3 players

Overall, listen to Demandr3d. He makes excellent points and recommends strong moves.

Sorry fyllefanten, but the suggestion of reinforcing the Germany Baltic fleet or UK India IC are not viable against strong opponents. There are easy ways of punishing both moves.

Germany baltic carrier buy: UK buys 2 fig a turn, and germany has to either commit even more resources there or have the navy sunk in a very uneven battle. Germany’s baltic fleet starts off in a terrible position because any movement option is towards a UK position of strength. The best option is to move out to sz7, force UK to attack, and hope to destroy a uk trans or fighter.

UK India IC: Japan can take the IC by round 2 no matter what the allies do. R1 attack with just enough to destroy US pearl navy and China. Move everything else to French Indo-China (including the remaining japan transport). R2 attack india with everything, and use the tranport to ferry 2 inf from east indies.

@Roman:

Hey Guys,

A group of US are just getting back into Axis and Allies and we also have a few new players. I have a list of common questions that I thought I would share, any help would be awesome as the older players are hopeing to excellerate the new guys skill levels.

Russia: Viable first turn purchases/combat moves?
Purchase: 3inf/3tank purchase is standard. 4tank/1art if germany did not bid any infantry to Europe. The purpose is to deadzone karelia in R1, so germany is unable to stack there safely. On subsequent rounds, Russia should buy almost all infantry.
Combat: Nomally Ukr & Wrus. Ukr with 3 inf, 1 art, 2 tanks, 2 fig if germany did not bid an infantry to Ukr. With an infantry bid, attack with 3 tanks instead of 2. You can also attack Belo instead of Ukr, which is safer.

Germany: What should Germant do with their Fleet if it manages to meet up in SZ 13 or 8?

UK: Is not puttting an IC in India viable? If so whats the alternative?
Never purchase an IC. Japan can always take India R2 without exception. UK1 has a lot of flexibility, but 1car, 1 trans, 2 inf is probably safest. The only required move for UK1 is to sink the baltic fleet.

Japan: Is attacking India J1 possible and how is it done without being left exposed?
Almost all good UK players evacuate India R1 because it’s in a deadzone. R1 Japan can project at least 4 fighters, 1 bomber, 3 inf, and a battleship minimum. I won’t go into details, but I guarantee you that Japan can safely take india R1 or R2 no matter what allies do.

US: Best purchases and movement to get the US involved Atlantic/Eurpope was asap?
2 trans/6 inf/2art optimizes US land deployment. 1 Car/1trans/inf is safer and probably recommended if you’re not experienced. R1 and after, generally buy 1 trans and land units. The first priority for USA is to land units in africa and remove Axis from Africa.

Rule: Can a player place a naval unit during the placement phase in a hostile seazone?
Yes

Some of these quesion may seem basic however, including myself the returning players have not played for years and we want to help the new guys as best as possible. Asking for some different options will do this as some of the older players are stuck in their turn 1 ways.

Thanks

Was the paper arguing that this is true for the first round of combat, and where smart attackers know when to call it off?  I didn’t quite follow the paper since the whole Mr T thing was distracting.

Intuitively I’d guess that the size of bad luck depends mostly on force composition.  If the attacker uses planes, sure they can lose big.  If the defender has planes, they can lose big too.  Defenders can also lose really big if you take their capital (or to a lesser extent if you take WEU or SEU).

For single round combats, most of the time attackers can retreat if they see their luck going bad after the first round - and that makes a huge difference.

There are numerous errors in the rule book that comes with the game.  You may want to check out Larry Harris Tournament Rules (which are available from a link on the main page of this website).

The only “opening fire” that repeats after the first round of combat is Submarine Sneak Attack.

BB Shore Bombardment and AA fire are limited to only opening fire of the first round of combat.

I’ve seen fast carriers help in 2 specific situations:

1)  Japan forgets that the Pearl Harbor Carrier and fighters can get to SZ 61 resulting in the loss of all of Japan’s unprotected transports.
2)  America builds one last carrier and two fighters for that assault on SZ 60 (SZ 55 to SZ 60 is 3 spaces.) Or even just buys two fast carriers so the 4 fighters in W. Canada can reach SZ 60.

But how often does that happen?

How much better off would naval warfare in the Pacific be if America had 3 fighters on the flight deck of a carrier, or could recover a bomber on an empty carrier?

The statement had been made that AA can fire at aircraft flying over them.  Which is true if the AA is on land.  But if that AA gun is at sea on a TRN, then the AF can fly right over it and ignore the TRN, the AA, and anything else below them on the seas.

… this fact is clarified on page 30 of the Operations Manual, in the Transports section.  “Land units on a transport are cargo; they cannot attack or defend while at sea.”

~Josh

NO Subs don´t submerge after their combat phase, they can only submerge after the combat round (after both sides have attacked) and this only if there isn´t present an enemy DD in the battle.

As JLord said and if you have to do a naval battle you can´t do naval bombarding.

There’s a factor no-one considered though. When 3 people play, we usually set it up with 1 axis vs. 2 allies, with each allied player picking a country, and sharing the third. That way coordination is forced, and most importantly: everyone gets 2 turns a round, instead of one player getting three and the other two getting one each.

My opening German move to attack UK fleet is ussually kinda like this (the availability of my fighters depends on russian player of course…)

Sub z8 attacks z2 along with Bomber from germany, fighter norway.  (a bit risky move i know…)

Battleship z14 to z 13 along fighter from france

Transport z 14 to z 15 along fighter from balkans,

What i buy is situated to the actions of the russian player, but either i go a battle ship and 3 tanks, or 8 tanks or 6 tanks and a transport to put in italy…  Option on 4 tanks and a transport (italy) and a destroyer (baltic sea) have crosed my mind…

Any thoughts?