@Tahweh While your tips are generally helpful as a fellow top 200 plat player (got into top 70 as Allies at one point, but I haven’t been playing much lately due to life commitments) I’d give the following caveats:

1. USSR can afford to build a Tank or two. The ability to move two spaces instead of one is sometimes vital for transferring forces from one part of the front to another.

2. Absolute buys should not be suggested. There are multiple openers for each country that compliment different overall strategies. However, I can also see that you’re tailoring this guide towards beginners, so a basic, low-risk KGF/Russia Crush strategy is probably best for just starting out.

3. Germany needs to buy Tanks to make up for the longer “supply line” (as you called it) between Berlin and the Eastern Front Vs. the Soviets’. Of course, you don’t do anything silly like buying all Tanks, but 1-3 Tanks each turn while you’re ahead is recommended, unless you’ve scouted that the Allies are going for a KGF and you don’t see yourself breaking Moscow anytime soon.

4. India falling should not be accepted as a given. It’s a likely outcome, but if you go in with a defeatist mindset that India will fall, then you’re also effectively conceding the game, as once Japan takes India their IPC income usually hits critical mass. India should be fought for tooth and nail so that, once it finally falls, Germany will be near-defeat anyway.

5. Pearl Harbor is not something you should do in 100% of your games. Over-committing to it means you’re not making progress in Asia fast enough and under-committing means whatever is still in the Sea Zone gets counter-attacked A1. Whether Japan does Pearl Harbor or not should depend on what the UK does B1. If UK is committing heavily to India you should ignore Pearl Harbor and focus on Southeast Asia before UK builds momentum there.

6. The build you recommend is valid, but building 1-2 Factories in Manchuria/FIC is also valid. Capturing Moscow before Berlin falls to the Allies is the goal of the game, and you need to accomplish it as quickly/safely as possible based on what the Allies are doing. If the Allies are fortifying Asia, you need to take your time and build INF, but if they’re leaving Asia totally bare, then start building Tanks and make for Moscow as fast as you can.

7. Ignoring Japan in the Pacific lets them turn into an IPC monster extremely quickly. Some naval presence in the Pacific is recommended. You don’t need to contest the Pacific, you just need to force Japan to actually spend some of their IPCs on Surface Vessels so they’re not flinging 45+ IPCs towards India/Moscow every turn.

8. Japan can buy 1-2 factories a game. However I wouldn’t recommend that a beginner try doing such a strategy.

9. Great article otherwise. Avoiding these common pitfalls + learning the optimal opening(s) for each country are the two biggest hurdles to “stop being bad” at Axis & Allies. The road to “getting good” involves learning how to play out the long game and not panic when individual battles go badly.

I’ve recently gotten into playing competitive A&A1914 (with the help of fellow user @Slip-Capone, who has helped me playtest extensively). After playing several games and doing research, we’ve noticed that the Entente is heavily favored by most players. We are not here to dispute this assessment, and we are also not here to disagree with the typical Entente strategy of “UK kills Ottomans, Russia defends, Italy fights Austria, France fights Germany, USA goes where it’s needed”. This Entente strategy works well because, if everything goes well, the resulting endgame will see the Ottomans bleeding IPCs, Russia being battered but still holding on, and Italy/France/USA winning the game for the Entente in Italy/Germany/Austria.

What we do disagree with, however, is the typical Central Powers strategies that we have observed. From what we’ve seen, there are only two approaches typically taken for the Central Powers: “Kill Russia first” (where Austria/Germany/Ottomans gang up on Russia and go for a quick knockout before pivoting to France) and “Kill France first” (where Germany aggressively attacks France while Austria and Ottomans defend). After working together with @Slip Capone, we have refined a third Central Powers strategy that has viability, which is the point of this thread. As the thread title says, we are dubbing this strategy “Kill Italy First”. It should be self-explanatory at a high level, but further discussion is needed to make our point.

