Hi McX. The answer to your first question is yes, Russia would still roll for mines. All movement is simultaneous so Russia still controls Karelia when the transport enters the sea zone.
On the 2nd question, you’re correct. American ships are safe from mines until the US is at war. I guess the Germans told the captain where the mines were.
Welcome ICinBrazil. If you haven’t read it already, I highly recommend Black Elk’s “all the Russian openings” thread. It’s stickied at the top of the forum. It’s a little long but extremely informative and gave me a much better idea of what you can do with Russia.
To answer your question, I’m fond of the W. Russia and Ukr strafe, but I’ve had mixed results with it.
Not a bad strat, however I dont like any plan that dont involve an all-out attack eastwards round1. CP have a real hard time in this game and it is close to impossible if you dont eliminate Russia early (at least against a good player).
I agree with this. You’ll need help from Germany and the Ottomans against Russia. Russia in this game isn’t the weak little bear cub that it is in the WWII games. It’s a full-grown grizzly and it will wreck you if you don’t deal with it early. Also the Italians can be pesky if you leave them alone for too long. But I like the idea of taking out the free units and IPC the Allies have in that area. I’ll try this next time I play AH.
This has potential. I’d love to see something that makes fighter intercept/escort more viable, because in reality that’s what fighters were for. But the way the optional OOB rule works I think they’re to valuable to risk.
In OOB rules mined sea zones are not hostile, but I believe they are hostile in the PTR. I’m always afraid to move that battleship through 2 mined zones though so it usually just sits there uselessly for the whole game when we play.
The problem I see with the SeaZone 17 gambit is in my games the 2 Russian cruisers always hit the Ottoman cruisers in 19, mostly because they don’t have anything else to do. That sounds be a slight advantage to Ottomans due to the mines but it never seems to work out that way.
Nah, if you don’t like a rule, change it. That’s been my approach since I was a kid. :-D
I haven’t actually played it out so I’m just speculating, but I feel like having repairs not take effect until the next round could be devastating. Seems like you’d need to use the interceptor rule or some other way of defending against SBR if you did that. Hoping for 1’s isn’t a very effective counter.
In my limited experience SBR can be helpful when you have a power on the ropes and they can’t really afford to keep repairing their factory every round instead of buying infantry. But even then you have to do at least as much damage as the IC is worth to do any good. One or two points doesn’t help much.
Good stuff! Thanks for all your great advice.
I really enjoy them both. If you’re only going to get one I would recommend 1914 simply because it plays very differently from the WWII games. Different unit types, different movement and combat rules. If you do, though, you’ll need to go to HBG and get some extra pieces. At a minimum you’ll need more infantry for UK and Germany, and some more chips. Please let us know what you decide!
Edit: One caveat. In terms of what’s in the box, A&A 1914 is an inferior product to 1942.2. The board is split in the worst possible place, all the sculpts except infantry are the same for every power, and the pieces just seem more cheaply made than in other games. And there aren’t enough of them. But I love the rule set and the WWI setting. Just something to consider.
HBG has expansion sets for every power. I got a set for Germany and one for UK, and some extra chips including green ones to represent 3 units, and i haven’t had any issues.
I am as well. It really makes you think twice about trying a landing.
That’s great I’d love to have one of those for 1914. But thats another forum I guess.
Hi everyone. I’m just curious what everyone uses to track your IPC since the newer editions no longer have paper money. My group has always just written it down but I never liked that. It feels like math, and I’m always forgetting to carry over the 1 or 2 IPC i didn’t spend. Recently my girlfriend got me a set of poker chips. We tried using them in our last game and it worked great. Really easy to keep track, and I like having something tangible instead of just numbers on a piece of paper. Plus it was quite satisfying when the Russian player handed me a stack of chips after Moscow fell. :evil:
Just curious if anyone ever tried this and what your thoughts were.
I may be wrong but I think “rounds” in this case refers to tournament rounds, not rounds of gameplay. Seems like tournament games have a time limit of around 4 hours, which would allow for 5-6 rounds of gameplay.
Congrats on buying the game. This is my group’s favorite version of A&A.
I’m not an expert, but in my experience you need artillery, planes, and infantry. A huge stack of tanks is awesome when you’re attacking, but if your opponent is smart he’ll make sure he can hit you back and destroy them when they’re rolling 1’s and not soaking up hits. You can buy twice as much infantry for the same price, and they hit on 3’s with artillery.
Buy infantry, enough artillery to bump at least half of them to 3’s, and enough planes to secure air superiority. Leave the tanks for 1942.
I’m sure the more experienced folks in here will have better ideas but this has been my approach so far.
I bought some extra pieces for German and UK and I haven’t really had any issues with running out of pieces for any other country. And chips, lots of chips.
I would actually really like to have a chip that represents 4 units, just so when you buy 5 you can put out one chip with a figure on top.
Ships still move 2 spaces. Planes move like land units. Maybe not entirely realistic if you think of a turn as a specific amount of time, but I don’t view it that way. It’s a board game, not a historical simulation. A turn is a turn.
My last few games have been with railroad movement (unlimited movement through friendly territory, can’t railroad into or out of combat). It really changes the strategy of the game and forces you to pay attention. Last game I thought I was in pretty good shape with A-H, and the next thing I knew every French unit on the board was camped outside Vienna. We hadn’t noticed he had an unbroken line through Europe. A bad mistake on my part, but one that wouldn’t have mattered without railroad rules. That said, I like how it makes for a more fluid game.
I think that’s an interesting idea. The only problem is you’ll lose fighters in the ensuing round of ground combat because you have to leave infantry. Unless you bring several infantry with you but that would limit your airpower. I might try this next time I get the Allies.