Posts made by macphearsome

Our group gives the US to the weakest player.

It seems to me that the US can get away with the most mistakes.  We also play with no bids, so having the weaker team as the Allies generally seems like a good idea.

I played a game where my Japanese counterpart played this strategy upon my recommendation.  It was a disaster for us, because it was just not practical for controlling Asia, at all.

I like to scatter my submarines to sz7 and sz3, and my destroyer either goes to sz6 or stays in sz5 with the transport.

I don’t know if it’s a fantastic move, but I like having my opponent forced to split up his attacks.  I don’t know how much I value that transport; I always seem to focus more on south east europe than karelia, but that’s because we don’t play victory cities.

@Blitz:

My strategy for the East Indies IC is operating under the assumption it is not a KJF fyi.

Well, you might still find challenges if the Allies have set up in a position to counter japan without necessarily committing.  For example the R2 tank liberation of India is only something they will do if they need to; and it’s not a bad idea to build 2 tanks in the caucusus anyways

If I was planning on doing a naval build, it would be an aircraft carrier in the baltic; even still it seems very risky for the reasons already given

I recently played as Germany with no bids.  I just invaded Egypt on G1, then focused my purchases for the “German Lurch.”  Due to some fortuitous submarine rolls and the US focus in the pacific, I actually managed to secure all of Africa in about 5 rounds, while Japan invaded the mainland.

But, we still lost due to the enormous US navy in the pacific which threatened to invade japan’s Kwangtung and Manchuria factories, thereby allowing Russia to invade Germany.

:(

So I played a quick game against a friend last weekend (we agreed it was experimental and would not count towards our scoreboard).

I was the axis and picked two national advantages: naval night-fighting and nazi scientists.

The allied player insisted on also having two national advantages, so he picked colonial garrison and flying fortresses (I forget the name, it’s the non-LHTR national advantage; US bombers are immune to AA).

Colonial Garrison gave me a lot of problems!  He placed the IC in India, which I went for right away, but the allies managed to trade it for a few turns, and then the US player waited till I was in a bad situation and bought two factories in china and sinkian.

The battleship advantage was not that great.  It was fun for a couple of battles, but then the US player just avoided my battleships.  I was a few turns from opening the suez canal, and my fleet was prepared against africa, but the US player was going to provide quite a hassle.

The game ended prematurely; I suspect I would eventually have lost.  The nazi scientists got me a tech upgrade only after 10 tech buys.

@Fleetwood:

@macphearsome:

In any case, I’m going to propose to play as the Axis next time, with two National Advantages of my choice.  If they accept that proposal, I will use the two japanese battleship upgrades and sail around in the pacific until germany gets invaded :P

If you get to pick, maybe take the Naval Night Fighting(2 dice first cycle). Atlantic Wall would probably be better than Most Powerful Battleships. All infantry defending on 3 first cycle in WE, SE, Germany, and EE against UK/US amphibious assaults would be very powerful. Germany is just about ALWAYS attacked by sea and is bound to have tons of infantry by that time.

Yeah, that was what germany got in the first game we tried with national advantages.  It was useful but I found it was easy to work around by shipping guys through karelia, and landing fighters in russia.

Does the naval night-fighting count for shore bombard?

@Amon:

@macphearsome:

@i:

wow looks like your axis players are getting crushed.

Has anybody ever tried converting national advantages into tech upgrades?

how do you mean

I mean, take some of the national advantages and make them available as tech rolls.  For example, let anybody roll for upgrading battleships, or AA guns, etc etc

Or maybe, make a couple of unique techs that only a specific country can roll for.  For example, UK can roll to upgrade AA, or Germany can roll for panzerblitz, or US can roll for fast carriers.

Food for thought I guess.

In any case, I’m going to propose to play as the Axis next time, with two National Advantages of my choice.  If they accept that proposal, I will use the two japanese battleship upgrades and sail around in the pacific until germany gets invaded :P

@i:

wow looks like your axis players are getting crushed.

Yeah, it’s pretty crazy.  It doesn’t help that all of us love playing as Germany, and we always try out new (and often very unsuccessful) strategies.  :P

I just looked at the LHTR national advantages, and the upgrades for the japanese battleships is making my mouth water.