What is Kill Italy First (“KIF”)? As the name implies, you direct the Central Powers to defeat Italy first. Italy is by-far the weakest member of the Entente, only boasting 14 IPCs of starting income, and having a very small standing army on the first turn of the game. Additionally, if you are playing under LHTR, Italy also boasts a pathetically low threshold for collapsing (7 Economic/9 Political). However, Italy’s geographic position, coupled with their powerful starting navy, makes them a serious threat to the Central Powers if the game drags on into the later rounds. Left alone, Italy can bridge units into the Middle East (mostly Smyrna/Trans-Jordan), and can even make a run on Constantinople if the Ottoman player makes a mistake. Furthermore, Italy’s meager economy is just enough to be an annoyance to the Austrians, especially once you consider that Tyrolia and Trieste, both worth 4 IPCs, are directly adjacent to Italian territory (Venice). Rome is also a mere 4 tiles away from Vienna (Rome -> Tuscany -> Venice -> Trieste/Tyrolia -> Vienna), making it a source of Entente units that’s extremely close to the front lines.

I went through such lengths to describe Italy’s position above because I’ve found that most players regard Italy as an afterthought, dismissing their role in the game with claims along the lines of “they’re weak and have to harass Austria”. My point here is that, if the Central Powers, specifically Austria and Germany, can take advantage of Italy’s weak starting position and politically-collapse them early, the Central Powers can seize 13 IPCs (not 14, since the last pesky IPC is in Libya) of Victory Points and income, which almost makes up for the 20 extra income USA will bring to the table starting turn 3 (turn 4 OOB). Defeating Italy (under LHTR) also has the added benefit of removing the Italian Navy from the game, which takes a large amount of pressure off of the Ottomans and also opens up the possibility of the Central Powers gaining control of the Mediterranean (more on that later).

Hopefully, my ranting and raving has given you an idea of why I’m advocating this approach. Next, I’d like to talk about what steps you can take as the Central Powers to achieve this. This is something resembling a recommended build order/opening move guide for Austria and Germany. I won’t be discussing the Ottomans here, since their only role in this plan is to survive the onslaught that Russia/U.K. will try to throw their way.

Bid: Assuming you get a bid, throw it in SZ18 (Adriatic Sea, where the Austrian Navy is). Ideally, you want a 12 bid so you can get a Battleship there (mostly for the 2HP, but the extra bombardment helps your consistency in the opening as well). A 9-11 bid (to get a Cruiser in SZ18) is also acceptable, but not really recommended. You really should try for a 12 bid.

This bid will enable you to keep the AH fleet alive, barring good dice by the Entente. This may seem a bit odd, but ensuring you can continuously amphib into Tuscany will cut off the Italian supply line to Piedmont and Venice, two territories that are mission-critical. Maintaining a strong navy in SZ18 will also protect Trieste from amphibious assaults by Italy/France/UK, and will also give you the opportunity to break out of the Adriatic and into the Mediterranean in the mid-late game, which will prevent the Americans/French from sending their fleets to harass the Ottomans or liberate Italy. This can make the difference between winning and losing in a tournament setting.

AH1: Buy: 4 INF/2 ART/1 TT for 26 IPC. The extra TT is for SZ18, which will become important AH2 for ferrying as many units as you can into Tuscany. Everything else is going to head towards Russia to defend against whatever trick they try R1.

AH1: Move: 2 INF from Trieste get on the TT in SZ18 and land in Tuscany. As stated earlier, the idea here is to cut off Italy’s main army in Rome from reaching Venice, guaranteeing its fall. Everything else from Trieste + everything from Tyrolia goes into Venice. If you’re lucky, you can kill Venice in one battle, but if you don’t it’s fine. Germany will pick up the slack.

Meanwhile, send everything from Vienna and Bohemia + 1 INF/2 ART from Galacia into Trieste in particular. Trieste is within two spaces of several important territories in this part of the board (Venice, Piedmont, Tuscany, the TTs in SZ18, Serbia, Galacia) which is why you want a stack there.

Finally, send 4 INF from Budapest to Galacia to hold the lines, but everything else into Serbia (the game rules demand you attack Serbia AH1).

These moves accomplish the following:

A: Clearly and definitively reposition Austria’s starting forces into a posture where Italy is being relentlessly attacked. Italy’s starting forces are no match for this force, meaning you can send most of your buys towards Russia to make up for the units you took away from that front.

B: Fortifies Galacia against Russia. The hope here is that Russia overextends and attacks you, which will allow Germany to send its starting forces to attack G1. This, plus an about-face from the Austrian stacks in Trieste and Vienna, will totally destroy that Russian army. If Russia doesn’t take this bait, you can commit the Trieste stack to destroying Italy as-planned while playing out the Russian front based on what the Entente does.

