Posts made by Col.Stauffenberg

How long have you been playing?

It won’t matter if Japan is up money if they’re not putting pressuring on Russia and if you’re seperating your navy, then you’re making it vulnerable.

First, thanks for sharing strategies Advosan, but second, the strategy your suggesting is only good for guarding the Atlantic for a few turns and getting Africa. It ignores the fact that letting Russia run roughshod over Europe makes them next to impossible to take down. It also delays Germany from taking Russia since they have to wait at least round two to take Egpyt, more if UK decides to guard it amd this means UK has more money for ship builds. If the Allies are patient in the Atlantic, there’s nothing Germany can do to stop them. Eventually they will outbuild Germany, and once they’re able to land, Ger won’t have enough defence to stop them. This kind of game usually ends in round 5 or 6.

I do agree with you that Germany needs African money. My advice is to go for Egypt first and only add boats when you’re up money. I also like the Med ship build on round 2 or 3. Hopefully you can afford it by then (you might be up to 44).

I’m a fan of the round 1 Baltic AC build. I know a lot of people don’t like it but you save 15 ipcs and increase the range of your planes, which will delay the Allied Atlantic ship builds for a couple rounds.

If you ever see Russia build a Sub round 1 then it would be an alright time to do your strategy (although I still wouldn’t do it).

How do you stop Russia from advancing with so little land forces Advosan? What do you do if UK drops their navy in front of Egypt and reinforces it? You’d never get Africa.

Considering those odds it’s amazing how many times the Egypt fight has gone bad when me and my friends play, and that’s with the Ukraine fighter since Russia usually just straifs Ukraine.

@Hobbes:

@Col.Stauffenberg:

Has anyone tried to take out both Anglo Egypt and Trans Jordan on round 1? I ask because I botched my Egypt attack last game and IMO that’s ends the game since the UK can cross the channel and destroy your navy and cut you off from Africa for good.

Is it better to try and win Egypt strong or give yourself another opportunity to close the channel?

If you only take Trans-Jordan then the UK player can still kill the German Med fleet, using the fighter on Egypt, the bomber from the UK and the fighter onboard the Indian ocean carrier. To allow the German fleet to survive you need to take Egypt.

I know this makes it harder to take Egypt. I was hoping for someone to give me a breakdown of the odds for both fights. Depending on what happens, Germany could buy 15 inf on round two if they went up five.

Has anyone tried to take out both Anglo Egypt and Trans Jordan on round 1? I ask because I botched my Egypt attack last game and IMO that’s ends the game since the UK can cross the channel and destroy your navy and cut you off from Africa for good.

Is it better to try and win Egypt strong or give yourself another opportunity to close the channel?

I like the Baltic carrier build. The case against it is that it’s five less inf moving towards Russia, but without a carrier, you’re going to use those Inf to defend the coast anyway. The only time I don’t build it, is if Russia’s first round attacks went really bad.

Not only are the areas small but you can barely see the borders in German territories!

Hopefully I’ll be playing my friend on Friday. We’ll try it this way and see how it works.

@Granada:

Well, well, it is all very interesting and maybe someone who designed the rules can give the final answer, though I think Derek77 eloquent explanation is correct.

But I believe no one has answered the original question. What Japan is going to do if the US comes after her with floods of subs (and of course a limited number of other ships too). So far I have found that if the allies manage to push Japan back for about 3 rounds on the land, it can be really crippled very quickly. It happened to me, I did it once and I cannot see a proper counter strategy yet since the subs are so effecient attacking tool in Spring42.

Japan is all about getting inf on the mainland, as many and as fast as possible. Always keep your navy together. By round two, it should be consolidated and should establish a shuck between Japan and French Indo. Don’t deviate! By the time the US gets there with enough subs to threaten them you should have control of the land and Germany should be in good shape too if US is spending so much.

Another thing, about that scenario, the US is not defending, they are attacking. Just because they are removing casualties doesn’t mean they are the defenders.

We’re not talking about P30. Under no circumstances can subs return on planes. We know that. But planes can hit subs, so since defenders always chose there own casualties it makes sense to me. The way the ruling is worded makes it sound like you guys are right but it doesn’t make sense. In certain circumstances it makes having a destroyer as part of your attack force, a disadvantage. It also leads to more broken game play like Russia sinking the Baltic german trans and DD turn one or, if you want to hit a sub, you buy an 8 IPC DD. If you want a sub to be taken as a casualty, you need to buy a destroyer, a carrier and a plane (32 IPCs).

As far as practicality goes, defenders in war don’t have the luxury of chosing what to lose anyway.

@Hobbes:

@Col.Stauffenberg:

@SilverAngelSurfer:

Because the friendly airplanes aren’t going to be scoring hits on friendly subs.  :wink:  You need a Japanese destroyer for the attacking Japanese planes to score hits on the defending US subs, which are still useless regardless because if Japan is attacking with only planes, the US subs still can’t hit the planes even though there’s a US destroyer. So you’re both right and wrong. :-P

I’m going to use a different approach, as I understand where he’s coming from better now. I should’ve said, "but the attackers aren’t assigning the hits, it’s the defenders that are chosing the casualties. If the fight is say, a cruiser, a destroyer and two subs, and 5 planes, the planes are going to roll all at once, he scores 3 hits, he doesn’t assign what the defenders are going to lose, the defender is the one chosing the casualties, in every fight, so he can chose to lose subs without returns and another boat. No?

