PS: Generalfeldmarschall Rommel würde sich im Grabe rumdrehen.
Rommel would certainly not turn around inside his grave for such a purchase, since Rommel was a great strategist.
Armour, planes and ships don’t conquer and occupy territories. Infantry does, and in large quantities.
You surely don’t know what you are talking about. Bring on that allied play of yours.
- 1 inf extra in each of the China up-front areas.
- 1 Japanese transport in Sea of Japan.
- 1 ftr in Moscow.
- 1 UK DD in EMD.
If we assume that Larry made mistakes when setting things up a logical mistake would be imo to forget the bomber in Japan.
I figured this much. Well thanks anyway for trying Craig.
The games we tried are not lost. First of all they were fun to do and they learned us a lot about the game mechanism. When the real setup is public, we just have to tweak our findings a bit.
John Barbarossa:
Pardon the french, but how the heck are you supposed to counter the UKR on R1 :? :? :?Three games down the road, this is what I’ve found in UKR, after G1:
Game 1: 2 inf 1 rtl 2 arm
Game 2: 2 inf 1 rtl 2 arm
Game 3: 3 inf 1 rtl 2 armTo counter this we’ve got ‘all’ the units of EUK (1 inf), CAU (4 inf) and the 1 Arm of MOS.
Conclusion: You can’t counter EUK as Russia on R1! Or what am I missing? :?
Uhhh, I don’t recall mentioning anything about countering Ukraine… simply because you can’t.
In G1 you should take Baltic States, East Poland and Ukraine (also for the bonus). Since Russia is low on attacking pieces they can only take one back, which is the Baltic States. They should take that back to prevent an attack on Karelia on G2. You cannot take back Ukraine so you have to stack Caucasus instead.
In our first game when I was Germany I used no armour in Baltic States because of this counter. I used 3 arm in East Poland and 3 arm in Ukraine. Both East Poland and Ukraine could not be taken back by Russia.
In our second game Driel310 as Germany spread his units slightly different. He massed all of the 6 armour in East Poland (which I thought was a really good move). In this way he pressured Karelia and Caucasus with 6 arm at the same time. What went wrong is that I (playing Russia) failed to take back the Baltic States. I was unaware of this armour threat and tried to strafe Baltic States (which also failed due to the dice). So I did not send in enough and was forced to retreat. From that point it was going down hill for Russia.
I’m not sure yet whether Egypt or Karelia is more critical for G1. In my games the Allies have totally locked down Africa, even when Egypt is cleared/taken in the first round, so I’m not sure whether its worth sending in the bomber and the extra tank, only to get backed out again or trapped in Trans-Jordan almost immediately thereafter. The odds aren’t very spectacular either, so its almost just as likely that the fighter will survive regardless of what G does.
I think the odds are not that bad. To be more exact They are 76% when your goal is to clear everything (retreat your bomber). There is no allied counter. If Germany attacks Egypt Japan must take out the transport in India. Then UK can only counter with 2 inf and 1 bmb (and leave their bomber unprotected). Sure I’d rather have 90+% instead of 76% but the Axis need to be agressive and take a little risk on their opening moves. It has always been like that.
Our playgroup (JohnBarbarossa, Driel310 and Dizon) played 2 testgames with the known rules and setup over the course of the last two weeks and we like to share our experience here.
We used:
First game
JohnBarbarossa: Germany/Italy
Driel310: Japan
Dizon: Allies
German build 10 infantry. Germany took egypt on G1 with good rolls (2 arm left). This is a mandatory battle in our opinion. Germany HAS to take out Egypt (at least kill all units). The Italians move after UK, this gives UK the possibility to retreat their forces there and save the fighter.
Bring 1 inf + 1 arm from France using your transport and your bomber (plus all forces from Libya). With the bomber this is a 80% battle. Your transport can only be attacked by the UK bmb, but it has to land in deadzone Transjordan, which will then be attacked and killed by the Italians. If the UK does this (they didn’t in our game) it is a bonus I think. The german transport has already done its most important duty. The rest of Africa should go to Italy anyway. If you go to Egypt with Germany, Japan should also take out all UK ships at India in J1.