G1: Buy: 5 INF/2 ART/2 FTR. Germany is going to be buying the FTRs for the Central Powers. Air Superiority is absolutely critical to obtain in this game, due to it allowing your ART to roll @ 4 while also DENYING this benefit to your opponent. The latter is just as important as the former, if not more so.

G1: Move: Everything from Munich + Alsace attack Switzerland. Yes, Switzerland. Switzerland is adjacent to Burgundy, Alsace, Piedmont and Venice. This positioning disrupts France’s first turn, as they now have to properly position their forces to prevent Germany from moving a large stack into Burgundy (which is adjacent to Paris), and also puts Germany within striking distance of Italy’s high-value territories (Piedmont, Venice, Tuscany).

The troops from Ruhr will move in a strange direction. 1 INF goes to Alsace to prevent a walk-in by France. The rest go to Tyrolia. Yes, Tyrolia. Tyrolia is similar to how I described Trieste in my section on Austria. Tyrolia is within 2-spaces of Tuscany/Piedmont/Venice/Alsace/Ruhr/Galacia/Silesia/Budapest, all extremely high-value or strategically important territories.

Silesia and Prussia leave one INF behind each and move everything else into Galacia to join the Austrians. Everything from Hanover goes there as well. We’re trying to hold the line against Russia with just enough to put up a fight while the bulk of the troops go towards Italy.

Last but not least, everything from Berlin and Kiel move down to Munich. Munich, like Tyrolia and Trieste, is a good central location that covers all of your options for the second round.

What you do in Africa is up to you. It’s not relevant to the overall strategy.

NOTE: A lot of this goes out the window if Russia attacks Germany, Silesia or Galcia R1. If Russia makes such a move, which is an over-extension, you should absolutely abandon the “KIF” strategy and crush Russia as quickly as possible.

Now, with those very-specific first moves covered, I will give a general overview for how the rest of the game should play out. No specific moves this time, as you’ll mostly be reacting to what your opponent does at this point.

AH2: Finish off Venice (if you couldn’t break it AH1), defend yourself against Russia as best you can. Build all land units, leaning towards ART (Germany will give Air Support).

G2: Push into Piedmont and Tuscany (2-move from Tyrolia -> Venice -> Tuscany). Defend yourself against France and Russia appropriately. Build at least 1-2 FTRs to maintain Air Superiority across the board.

If you got lucky, or if France played poorly, Italy will Economic-Collapse after their turn. If you’ve accomplished this, you’re on your way to a win.

AH3: Push into Rome if possible. If not-possible, move the Tuscany guys into Naples/Piedmont as appropriate. Don’t press combat in Piedmont, you want to minimize France’s chances of saving Italy from Political-Collapse. Continue building land units and sending them towards Russia.

G3: Push into Rome/Naples if Austria couldn’t manage it. Most of your attention should be on stopping France from saving Italy/defending the Ruhr/Munich line from France’s assault. Keep buying FTRs.

At this point, Italy should Political-Collapse. If you got Italy to die this quickly, you’ve basically won. If you didn’t manage it yet, you still have one last chance in round 4 to finish them before the Americans start really giving you trouble.

AH4: You may want to build navy at this point, if your fleet is still alive. You should mostly be focused on attacking Russia at this point. Hopefully after 3 rounds of buys from Germany/Austria Russia will be on the defensive.

G4: Same advice as G3. If you didn’t finish off Italy yet this is your last chance.

After this point, Italy is dead (hopefully), and the Americans have arrived. Your objective at this point changes dramatically. Austria should start buying navy and attempt to dislodge the Entente from SZ17 in particular. Taking this critical Sea Zone will prevent the Americans from making any last-minute plays into the Middle East or Italy, securing the IPCs you’ve gained there. Meanwhile, do your best to evacuate the German/Austrian armies from the Italian peninsula and reposition them to beat the French out of Germany before the game ends. Between whatever gains you made in Russia while all this was going on, and the gains you secured in Italy, you should have done more than enough to offset whatever IPCs you lost in the Ottoman-U.K. front and win the game.

@thrasher1 Revived, Classic and the original Europe and Pacific weren’t even listed as options for the “favorite game” section. Does Hasbro not have the rights to them or something?

