OPEN NW PERSIA.  If you run mechs/tanks out of there, india goes from being a fallback zone to a take-area by turn 5, so UK is grabbing $$ back, and Japan is running away.

Keep in mind that most stuff you buy after turn 5 wont even be able to enter the battle.  There are exceptions (forward bases, bombers).  Buying is critical.  I bought 1 fighter on Turn 5 for japan, after all the other air headed south, wasn’t sure why I did it, but It ended up killing an American invasion fleet coming for Japan that was coming in my back door.    Study what you buy, small mistakes esp with japan, uk and usa can lose you the game.    Wasn’t trying to stall but one Japan buy literally took me 20 minutes, I rebuilt it from scratch 4 times.  Had I chosen any of the first 3 configurations, I would have lost the game.

1)  all else being equal, play the Axis
2) do not play this like a normal game; it is a timed game.  You can sac everything on the final turn, even if you lose everything, the sun sets at 7h 45m game time.  You will not play an incomplete turn. 
3) time is not on the Allies side
4)  but, the Axis cannot protect all (10?) $$ and $$$ zones, this is where the Allied win is at.

Slight Axis bias.  No bias in open play.  Some players do not like to play with a bid, learn your opponents preferences and predilections.

You will be playing for 30 hours, if you are lucky.  My brain was on fire the final day.  Wake up time is 6AM.

Good Luck, Have Fun.  Jon

@Arthur:

You might as well issue an R1 DoW against Japan; at our gaming group we generally assume that Russia is at war unless stated otherwise.  So far I haven’t seen any reason in non-BM games to not opt for immediate war.

This makes perfect sense with experienced players, but I do remember a game where I, playing Russia, managed to delay a Japanese attack for quite a few turns by claiming that we had always been on good terms and that I had never done anything at all to damage Japan’s interests.  :-D

@knp7765:

As Russia, you should definitely grab Norway. With the large US fleet there and London getting liberated, it’s very doubtful Germany will be putting any more boats in the water (…)

I agree completely. I want Norway out of the way first round after London is liberated, just to rid Germany of another 8 IPCs. If the Germans position themselves in Finland however, USA will take Norway instead. Otherwise Germany can enjoy those 8IPCs one more turn.

@knp7765:

(…)Do you plan to liberate Paris if US troops successfully land in Normandy or Holland? (…)

I usually wait to liberate Paris for the exact same reasons as you mentioned. It is a matter of being able to hold it or not. Trading it back and forth with Germany is often unacceptable (but not always), especially if the USA has to spend a lot in the Pacific (sometimes I am forced to invest near 100% in the Pacific with the USA from US7 and onwards because the Japs have taken Calcutta and are investing near 100% on also getting Hawai). For that reason I keep my men and TRS next to each other in Gibraltar, London, Normandy or wherever they are safe while being the most aggressive.

In this particular situation however, it remains to be seen. If taking Paris means the fall of Berlin in a series of falling dominoes then taking Paris it is!

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.

Also, when you post on the play by forum thread, you can’t edit your post like you can on these ones.  Once its posted, its there forever

@suprise:

Page 18 of the Euro rule book and page 16 of the Pacific rule book
  My interp. of this is 1 sub, 1 carr with 2 planes. the sub gets a hit what happens …… the carr is tipped and the planes are in the air  if the sub does not fire a second shot then the planes need to land within their movement allowance. If you had 2 subs and they both hit then the carr would go down  I would say the planes would get away because subs cant hit air units
  Those two pages answer the Q’s for me

The movement allowance is only one when defending. The planes would need to land on an adjacent island, coastal tt, or friendly carrier w/room on board.

And to answer your question, a lot of people don’t do SeaLion b/cuz it’s not always a guaranteed thing. Depends on what the UK does. If the UK makes it as difficult as possible, then most likely the Germans can take it still but it might be a little dicey and leave them vulnerable to the Russians. If the UK makes it easier then the Germans will be more likely to do a SeaLion. I don’t think a successful SeaLion always means an Axis victory.

@RedHunter:

How was Russia able to advance that far? It shouldn’t be possible without direct America help. The moment that Russia moves beyond poland in Global you can call the game right there.

I dont think that I fully understand your question about Russia. They have only moved into Finland. The axis did surrender after six rounds however.

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