Hi all! Well, we finally finished our game this last weekend. The ever present long work days and real life make it so hard to play regularly! I’m a paralegal and had to head to LA for 12 days for a trial, so that really put a fork into things as well.
I hate that I’m going to do this, but I’m going to shorten the report now that the game is over (and the turns start to blend together in memory now). In short though, the Allies pulled out the victory!
Germany - The Germans waited an extra turn until turn 5 to invade the USSR, giving Stalin more time to consolidate his forces for the defense of Moscow. While the Germans did make the push all the way to the city gates, Feldmarshal von Bock rushed his attack. The Germans saw the USA closing in, and knowing they had limited time, decided to strike. While the Germans had around 35 tanks, the Soviet hordes had almost 100 infantry stacked in Moscow. Brian (my brother, Axis player) took too much stock in his tanks, and really discounted my having to roll 2’s to hit. The law of averages said that my superior numbers won the day (though I will say I did get lucky with some rolls, killing 40 Germans in the round of combat!)! It was the beginning of the end on the Eastern Front. General Rokossovsky was able to slowly start to push back, retake Stalingrad, and begin the push West. Germany, also irritated by English excursions to Norway, sent too many resources North to retake the precious factory there as well. Germany, in the end, tried too hard to keep naval forces in the West also, thus resulting in too few men in the East.
USSR - Having played a defensive strategy from the beginning, Stalin knew that, despite the extra time given him by the delayed German assault, he was still waiting for that attack on Moscow. Too few offensive units having been built made brining the fight to German soil early out of the question. The massive amounts of infantry were enough to hold back the German attack, and, having 12 tanks and 3 aircraft still available, it was enough to start pushing back with the around 30 infantry that remained. All of the Southern USSR was retaken before Axis capitulation, while Leningrad would have soon fallen in the North. To flip the script, the Soviet infantry in the far East made a bold move and invaded Manchuria. While taking out the few tanks that were there, the Japanese did hit back, taking out 2 of the stacks of 6 infantry, but not being able to get passed the last stack on Buryatia. This was a calculated move by the USSR. The goal was to draw resources away from the Chinese and India in the south and give them time to take some territory back, and it worked!
Japan - Brian was saying all game how much the Chinese were pissing him off. He just wasn’t able to keep them down. It was his eventual downfall in mainland Asia. With British support, the allies kept being able to open little pockets, which helped the Chinese to plant forces behind Japanese lines constantly. It was very frustrating for him! The biggest factor though (and one helped sway him to surrender in the end) was the large naval battles that occurred. The Japanese had two large fleets, one based at the home islands, and one based in the Philippines. It was one of those situations where, both his naval forces combined were larger than my American navy (though not by much, and I kept growing) individually, and larger than a combined British and ANZAC navy based at Dutch New Guinea, but split up they were vulnerable, and that’s what happened. Japan let the Dominion forces build up too strong a navy without punching at it first. The British navy (Pat, my dad) was able to attack the fleet at the Philippines in a heroic suicide mission, do some minor damage to the fleet there. But it was enough, as the ANZAC (also Pat) navy followed up and finished off all but 3 Japanese aircraft. This now left my large American navy of which had 4 carriers completely intact to head to Japan and fight. At this point, we knew the Axis would quit. I would not have made the attack normally, as I was still not QUITE in a position to take on the Japanese fleet, when scrambled fighters and kamikazes were added in, I attacked anyways just so we could see the carnage. In the end, while my fleet perished, all that remained was a wounded Japanese battleship or two. At this point in the game, even if we had still played on, the damage was done and he would not have been able to rebuild economically speaking. Brian said as much after, but he wished he’d gone for the DEI way earlier than he did, the extra money trading sides would have been big.
USA - The sleeping giant was finally awoken and went right into action. I had prepared transports and invasion forces in the Atlantic, and naval combat forces in the Pacific. Morocco and Gibraltar had not yet fallen, so I had quick access points to land in North Africa. Italy, as we’ll see, was actually looking decent in the Mediterranean. He had enough forces to push back my slow movement across North Africa a bit. His navy was enough to make it where I couldn’t just waltz into the Mediterranean. But, as my transport fleet grew at Gibraltar, he didn’t know if I’d strike at Italy, Southern France, or Normandy. In the end, I invaded Normandy with 11 full transports. The absence of any Germany naval forces was the determining factor in that location. After the victory there, and the impending UK landings to reinforce or take Holland/Belgium, was the actually moment Brian said “I lost” and essentially capitulated. In the Pacific, the American fleet was cautious. Again, the two Japanese fleets combined would have taken me out, but the Dominion naval forces being there let us be able to work it in a way that led us to victory.
China - Nationalist forces really were a thorn in Imperial Japan’s side. Japanese forces were strong in the South, but pockets would open in the North, or British tanks punched through on the coast, making the spawning ability of Chinese infantry very infuriating. The Soviet attack in the north helped stem Japanese reinforcements just long enough to allow the combined Allied forces the time needed to take out a sizable force in Szechwan, and then bottle up the remaining Southern forces at Hong Kong and the minor industrial complex there.
UK - As stated earlier, the UK in Europe and Africa did two things mainly. 1) They kept up raids on Norway. I thought it was a waste of resources, when France should have been the focus, but it did keep drawing German forces North. Even though Cairo had fallen, UK forces pushed North from South Africa and West through the Middle East, to strangle the Italians there, in combination with my American push East across North Africa. In the Pacific, the Dominion naval battle earlier mentioned was big. And British ground troops did what was needed in Southern China to help turn the tide.
Italy - Italy was looking strong for a while. Cairo had fallen, an industrial complex built there, and decent naval forces intact. A brutal spot was the Americans making a suicide attack of naval forces and taking out all three Italian transports and supporting vessels in the Mediterranean. Without the wave of reinforcements from the mainland, the minor complex in Cairo wasn’t enough. If they had survived, it might truly have been a bit of a different story.
ANZAC - The lions share of ANZAC support came in the aforementioned Dominion naval battle. ANZAC was left alone for too long to build naval forces, and it was enough for the combined efforts with the UK to take out a good chunk of the Japanese navy at the Philippines.
France - Even worth mentioning? Actually, the surviving two infantry in North Africa were just enough to hold off the Italians being able to easily take Morocco, which instead left a clear landing ground for my US forces.
So that was our game. As I stated in the first post, my brother knows the game, but hasn’t played 1940 a whole lot. The biggest thing for him and my dad are remembering the NO’s. ANZAC was able to accrue 20 IPC’s a turn, when Japan just taking one ANZAC island in the Solomon’s would have cut that in half. Would have made a difference as it turned out with the ANZAC navy. Brian also wished he’d hit the DEI’s earlier. That swing of money also played a difference. He also lamented his attack on Moscow. He wished he instead had just bottled me up there, not attacked, and then put focus back in the West. Would have been smart. He had enough forces where me going on the offensive with so few strong attacking forces would have been foolish. If we’d waited another couple turns, he may have gotten enough troops built to get me, as well as shore himself up in the West more. The Italian’s also had multiple unlucky rolling turns for him, but so go the dice!
Hope you enjoyed. After we finished that game, we started another. Me as the Axis this time. I may do a synopsis of that one as well, whenever it is we may finish!