Best posts made by DoManMacgee

@meterpaffay Not the person who initially replied but to answer your questions:

• I used to like attacking the Japanese fleet off of DEI but recently I’ve started preferring to send that fleet through the Suez Canal to wipe out the German Mediterranean navy instead. It’s better odds and you have a good chance of keeping the fleet alive long enough to have it link up with the main Atlantic UK Fleet (or support the Americans).

• India. You need to be sending as much as you can to India against a good Japan player or they’ll take it. Once India goes down, unless you’ve made significant progress in beating Germany, the Axis are probably going to win the game via Japan building 3 Tanks a turn in India and pummeling Caucasus.

• I like sending it to Solomon Islands to deny Japan a place to land its air force, but your ideas are good too (unless Japan kills the transport before it can go anyway). You can also have the Transport hang out in the South Pacific and force Japan to always keep some navy around so you don’t snipe DEI or Borneo unexpectedly. You may also want to outright send it to India to help stack.

P.S. My buy is more-or-less the same as what @Boston_NWO posted, buy I may be a second destroyer instead of the 2 INF if Germany bought navy.

@djensen gratz. This site’s always been a big part of my life (lurked here for years before finally joining) and this site is literally the anchor that keeps the whole community together. Here’s to the next 20 years.

Unfortunately, you don’t get the cruiser bombardment.
You have to bring the transports + escorting naval units into the SZ during combat move phase, unloading only if the battle in the SZ is successful. You can’t choose whether or not the Cruiser participates so it can get a bombardment.

More importantly, this also means that you cannot bring the transport from SZ13 (south of France) to aid your Sealion attempt, as the UK Navy off Gibraltar (SZ12) still blocks it.

That drops your odds of success to basically zero.

Even if these rules weren’t the case, I wouldn’t hedge my bets on a first-turn-kill that only has 30% of success (estimating on the low end because your battle to clear the waters around UK also needs to succeed and I’m too lazy to run this scenario through the battle calc). It’s low odds to succeed and even if you win, one of two things will happen:
1. UK can retake London B1 via its surviving fleet + the Tank from Canada (it’s unlikely you’d have many ground troops in London unless you got extremely lucky).
2. If UK fails, US will surely succeed in liberating London A1 with its starting units.

This strategy also gives USSR a free round to reorganize its forces and collect a good chunk of its income compared to a normal start. Additionally, UK’s fleet off Egypt, along with most of the Egyptian forces will have a turn to evacuate ahead of I1, allowing them to march towards more strategically important areas of the board (India, Caucasus, etc.).

You can Sealion in the 41 scenario for sure, but it takes a bit more setup. Try buying a Carrier G1 and landing some of your starting FTRs on it, for starters.

If your opponent is seriously just building mass tanks as Germany and sending them East there’s a handful of tools available to you to put up a fight:

1. As USSR, forget about trying to hold Leningrad and concentrate your forces in West Russia. Your objective should be to trade Ukraine lightly (as in, send 2-3 of your Infantry + air support to kill 1-2 German Infantry) each turn while waiting for either Germany to make a move or for help to arrive from the UK/US.

2. If Germany just pushes their entire army into Ukraine blindly, you can pull off a “strafe attack”. Basically, you send in several ground troops you have available + air support, stay for 1-2 rounds, then retreat to either West Russia or Caucasus (where your surviving forces will be reinforced during NCM by fresh troops from Moscow + newly built troops.  The idea with a strafe is that you’re trying to do one of two things:

A: Remove all or a large portion of the German Infantry from their stack. This will make Germany’s follow-up attack on your forces more cost ineffective to them, as they won’t be able to assign losses to expendable Infantry anymore.

B: If Germany is seriously just building mass tanks, then you’ll be trading Infantry for Tanks in your strafe attack. Even if you take sizable losses there’s no way Germany can take 2:1 IPC value losses for an extended period of time. It’s suicide.

I can go into more detail on strafing tactics if you want, but I’ll leave it at that for now.

3. Fly Fighters from UK -> West Russia (or Moscow if the game gets desperate enough, but you’ll need to by a CV to do that).
4. Have the USA focus on the Pacific. UK stands absolutely no chance against Japan alone and you need to clear out the money islands ASAP to stop Japan from becoming a monster and winning by itself.

5. Don’t just spam amphibious landings in Europe. Small landings are too easy for Germany to repel. Instead, focus on building a large fleet as the UK and threatening to land troops in Europe. This will force Germany to divert an increasing number troops from the Eastern Front to guard Europe. If Germany ever leaves a territory empty, just land one Infantry there to collect the fre IPCs and force Germany to waste effort retaking it on their turn.

6. Your main landing target should be Norway/Scandinavia, in case you weren’t aware. Germany can’t defend that part of the board reliably so it’s a good boost to the British economy (which they’ll need since more often than not Egypt+Africa will fall to the Germans for a large chunk of the early/mid game). Plus, a healthy force of British troops in Scandinavia forces Germany to commit forces to defend the factory in Leningrad, lest they allow the Soviets to reclaim it.

