Posts made by ItIsILeClerc

Agree with you, knp!
Though in our group there’s usually some people that want to try some sort of strategy and they want to play a certain group of major powers. The rest just fills in the empty spots.

Truth be told, in our group I see the axis always win when it is a team versus team game (so far).
Playing 1v1 against the strongest players in our group though, I’ d say the allies have a better bargain than the axis, no matter who plays what. From my personal experience.

Looks like even the smallest mismatch in strategies will have the allies loose <–So easily achieved in a team…

But allright… how to save the Italian fleet?
I’ll keep saying it: it cannot be saved if Italy wants to do something with it, other than cowering in Taranto’s air umbrella. At least not without bleeding too badly somewhere else. Axis make your choice  :wink:.

Been there, done that. Germany winning London with a handfull of units aint going to cut it for the axis. UK should know this and play on it. Loosing London isn’t the killer some people think it is, as long as GE bleeds for it.

Admitted, first time it happened to me I handled it wrongly with the allies, allowing Germany to have London for a full turn longer, loosing 3 US STR before even liberating it and letting Italy take Egypt strongly (which the Indian RAF could have prevented). Even after those mistakes I managed to wrest Africa from Italy with the liberated UK. Russia made mistakes as well and was forced to retreat but once in Bryansk/Smolensk, much closer to its own major IC, forced the Germans to retreat once more, while at the same time liberating China (they were that much stronger)!

You see, 1 of the serious problems with Sea Lion is that Russia  will have an income of 60 or even 70 IPCs per turn for a turn or 3 (or longer if GE bought more ships) and never dropping below 50. Germany on the other hand will have problems to even get above 40IPCs a turn for that same amount of time. After they take London (and loot it) they will briefly enjoy 56IPCs income, then quickly drop to 38IPCs once Norway, Finland, London and Scotland permanently fall into allied hands. Taking London does not grant them new conquests every turn.
Driving back Russia for a couple of turns later (if at all!) only gets Germany on the same level as the Russia again (but only briefly).

All this with the US only spending on the European map the 2 starting turns. Now if the US cannot liberate London because the German Garrison there is too strong, things might go the other way but Germany must not be forced to spend more IPCs than the extra ones from Scotland + London on their fleet or the Garrison to achieve that. They need every DMark to fight the Russians…

@Razor:

@ItIsILeClerc:

As for special rules regarding those: balance! It will mostly hamper the allies so don’t forget to equally boost them somewhere if you HR coastal guns.

The allies already got Shore Bombardment, which somebody already claim is too strong. They may even get Marines and Paratroopers too. Then you have the typical axis strategy to vacate coastal territories, and build a counter attack force in a safe place. I figure only UK, Italy and some Japanese islands will ever see the Coastal Gun units, that is if HBG do make them.

Hmmmm, yes you are right. Forgot about the typical axis strategy  :wink:. Defending the typical coastal areas usually is wrong and I guess it will remain so, even with coastal guns.
Italy however can be very hard to crack if it turtles up. I wonder how that wwould work out…
:-D to Marines and Paratroopers!

@Gamerman01:

I haven’t seen anyone mention -
Can’t you surprise Russia with a Sealion fleet?  Land tons of units right on Leningrad?  And some more shucking after that?

Yes you’re telegraphing Sealion with 2 transports on G1, but you are also gonna scare a lot of opponents off of attacking the Italians in the Mediterranean, without following through on Sealion plans

I have no experience with this but I’d say it should be possible. Although I doubt Leningrad is the preferred target of such a surprise, because Germany can only get 25-30 units into Leningrad (#TRS*2+ARM+MECH), but Russia starts the game with 41 units and has 2 turns of production backing that up. So it depends a big deal on what your opponent does (i.e. how much force he has in Belarus for a counterattack).

Last time I played as Japan, I observed the possibility to surprise the Russians for my German buddy who was set-up for Sea Lion. The Red army positioned themselves too far forward so GE could have destroyed the Russian army in Eastern Poland, blitz with just 1 ARM into Leningrad and unload all his TRS there. Invading Leningrad is Always a little risky because of the Russian subs, unless GE buys a DD.
Ofc my buddy attacked London and who can blame him with a predicted (and achieved!) win with 19 survivors ;-). Left me only with the question “what if…”.

