The Japanese Piracy Strategy: An insane plan that somehow worked

@ShadowHAwk not sure that I would want to play a 40+ round world domination game with stalemates in so many portions of the world. I assume that bombers would become the meta, being able to project power into so many theaters and preventing your opponent’s fleet from splitting to two forces.

OOB is just fine if you are relatively new to the game and playing face-to-face with no battle calculators. Eventually someone will make a mistake or two, and the game will be quickly over. The issue is with PBEM games where you can battle calc every possible option and figure out how many fighters will be required in Moscow to shift the odds from 50% up to 90%. That gives the Axis such a big advantage as they are the aggressor during the critical first 8 turns.

If they J1, then I would suggest buying an extra carrier and having these guys hang out with the USA, making the main fleet much less vulnerable to a pre-emptive attack. With a sub or two, and a tac, the ANZAC forces can usually mop up the Japanese fleet if it survives an initial attack by the US.

If they dont, then your planes can land on java, usually, they find a good way to cross, and at least as far as the Japanese TTs are concerned, you can screen those out (even if they have an NB)

The idea of sending the 6 planes to moscow, however, denies you alot of other milestones in the game; without the grey and tan planes in theatre, Bombay is easy to take, and if not, Sydney will be. Players who are not cautious about building reserves with ANZAC can easily find both capitals under threat, esp. once Japan can use Malaya’s base. Whichever one you defend, they attack the other (now that you can’t cross back). If you dont defend either, they can take both.

Another fine plan is to marry the UK air force from India with the one from the Med, assuming that one survives. That roving force can do alot to wreck the Axis, or it can defend the factories in the core area (persia, Iraq–the axis mundi of the board. pun intended).

No matter what you do, its still more than one turn from India to Moscow, and this is very intentional on the part of the game designers. At that juncture in the game, the areas around Moscow are under threat, so you can’t land planes alone anywhere but moscow.

Sending all your auxiliary planes from the minor allies to rescue Moscow will probably save it, but you’ll lose the game when the Japanese dominate that board, or the Italians/Germans take Africa and the 2$ Russian zones. For all these reasons, I prefer to leave most of those planes nearer to where they start, using them to tear Japan apart, rather than sending them on a long range adventure that prevents them from attacking and expressing threat. If Japan is threatened by the USA, there are plenty of times that they have to weaken their westward push, and at that point, UK planes can join whatever Russian stacks are still fighting, once you see the outcome (save Bombay, we hope).

This plan doesn’t ignore Japan, that’s a compete foolish move in my opinion. I just build bombers enough to keep Germany annoyed while maintaining a Pacific Fleet. As I said before, I build a 1:1 build against Japan and make sure Hawaii doesn’t get captured.

I’m guessing you also went into Shan State to get the UKPac income down to 9 after J1?

I don’t know what you mean about SBR on Calcutta wrecking the Japanese factories?

I’ve never noticed that the fighter on Formosa can get in to the UK BB. Good move.

FWIW, my counter to that as allies would have been something like:

Stack Yunnan with up to 14 inf China1 Attack Shan State UK1 Move India starting troops to Burma UK1 UK1 buy 1ftr 1arm (my standard) China2, 5 more inf on Yunnan, perhaps less 1-2 from attacking somewhere or buying art instead + the fighter. Possible Malaya evac turn 1 Still land on Sumatra with 2inf UK1

UK2 you can move 3-6inf 1art 3aaa 1TB 1ftr to Yunnan and likely retake Malaya
ANZAC2 1ftr to India, 2ftr to Shan State/Malaya

How would that have gone? Perhaps I’m missing something but I can’t see a J2 attack on Yunnan. J3 I don’t reckon you could win with acceptable losses.

@Zhukov44:

There are several good reasons to get an ac instead of a battleship.  The first is that Germany already has fighters to land on the AC.  So with the AC (plus fighters) you get a defense punch of 10, with a count of 4, compared to the bb’s punch of 4 and count of 2.  The second is that you won’t get many bombards out of that battleship unless you are using it in the Baltic.  You might get the one bombard when you attack England, but ultimately that one bombard shot is pretty useless compared to 2 fighters (also 20 ipc) that would participate in every round of the battle.

Another reason is acs extend the range of your fighters.  Unlike ships, fighters can’t be blocked.

Whether you intend to go for London or go for Moscow, there are better ways to spend that 20 ipcs.

Agreed, all good points.

oh ok

I recall a game or two of P40 where the DEI were up for grabs. Potentially we had not read the rules correctly or it was changed in the erratica.  Either way Japan doesnt seem able to touch them now.  Probably a representation of Dutch VIPs continuing the war from England after Germany’s victory

@SgtBlitz:

It would be nice if you could actually play the scenario where Germany and Russia remain best buds for the whole game.  It probably would actually have happened like that in real life had Hitler not been such a backstabbing treacherous douchebag.

Not really Russia was planning on atacking Germany at some point, they just got beat too it.