7. Never commit a large invasion force to France unless you’re certain it can survive the German counterattack. If you’re going for a last minute desperation play to save the game, land in Karelia (Leningrad) instead. It’s worth less IPC, but is:

A: Farther away from Germany’s centers of production
B: A Factory for the Soviets, who can stick two extra units there on their turn to help hold the territory.
C: An immediate threat for the Germans in Russia, who will need to waste a turn or more attempting to dislodge the landing party before they can finish off Moscow.

Your friends (and the other posters in this thread) aren’t wrong, though. 1942SE is a terribly balanced game to the point that Allies basically can never win in a no-bid game when both players are experienced, but I don’t think your opponent is playing particularly well as the Germans, so I believe that you can turn the tables on them.

You also may want to look into the Larry Harris Tournament Setup, as taamvan suggested. It’s a lot more balanced than the regular setup and it might be easier to sell your friends on the idea of a “cool new scenario on the same map” than it to sell them on a bid system.

Unfortunately, 42 (1st Ed) is caught between a rock and a hard place.
The game has Revised’s Map/Setup but with Anniversary’s Rule Set (sans China and Italy).

This succeeds at alienating both the “old school” players, who prefer the rule set of Classic/Revised (Transports that can defend themselves, subs that defend on 2, old AA rules, etc.) and the “new school” players, who prefer the larger and more involved maps like 42SE and G40 (and its many variants).

It also doesn’t help that defenseless transports combined with the small scale of the board make the following tasks absurdly difficult:

• Establishing a US/UK Navy in the Atlantic capable of landings any earlier than round 3/4

• Establishing any sort of German Fleet capable of holding Norway/taking UK

• Establishing any sort of meaningful (i.e. capable of threatening the Pacific Islands) Japanese/American Fleet

Not that this doesn’t leave a balanced game (it sort of does, in my opinion anyway), but it severely limits the diversity in strategies that can be employed by both sides.  This leads to the conclusions that Wibe has made about the “optimal” strategies being relatively stale (compared to other versions of the game, anyway.  Even in the fairly static Revised there’s a few variations in strategy available to both sides).

In my opinion, you might be better off going one of four ways:
1. Keep playing 42 1st Edition.  Don’t let some pessimists on the internet get you down!
2. Try playing with the Revised setup/rules on the 42 1st Edition Board.  The setups for the games are identical (just swap out
3. Try buying 42SE (or make the leap to G40).  All the rules (for the most part) are the same as 42 1st Edition with bigger and more detailed maps/setups.
4. Any combo of 1, 2, 3.  Don’t limit yourself to just one version of A&A!

Wonderful to have someone involved with the project here.

Would you happen to know when the Steam Early Access will become available? I tried searching for it last night but was unable to find it on Steam.

Very excited to dive in. We’ve been forced to rely on open-source projects for well over a decade so it’s great to have an official client to use for A&A.

@FranceNeedsMorePower In addition to what others are saying also remember that the Gen Con tournaments for A&A are open tournaments for players of all skill levels. There’s no qualifying process for getting there so theoretically you can be watching gameplay from folks who had little-to-no experience on the edition. IIRC A&A:NA came out officially either just-before or just-after Gen Con occurred in early August, so the level of play at that tournament was never going to be as high as one of the editions that have been around for years like G40, AA50, etc.

To answer the actual question, US should absolutely take advantage of the French INF/TANK to take advantage of the fact that they can move and attack immediately, and can also fight without supply. However, it may sometimes be necessary to not buy INF (US or French) to mine the 8-unit-per-territory stacking limits.

@Plantageneto What specific moves are you making to accomplish Sealion so easily? IIRC the only way to pull it off turn 1 with any degree of consistency involves buying technology, getting lucky and getting “long range aircraft”.

@COJOH said in German mass tank build - how to counter?:

@taamvan / Hello, I’ve played with some friends sevaral times Axis 1942 Revised and we also find the game inbalanced in favour of the Axis. Could you please tell me were I can find the patch “42.3” from Larry Harris ? I searched the internet but cannot find it. Regards,
JC from Belgium

Not taamvan, but I notice you used the world “Revised” in describing the game you’re playing. This is the board for A&A 1942: Second Edition, released in 2012. You may be referring to A&A: Revised Edition, released in 2004. You can tell the difference between them easily, as 1942: Second Edition has a brown box, while Revised Edition has a blue box.

Just making sure you’re asking about the correct game, as several of the Axis and Allies games have similar names, which can make it difficult to distinguish them from one another.

@panther Ah, that’s right. Somehow I misread the board category since usually 42SE is the one with the bad reputation while most tend to ignore Spring 42.

@All-Encompassing-Goose As Panther said, ignore the critics and play on. Most of the complaints about this version are about the lackluster components (money, plastic guys, etc.) rather than the actual gameplay. If that kind of thing actually bothers you or your friends just use the pieces from one of the other games (if you own any others).