Norway has always been looking very attractive to me, even without coastal guns  :-).

As for special rules regarding those: balance! It will mostly hamper the allies so don’t forget to equally boost them somewhere if you HR coastal guns.

Yeah,
I have found out that against any strong, working axis strategy it is hard to find allied players that ‘want to play it out’.
A lot of allied players (that I know personally) want to defeat the axis in 7 to 9 turns max. If they can’t, they loose hope and give up.
I can rave about that for quite a while as I believe it takes at least 14 turns to get an idea who will win the game, longer if you want a clear, undisputable victor :roll:. I think most people here on the forum more or less agree with me on this one so I won’t  :wink:.

Uhmmmm, Cyan, 30ipc + 44ipc =74ipc. This is not cheaper than 70  :-P.

Well, those 4 ipc are not worth mentioning anyway. I agree though, I’d prefer the 2-step approach over just buying 10TRS at once for the reason you mentioned.
The difference remains:
the 2 step approach telegraphs your itentions as a huge disadvantage but with the advantage that you’ll have (and keep) a real multi-purpose fleet should you decide not to Sea Lion.
  Buying 10TRS at once has indeed the huge disadvantage that it is more likely than not one use, one shot only but with the advantage that you can surprise the UK without weakening your position against Russia GE1.

I think it comes down to what you prefer; both cases see the German position against Russia equally weakened but with different options in the process and the aftermath (of either attacking or not attacking London).

Lol, I hope my previous opponents will not read your post as this is exactly what happened to them  :-D.
They 100% believed we went for Barbarossa and this is what the Uk did:

*1DD (from sz109) + CA (sz91) 1FTR (London) -> sz106, attacked 2GE subs there
*2FTR (London, Malta) + 1STR (London) 1TAC (CV) + CA + DD + CV -> Attacked Taranto
*1FTR (Gibraltar) -> attacked sz96.

UK placed a TRS in Canada, a FTR + MECH in South Africa and 2inf in London. 2 ‘Original’ FTR remained in London (including the French). All the rest really doesnt matter, GE took London with 19 survivors…. We even did not bomb anything in London. At all.

The number I mentioned is a calculation of what GE needs against what I know the US can come up with as a liberation force US3 without building anything else in Europe in later turns. The number of German units  surviving may vary a bit according to what the US is doing (or can do, given that Japan is also doing evil deeds). If the US cannot mount a large liberation force, 13 German survivors may be enough. If the US can, 15 to 18 German survivors are needed to keep the USA out.

If Japan goes for India, the USA has an easy job. It needs 2 turns to form a good liberation taskforce, but it needs elements of the pacific fleet for it. With Japan bullying India this is NP. The trick is, USA must spend (near) 100% of its income from turn 3/4 and on in the Pacific again, untill able to defend Hawai/Sydney. The hard part for the USA may be when Japan goes for Hawai and Sydney right away, somewhat ignoring India. But can the Japanese take both Hawai and Sydney and hold it, when USA starts 100% Japan from turn 3/4 and on? Japanese income should be a lot lower than usual in this approach (with Hawai taken, that of the USA is also a bit lower) but India + China are having a good time and cannot be ignored for long (Japan must hold its VCs there as well).
Russia cannot take Berlin indeed (unless GE spent too much on ships!), but it can grow so strong that it can hold off GE + IT a very long time before it gets in danger (giving the USA, say, 10+ turns, a lot of time). If GE lost a lot of Luftwaffe in London, Russia may even never need to retreat anymore… It can also at the same time liberate China if need be.

I agree with Cyanight about the RAF. Once flown in to kill Italy, they won’t be back on time. However, the UK can base its med-air in Gibraltar without attacking Italy -yet. UK can, just as much as Germany can, hold the options open.