No. Since the attacker hasn’t brought a DD along any hits scored by the planes can only be assigned to surface warships. Since he got 3 hits but there’s only 2 units that can be hit (the cruiser and the DD) the 3rd hit will be wasted.
It is the defender who assigns the hits but the rules state that a defending sub can only be hit by planes if there’s an attacking destroyer. If there isn’t a DD the defending player can’t assign those hits to the subs.

But it says attacking or DEFENDING. What do you think they mean by defending (and it’s specifcally referring to airplanes)? It’s the only thing it can mean. With a destroyer, taking subs as casualities is the only defensive advantage possible.

Here’s another thing, if you think it only works on D if the attacker has a DD and plane (friendly to the area) would you think it applies if the defender had a sub, DD,AC with a plane on it in the same sea zone? Could they then take a sub as casualty?

@SilverAngelSurfer:

Because the friendly airplanes aren’t going to be scoring hits on friendly subs.  :wink:  You need a Japanese destroyer for the attacking Japanese planes to score hits on the defending US subs, which are still useless regardless because if Japan is attacking with only planes, the US subs still can’t hit the planes even though there’s a US destroyer. So you’re both right and wrong. :-P

I’m going to use a different approach, as I understand where he’s coming from better now. I should’ve said, "but the attackers aren’t assigning the hits, it’s the defenders that are chosing the casualties. If the fight is say, a cruiser, a destroyer and two subs, and 5 planes, the planes are going to roll all at once, he scores 3 hits, he doesn’t assign what the defenders are going to lose, the defender is the one chosing the casualties, in every fight, so he can chose to lose subs without returns and another boat. No?

@Hobbes:

@Col.Stauffenberg:

@Hobbes:

@Granada:

In my modest experience I think the difference in the dynamics compared to Revised make Japan suprisingly weak against the combined push of the three allies on the continent AND A FLOOD OF US SUBS threataning it from R4. Japan once you sink its fleet is doomed. And it looks it can be really done quickly and easily here with the US subs.

With 1942 I’ve been heavily favoring a Pacific strategy for the US because of Japan’s weakness. The advantage of subs comes from requering DDs to be sunk but at the same time the US needs carriers and transports and destroyers and fighters to be able to get to the big income islands.
Subs can definitely help, you can send them 1 to each SZ in range of Japan to force the IJN to defend any transports on SZ60 but stationing more than 1 sub is risky (Japan can send 1 DD and plenty of planes to sink all) and they can’t be taken as casualties from air units unless there’s a DD present.
This is very important to remember. Imagine a US fleet with 5 subs, 2 DDs, 1 AC and 2 fighters. If Japan attacks with only planes then the US subs are useless during combat. Quite a few times it is better not to send any destroyers to support an attack because it will swing the odds towards the attacker.

As long as there’s a DD you can take those subs as casualties though.

In the case above the presence of US destroyers doesn’t allow the US player to take US submarines as casualties from the Japanese planes. The manual states:
“When attacking or defending, hits scored by air units cannot be assigned to submarines unless there is a destroyer that is friendly to the air units in the battle”

In what way does that mean they can’t? The defending airplanes are friendly to the defending subs. As long is there is also a friendly destroyer there than it’s all good.

@Hobbes:

@Granada:

In my modest experience I think the difference in the dynamics compared to Revised make Japan suprisingly weak against the combined push of the three allies on the continent AND A FLOOD OF US SUBS threataning it from R4. Japan once you sink its fleet is doomed. And it looks it can be really done quickly and easily here with the US subs.

With 1942 I’ve been heavily favoring a Pacific strategy for the US because of Japan’s weakness. The advantage of subs comes from requering DDs to be sunk but at the same time the US needs carriers and transports and destroyers and fighters to be able to get to the big income islands.
Subs can definitely help, you can send them 1 to each SZ in range of Japan to force the IJN to defend any transports on SZ60 but stationing more than 1 sub is risky (Japan can send 1 DD and plenty of planes to sink all) and they can’t be taken as casualties from air units unless there’s a DD present.
This is very important to remember. Imagine a US fleet with 5 subs, 2 DDs, 1 AC and 2 fighters. If Japan attacks with only planes then the US subs are useless during combat. Quite a few times it is better not to send any destroyers to support an attack because it will swing the odds towards the attacker.

As long as there’s a DD you can take those subs as casualties though.

@pmelmike:

I’m not so sure because there is not a threat to India from Japan so UK could concentrate solely on its capital.  If Japan pushes the western United States and the Soviets keep the Germans busy, then I don’t see how UK would automatically fall.  At least for 3-5 turns.

Yeah because Germany is going to still have to keep Russia off it’s back and Japan could be sending stuff through Asia to help. Sure their Atlantic Navy will most likely get wiped out, but their Pacific navy will survive and Japan could shadow it into the Med. The US would be down four IPC’s almost immediately in Asia too.

I really want to try this. I think it would be a lot of fun.

@Fleetwood:

@supremacy:

We keep the same play order as the rules say,  with the exception of:   Some times we roll to see what power starts first.   This makes the game interesting and your strageys have a bit of a change up
Try it some time AA fans……It can be really fun and challenging

But wouldn’t Germany going first mean an Axis win almost automatically? Getting to keep West Russia’s units, killing the Leningrad fighter, and taking Caucuses all on the first turn?

But if UK and Japan go first against US, that could really help the Allied team.

@habs4life9:

I like Germany-US vs. the rest, that seems viable.

That does seem like the best way to go but I’d probably play around with turn order.
1. Russia
2. Germany
3. UK
4. US
5. Japan