EDIT: Spring 42 also wasn’t listed, although I can’t really blame them on that front as I can’t imagine there’s a soul out there who’d list that as their favorite (although 41 is listed so…)

EDIT #2: Did the Lord’s work and plugged this site wherever I could on the poll. If enough people follow suit we might be able to get some of these guys to lend us an ear for future releases, events, etc.

disclaimer: I playtested the game alongside Andrew and others from this forum and also bought a copy, so I did my bit

Late to this thread but respectfully, having a tripleA plugin for this edition is something I view as monumentally important for developing the level of play on this new edition beyond the relatively basic level that I’ve seen so far on YouTube/social media/etc.

Yes the physical game should be purchased to ensure that hasbro/renegade continues making more editions but if there is no officially sanctioned online client for a&a NA I see no reason why an open source project that makes 0 income (not even on ad revenue) shouldn’t be allowed to exist. This very forum exists today largely on the back of continued G40 league play, which is also done exclusively via tripleA.

Commenting on the general debate Re: LL Vs. Dice.

I think LL is fine in and of itself for the reasons @AndrewAAGamer stated (after all, no one enjoys being cheated out of a game because of a stray sub-10% result of a critical battle not speaking from recent personal experiences at all what’s a “Gen Con”?).

However, it must also be noted that due to the discrepancies that come with using LL it is effectively a different combat system than dice. That’s still fine in and of itself. Most wargames resolve combat between units by comparing combat stats/modifiers and rolling a single die (sometimes 2) and checking a results table. The issue, I think, is conflating the two and making major game balance decisions (setup changes, bidding, modded rules, etc.) for a dice-based game when the tests that led to said decisions were performing exclusively using LL.

For having good taste and going with the Revised-style map instead of that atrociously ugly design they use in the actual 42SE game.

@JaxsonConnor Your strategy is focusing on a part of the board that should not be given as much effort as you are giving it (the Mediterranean/North Africa). Germany is never going to triumph over the combined efforts of the US/UK navy-wise, so it’s better to not waste your effort. Instead, focus 100% on defeating the USSR.

There are two ways to do this, depending on where you are on the ladder:

1. “Noob Killer”: This will only really work against weak players (Silver League and below), but will assure you a quick victory.

• G1: Build all TANKs and 1 ART. Your attacks should focus on claiming Karelia, retaking Ukraine, and wiping out the starting UK Navy (let the Cruiser in SZ13 live, but destroy everything else). Move as many things as you can into Poland.

You built TANKs because you need them to 2-move from Germany -> Ukraine for next turn.

• G2: Build all FTRs, spend your spare money on INF/ART. Attack Ukraine with everything you possibly can. With your stack in Karelia, move into West Russia/Archangel if possible. Don’t overextend on the Karelia side of things if you don’t have to. You will now have a massive TANK stack in Ukraine, and a formidable INF/TANK stack in Karelia. If the Soviets have been too aggressive with you, they probably won’t have many troops left.

You built FTRs because you need them to 3-move from Germany -> Caucasus/West Russia for next turn, then 1-move to NCM into Urkaine after the fight.

• G3: Build all BOMBs, Hit West Russia, Caucasus, or both, depending on how the Soviets distributed their forces.

You built BOMBs because you need them to 4-move from Germany -> Moscow next turn, then 2-move to NCM back to Ukraine/Karelia/wherever after the fight.

• G4: Build as many INF as you can to defend against the US/UK Fleet. Take Moscow. At this point your opponent should surrender. If they do not, spend the following turns building mostly INF, cleaning up the US/UK drops, and pushing on to India/wherever to get your last VC(s).

I can go into detail about Japan, but you specifically asked about Germany, so I won’t for now.

2. “Slow and Steady”: The second strategy is much less specific, as it involves settling down to play a longer game against the Allies.

• Basically, the idea is that you build 2 TANK/1-2 ART/Rest INF every turn, and slowly make your way towards Moscow instead of trying to rush things. Germany has a massive income advantage over the Soviets, so you should be leveraging it to win.
• Your first objective should be to take the Karelia factory and use it to pump out reinforcements on the front lines every turn for the rest of the game.
• After Karelia, you should start heading towards West Russia, as that territory is adjacent to both Caucasus and Moscow (the two major Soviet Factories).
• The Russian player won’t be able to defend both, which will let you either scoop up Caucasus or take out Moscow. Once one falls, the other will follow.