As GE I wouldn’t worry about possible UK blockers in 112 if the UK went agressively into the med. Because after GE1 all the UK has left to block should be 1 destroyer in SZ109 + 1 CA in SZ91. And they are facing (on average) a German BB + sub + the entire luftwaffe. And UK cannot place new ships around GB those first few rounds because of Obvious reasons.

Italy should indeed bomb the British AB to make sure no scrambler can pop out of it. An action with a little risk involved, because the AB has a built-in AAA which has a 1/6 chance to kill the Italian STR. GE moves first so it has to buy its 10TRS and then wait and see if Italy can get the job done. If Italy fails, those 10TRS are almost bought for nothing. Not completely because they can… just for 1 turn… but that’s another story ;-).
Assuming the Brits built the safe 6inf + 1ftr, London has 3 interceptors max (they did Taranto, which is the whole point of buying 10TRS GE2), leaving it only up to the AAA fire of the AB itself. If the UK looses valuable Spitfires versus the Italians in a dogfight, this is even better for GE. Less FTR to fight over London. On top of that, what are the odds of 3 spitfires hitting 3 times @1 (in order to hit the Italian bomber they must score 3 hits). Even with 6 Spitfires this is unlikely enough to even not take it into account…

IMHO Germany (as well as the UK!) should make a calculation every turn: if GE can take London with 15 survivors -meaning all of its Luftwaffe (survivors of the British AAA-fire) plus 5 to 6 ARM- then it is worth attacking for Germany. Surviving the battle for London with less than 15 units will result in the US liberating London US4/5, making it pointless to take… except in those cases where Japan can force the US to spend more in the Pacific, leaving the US less investments for Europe. Germany can take London in such a case with, say 13 or even 11 survivors…
For Germany, having a strong naval defense against the approaching US, preventing it from retaking London is also pointless because this means GE has spent too much IPCs on naval units to also ward off the Russians.

I think a fighter-bomber is critacally different from tacs in this A&A game.
Correct me if I’m wrong but I think in A&A, a ftr-bmr would be able to intercept raids (tac cannot), bomb facilities or escort bombers on a raid (not both escorting and bombing at the same time of course).

In a gamey way a tac can ‘escort’, by sending them with other raiding planes but that would make them susceptible to AAA-fire. The way I see it, they must attack a facility if sent into an area.
I could not find it anywhere in the rules so this looks like a good place to ask my question:

can a tac be sent raiding a territory if there are no targets left that it can damage?? For example: London. Both the AB and the NB are maxed out and only the IC is left undamaged. GE sends in their 3STR for a raid, accompanied by 5FTR. However, GB has 10FTR ready to intercept so GE also sends 5tac to increase its airpower over GB. After the 1 round dogfight, the tac can only attack the already maxed out NB and AB and must do so to have the AAA fire upon them, even though they cannot damage those facilities anymore. That is how we play it, but is that the way its supposed to be?!

Regarding their usefulness in normal combat, I think any1 planning an attack should consider building some, IF they can afford it. More often than not, being able to hit 1 more unit per combat round can tip the scale in your favour. I remember a land combat where I accidentally entered 8FTR into my lowluck calculator to estimate my chances and it returned a loss to me. The defender would have 5 surviving units left. I checked what I entered and found my error, corrected it and now with 8TAC instead, the calculator returned a victory for me with 5units left. Of course this is lowluck and the dice still need to be rolled. I still see the impact of the tac though :-).

After my own experiences with the different (surprise) sea lion options GE can conjure out of its hat, I usually do 1 of the following with the UK:

• In case of a planned Sea Lion (GE1 you will know). Kill the malta ‘fleet’ with 1ftr+1tac, leave a dd in SZ94 and move the CV(2ftr)+CA to SZ93. Land the tac in Gibraltar if it survives. The TRS can pick up the AAA and INF from Malta and transport them to Gibraltar as well. Together with the UK1 + UK2 buys this will save the allies from a disastrous fall of London. If GE chickens out, all Gibraltar and SZ93 stuff stays/returns into the med to give Italy hell. Saving London may cost you Egypt for a few turns, but as long as you can keep your army alive and reinforce it from India (RAF) and fast units from SA (you can even buy RAF units there), you will take it back. If GE does NOT chicken out you will have a much harder time in Africa but after a long game you should be able to drive the Italians out (again, Indian reinforcements!) and the axis are much more likely to loose the game due to a very strong Russia and (if Japan allows it) USA liberating London

