When I HAVE to play as Russia, I use a strategy I haven’t seen very often. I buy a plane, and all infantry. Then, I draw extra protection from the allies (like planes and men - which does slow the allies advancements elsewhere) to make up for the 4 less men (since I bought the plane). I try to buy a plane as often as possible. In longer games, by turn 3 or 4, Russia has a good sized air fleet and infantry.
Thus Russia can attack around itself (the planes, if left in russia, can easily move from russia to join infantry assaults on the west against germany or east against japan). And because you pay for the planes instead of tanks, you never have to leave anything but infantry when trading territory with japan or russia, giving you the absolute best bang for your buck.
The strategy takes a small drain on allied forces (britain shunting planes and some men to defend russia early on), but can ultimately result in Russia being more than able to defend itself, the trade-off is that the allies have to slow their efforts in africa for a while (though America can still do that while Britain builds up Russia).
Against experienced players it would probably result in your immediate death - but against moderate players I have a good time with it. So I thought I’d share - sorry if it’s been shared a hundred times already.
Against a modest player, yes, it would be a fun strat to play.
Against some of the hard core Classic players here (like Darth), more likely to earn the fall of Moscow T3 or 4.
is this version 2 or 3?
if version 2, my group would own you hard for that kinda strategy. the only thing that keeps germany from moving their EEur stack into Karelia (or even just strafing them to a bare minimum) is the constant and barely superior purchase of rus inf to defend Kar. Even if you put some planes into the zone from UK, we would welcome the lack of 4-8-12 whatever infantry. It would be just enough to justify a full attack.
Oh, and we play no bid with R.R. Just imagine it with bids.
I highly encourage you to give it a try. I’m sure it’s not going to beat out any serious pros, but I’ve had some good success with it. The benefit is that you force yourself to ‘scrape by’ as Russia at the beginning of the game, and get stronger. Rather than normal where you begin strong and then slowly scrape by. Once Russia can land a defense force of 5-6 fighters in Kar, it only takes a modest stack of infantry to chew up any assault.
The planes are also able to perform a dual function of attack and defend each turn, moving west or east. If UK devotes itself to supporting Russia, and the U.S. focuses on Africa, I find this to be an above-average strategy against my friends.
Yes, Russia does end up with 4/8/12/16 less infantry, but their fighters chew up enemy units to make up for it, and Britain can send without delay 3 fighters and begin shunting men almost immediately.
I usually spend my first Russian turn taking finland/norway, thus giving Russia some additional ‘safe’ money, and opening a direct line to allied backup.
In series with this thought, I have found classic games with limits of infantry = 2X land value to be extremely fun. Turns the game back into strategy and not numbers. For instance if Russia only has her start territories the most infantry she can have on the board at any given time is 48 (2 X 24 IPC = 48 Infantry.) What do you build after you reach that number? Tanks, Planes, etc.
I’ve not tried limited infantry games, sounds cool…
Even a small Russian airforce can really bite an Japanese overreach and provide extra time for England/Us materials to reach Uncle Joe.
I was leaning towards a total unit support based on land value.
3X land value on your home territories.
2X bonus if you have an IC there.
2X land value in conquered territories.
Unsupported units do not get to roll in battle, but you can take them off as casualties.
Kar can support 18 Russian/Allied units but only 12 Axis units.
EE can support 9 German units, but only 6 Allied units.
Cauc can support 9 Russian units.
Rus can support 24 Russian units.
Extra roll support can be purchased for $1/2 units (location must be specified) at the end of your turn or $1/unit at the start of any battle you defend in. Excessive capacity can be applied to your allies. This does not apply to sea zones.
In response to the original post:
I don’t think I would buy FTR’s I would buy ARM. b/c (playing classic) you get just under 2.5 tanks for the price of one fighter compounded over several rounds that adds up.
Yes you sacrifice you defense die a little but do you? Now you have twice as many cats and dogs in the fight. The big plus for me at the point when I want to storm through Europe is that ARM are not subject to AA fire. So now at least they get a chance of making at least on hit should you decide to take ARM as losses.
And thats my 2 cents
completely agree. THough I generally wait to buy ARM. I usually buy infantry and load up my front line until there is jsut nothing Germany can do , then buy tanks, and just roll over Europe.
