Most Surprising First Round purchases you have seen?

I thought the best strategy to counter KJF was to KRF with Germany, since the Allies are ignoring you.

http://boardgamegeek.com/ look there

@gnasape:

Instead of doing too much, it might be advisable to hit W Rus hard with 10 inf, 2 art, 3 arm, 2 ftr, and create deadzones all around and trade territories with Germany until the reinforcements arrive.

This is usually what I do, and with a 3 inf, 3 arm buy you immediately have 7 armor which should be close to matching Germany and should prevent a German move to either Kar or Ukr for several rds.  You can follow up in rd 2 with 4 inf, 1 rt, 2 arm and your overall offensive units start to look pretty impressive:  3 rt, 9 arm, 2 ftrs.

@OLver:

Thanks for the input guys. My oponent should really have landed in Africa with UK on the first turn.

I also thought that sending a Russian fighter in Anglo Egypt was a big mistake made by my oponent, so was it to not leave Leningrad completly empty.

My bad I said 1 inf and one art from Africa but of course it was 1 tank and 1 inf. I also forgot to say that my two subs in the baltic were moved in  seazone 7. I knew my navy was going to be destroyed, but it forced my oponent to split his airforce, and I saved a sub and killed one fighter with my transport/dest fleet.

There are two approaches to a non-Baltic fleet buy that I’ve seen and use.

1.  Stay put.  If the UK attacks with its air, the Germans kill UK air.  The Germans lose a lot of navy which they weren’t using a lot (they would have used the Baltic transport), and the UK loses its valuable and hard-to-replace air.

2.  Split into four groups.  If the UK splits its air up, German subs can surrender and German destroyer and/or transport have a better chance of bringing down some UK air.  If the UK doesn’t split its air up, then at least three German units survive.  Note that the US bomber will probably knock out another German naval unit.

I guess my oponent did not play really well  with Russia because even thought I had few land units on the Russian front, my fighters always allowed me to trade territories and to keep UK and US navy at bay for a while.

Yes, trading territories is - after a fashion - a strength of the German fighter buy, but REALLY, you should have been bled dry, especially with having to transport units to Africa.

Now I have to explain what were, in my opinion the advantages of such a move. UK and USA had to buy much more navy to protect their transports, so even thought my russian front was some kind of weak, Germany was almost never threatened, and the Allies coult not build any fleet in the Pacific. On UK1, my oponent send his Indian SZ Fighter to destroy my tank in Anglo-Egypt along with the Transjordan inf. He succeded, but my lonely Japan transport stayed alive, so I only had to buy one on J1 and could already build a factory in Mandchuria. On J1 I took China and Buryatia. Two turn later a factory was build in French Indochina, and another one in India a turn later.

German fighters have nothing to do with a fleet in the Pacific.  Nothing you have yet described prevents the Allies from building a fleet in Atlantic OR Pacific.  (Of course, if they build in the Atlantic, they’ll have to overcome that German air force, but I digress)

The UK can still send their carrier and destroyer against the Japanese transport at Kwangtung - and they should, too, in view of the fact they used the Indian fighter against Anglo-Egypt.  More weak play.  :wink:

I think you spent way too many IPCs on industrial complexes.  If you purchase 16 IPC of transports, you can move up to four units from Japan to the mainland, and vary between anywhere from Soviet Far East to French Indochina; furthermore, those transports can be used as naval fodder and to pick up Japanese infantry from isolated islands where they are doing no good.  Compare with a 15 IPC industrial complex that produces three units, cannot switch where units are placed, cannot be used as naval fodder, and do not solve the problem of wasted Japanese infantry resources sitting on isolated islands.  I know Caspian Sub states 2 transports 1 industrial complex is good, but I think I would prefer 3 transports 1 tank on J1 regardless of bid - if I can claim India and put an IC there with Japan, the positional advantage is huge.

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In practice, those German fighters have limited range, exactly as I previously mentioned; you will probably end up having to split the German fighters between eastern territories and Western Europe.  This isn’t too bad in practice.  What you will probably see is the Allies building up a fleet off Eastern Canada; when the Allies feel like it, they will unite newly built naval units from Eastern US with the existing fleet off Eastern Canada and land at Algeria, where with no surviving Baltic fleet elements and your German Mediterranean fleet probably not in a position to counter, and insufficient German fighters at Western Europe (considering that you have to split between Western Europe and eastern territories), you can do nothing THAT TURN.