Imagine 2 japanese battleships that roll two dice each in the opening round of combat, and hit on fives for attack and defense.  Holy Crap.  I’d buy an extra battleship, for sure.

Has anybody ever tried converting national advantages into tech upgrades?

Wow, 30 National advantages?  We had actually joked around about how hard that would be to keep track of!

Has anybody tried using national advantages instead of a bid?  I was talking to my teammates about that as well… maybe giving Germany and Japan each 2 national advantages (of their choice).  Do you think that would be fair?

We tried another game, again with only 1 national advantage per team, and randomized for the country of that team’s choice.  Germany got Panzerblitz and the US got Chinese Divisions (I admit I was disappointed: I really wanted island bases or mech infantry)

It was a very fun game.  I was surprised by the usefulness of Chinese Divisions.  Japan had difficulties putting pressure on the middle, even with its IC in Manchuria.  For the most part the Japanese player tried attacking through the north to strip russia of her money, but Russia was in a good position.  The Panzerblitz technology didn’t seem to improve the German player’s game.  In fact, I was usually happy to see the stack of tanks retreat from the front lines, because it gave Russia a bit of early money.  With the help of the UK air force and a distracting UK Navy (which the germans sent several bombing missions to sink repeatedly), Russia was in fact able to push into Germany as well as protect india and take FIC…

My scoreboard now lists 3 Allied victories and a draw.  I will raise the issue of the bid with my team next week.

So this time we decided to play with some national advantages.  We agreed that each side would pick one country and then roll to see which national advantage that country got.

Germany got “Fortress Europe” - any amphibious assault on a gray tile allows german defending infantry to hit on a 3 for the first round.

I was on the allies with my friend brendan, who loves aircraft carriers.  I turned to him and said, I’m going to roll a five for you to get fast carriers.  I rolled a five and his carriers were promoted to 3 movement per turn.

It was an incredibly fun game, with a strong allied victory.  Despite a bad first turn by russia (my fault; I resigned my post immediately), Germany never capitalized.  I decided to have some fun and buy a battleship on B1, which was designed to take pot shots at the german coastline.  I ferried fighters into russia while the US upgraded to long range aircraft and decimated the Japanese transport stack with carrier groups.

Japan lost its position on the mainland due to some sneaky UK moves and combined pressure, eventually allowing Britain to build an IC in India.  The German med fleet was destroyed by fighters, the baltic by battleships.  I used UK to finally stop the trading of cauc while dropping blitz-blockers through europe with my northern fleet.  Russia took some territory from Japan and started to turn he game around.

I think we played at least 7 turns before Germany resigned.  One of our longer games.

My group hasn’t been convinced yet of the need for a german bid, but I think this game and the last couple will convince them of the allied advantage.

I have a love for irony so I’m going to bump this thread

uh… sorry

wrong forum; meant to post this in revised

We played our weekly saturday axis and allies game today and it had some interesting results.  It was a game with a lot of experimental moves, some of which worked much better than others.

I know that people on this forum do not exactly agree about the G1 AC purchase, but I tried it out for fun.  My friends tried to persuade me to buy 1AC & 1BB but I declined.  My japanese ally tried placing an IC in borneo and threatening the indian ocean etc (Australia, India, Africa), but the US and UK forces managed to distract him from doing anything effective with it.  Not a strategy that we will repeat.

However, I have to say that I was impressed by the usefulness of the G1 AC purchase.   An aircraft carrier on its own isn’t fantastic, but the fact that you can place two fighters on the AC helps a lot.  I bombed Britain on the first turn with my bomber, just to slow Britain down a bit more, then focussed on Russia as much as possible.  However, I had also wasted money on a bomber on G1 (1AC, 1 Bom, 3 inf) so Russia made some very fast progress on the Eastern front.

Next game, I will not buy a bomber on G1, but I will buy an AC and maybe a transport.  I love it.  The fighters are excellent defenders, and they can also threaten the UK if they try to invade norway or karelia / archangel.