Bummer that the date isn’t finalized, but I understand.

I’ll keep poking my nose around until the announcement comes out, then.

@FranceNeedsMorePower said in Why Should I Buy U.S.A. Infantry?:

@DoManMacgee I think the French tank should hit on a 4 or less and defend on a 3 or less. I feel 3 for attack is to low maybe I’m wrong.

Maybe if this was a Normandy/Bulge game, but not NA. From what reading I’ve done, Free France didn’t have access to competent Allied tanks until 1944. During the time period this game takes place, the Free French were using “hand-me-downs” from the Allies, for lack of a better term. Putting the French Tank to 4 attack would put it on-par with the British Tank in terms of cost-effectiveness which is probably a bit much when they can move and attack immediately.

NOTE: I didn’t bother addressing your concerns about Japan/the Pacific because, as you said, we’d just be getting ourselves bogged down into an endless discussion on the entirety of AA50, which is way outside the original scope of this thread, which was defending Egypt as UK in the 41 Scenario (I already kind of dragged us out of it by harping on NOs, so sorry about that).

Also; think of what else you can be doing with that 15 IPC.

• 1 SUB/1 DD OR 2 DD (This is technically 14/16 IPC but you get the point) - Helps USA build up its Pacific Fleet to stop Japan OR provides absolutely vital cover for the Atlantic Fleet, depending on whether you’re going KGF or KJF.

• 1 TT/1 INF/1 ART (again, 14 IPC, blame the devs for making TANKs cost 6) - Starts your land-bridge

• FTR + whatever else you want - Can reach Moscow in time for the final battle if you start moving it A2 (USA -> Greenland A2, Greenland -> ??? (Various options in Russia) A3, ??? -> Moscow A4)

EDIT: forgot East USA FTRs can’t reach London in 1 round in 42SE. What were the Devs thinking?

All of these either start the process of applying pressure to your opponent, or set yourself up for a direct contribution to the defense of Moscow. Arguably the IC in China helps with the “defense of Moscow” bit, but the second Japan sees this they’ll make a beeline for it and use it to start pumping out TANKs in Russia’s backyard.

Not my bad luck and not G40, but at a Revised Tournament I once took 9 INF/ART/2 TANK to strafe a German stack of 4 INF/7 TANK (I just wanted to kill 3-4 INF and retreat to West Russia to link up with my reinforcements, to deter the Germans for another turn and buy time).

I ended up winning the battle and only losing 4 INF because my opponent’s rolls were simply atrocious. Opponent conceded the game soon afterwards because that battle completely turned the tide of the game.

Later in that same tournament I got diced in the R1 Ukraine attack (4 INF/ART/2 TANK/2 FTR Vs. 3 INF/ART/TANK/FTR), lost everything but a tank and the planes and only killed the INF (one round of combat. Yes, every German die hit.). Not a good way to be sent packing.

Sorry, the post Panther alluded to is the one I was thinking of. I can’t believe so much time has gone by since then. My bad.

People will say it’s too dicey (and they have a point, it can very easily go pear-shaped for you if you get unlikely rolls. Battle calc gives you 58% chance of success (all of the Nazis die and at least one Soviet survives), 24% of failure (all of the Soviets die and some Nazi surface-vessel survives), and 18% chance of partial failure (all Soviets dead, all Nazi surface-vessels dead, Nazi transports survive)).

I make a similar play R1 in 42SE to destroy the Baltic Fleet and make it impossible for Germany to take Leningrad G1. I imagine you’re going for the same sort of idea here, since Leningrad is both a Victory City and contains a Factory, so delaying Germany access to both, even if it’s just for one turn, can mean the difference between dying to a Moscow crush and UK/US air units arriving in Moscow in time to survive into the late game.

I guess you need to evaluate how your opponents typically open the game, and how much of a bid you’re giving the Allies. If you can get a high enough bid, an extra Fighter pretty much makes this opening strategy 100% safe (~92% chance of success).

@AndrewAAGamer tl;dr to the above post. I was wrong to say that the Axis have a neigh-unbreakable advantage when playing with NOs turned on, but I still believe that they do have a palpable advantage, and that the game as a whole would be better off being played without them. The scenario as a whole, NOs or not, is much more balanced than I originally thought, though.

I’d hardly call Russia buying INF all game and turtling in Moscow “correct play” in 1942.3, but to each his own. I have no tournament experience in this version but I imagine a marginally more aggressive Russia build (at least 1 Tank bought every few rounds) would yield better results.

@The-Pripet-Martian
To give a sweeping generalization, GW36 basically gives UK/France a few conditions they need to fulfill before gaining their “war economy” and being able to fight.

USA is slightly different. They start with a gimped economy (small %), but various events trigger increases in their income. Once their income reaches their “war economy” level, they will enter the war.

There’s a lot more to it than that, but that’s the general overview. GeneralHandGrenade has a good series on his Youtube Channel where he goes over a lot of the rules, if you’re interested.