• In case of a surprise Sea Lion (GE1 all barbarossa buys and movements). Personally I still play cautious with the UK, in fear of a nasty German surprise. As a result, I keep the STR in London (and buy 2more to destroy any surprise TRS builds), don’t scramble and don’t move a single spitfire out of Britain (with UK2 buying 1 or 2 CVs in the channel, all 4 spitfires can reach any surprise built German fleet). Therefore I cannot do ‘Taranto’ if GE also has scramblers there. Instead, I attack SZ 96 and strafe Tobruk, killing as many Italians without using the TRS. SZ96+99 will be blocked off to protect Egypt while I stack Alexandria to the max. The CV will go into SZ81 to receive an Indian tac+ftr. Persia will be aligned (use the TRS). IF Italy brings more troops into Africa, they are insignificant to what UK has left and their TRS will all be dead (and their protectors, if any). Alternatively, you can just stack Alexandria with the blockers in place. Really, Italy can never win in Africa unless GE is stubborn in executing Sea Lion, which should cost the axis the game in the long run anyway (given LowLuck results, that is).

@cyanight:

Yes Jen I believe your ahead with Italy if the British fleet in the Med is destroyed.  If they run away you may have problems later as others have stated.  Even if Italy loses their fleet you can always save money from I2 and buy a CV, and 2TR or TR and DD on I3.  I think getting UK to send their planes from the capital is the key.  It makes Sealion so much easier.  You only need 4-5 TR for a good Sealion.  Buy 2 on TR on G1 and 3 more on G2.  On G2 Take Scotland with 6 inf.  UK is in no position to attack it if they only bought 6inf and a fighter which is the usual buy for UK suspecting Sealion. If they scrambled their fighters or moved them to Italy and have only 1-2 plus the French fighter then Sealion is a 100% go.   This threat of Sealion is what saves the Italian fleet but to ignore the Italian fleet completely is a failure IMO. You have to try to take out the DD and TR, that’s easy but if Germany is preparing a sealion you cant send the fighters from London.  Without those fighters Italy and Germany can scramble and save the BB and TR.

Cyan, according to my battle calculator 4-5 TRS ain’t enough :-(
It will give you a decent shot at London, but only 5 German units will survive the battle for London on average. I found out (the hard way) that the dice can easily make GE loose that battle with this prediction, and winning it with 5 units is also bad news because it makes London very easily liberated by USA. Plus, buying fleet protection GE1 and also loosing 2/3 of the Luftwaffe in London is a disaster for Germany’s defenses against Russia.

In order for Sea Lion to be a success, GE must ‘plan’ to win London with about 18units surviving. Usually this means attacking London by surprise, or the UK-player to be, hmmm, sleeping  :evil:

Haha  :-D

Good song, Cyan!
A long time love of mine, Pink Floyd.

Last but not least: I agree. If the UK buys 6inf+1ftr and bring a lot into the med, London is still a very good option for Germany.
To add to the deception, you could buy all land GE1, buy all TRS GE2, and buy your TRS protection (if you want to protect them) GE3 in Normandy. Normandy has a minor IC that definately is axis controlled by GE3 and you can place a 2 CV + DD there if you want.

The (only!) problem I have with a planned Sea Lion (buying ships from GE1 already), is that the UK will see you coming and a good UK player will start chuckle at you  :lol:.
He/she will ‘bring the boys back home’, produce a lot of stuff in London and might barely survive, or GE takes London by loosing everything except that last tank (sort of), leaving GE way too vulnerable for Russia. Not to mention that the USA will liberate London pretty soon.

@DarthBlitz:

found the answer… neutral status pervents Russia from attacking

In the game, yes. IRL Finland (and some other countries) was handled in the non-agression pact between GE and RU.

