Allied Playbook - G40 Collection of Essays - Compiled by jacobgeo24 Nov 18-19 2023

@surfer

Thanks for the advice! Yeah, I really messed up on those British and French bids.

Thanks for the advice regarding the other bid purchases.

Could be simplified even further by a build up for six transports hitting SFE about the time that IJN rounds the Malacca strait. And every turn after, six tanks. Of course, it looks like a KJF, but you would be committing 100 to Pac but send them or some of them through Siberia to Moscow.

@Herr:

@oysteilo:

@Herr:

Isn’t that a bit slow?

I1: take Bulgaria
I2: units move to Romania
I3: can-opening into Bessarabia and/or Eastern Poland

So in that scenario, the German followup will be as late as G4.

I think the important can-opening happens around (I4), I5, I6 in order to break through into volgograd and caucasus and later to threaten middle east by italy taking NW persia

The idea of can-opening is, to take the territory with Italy in order to allow Germany, and especially the German planes, to reinforce it against a Russian counterstrike. So I don’t think that any Italian drive to the south servers the purpose of can-opening because Russia is unlikely to have sufficient forces to strike back at either Volgograd or the Caucasus anyway in case the Germans would have taken it without Italian assistance. Which doesn’t imply that going that way is bad for Italy because there’s a lot of bonus to be had. But if you’re talking can-opening, then I’d say Bryansk on I5 would be the way to go.

@aequitas:

With Bulgaria, Yugo and Greece given to Italy, what punch will Germany have?
Any Allied player will be happy to harvest Italy…

Agreed. I’d much rather give Bulgaria to Germany to assimilate those troops and add some punch to the German drive into Russia.

I might be using it idfferent than you. The other idea of canopening is to force a russian retreat.
let say you stand in rostov with a german and italian stack, with at least 40 german tank+mech and 5-7 italian units., and 7+ italians. Then ussr has to retreat to moscow. if he stacks byransk, you can take tambov with the italians, and moscow falls on the german turn. Since ussr has to retreat, you get to take cauc, stalingrad and begin taking the middle east immediately.

@taamvan:

I should clarify n correct my past comments re how the bid is used in tournaments;  In tournaments; you can only buy units with the bid.  You cannot buy bases or factories (right away), and you cant save money.

However, at Gencon/Origins/Smorey Swamp TN, you can put all the units in one square.   This apparently didn’t come up in the earlier tournament in 2016, but no-one there objected to putting the higher bids all in one square in 2017, which is not really a problem in most editions but it adds some choices when the bid is higher.

42.2 average bids 7-12 to Allies
G42 average bids 0 to either
Classic automatic bid of 9 to Axis
G40 no tourney bid that I know of but bids average 8-20 in league

Since the bid is a house rule, you can apply it however you like.   The bid should be a game changer.   The bids that place a fighter into the German open or a sub (or 2) into Taranto change the game and change blowout battles into more equal contests.

That is interesting that in tournaments you are not allowed to save money.

Like I said earlier, the main reason I like to save most of the bid has to do with the fact that the UK will know where it needs to focus its resources much better at the start of its second round compared to round 1.  Although I will admit a sub for the Med and fighter on Scotland is very good value and tough to beat.

@Young:

I don’t mean to derail the topic, I just want some opinions about my own house rule NOs for G40 balance… please PM me with any comments about the following NOs so that we can keep this thread about Balance Mod.

Thanks.

New & Modified National Objectives

Germany (in addition to all original NOs)
-5 IPCs if an Axis power controls London

Soviet Union (2 NOs which will replace the original National Prestige NO)
-5 IPCs if there are no Axis warships in sea zone #125, and the Allies control Archangel as well as London
-5 IPCs if there are no Allied units on any original Russian territories

Japan (in addition to all original NOs)
-5 IPCs if Japan controls all original Chinese territories

United States (in addition to all original NOs)
-5 IPCs if the United States are at war with the Axis powers

UK Europe (in addition to all original NOs)

5 IPCs if there are no German submarines anywhere on the board other than in the Baltic Sea (sea zones 113-115), the Black Sea (100), and the Caspian Sea (unnumbered)

ANZAC (in addition to all original NOs)
-5 IPCs if the Allies control Cairo (when at war with Germany/Italy)

Grasshopper, Germany already gets +5 for controlling UK in Balance Mod (its “+5 if Axis control EITHER UK or Egypt” now)

@Karl7:

@Talleyrand19:

Been following this thread as best as possible so sorry if this was already mentioned and I missed it…

But what happens if Allies spend most of their money on the Atlantic with only a few capital ships in the Pacific to join up with Anzac. The Atlantic money goes to transports and capital ships and then tanks and infantry. With England’s help, you hit Spain and Gibraltar  (for the naval base). Then every single turn the US can land more stuff and set up a nonstop funnel. If Russia does its job then axis should not be able to keep up on both fronts. If Germany sent its Dark Skies bombers to try to stop the funnel, then fine you can wipe each other out and still land more US troops the next turn.

My friends and I have done this to each other and the Spain landing always overwhelms the Axis eventually. …

What have you all experienced when trying this?

Yes, this is a good strategy.  The weak point is then the Germans blitz into the middle east, ignoring Moscow.  They can get an economic advantage and then just sit back and outbuild the allies.

Perhaps have Iraq and the Persian territories be treated as True Neutral, just give the UK and USSR extra units to make up the potential difference.

Thanks for the welcome Variance!

You are guessing correctly ^.^:
If the UK (in our group) sees that Germany is going ‘full bore’ (I guess that means throwing everything at Moscow to defeat it G6 or G7), then it starts channeling its fighters from wherever it must build them (Britain, Canada, South Africa and India) into Russia and finally into Moscow. All this happens Either via the northern route or via Persia/Africa (building a key AB here and/or there).
  UK is OK to sacrifice its ships in the med. to keep every plane alive, annihilate the Italian Navy first and to prevent any new axis ships to appear there.
Subsequently the aircraft help to destroy the Italian presence in Africa (from set-up plus maybe 1 turn of reinforcements) and then the aircraft flies into the Middle east, ready to go into Russia whilst trying not to disrupt Russia’s NO of having Archangelsk-route. But the UK fighters in russia are more important than the Russian NO if the threat is high enough.

This is why our UK is always strong while at the same time being able to be in Russia with their FTRs on time, giving Germany (statistically) no chance on Moscow, not even if it goes full bore. If it doesnt go in full bore than all those UK FTR can go elsewhere as a very flexible force. For example, fly into the areas in Europe that the US captures, stay in the med, fly to India to recapture Calcutta or prevent it from being taken… you name it).

So perhaps we don’t play Germany as optimally as possible ;-).
The best I have ever come up with myself is hitting Moscow with around 230 attack factors G6 (buying 4 STR G5, 4 TAC/STR G4, ARM+MECH G3&G2, ART+INF G1) while Russia alone I believe cannot have more than around 195 defense factors, their AAA still excluded. Combined with the UK FTR however, this can easily be too much over the 230 German attack factors. This combined with sufficiently enough more allied units, a full bore axis attack on Moscow is in our group a statistical fail.

Anyway, a quick calculation shows me that an all STR German build can reach to approx. 200 Attack factors and has way less defense factors so my guess is it will fail to deliver the message to Moscow.

I am looking for Axis strategies to counter the allied dominance (in my eyes) but Perhaps I should then move on to another thread or start one myself  8-).

I will definately look into the tripleA program if I have the time, thanks!

The end of your turn, like all other income