I didn’t assign specific turn numbers for these objectives because what turn you accomplish them (if at all) will vary from game-to-game based on how skilled your opponent is, and what strategies they are employing against you.

If you absolutely insist on building fleet (please don’t). Don’t focus on the Mediterranean Fleet. Focus instead on buying an Aircraft Carrier for the Baltic Fleet and slowly attempting to merge the Mediterranean Fleet with the Baltic Fleet. You probably won’t succeed with this plan against a skilled Allies Player, but it’s worth a shot if that’s how you wanna play.

EDIT: Grammar/Spelling/Formatting.

@thedesertfox From a purely mathematical standpoint, you’re correct. 4 TANK (or even 4 INF+2 ART) is a better combination than 2 FTR. However, the purpose of buying the air units is because they don’t have to stay in the territory they attack. This is an important point because most of the action on the Eastern Front is going to involve you sending 1-2 INF + 1-2 FTR against Germany territories containing 1-2 INF. In the 41 scenario specifically, the USSR starts with zero air units, so buying them on turn 1 (while you still can reasonably afford to) is a good idea. After Turn 1, you should stick to purely INF/ART (with maybe the occasional TANK if things are going extremely well for you).

@imperious-leader Revised is fine lol. Bid at moderate/high level is 4 to Axis for an extra ART in Libya (in online play with on time limit), even.

Tank spam as Japan is good on paper but a good Allies player will have things in the Atlantic relatively under control by time Japan is anywhere near Moscow. Transports in Revised participate in combat, which means Germany can’t reliably kill UK’s BB fleet G1, which in turn lets you just build 1 CV then ramp up to 4 Transports and start landing across any of West Europe/East Europe/Karelia to severely kneecap Germany’s troop train. No starting Karelia Factory for Soviets to worry about + no starting India factory for UK to worry about means you can get a pretty seamless setup going by around B3 and even have the spare funds to dump a FTR or two into Moscow if you need it for dice odds. Japan can still threaten a win by hitting Moscow on ~turn 6 but by that point Allies should be just about to take Berlin to set up a US/UK Vs. Japan finale, assuming the game doesn’t just devolve into an INF stack stalemate instead.

EDIT: That being said I don’t want Renegade to touch Revised other than just forcing Beamdog to roll it into the AAO Client (which will probably never happen). If they want to make a “42” sized game they should just make a 42 3rd Edition instead of messing with an older version.

@The_Good_Captain very insightful video with the math to back it up. Hope this one gets some traction for you.

@Narvik Well I agree with basically all of your points, but we testers were only allowed to suggest changes about the balance. The “”“core experience”“” is set in stone by the new guy who is the lead designer and unfortunately he is pretty stubborn about his vision for A&A. It’s a pretty radical departure from the “easy to learn, hard to master” style that Larry Harris championed (which, in my opinion, is the reason the early A&A games are much better than anything that came later).

@Narvik said in Blog: The grand Strategy Game.:

The A&A maps looks good. I don’t like the glossy colors on the HBG maps.

That makes sense to me. The HBG map I have is a bit difficult to view clearly but that may be because I have the “standard” edition and not one of the larger ones. I don’t know for sure.

Most of all I want to mix the A&A 1914 and the A&A 1940 global maps, somehow, But again, legal issues? I can do so much in my basement with friends, but an official Blog? I dunno man.

Legal issues in America are strict, but generally if you are not making your blog for-profit, than there is no legal issue with using the game boards and pieces however you like. I can see the value in using the 1914 map because it gives a more province-by-province breakdown of Europe, which would be extremely helpful in detailing some of the combat that happened, especially in the earlier phases of the war.

the new Stalingrad game.

I was on the playtest team for that and agree with most of your sentiments (albeit in a different way. I wanted a larger-scale Case Blue game and was denied that opportunity because the developer + management wanted the game that ended up being produced). Urban warfare is still represented there, but it is in a very minor way via the ambush spaces + supply system. Not enough detail there to appease the die-hards that want a hyper-realistic game.