We also decided to take out the DD in SZ 6 and attack the UK BB in SZ 2 with 2 subs and 1 ftr from Norway. The reason for this was that UK would then only have 1 transport left. Unfortunately this attack failed due to bad dice. Germany lost a fighter there and UK was able to land on France and in the process kill the second German fighter. Since Germany is so low on Infantry it is important to take out at least one UK transport, since France cannot be defended on UK1 against 2 transports.
On G3 Germany build an IC for France (you need it otherwise you are outproduced by Russia) together with an AA gun. For the remainder of the game the transport was used to conquer Africa together with the Italians. Germany build lots of Infantry and an occasional fighter and later on more armour.
Italy took out Transjordan on their first turn and received their 10 ipc bonuses every turn after that. They send most troops to Africa and aided Germany at the eastfront as they put pressure on Caucasus with their 2 trannies and 3 offshores. Their builds were mostly inf + arm. Later on when they received more money (the game was almost over) they bought a bmb due to their building limit of 6.
Japan took all of the Pacific in two turns. Their first build was 2 trn and 1 inf. We decided that pressure on India was the most important thing, and naval and land forces needed to be in position to take out India in turn two. Therefore attacks in China were minimal and we decided to let the Chinese fighter live. This turned out to be a good decision since that fighter could not do much harm. Japan is not a monster when unchecked, it is Godzilla! In later stages of the game, Japan cashed out 70+ a turn!
Allies did make some tactical mistakes. They decided to ignore the pacific. UK and USA both build a lot (more then needed) of ships in the Atlantic. UK started to land in Netherlands and bomb France with their offshores (which appeared to be not a good tactic). USA build bombers and started to bomb Germany. This hurt Germany a lot, but was certainly not a game breaker. Due to the second IC and Germany cashing out 30-50 Germany could hold out. To counter this strat Germany tried to develop Advanced Industrial Complex but got Warbonds instead (not bad either). Later in the game they tried again and got paratroopers (and took back Norway from the Russians). USA tried to develop heavy bombers during the course of the game but got Radar, Supersubs and Jet Fighters.
During the game the Russians single handed stopped Germany and even drove them back at one point (Germany needed to defend the beaches and hurted from the SBR’s) all the way to Rumania and Poland. Then the Allies realized that Japan was getting to big to stop and changed strategy. The bombing stopped and the allies started landing in Archangel. Russia had to fall back to send troops to the Japanse front. The Allies then sent all of their ships to SZ 4. This took a lot of pressure of Germany who could send a lot of defensive inf from France and Germany to the eastern front, and from that point started to push the Allies back. The Allies did not make any serious attempts to go to Africa. A mistake in our opinion. The allies conceded after 12 rounds with Moscow surrounded. During the course of the game there was a lot of investment in tech. USA got three techs, Germany got two and Japan got one (Longe range aircraft).
Second game
JohnBarbarossa: Allies
Driel310: Germany/Italy
Dizon: Japan
With the experience of the first game I decided that Japan cannot be ignored. I also observed that Russia can fight a long time before they need any help. With this information I decided to use the following strategy:
UK would go after Italy, and try to hold onto Africa.
Russia would fence off Germany alone (at least for the time being)
USA would go all out against Japan and therefore start a pacific war
Germany did the same moves as the previous game, this time they won SZ 2 but lost in Egypt. It was fairly easy for the UK to secure Africa after this. With Russia I made a big mistake on the first turn. After that I lost the initiative and was only reacting to the German moves and plugging the holes. My first turn build of 1 bmb, 1 ftr, 1 arm and 1 inf also might have been to aggresive. The Russian front did not fair well (dice did not help either) and was almost collapsing after three rounds. USA did a good job building up a substantial pacific fleet and 5 bmbs and conquered the south pacific. At that point both fleets were facing each other and the one could not attack the other. Since the Russian front was going very poorly and Japan (even if they lost some bonusses and IPC from the Islands) could buy some ships as defense and continue to ship troops to the mainland I decided to invest 20 ipc in tech with USA (despite of this, this was no techgame at all) and hoped for heavies, and I got them! I wiped out the entire japanse fleet. But heavies were not enough to turn the game. USA started to send bombers to Germany (and had 10 bombers on the board) but they came to late (when the bombers started to bomb Germany, AA guns took out 3 out of 3 - ouch). The Allies started frantically to ships troops to Europe through Scandinavia/Archangel but it was too late. Moscow fell in round 8/9.
