AAE not broken–Tank Push Broken, Balance Restored

Interesting… how does this work for you?

So what if Germany just pretends the RW didn’t happen and goes straight for Moscow anyway?

so can Germany still win the game in your opinion/experience without the tank push?

@murraymoto:

The best way to counter the RW is to fight a more balanced war, which I believe is the best way to win as the Axis in the first place.  I believe it is possible to hold/delay the Allies in the Atlantic and take out Russia.  The game really isn’t designed for the Axis to take out anyone else.  The game considers Barbarossa to occur whether or not Germany attacks Russia, so for Germany to truly consider taking any other capital would require a fundamental change to the game with this.

yeah, the tp has forced Axis players to be seen as going ‘cheap’ too often with Sealion being an all-or-nothing gambit and the tank-push ‘unstoppable’.  i think that the fact that the sides are close, but maybe not ‘equal’ is part of the beauty of the game.  historically they weren’t equal.  matching everything too equally removes the historical part of the game.  if i want just strategy, i’ll play ‘go’ or heck ‘risk’ or ‘connect four’, but the historical context is what makes AA so compelling, as it recreates history in a simple way and there are the challenges therein to deal with. 
but i digress in a rant.  i’ll break out AAE again and try some wargames.

Has anyone tried out this tactic yet?  We just played our first game of Europe a couple weeks ago and had a blast.  It will be quite disapointing if the game is broken and Germany can win everytime with OOB rules.  (I am not a fan of house rules in any way, shape, or form.  Free Parking is Free Parking :wink: )

I tried it out, worked quite nicely actually.  it was 1v1, so the Allies could coordinate being all the same person and all.  i straight up told him to use the tank-push if he wanted or not, I didn’t care.  I did tell him I had a plan to counter it though if he tried.  Well, as that had been the case before he said, ok, and brought it on headfirst.

i basically slowly retreated in Africa with the brits and used my bonus for the 4 extra russians in lenin and bessarbia.  He built a trn and did manage to take lenin first turn, but had to bring fighters and lost one, taking with only 1 art, which I reclaimed on R1.  I pushed into Romania on r2 and the pulled back and hit epol with the tanks as he just tried to box me in the south and continued on toward Moscow.  After he thought I was putting myself totally out of position (hehehe). Anyhow, he did take up to belo before russia with it’s nice and shiny new airforce put the brakes to the german advance.  UK/US broke through atlantic soon after to start landing and though he had africa and tried to start building a second push into Russia I had already cleared out through Norway and all the way through the Balkans to Italy when he gave up.

we’re gonna try it again, now that he’s seen it, but so far so good.  I’m liking the balance approach better all the time.

I don’t think it’s a broken game, but I’d want to play it some more to see what other counters, or counter-counters (i guess) there could be.
all in all, i like the game, it’s not bulge, but hey, what is?

great feedback luckyday.  We are going to play tonight (friday), and since I don’t think my group is aware of the tank push I don’t know if we are going to be able to use this strategy or not.  I haven’t mentioned the tank push to anyone because we really enjoyed our first game with Europe and I don’t want a (possible) unbeatable strategy to ruin the game.

Okay I just wanted to clarify, the tank push is where Germany goes all out and destroys Russia as fast as possible.  Dumping all resoures into Russia and ingnoring UK and US.  If this is true this is the stratagy I’ve always used and I personally think its not foolproof stratagy.  If the Allies play their cards right they can stop Germany in their tracks.  UK sending fghters and bombers and landing little raids in Dennmark and taking Norway.  With the US landing on Morocco and pushing the Germans out of Africa.

correct, Tankpush is where germany ignores the western front in terms of new purchases and spends everything on INF for a turn or two followed by only ARM.  Everything moves towards Moscow, including all the ARM that started in France.  Generally only the INF in France&Netherlands are left.  They overwhelm Moscow before the other allies can get into Europe and threaten Berlin.  Should the Allies arrive in W-EU before Moscow falls, Germany simply turtles in Berlin while the mass forces they have in Russia take Moscow.

I’ve been pwning my friend in FTF as Germany lately, so I’ll throw my two cents out.

Germany can win any way it chooses so long as the dice go your way…believe me, I’ve been witness to some BAD lucky streaks from my friend lately.

Convoys and the Middle East are important for Germany. Taking IPCs from your opponents is the easiest way to win. Tanks to Moscow can certainly work, and I’ve won that way. But it can also falter, due to poor choices or poor dice…or good opposing strategy.

The Allies have to have a cooridnated plan. Take France with Britain and reenforce with US fighters…if you can hold Leningrad, consider bombing Germany. As with all A&A games, money is the key…if the game takes too long, Germany starts to falter, as the combined incomes of the Allies take hold.

