Most Surprising First Round purchases you have seen?

Russia’s abilities in AAR seem to have been a mistake (IMHO) by the creator.  Back in the day, I had some pretty neat games where the United States mostly ignored Europe while Russia beat the ever livvin snot out of the Germans virtually single handedly. (You did need the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy to generate threat and reinforce of course.)

Talk to me about the Russian triple one day.  I am not on that computer or I would repost it…won more games with that then any other version of Axis and Allies ever!

I do understand what it does look like and I have just one suggestion play it out.  :-D  I also bought 6 tanks and 1 Fighter and that won me a lot of games.  I have also bought 1 Carrier and 3 Transports G1 and placed in SZ 5 and that won a lot as well.

To add to the fighters prowess each time you use them it is like using 4 tanks that if used right will seldom die.  Count that up over 2-5 turns.  I am not a fan of playing by IPC worth I thought I would just throw that out there.  I am a fan of position.  I think IPC’s are only a tool to fight with and not the fight  :wink:

Thanks for the input and I will play some more land games to see where that idea is coming from.  :-D

@U-505:

I would have to say that you should be careful about advancing heavy Russian forces too far into Europe. Drawing Russian ground units away from Russia is a trap I frequently like to set with Germany. It gets really had to resist trading a bunch of advanced territories with Germany because the prospect of Russia making 30+ IPC’s a turn puts dollar signs in the Russian player’s eyes. With the Axis outnumbering Russia by 5 to 1 with air units, trading a lot of territories and ground units with Russia almost always favors the Axis, even if the unit trade is 1 for 1. No matter how much Russia makes, Japan always outproduces them by up to twice as many units and that point will get hammered home when a large number of Russian forces are aimed at Germany and their reinforcements going west dry up instantly because they are desperately trying to hold back the flood of Japanese units coming at them. Japan has a tendence to look benign one turn and the next turn be all over the map, in force, and Russia can quickly get into trouble by being too aggressive toward Germany. Especially if the eastern defensive structure is poorly maintained.

I completely agree.  I’ve used this “rope-a-dope” tactic a few times.  retreat with germany, attack with japan, and then usually around round 3-4 i counter attack with germany and squeeze russia out and hope that germany conquers russia so i can get the IPC’s.  I say thi cause usually the Allies have taken western Europe with this strategy at some point and I have to retake it.

@icemanjsg:

doubt that i live in littlehampton, i would say the 80% of the people who live in this town fought in the first world war , thats right folks the FIRST one!

Well, you can’t just leave it at that. What’s the rest of the story?

Actually Switch, 8 infantry would have made a world of difference over 2 fighters.  The W. Russia Stack would be infinitaly more defensable and Caucasus is really never under any real threat.  And even if it does fall, it’s not like Russia’s planning on making more then 8 units a round anyway for a few rounds.

I think the most important battles are:

Germany: Egypt, clearing the Med of british shipping

everyone else depends on their strategy.

Just do your best to last as long as you can until Germany kills UK or Russia, or both.

oh, believe me, I love having ACs…I’ve been known to pull up along shore with 4-6 of them with 2 fighters each.

We even have a house rule that SS don’t exist, but you can have Super ACs which hold 3 fighters instead of 2. (you can actually fit 3 fighters on the deck too, if you’re careful!) It’s a beautiful site.

BTW, we also have a house rule that there are no chips. When you run out of pieces you can’t build anymore. smile