@skay85 The Rulebook can be found here.

@amp12 What were you doing with these Allied countries in Europe at the same time? Just curious.

I have tried KJF with some succes. How I play it is that I never decide to go KJF until J1 has passed. That means I will usually not devote any Russian or British forces to fight Japan in the first round. Instead I will focus on the European theater and Africa first, building a UK navy and trying to sink the Med Fleet ASAP. The reasoning is that even with a KJF, you can’t let Germany just run rampant. KJF often means a long game, so keeping the African IPCs out of German hands is very important. With UK that will always be my number one priority, so it’s safe to say that I will never build an Indian IC on UK1. Of course, the Japanese transport will still be sunk in 99% of the games.

For me, the most important KJF triggers happen on J1 and can be summarized as Japan failing to take a critical objective (China, Pearl) or losing a lot of air and naval forces across multiple battles. If Japan does ‘big Pearl’ and takes heavy losses, exposing a battleship and carrier to a promising US counterattack, I will often go KJF. Same goes for ‘small Pearl’ and losing that battle. For losing China it’s a bit less clear-cut, since Allies often don’t have the units in that area to press on an advantage. In other occasions Japan could lose a BB in SZ59, or fighters in any battle, giving enough incentive for US to build a Pacific fleet.

After round 1, even if US went Pacific, I will mostly use UK to fight Germany and assist in the defense of Russia.

The sad thing about this form of KJF is that it is contingent on bad dice for Axis, and not used as a general strategy. The question is whether in those scenarios where Japan has bad dice, KJF might be viable but KGF could still be strictly better.

@Bunnies:

I wonder whatever happened to this game.

Re:

So what makes you say it’s completely over?

If you’re trying to go KGF, and Germany controls/contests Africa on the fifth turn, and you’re asking for advice, it’s probably an uphill battle.  You would only be asking for advice if you were unsure that you could protect Moscow / crack Berlin, and with Germany fueled by African IPCs, and without a veteran’s perspective on how to run a tight logistic game with the Allies, I would guess probable loss for the Allies.  All the Axis need to do is pump out a bunch of tanks and run a bit of interference with Germany’s airforce, which as you mentioned was quite strong.

It sounds like Japan is screwing around (no industrial complexes by turn five), which means you may have a chance, but again, I lack context.

If US was building some Pacific fleet, and Japan went infantry with very light naval/air support (pumping IPCs into 1 destroyer, then subs and/or fighters to match the US threat) then the Allies really are in  trouble, because then probably Japan has some idea of what it’s doing.

If Japan was unopposed in the Pacific and built battleships and carriers, though, the Allies are probably going to win because Japan can’t just lay back and make Germany do all the work.  Same if Japan used its transports to screw with Alaska/Hawaii/Australia/etc. instead of establishing a fast hard unit core in Asia/India to help support Germany’s push against Caucasus.  You might see Japan doing both (i.e. hitting island targets plus hitting Asia/Africa) with five transports, but four transports on turn five with no industrial complexes built means SOMETHING weird is going on - like I said, either Japan was prepared to meet some unusual threat, or Japan was screwing around.

Yeah - what happened in the game?
I agree with Bunnies analysis - against a decent axis player, this game is probably over. But against novice players anything is possible, they may perform unfeasible or uncoordinated moves. In that case it is all about putting yourself in the position to exploit this. By this I mean armor for Russia, establish atlantic navy to threaten Germany, Western Europe and Eastern Europe.

Water.

Now if the questions was ‘What do you smoke while playing AA42?’, then I might have a more interesting answer. :wink:

I don’t understand how Moscow can fall on G4, much less both London and Moscow.  Russia must play aggressively, building a mix of infantry, artillery, and tanks.  If Germany sends straight tanks, the Western Allies can drop the hammer much faster.

@St.:

I hear alot of people say that revised is more complicated than spring 1942. Now I played the classic version when I was 12. Sure it was a long time but aside from the tech and the board being diffrent I dont see to many changes from the two, and neither one really seems more complicated than the other.

So what happand in revised that was taken away that makes it more complicated than Spring 1942

Other than the Technology and the National Advantages (although the NAs were optional) the game system is essentially the same. I almost never play with Tech because it can be a game breaker.

Touche.