@Narvik said in Blog: The grand Strategy Game.:

@DoManMacgee Oh no, it’s not finished, it’s in progress. I need to figure out the Collect Income too, and that is not easy. We have the GDP that change all the time, and also the Military Outlays change from month to month. I don’t even know for sure how many aircrafts were made because the estimates differ from source to source. Some say US made 30 000 aircrafts but no more than 2000 were operational at any time, so where did all the planes go? And the estimates of casualties on the Eastern Front differ one million men give or take. In my Blog that is like 10 Infantry. I can’t make an accurate historical correct Blog if I don’t know the correct numbers.

Oh wow I didn’t know you were actively going back and editing it to be more correct. That makes it a much more interesting project because of the level of accuracy that you’re striving for.

to solve this I could let Germany dow USA in Round 9 fall. Also not historically correct, since in fact Japan dow’ed USA before Germany dow’ed USA. A very importent point is that Japan would’nt dow anyone before the german attack on Moscow was resolved. IF success Japan would attack USSR far east, but if failure Japan would attack USA.

Have you considered using one of the unofficial fangames like HBG’s Global War 1936 to go to a finer level of detail? It may help with some aspects of the simulation since basically every country from the era has its own space on the map (so, for example, Hungary and Czechoslovakia are their own territories, no “Hungary-Slovakia”).

To change the Turn order was never even considered. That would mess up everything.

Yes I agree. The point is to simulate the war using in-game rules as closely as possible.

I don’t see any other way to do it. A slight violation of the OOB rules yes, but also the less of many evils. But I am surprised it was no questions.

I didn’t mind the liberties you took because I was not familiar with other projects that have done similar things. I will have to go through and read some sections again to ask more detailed questions.

@Narvik Yes I have heard of similar projects but I had never seen anything like it myself before. I really appreciated seeing yours play out, even if I only got to see it after it was 100% completed.

@Narvik First of all, apologies for going through and liking every one of these posts. I just liked your thread that much.

Thank you so much for taking the time and effort to create this project. The idea of actually recreating WW2 on the actual board was a really good visual experience and it’s exactly this kind of thing that helps keep learning about history interesting. When I one day have a kid, I hope to use a similar idea to teach them about historical events in a way that can be visually represented easily.

Thanks again!

@Hansolo88 Anyway to give one last anecdotal addendum if you’re still out there, I busted out my own copy of the game yesterday and gave it a run. I haven’t touched the game in about a year so I’m pretty rusty, but I still remembered the basic strategies + all the rules enough to play at least a mid-level game.

I do agree that USSR is the much easier side to play, as they won. However, the game was a decent enough toss up that I felt it could have gone in Germany’s favor if I hadn’t botched some key decisions (mostly, I failed to heed my own advice and had Germany trying to break into all 3 city entrances instead of just focusing on 1-2 in-force. This left Pitomnik underdefended, which let the Soviets surround the city early (I had captured all but two territories in the city, those being the two factories). Once Germany was cut-off, they quickly burned through their supply crates and stalled out afterwards, letting the Uranus forces walk into the city and clean things up.

I’ll play more and hope I can get a better grasp on Germany in case others come asking for advice later.

UPDATE: In a second playthrough, I was able to win a total (although it took until about turn 12 to close the game out because some Soviets kept running around in the RP territories making me play whack-a-mole). I would generally recommend the following:

• All Optional Rules - OFF (basically all of them benefit the Soviets IMO).
• Have Germany focus on the northern flank of the city to rush towards the Tank/Artillery factories. If those can be shut-off quickly (turn 4/5/6) it shuts down USSR’s ability to effectively fight in the city.
• To that end, in the initial stages of the game, use Germany’s air to target the northern ferry and/or any stragglers you can find in that portion of the board. If USSR isn’t building Artillery on the river, you may also want to make a point of killing the one they start with to reduce their AA odds long-term.

@Krieghund Fair. The desire for the Renegade playtest staff to not be unfairly criticized is why I’ve been replying to these threads in the first place (like I said before, I don’t like back-seat gaming for others in most cases, as I think strategies/metagames should develop naturally as folks experiment).

Like you, I think there are other reasons that the current batch of games are seeing reports of issues with balance/etc. from new/low-level players, and I am privy to keeping my opinions to myself (probably for the same reason(s), if I had to guess).

EDIT: fixed some grammar flubs.