Conclusions
The game looks pretty balanced so far. Allied play usually is more difficult so it is normal that the first games are won by the Axis. Even is the Allies did not play optimal in the first game. The game still lasted a lot of rounds. The NO’s are a great addition and forces you to play differently. But without them Axis are toast. It is not enough to go out full against Japan with USA so you need a different approach. Maybe next time we try an all traditional approach and build a transport fleet with both UK and USA, UK goes to Europe and USA goes to Africa. As usual Africa cannot be ignored.
Oops, sorry about that. Next time I will refrain myself from answering these kind of questions until I actually have a rulebook. :-D
We already played 1 game, and the Alies won handily (The Axis conceeded after 7 rounds.), but that was because Germany lost all of his Air Force by the second turn, UK built and held an Indian IC which was never taken, and Russia got Mechanized Infantry.
It looks like Axis were not playing very well here.
To answer your question:
Yes Italy can do that. The unprotected UK t-port is automatically destroyed. Since it is not a combat unit, the Italian BB and CA can still use their offshores on Gibraltar.
Driel, me and another guy are currently playing our first testgame. After that we want to play a second game and then we are gonna post are findings on this board. Regarding balance and optimal strategies.
Well, the playtesters from AAE were Don Rae and his playgroup. I can hardly call that goobers.
I dont know about his playgroup, but Don himself really was a funny guy that easily would exceed your imagination. Now after finished playtesting A&AE, Don closed down his own A&A Message Board and deleted everything, because he belived that the US Government had set-up 9/11, and let CIA blow up the Twin Towers, so they got an excuse to start war against the muslim world of terrorists. Yes, Don wrote all this on Larry’s message board, but Larry deleted that thread very soon, because folks startet bashing each others. I was there man, I know.
Sorry for staying off topic.
I agree with you Adler. Don simply went nuts. I was there too.
But a madman can be a good tactician. Just take a look at the German Leaders in WWII and you know the answer to that.
Don’s contribution was the way he approached the game, in a very scientific orderly way. His essays were very well written. And therefore he is a potential good playtester.
As a player he is average I think. I played him once online and beat him (before that I thought very highly of him). But also don’t forget the other playtesters. Kevin Shaw was a very decent player. I played with and against him a couple of times online.
Well, the playtesters from AAE were Don Rae and his playgroup. I can hardly call that goobers.
Apart from who is testing, I think it is difficult to spot things like that. Playtesters get a limited amount of time, and most of the time the rules get changed after that and the game is published without extensive testing of those new rules.
Especially when AAE came out there was only one game to referer to. People were so used to defend two fronts, that noone came up with the idea of throwing everything at the Russians. At least not at playtest time.
LOL I was under the impression that this was the last one that remained. I get that information by looking at the brackets on the fact sheet. Looks like the fact sheet should be renamed into guess sheet :lol:
Anyway thanks Krieghund.
* (Control of all at least four out of: Finland, Baltic States, East Poland, Poland, Czechoslovakia/Hungary, Roumania/Bulgaria and/ or Balkans) = 10 IPCs (we know the Soviets have a 10 IPC bonus, but the details are not known)
Is this the last remaining unknown NO? Care to elaborate a bit about it Krieghund? It looks like very important since it is 10 IPC.
That’s what I thought, it would be the most logical thing to happen. Thanks Krieghund for confirming it.
Does anyone know (Krieghund?) what happens to transports when the following situation occurs:
A BB plus (loaded) trn moves into a seazone to conduct an amphibious assault. In the seazone are present a BB and a trn. The battleships start to go off at each other and both are destroyed.
What happens to the transports? Can they both keep on occupuying the same seazone (until one side sends in combat units) since they are not combat units? Can the amphibious assault still take place?
Another question I have is regarding subs and transports. For example take the German Baltic fleet. There are 1 ss, 1 ca and 1 trn there.
Let’s suppose there are no changes when it is UK’s turn and they attack it with their air (2 ftr, 1 bmb). The UK air combats the cruiser and wins easily. What happens next? Is the transport automatically destroyed even though there still remains combat units? (planes cannot see the subs and vice versa). So in the end only the sub remain?
If this is the case it would mean that the Baltic fleet is of not much use to Germany. Even less than in Revised/Classic.
