Marathon of carnage turned into a 18 round beat down for the axis…two experienced players who played strict adherence to the rules (no techs/no optionals) with 2 minor house rules…South America gets interesting when you give Argentina a fighter, let them build like the other axis minors, and it cannot attack until any allied player lands in South America…not exactly historically correct, but I am all about global domination!!
Second house rule is let South Africa collect income on neutrals it takes out. More fun to play when they have a little juice.
With that said, the key to our game was Cairo…UK put an IC RD1 and dumped everything she had into the area…the Italian navy countered RD 5 with 8 fighters/tac, 10 subs and their surface fleet and won a temporary but costly victory over a mighty UK/FEC/ANZAC/Dutch fleet in SZ 47…the surviving cruisers and BB where picked off by subs and the English air force the next round…with that taken care of, the UK became a real pain in the Med not to mention reinforcing India.
My opponent’s fatal flaw was to wait until RD 5 to attack Russia…it was close and Stalingrad did fall, but I love playing Russia and am a defensive player by nature…13 allied fighters flying into Moscow at the critical hour might have had something to do with it, but Germany got stuffed…he had a major IC in Romania, so the bulk of the invasion went south…Leningrad and Karelia were on the ropes, no doubt about it, but the German player never had the strength to fight on both fronts…BTW, is it normal to buy an airbase for West Germany? It is the only way to defend against an SBR, I believe…plus a round one build plus taking Norway in the first impulse equals doom for the English Navy…anyhoo, I thought it quite a creative move by my opponent and did not see that coming.
As for Japan, they used their sneak attack RD 6. Pretty cool, I thought I was safe in Panama, but his 2 veteran, 2 torpedo, 2 dive, and 2 tac air armada attacked and never came back for a second round to fight fair. Did quite a bit of damage when once again I felt safe…the extra income is nice too…however, waiting until round 6 did Japan more harm than good…with FEC making 33 and ANZAC 22 a round after taking out the EI, I had plenty of time to make sure life was impossible for Japan…after 3 rounds sending everything into China, they have to reposition their air fleet to set up a solid first strike…this saved China’s army, who simply retreated to the border. The target of the first strike was Vlad, US fleet, and Singapore. In Singapore, with five rounds to clear the EI, it has a nice defense…not to mention prior to Japan attacking, UK had declared war on Japan, thereby negating its first strike on Singapore (I hope I got this right because my opponent sure was pissed).
Buying air and subs for Anzac, INF and air for India for five rounds without retribution, and a reinforced Cairo was what it took in our game…the beauty of it was that the axis knew it was going to be rough by rd 7, and over by round 11, but we agreed to play it out no matter what prior to playing…being the gentleman I am, I stalled the game to ensure I could take all three axis capitals in round 18.
If anything sounds fishy about anything I described, please post…To me, the axis, especially Japan, never quite lived up to what I think it could be…is a rd 6 DOW normal for Japan? When do you attack Russia for Germany?..I’m thinking rd 5 might be too late.
Looking forward to playing the axis next time.