@Krieghund If you don’t mind me asking, was there turnover during the years between Revised and Zombies (the last game pre-renegade)? Revised and AA50 (42 1st Edition as well to a lesser extent, although that game is barely talked about these days) are highly regarded as among the most balanced games in the series, even at a high level, while everything after that point (2009) began to see issues in higher-level play (starting with P40 and continuing for the rest of that era).

Oh, one last point about balance/playtesting, etc. Especially compared to the older games like G40, etc.

From what I understand, playtesting pre-Renegade was done by some combination of Larry, his private staff/team (most of whom went on to form Nightingale Games and are now working on War Room, Imperial Borders, etc.) and internal Hasbro/WotC staff. I don’t know the names or skill levels of any of those people, or how the names/faces changed over the years, but I think that may be part of why you saw games like 42SE, G40 and 1914 (which all seem balanced enough at a low level but becomes lopsided once you start playing more seriously) come out over the latter part of that era of A&A.

Currently, Renegade open-sources its play-testers. Most of us are pretty hardened players with a lot of experience but that may be why, at least in this case, the experience from the casual/entry-level point of view doesn’t reflect the experience from people racking up 50+ games each.

There’s actually a sign-up thread on this very site ( https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/40917/open-call-for-play-testers-for-renegade-a-a-games/13 ) if you’re interesting in trying to help make a difference for future games. They ask a few basic questions about experience level with A&A, etc. but generally as long as you’re willing to put in the hours + contribute to discussions they’ll be happy to take you.

@Hansolo88 said in Axis & Allies Stalingrad: Early Review and Balance Impressions:

assuming you are talking about both scenarios (as I still think the tournament scenario feels superbly balanced right from the start).

Assuming you’re calling the “Operation Uranus” scenario the “Tournament Scenario”. That was not the intent by the staff. “Race to Stalingrad” is the full game that is expected to be played. The Uranus Scenario is supposed to be a teaching/tutorial scenario for a quick game.

I don’t claim to speak for the rest of the staff, but we actually spent far more time working on the base scenario Vs. the Uranus one. If anything, the Uranus one is an afterthought. I’d be alarmed/surprised if Gen Con and the other “powers that be” are promoting it as the “official” scenario. IMO USSR is better there, but there is a lot of variance due to the cards.

Playing with awareness of and trying to take advantage of “No Step Back”

This one is critical for German success, which you already seem to understand.

Gaining some experience on approaching and attacking into the city from the 3 possible options
Gaining familiarity with the force multiplier ability

Speaking strictly from a High-level, I would generally recommend picking 1-2 entry points max and not all 3, since Germany will get its forces spread too thin otherwise.

Being sufficiently aware of the supply system to take advantage of attacking the Volga ferries on specific turns etc.

Another point about supply that I see potentially being overlooked (from what little I’ve watched of others playing the game, anyway) is the rules nuance that each ferry only supplies one section of the city (color-coded), and that you cannot draw supply from a ferry to a different point, even if there is a clear land connection.

Understanding how to play to the victory conditions

This could potentially be a trap if Germany is aiming for something like a minor from the word go. If they can’t be aggressive and actively deny the Soviets their IPC-producing spaces in the city they’ll just get drowned (like what you are experiencing in your games).

I’m going to throw in a few (again, general high-level points since there is no TripleA plugin I can use to illustrate and I don’t like “backseat gaming” too much) other points of interest that I see get overlooked:

• Germany needing to know when to sacrifice its air ball (or at least risk sacrificing it) to break down a position on the city map.

• Making the supply drop via air to the cut-off territory (I forgot the name sorry) on turn 1 to ensure (or almost ensure) a win there.

• Not overstacking the river IPC territories on the north flank of the map (and just using the once-every-two-turns INF to bolster the numbers there).

• Not attacking into the Soviet reinforcement zones on the Don map (since, if they are not contested or occupied, they can only produce one unit per turn).

• Abandon normal A&A high-level concepts like slowly INF-pushing and pursuing a mobile war where you race to get on top of some of the IPC tiles in the city as quickly as possible.

• OOL timing being much different for Germany Vs. what you’d expect from A&A. I was typically going Minor Axis (since they can’t force multiply) -> ART -> STUG -> INF -> MECH -> TANK.

• Abusing the fact that the other player must attack in contested territories during their turn. This means that attacking into INF-heavy USSR territories can ultimately work out in the long-term as they are forced to attack @1 during their half of the turn.