On the next turn, though, you can land 10 fighter 1 bomber (possibly 9 fighter 1 bomber) at Western Europe.  If the Allied navy stay off Algeria, you beat them up, if the Allied navy retreats from Algeria, you may have a problem.  Why a problem?  Because even a pretty tame Allied fleet will land 6 US and 4 UK ground units (2 starting UK transports and 2 starting US transports plus 1 US transport bought on US1); you may easily have to deal with a lot more.  And although you have air at Western Europe that can hit Algeria, you need cheap German ground units to act as fodder; you can get 2 German infantry in with the Mediterranean transport, but otherwise - well, you can see that you might have a problem to deal with.

So let us say that is what happens.  On the German turn, you fly all your fighters to Western Europe, and the Allies respond by pulling their navy back to Eastern Canada and buying another US carrier at Eastern US (I assume they bought one already on US1 after seeing the German fighter build).  Germany does nothing about the Allied forces in Algeria.

Germany’s next turn, you can only trade off Karelia and one other territory easily (that other territory being the one your German bomber can hit).  BUT now what?  If you fly away from Western Europe, the Allies will land MORE units at Algeria.  And if you do NOT fly away from Western Europe, the Allies STILL land at Algeria, with probable 6 transports (up to 7 or 8 easily), 2 destroyers, 2 carriers, 4 fighters, 1 battleship.  EVEN with that mighty air force, there is nothing you can do.  So let us say you GIVE UP Algeria and start harassing Russia with your mighty air force.  The Allies have sunk 32 IPC in carriers, and are just making their landing at Africa; they are out of position to help Russia.

So as you can see, what have you gained at best?  Nothing but TIME.  Time for Japan to push on Russia.  Time for the Germans to keep the IPCs they gained in Africa.  And that is EXACTLY why I recommend using African bid units instead of Ukraine.  You need to control Africa early while you still can; you WILL lose Africa eventually.

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And remember these things too:

1.  The Allies can still go KJF (if they do, Germany has to try to control and keep control of Africa.)

2.  By buying so many fighters early, you lock yourself into a certain line of German play.  You may do better to stagger your fighter buys out (say 1 German fighter a turn or even 2 German fighters on G1) so you can have some early infantry to trade with Russia sooner.

In short - yes, if the Allies go KGF, German fighters are useful - however, I do not think that 4 fighters RIGHT AWAY is necessary or proper; I think 2 fighters is the most that the Germans can afford on G1.

Jet Fighters neutralize the allied annoying tactic of putting AA Guns all over the place because your fighters are immune.

And I meant 10 IPC for Russia.  6 from the rocket attack on Moscow and 4 from the rocket attack on Caucasus. (Remember you can only fire one rocket to each industrial complex per turn.)  Add in a bomber to get the two point conversion on Russia for 12 though. WEG

Yea, heavy bombers have been completely castrated.  I wouldnt turn them down if they were free, but I wouldnt pay for them either.

@ezto:

@ncscswitch:

Aggressive Russia means you still take Africa, still clear the Med, AND take out the Russian advance forces.  Then re-group in G2 for further advances against a Russia depleted of offensive units.

This comes from the guy who uses a game board :lol:

And who has a nearly 70% win rate, including a perfect win record against Ezto in Revised  :wink:

I think the most important battles are:

Germany: Egypt, clearing the Med of british shipping

everyone else depends on their strategy.

@CrazyStraw:

Howdy.

I hadn’t weighed in on this thread, but I just got a story to tell.

Yesterday I played a game against a good player.  It was time-limited.

No joke, in a 5 round game I built 9tra 1car with Germany.

And it WON the game for me!

It was ridiculous!

It was absurd!

It was outrageous!

It was sublime…

So German boats can be good.  That would have been excessive in 99% of the games I’ve played, but yesterday it was exactly enough to get the job done.  Simple lesson: the Baltic is important.

I begin to see the value in LL / No Luck games and in non-time limited games.

My entire strategies in my tournament game had to change because of a time limit.  It caused a waste of two turns because I forgot to take into account that there was a time limit in each round.  (not a round limit, that would have been easy to work with, but a time limit.)

needless to say, I’m never making that mistake again!