Buying a Destroyer for the Soviet Baltic Fleet

@andrewaagamer I definitely agree, I was horrible at playing the Axis but it just took a few games and some new strays to see the unbalance. And I too don’t like nerfing strat bombers because it seems to unbalance it more.

which brings up the fun option of sending in fighters to attack with an unlikely landing spot. For example, lets say Japan has 8 transports in the Sea of Japan, but a massive fleet stationed a zone away making it hard for your Allied fleet to create a valid landing spot. You can attack the massive IJN fleet with a single sub which “in theory” could win the battle, and send a fighter to attack the transports with the potential option to land back in the zone that the sub opened up.

The transports are sunk, the allied sub is lost, and sadly there is no valid landing zone so the fighter crashes after the not-completely kamikaze mission. TripleA handles this correctly.

Stratbombers and Dark Skies are so flexible and effective, that buying up to 6 is optimal play.  Strategic bombing is a bit too powerful OOB because Russia has little defense.  But on top of that, the 6 range and cheap cost makes them a bit overpowered–they are one of the few units that can consistently reach some interesting target the turn after they are built.

After almost 200 games in the last 3 years, I need to try new things.

@Amon-Sul:

@Marshmallow:

Exactly so.

It’s house rules.

what about 2nd edition? it is also an upgrade of it`s own.

yes, BM adds some more stuff, but i would say a lot more than just a house rule, since half the people play it.

If you discount the players in league (2016) standings who only played like 3-5 games, than there were about 50 players. However, there are probably around 1000 players throughout the world who play Global 40 2nd ed. (I can’t find the metric for 2017 league standings). In the Global 40 forum section, there are hundreds of threads and posts by people who haven’t played BM3 yet.

Not everyone who even comes to the site plays triplea live, let alone pbem, let alone league. Also, when league players call an Axis and Allies game that is respected and religiously played by serious regulars “vanilla,” it might come across as snobbish. Even if not intended to.

I’m trying to learn BM3. To me it’s a different game. And my jury is still out on whether or not I will like it. Played 150+ games of G40 2. A difference I’ve noticed for instance is I don’t see the majority of players do Tobruk or Taranto compared to Global 40. In G40 2, protecting Cairo is decisive. BM3 permits the UK more options. And even in this thread, right away buying a marine changes the game drastically. Now a cruiser has become a transport. Also, how many people do a J1 DOW in BM3 compared to Global 40? Not many.

Yes, a Japanese destroyer in SZ 16.

You’ve got three responses available to the US that I am aware of:

1: Move your entire fleet into SZ 16 to kill the blocker. Units can also come directly from the US west coast to SZ 15, meaning everything can converge on SZ 6 in the following round (or to Wake/Hawaii if you somehow scare them away (or perhaps midway if they put a naval base there)). If nothing else, you know for sure they’re coming.

And:

2: Sending planes to kill it. 1/3 chance they lose a 10 IPC plane. Basically a 3/3 chance Japan loses an 8 IPC destroyer.

3: Actually sending a submarine or destroyer to kill it along with planes. (This is not a very smart play if America has enough planes for #2 alone to be viable, but some people don’t realize this.)

(4: Staging on Midway on a new naval base instead, but like I said, this is kinda silly for America and great for Japan unless they weren’t able to hit your destroyer block on the turn before for some reason.)

#'s 2 and 3 are very annoying, and not great for Japan, and are obviously not very sustainable, so this is why the destroyer block is something you should only do when necessary.

This is why I like to keep 1-3 fighters (usually 3) on Japan proper and build, or at least keep, one or two boats there per turn. If America does want to come swooping in to SZ 6, they are going to need enough to get through 1-2 boats and fighters. This means they must either over-invest (because you didn’t scramble), or they under-invest and then you kill them for (hopefully) a decent ratio when you do scramble. If they over-invest, kamikazes are an option (see edit), but maybe more importantly it means that whatever they sent to stand up to your boats/planes is now within range for a super nice counterattack with subs/planes.

Obvious times when the destroyer block is worth it:
-America has enough transports on Hawaii to make Japan worry about its capital, or potentially Korea.
-Japan built a lot of navy (more than one or two boats) on SZ 6 and wants to keep it alive.

Moreover, buying 1-2 boats a round off of Japan and keeping planes there means that if america tries to pre-block you in SZ 16 (moving in, say, some amount of destroyers to SZ 16 and SZ 25 while his fleet is coming from Panama/Sydney, to in effect block your attempts to block him with only a simple destroyer of your own), you have boats and planes available to you to destroy his block-blocker in SZ 16 and remain able to delay him for a round.

I keep 1-3 fighters there starting from J1, and begin building 1-2 boats there J3+ in most instances.

edit-
Last bit of advice: If you think there’s a good chance America is going to bring in a lot of navy on its noncom to SZ 6 after attacking it with a smaller force (or they telegraph this intention by bringing a lot of planes to the fight in SZ6), and Japan is sitting on FIC/Philipines with all of its navy/air in range to attack on the very next round, do not be stingy with your Kamikazes. If you can destroy even one more destroyer before the big navy clash, that can swing the probability by something like 5 (+/- 2)%. The entire Pacific depends on a massive fight such as this. 1% would be worth it, let alone more, and you might even hit multiple boats if you’re a lucky b��t��d. When it’s crunch time, smoke 'em if you got 'em.

Yes, you are right. I read it too late in the evening.  :-D
It is just a different formulation, finally.

Sorry thinking OOB. Either way my point is still their. Either way you go, while that power is going to get beat to hell the other half of the world just grows to strong. In our games Germany gets up to 60+ ipcs by round 5 or 6, and Japan is still not knocked out but they usually do in round 7.

It seems with 6 subs on the board, you could keep 2 off Canada and 4 off London. That means you would subtract 11 IPCs from the UK until the US entered the war, if UK does not build a DD in Canada.

You could keep London at around 18 IPCs until the US enters the war. However, I don’t think Germany can spare the money on sea units, since I believe they need to help Japan gather victory cities or face a long term loss of game. I also suspect that the US will have 2-3 DDs in their war fleet able to clear two of the convoy zones for UK.

Personally I would make air units over sea units, as you can then threaten fleets and land units especially if you need a quick extra “push” against Moscow early on.

You would discourage a navy build by UK until the US could arrive on scene.

In some Europe games, I did produce a couple of subs early on, but not in any global games. I found their life span to be brief unless they hid behind Denmark.