I agree that in Europe (only! not with Pac in play) Spain is a cheaper landing spot but the shuck does NOT reach Belgium/Paris/Italy the turn after landing in Spain. You canNOT blitz through facilities and must stop in either Normandy or Southern France (which have facilities…).
The German counterattacking machine is more than adequate enough to deal with that, so you have to build up a couple of turns anyway, not leaving Spain for as long as the build up is required.

So in short, it is cost effective, but threatens all the same (not more) as landing in Gibraltar for a decent amount of turns and is therefore not faster. AFTER the allies have taken (and hold!) either Normandy or Southern France, THEN the shuck is expanded inland.
Also consider that IF using only half the amount of trannies to cost-effectively channel troops into Spain, Germany also only faces half the threat on West Germany and can thus station more troops in Paris! Defending Europe suddenly becomes cheaper for Germany and I suspect by the same amount as it is cheaper for the US to channel troops into Europe!

Attacking South America (etc.) causes the USA to loose tempo, also a very important thing to consider! I think taking Spain is an OK strategy like any other with pro’s and con’s, but the USA should not overdo it by also investing time and resources in taking South America. That would relieve Germany of a lot of pressure for too long allowing it to focus on Russia longer.

By the way,
the allies always only need naval escorts in 1SZ (where the transport fleet is located). The UK can build a Naval Base in Guyana South America (or Iceland when Norway = liberated) where transports can stage safely if the escorts are in the channel or the Med. From there they can get to the escorts next turn.

On a grand strategy level, with no house rules (exept playing LowLuck) with the axis:

Germany launched barbarossa, Italy got squished in Africa (after briefly occupying Egypt), and Japan played a slow game into Russia, China and from turn 3 and on, the DEI and SE Asia all at the same time. Japan was ‘waiting’ to see where it coud snap a weak point plus to delay the USA.

Turn 6 saw Moscow very well defended by lots of RAF and Russian Infantry + artillery. Long story short: Low Luck predicted a crushing German defeat if it assaulted Moscow, but also a crushing defeat for the Russians if they would attack the German army. Almost solely because of the Luftwaffe landing in Bryansk. Stalemate!
Since the USA played very heavily into Europe, this would only worsen for GE in the long term.

So far so good. Nothing wild about that. But since the US focused very heavily on GE and IT, Japan had free reign in the pacific and Moscow was impossible to take by the axis.
The wild part: the German army went south, into Caucasus + Stalingrad, seemingly to prevent exchanging the posession of those areas with the allies over and over again untill defeat. But they didnt stop there and went right into Afghanistan ignoring Moscow to take Calcutta. This freed Japan of investing more into taking Calcutta, and it ‘secretly’ (some fake movents were made) prepared for Hawai same turn GE would take Calcutta.
GE held Berlin, but not much else. The axis win was achieved in the pacific thanks to America focussing too much on Germany and Italy (Rome even swapped control a couple of times).

I am not sure this is a ‘wild’ strategy but it sure was for me at the time I did it.

Very interesting thread/discussion!

A successfull Sea Lion is about the trickiest possible strategy for the Axis.
I find that the key to success for the axis in London is not to plan taking London, but (only) seize it if  the opportunity arises!
One way or the other, GE wants 70IPCs ready for GE2 to buy a timely 10TRS. Part of the ‘plan’ is not to alarm the UK, giving it a false sense of security. Attacking SZ106 with 2sub also helps a lot.

If the UK makes a tiny mistake, go for London, if it doesn’t, continue Barbarossa. No big deal  :wink:.

I have learnt a couple of things from my group’s attempts so far:

1). An alarmed UK can perfectly counter any SL, even without hurting itself too badly in Africa.
2). If GE buys 2 turns worth of ships and transports a 3rd turns’ worth of land units into London, Russia has a great opportunity of spreading communism into Eastern Europe.
3). A pyrrhic victory is to be avoided because otherwise the USA can easily liberate London US4.
4). GE loosing more aircraft than the UK has to be avoided.
5). IT2 can and should raid the UK AB if the axis decide to give it a go. Italy goes after the UK and therefore the AB cannot be repared before GE3 (invasion turn). No possible scramblers hurts the UK.
6). GE must keep some 75% of its luftwaffe alive during SL, otherwise Russia becomes unstoppable.

