Topics created by Hobbes

c’mon guys, several players weren’t present at game start, they started as early as possible and then got grumpy around dinner time, and someone thought it would be a good idea to commence the day drinking before Moscow fell–-that’s the classic Axis and Allies game at home.

US military has been rich with nerds and gamers for a long time.  We play with a teacher from the Gen. Staff College from Leavenworth, who plays games for a living and who teaches a class on how wargames and their play can inform the conduct of actual battle.

Modern wargames are connected to the first Kriegspiele developed for the Prussian General Staff, which may or may not have inspired similar efforts by HG Wells and other 20th century innovators.

The first wargames were WAR SIMS to prepare for real war, which is pretty sweet because while Chess (and go and other Asian and Scandinavian variants) imitates the grand themes of war and battle, those are not really wargames

Its a rare example of a type of game that began as an extremely serious and formal exercise that has developed into a hobby or part-time pastime rather than the other way around.  Many other non-game exercises like horse riding were once deadly serious but are now for amusement and exercise however, D&D was not created as a way of training actors or politicians,  Chainmail was not created to train gladiators to fight or figure out which fighters to bet on, Monopoly is not a business school case study or capitalist training exercise that later became a board game…

But AxA has its roots in real war!

It is a good show, if you take it for what it is. I watch and like it. :-)

I wasn’t able to ask him again. What really surprised me was that he’s just 17 and recognized the game right away.

We are currently in the process of doing a tournament and we are down to the last semi-final game, but we’ve had 13 completed games so far.  Here are the results:

Allied bid (winner)

16 (Allies)
12 (Axis)
10 (Axis)
9 (Axis)
21 (Axis)
9 (Allies)
11 (Allies)
5 (Axis)
9 (Axis)
15 (Allies)
22 (Axis)
12 (Axis)
20 (Allies)

So we’ve had 8 Axis winners and 5 Allied winners.  The Avg is 13.15.

Obviously, this is a small sample size, but it gives you an idea where bids are coming in for some competitive games.  The Allies have some wins at 9 and 11, but in the more competitive type games your probably going to want to go 13,14+ and get near or above 15 if you can.  The Allies scored 2 more wins at 15 and then 16.
Axis were 6-2 with bids 14 and under.  And then 2-3 with bids 15+.

I must say this is quite humorous. There are many many parodies based on these scenes but none are like this. Stupidity, vulgarity, and profanity dominate the rest but this is literally enjoyable. Great job Hobbes too bad there are mot more like this.

@MistuhJay:

One question, Hobbes: what’s stopping UK from sinking your battleship with its BMR/DD?

@Hobbes:

if the UK (and the US) focus completely on KJF and leave the German Med fleet alive and in position on SZ14 until G3… and the German fighter on Ukraine survives… interesting…

As I posted afterwards, lots of ifs for this strategy to work ;)

UK sending fighters to Caucasus seemed quite helpful to me!

We have illegal Bangladeshies making our curries in Hereford.
They are not bad.

@djensen:

Very nice, can I publish this on the website?

Of course :)

The map is indeed bigger - I think a good size, in fact. There is still along the top of the map a place to track IPCs which I think could have been done without.

OOB - no tech, no NOs.

MM

For the rule To see the differences between the Revised, LHTR and Spring 1942 check the attached .pdf, made by Krieghund.

Map & setup changes:

UK Battleship on SZ13 replaced with a Cruiser UK Destroyer on SZ35 replaced with a Cruiser US Destroyer on SZ10 replaced with a Cruiser J Destroyer on SZ50 replaced with a Cruiser Formosa (J) and Iceland (UK) have been added to the map Western Canada now only borders SZ64 (on Revised it bordered Central US, SZs63 & 55) Central US now borders Eastern Canada and Panama instead of W. Canada and Mexico

Can one of the moderators please make this a sticky topic?
A&A_1942_&_Revised_Editions_Rules_Comparison.pdf

@El:

Anyway, I can’t explain it with frying pan logic like Bunnies but I agree that Soviet India Crush is more of a tactical possibility than any kind of strategic consideration.

That’s the point - players usually don’t think of this tactic because it is uncommon and needs very specific situations that are out of the Soviet control: Japan needs to build an IC and spread itself all over the place, Germany needs to play shy, etc. And it most likely won’t work if the other player has half a brain and keeps that possibility on mind.

A parallel move is the G1 8 armor buy for Germany. Most players who use this move as a standard opening will face difficulties against an experienced Soviet player, who will just shrug his shoulders. However, if Germany has a high possibility of destroying the stack on West Russia on G1, then an 8 armor buy can be just what it needs to achieve its strategy.

Add more colors, use multiple maps, or express things in terms of formulas.

Know what I m=-qals+An?

Nice game … nato is a great player, we have battled many times.  :mrgreen:

I have tried KJF with some succes. How I play it is that I never decide to go KJF until J1 has passed. That means I will usually not devote any Russian or British forces to fight Japan in the first round. Instead I will focus on the European theater and Africa first, building a UK navy and trying to sink the Med Fleet ASAP. The reasoning is that even with a KJF, you can’t let Germany just run rampant. KJF often means a long game, so keeping the African IPCs out of German hands is very important. With UK that will always be my number one priority, so it’s safe to say that I will never build an Indian IC on UK1. Of course, the Japanese transport will still be sunk in 99% of the games.

For me, the most important KJF triggers happen on J1 and can be summarized as Japan failing to take a critical objective (China, Pearl) or losing a lot of air and naval forces across multiple battles. If Japan does ‘big Pearl’ and takes heavy losses, exposing a battleship and carrier to a promising US counterattack, I will often go KJF. Same goes for ‘small Pearl’ and losing that battle. For losing China it’s a bit less clear-cut, since Allies often don’t have the units in that area to press on an advantage. In other occasions Japan could lose a BB in SZ59, or fighters in any battle, giving enough incentive for US to build a Pacific fleet.

After round 1, even if US went Pacific, I will mostly use UK to fight Germany and assist in the defense of Russia.

The sad thing about this form of KJF is that it is contingent on bad dice for Axis, and not used as a general strategy. The question is whether in those scenarios where Japan has bad dice, KJF might be viable but KGF could still be strictly better.

I attacked WRus and Ukr with Russia. With the UK I sank the SZ16 (had brought the INF and ARM from Libya to Ukr), SZ59 and SZ5 fleets. I then pulled back everything towards Caucasus, even abandoning India to J - the Germans were getting ready to hit it heavy soon, and I think it saved my hide.

I am not a big fan of tripple attacks, unless for a capital. Tripple attacks almost always means that the allies lost many more men than Germany overall. Unless this totally obliterates 70% or more of germany’s forces I tend to just build up and stack off eastern europe when the situation allows for it.

@MrMalachiCrunch:

I believe Hobbes meant SEu.

Edited

Voted.It is going to be a close one between the Yaks and HMS Prince of Whales i suppose…I voted both :)