I’ve yet to see the TP have battles that approach anything close to odds…once I see that work, I’ll rethink it, but the game is not a guarantee with that strategy or any other.  :-)

@Aretaku:

Germany can win any way it chooses so long as the dice go your way…believe me, I’ve been witness to some BAD lucky streaks from my friend lately.

well gee… if you look at it that way, then any strategy can win and having a strategy of getting lucky dice is probably the best one to have.  “This game I’ll have roll all ones, and I’ll win!!”  yay!!

I think that terribly oversimplifies things.  I think murray was talking about the coordinated plan for the Allies which forces the Axis to play a more balanced game with threats to the Med & Mid-E.  I’ve used his plan against the TP and in games since my opponent has taken different approaches to gaining victory.  He wiped out all but 2 of the convoys (the 2 3ipc uk ones) and took the mid-east but still lost with the tp.

@murraymoto:

that’s a good question, one which I tried as Germany a number of times.

In short they run don’t have the troops to overwhelm Russia like they need.

They try the TP without most of Army Group South and/or give up the territories all the way to Italy before the TP could hit Moscow, which it won’t.

For the TP to work, Germany needs the bulk of the Army Group South (Hungary/ Czech/ Austria and south) to participate in Barbarossa.  There’s no good way though that we’ve found yet for Germany to get enough of it’s troops from the Balkan Peninsula to Moscow by going around the RW to participate in the TP to make it effective.  Hungary can move it’s troops north to Poland, but most of the rest get caught by advancing Russian troops out of Ukraine/Bessarbia.  Russia can pull it’s tanks back to hit EPol without problem and still take the Peninsula with minimal troops supported by air and could feasibly even get some additional help from the British forces in Egypt as by B2-3 the Med DD/Trn is likely still around.

Another option for Russia then is to push north from Rumania and into Poland, cutting off the German supply line and either separating their units (as they’d be building tanks then and their armor would be a turn away to help) or forcing them to turn back and further delay their push.  Russia would still be picking off the Penn. countries and causing Germany to further defend or give up the Italy.

End result is Germany’s offensive being split and not effective.  The TP is like walking a tightrope that’s been set on fire behind you.  You are hoping to get across it before the fire catches you or burns through it behind you.

[edit]
It’s just like the historical result.  Germany tried a Tank Push to Moscow in reality.  BUT, because they diverted troops to Leningrad when less than 200 miles from Moscow and they diverted away from the Oil fields to Stalingrad  Their superior offensive ability was blunted on the numerous Russian targets rather than the prize of Stalin, Oil and Moscow.  Had they just pushed straight at Moscow when they were supposed to they would have leveled it before the Siberian Army and winter arrived.  Then they could have dealt with them and turned en masse at Stalingrad from Moscow and from the captured Oil Fields.

i don’t believe the last thing…
Napoleon took Moscow too, but didn’t conquer Russia
Russians would of typically continue the fight in the Urals, where al their factories were

@Frontovik:

i don’t believe the last thing…
Napoleon took Moscow too, but didn’t conquer Russia
Russians would of typically continue the fight in the Urals, where al their factories were

when you say ‘too’ are you implying that Germany took Moscow?  because they didn’t…  as well as that St Petersburg was the capital at the time of Napoleon, not Moscow.  the political implications are much greater for Hitler to take than they were for Napoleon.
similarly, the population of the Urals were not Russians, but Ukrainian…
whether the russian troops anywhere would have fought on would have been determined by whether Stalin had been captured in Moscow, or chose to retreat and continue fighting, or if captured, if any of his successors would have chosen to fight on.

What I have found is the game is not broken at all. If you lend UK fighters to Russia (they can send two every turn!) it becomes very hard for the Germans to bust through. Also not consolidating your forces into one large heap is the best too. I found a two-headed approach with either builds in Stalingrad or Leningrad depending on where the German player is focusing, and if things get hairy to start building in Moscow exclusively. But I have rarely had that happen because of all the planes that USA and UK can send. Also if the US sends over a load of guys to Africa to start off the game that usually discourages the Germans to even think about the oil fields in the Middle East. I found that once you do that you naturally have set up the Italy invasion along with the Normandy invasion as well. As long as you hold the Germans to under 45 IPCs they will not win, think about it……24 for Russia and 24 from UK (the two planes you “lend” to Russia) every turn equals 48! That extra three IPCs every turn starts to add up once turn 6-8 comes around, and if Germany isn’t attacking by turn 2 I can 95% of the time guarantee that they will lose. And that is not even counting the 35-40 IPCs every turn from the US.

I always read on here on the TP about holding until turn 4 and then unloading, yeah if the UK doesn’t ship planes over that will happen but if they do then the Germans will only able to match from then on out because by then the US is in Africa milking 3 IPCs from Germany every turn.