Regarding the above, ‘countering’ SL means for the UK that it must try to make sure that at least no more than 11 German units survive the SL battle if  US4 intervention looks promising. If the USA is hard pressed in the pacific, UK wants to lower GE survivors to about <=5, but better plan for a clear victory (requires to call a lot of med. forces back home).

In the last game me and some friends played as the axis, we took London by surprise. I told my German and Italian friends how I 'd see a surprise attack on London turn into a good axis game and luckily they were willing to try. Germany prepared for Barbarossa, buying 7ART and doing all the standard opening moves against the RN, France, etc. EVERYTHING looked like a typical preparation for a GE3 Barbarossa.
The UK was caught completely off guard when GE2 enough German troops marched back into Germany. GE2 bought 10TRS so we had 11 TRS total in 113 without protection, other than 1CA + 3FTR (Scramble). But no more protection is needed there if all the RN is gone.

London fell with 20 German units left. US3 sank all the kriegsmarine but that’s the price for having an unprotected SL. GE could have bought protection in the invasion turn if we wanted (placing a CV and/or DD in the channel at the Normandy IC and/or an AB in Holland) but Russia looked too strong so we decided on no more ship construction to Sac the Kriegsmarine. Kept all the Luftwaffe alive (2 lost during the opening AAA fire), so GE had a large garrison in London too big for the USA to overcome, because it was challenged too hard in the Pacific (Japan threatened to take and hold 6VC at once from turn 3 and onwards)…

Trading allied (French) ships for German air is usually bad news for the axis cause.

It is a bit of a gambit with the dice of course, but combined with not hitting sz110, the larger part of the Italian Navy may have been saved (for a couple of turns only anyway) by allowing the RN more ships.
After reorganizing those ships will come back to haunt the axis, whilst the RAF, combined with some (or all) Indian and South African ships, kills the Italian navy anyway a couple of turns later. I really agree with knp about this.

@Razor:

OK, so Germany get a one time disbursement of 6 Swedish and 8 Turkish infantry. But USA get something better, they get Spain.

IF it is better… that remains to be seen and varies from game to game. I didn’t say be careful without a reason. I mean to say, yes taking Spain may be your best option, but you may also be shooting your own feet if you do it.

@Razor:

As you know only amateurs talk tactics, the professionals talk supply. Of course, if you play against a kid and Germany is free of units, you can use tactic and take Denmark with US and next UK will sail into Baltic and land one inf in Germany and game over. But in 99 % of the time, a game is won by the guy that can shuck a big stack of infantry the fastest way to the enemy capital. Its all about speed, tempo, momentum, effectiveness etc.

Except for the part about ‘amateurs’ and ‘professionals’ (no comment): I couldn’t agree more!
So let’s assume the USA plays against a grown up GE. They will have a strong, fast stack of units in West Germany and Paris combined with some Luftwaffe, ready for a counterattack. More than strong enough to wipe out US invaders + UK reinforcements.
This effectively means it does not matter if the US comes from Spain or Gibraltar, because the USA cannot advance further than Southern France/Normandy anyway (remember: we cannot blitz through facilities) after which they will be annihilated by the German counterattack forces. The only place where the USA is safe for this, is in Spain itself (or, Gibraltar for that matter).

@Razor:

The map is designed so a tranny with inf need two turns from USA to UK or France, but only one turn to Spain. Now that is half the time, and you need half the trannies to move a unit into Europe. Same with fighters, they land in Spain in one turn, but need two turns for UK or France. And when in Spain, a tank reach Italy the next turn. There are no other routes on the map that shuck US units to Berlin and Rome as fast as the Spanish highway.

Given my comment above, I agree that you’d need only half the trannies but not that it takes only half the time. And half the trannies only if playing Europe w/o Pacific (since this thread is Europe only I better not elaborate on that). IF you want to keep the deadly flexibility to strike almost everywhere you want in 1 turn with ALL forces from Spain/Gibraltar, not just Normandy/SFrance, you still need the normal amount of TRS, not half.