@jbriggs:

Take Norway for example  Russia takes Norway in turn 1, Germany counter attacks, then Britian attacks and takes Norway.  Germany has to attack Norway again if Not, Britian builds an IC on its next turn there and starts shuttling tanks into The russian lines, wich doesn’t turn out to well for Germany.  Germany has to respect the IC in Norway because It allows The allies to have access to Central Europe.  Yes Germany can control the sea zones, but Britian has a toe hold established in Europe and doesn’t have to waste transports to shuttle units into europe.

I have to ask about something.

Earlier it seemed that you weren’t aware that you can only build as many units on a tile as its IPC value - for example, you suggested a R1 placement of 6 artillery on Caucasus despite the 4-IPC limit.

Are you aware that Britain would be restricted to placing only 3 units a turn on Norway?  It’s not exactly the sort of thing that makes the word “shuttle” jump to my mind… more like “trickle”

Played a game with some friends over the weekend, and the unimaginable happened.  I was playing as the UK and just wasn’t paying attention… left Britain open, and the German player saw the opportunity and invaded me with a tank, a dude, and his air force.

I thought for sure the game was over, especially because I’d been holding a large wad of cash, but the german player didn’t push his advantage.  I retreated some troops from norway and retook the UK; meanwhile a large stack of german tanks headed for moscow… and then the german player got cautious and didn’t push his advantage.

The US player went for some tech upgrades, lucked out and got heavy bombers and long-range aircraft.  The Japanese player was new, and while his strategy wasn’t bad, he just didn’t push into asia fast enough.  US bombers sent his transports to the bottom of the sea, and his IC in India wasn’t enough to win.

About 12 rounds into the game, the axis players resigned.

Unbelievable.

If I had been playing germany and been given that opportunity, I would have won the game in 3 rounds, almost guaranteed.  I’m still shaking my head at my luck.

Oh, I didn’t realize that.

Thanks for the link. I’ll talk to my buddies about adopting those rules for our next game.

Thanks for posting your strategy!

I`m not going to get involved in any debates because some of you seem to take this game way more seriously than necessary, but I just want to point something out:

Opponents of this strategy have pointed out that the max damage caused by bombers is 4 ipcs in the caucasus and 8 ipcs in russia. (See the top post on this page, by mjkusn01 for example)

The 4 IPC max in the caucasus is relevant; however, the IPC max is per bomber not per turn.  So each bomber attacking russia can still do up to 6 damage, and those can combine to go above 8 damage.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=ah/faqs/axisrevised

‘‘IPC loss from strategic bombing is limited to the territory’s income value. Is that per bomber or per turn?
Per bomber.’’

Personally, I found that the SBR in the 2nd edition was way too overpowered.  The new heavy bomber, as well as the IPC limit to bombing, forces players to do more inspired plays.

Strategic bombing is something I will do when I don’t have any good moves or surprises to make with my bombers.  It’s just such a yawn move

Thanks, I really appreciate your indepth response.

I would really like to read that article.  I’ll send you a pm with my email address.

I like your math.  I usually spend a few minutes before making any US purchases just doing the math - how many transports will be back on the coast next turn?  How many units?  Do I have more transports in action than i can fill each turn?  How much money will I be making next turn?

Though your advice has given me something more than the math - when you mentioned SZ 55 I paused a little bit in embarrassment.  I’m guilty of using that transport - and the BB, as fodder in a counter-attack on the Hawaii sea zone.  I guess there’s something to be said about scrounging each unit and not wasting…

Personally I’d be more inclined to have a presence in the mediterranean, but that entirely depends on how many German fighters survive the first couple of turns.  I’ve had games where the German player is not careful enough with his fighters, and loses most of them sinking the british fleet or by landing them in poorly defended territories which I send the russian forces after.  The advantage of the mediterannean that I like is that the US and the UK can work together to force the Germans to defend (or trade) almost all of the european territories.  Having a presence on either side of the continent gives the allies a fair amount of flexibility and forces the Germans to divide their attention.

I’ve never actually done the double-shuck through Britain.  It always seemed like too much work.  Next game I will try it, mostly because I am not interested in spending lots of money on american destroyers or aircraft carriers.