• Intentionally contesting territories to deny the IPCs to the Soviet player.

@Hansolo88 said in Axis & Allies Stalingrad: Early Review and Balance Impressions:

As for the Soviets getting 100s of RPs worth of units, I don’t see how the Axis can prevent it. The Axis can’t truly penetrate into the city until Turn 4 at the earliest; by that point the Soviets have already picked up ~50 RPs directly, plus another ~40 from the factories,

40 from the factories? In 4 turns USSR would have 2 ART and 2 TANK, for 20 IPC. Minor nitpick but that might make a big difference if you were missing that detail.

and they’ll continue to get a lesser amount depending on how the fighting in the city goes. That’s in addition to the easily ~100-150 RPs worth of units from Operation Uranus.

If Germany is playing properly they should be able to properly layer blockers outside of the city to make the Uranus forces irrelevant with regards to the fighting inside the city. How exactly they go about doing that would vary greatly based on the game state, of course.

There simply aren’t enough Axis units to push through the starting Soviet units, deal with these constant reinforcements, AND garrison the RP spaces so that the Axis can eventually get some RPs of their own.

The reinforcements from the Soviets take ~3 turns to reach a relevant point in the city, if not longer depending on where the fighting is happening:
1: USSR buys units, places them in Krasnaya, and moves them onto the ferry (at a rate of 1 INF per turn before the river freezes later). Also note that ONLY INF cross the river.

2: The INF unloads in its relevant rally point. If any of these territories are going to be contested by the unloading then Germany is probably doing very well.

3: The INF move up.

Even then, if Germany doesn’t go overly wide in their attack, speaking strictly about reinforcements, only 1-2 Soviet INF per turn should be able to actively make it to a relevant area in the city in the first few rounds of the game. The TANKs from the tractor factory are a strong point for the Soviet player, since they have 2 Movement and good stats, but in the initial, critical turns where Germany is trying to get its foothold in the city there will only be two of them. Additionally, if the German player is targeting the factories (another point of interest; once a factory is lost once, it’s gone forever).

My point with this wall of text is that the IPC counts you’re referencing do not reflect the full reality of how the game actually plays out if Germany is not playing a conventional, slow-but-steady INF push strategy.

@Hansolo88 said in Axis & Allies Stalingrad: Early Review and Balance Impressions:

You are correct that bidding was included in the rules as an optional rule, per page 28. I have not attempted this yet but it’s in theory an easy fix for boosting the Axis starting forces.

Reducing/Boosting the Axis starting forces is actually very delicate. Given how small the IPC count is across the board (16 in the city, 4 on the outside), if Germany takes even 6 IPC off of USSR you will see that they begin to completely collapse across the board due to lack of reinforcements. The Uranus forces are extremely powerful (the general idea is that, if Germany can pressure USSR to blow their Uranus deployment early (round 5/6), then Germany will be at a huge advantage going into the late game, but if USSR is able to defend well enough to deploy on the last possible turn (round 7), then Soviets will have the edge unless Germany somehow racked up a huge IPC count for Winter Storm.

@Hansolo88 said in Axis & Allies Stalingrad: Early Review and Balance Impressions:

. However it does feel like the entire box ix focused on a narrow popular view of the campaign rather than the full picture of what the Axis were trying to accomplish

Two Last/minor points: Even though I defended them from a balance perspective in another thread, I do wish the Minor Axis pieces had something else to them to give them more flavor (beyond being yellow for Romania, anyway). They were actually added pretty late in development and there was a desire this time to avoid making the game feel overly bloated with minor/one-off rules (since the complexity level of North Africa was divisive).

There was also some discussion to make the starting date earlier, as the in-game start date reflects a point where the Germans already took a surprisingly large number of casualties by attrition (meaning the battle was basically already lost), but that was also sacrificed because the feeling was that the game was already running long (which was apparently the correct call, since F2F cons are apparently talking about using the shorter scenario for tournaments with the game as-is).

Happy to keep discussing if needed. I apologize that I keep generalizing but I generally do better with this sort of thing when I can have TripleA open in front of me to show specific moves/battles/probability calculations.

EDIT: I misstated that there were only 14 IPCs in the city. That was a typo. There are 16.