Gotcha.
Most players consider the game to be quite unbalanced in favor of the Axis. So the two sides will bid (in terms of IPCs) before the game and the lowest bid team will play the Allies. The bid can be used to place additional units before the game starts.
Sea Lion is definitely a much riskier strategy than just going straight for Moscow. Most people only go through with it if London is not well protected after the first round. A failed Sea Lion is pretty much a game ender.
Welcome back!
A few question for you:
Did you play with a bid and if so what units were purchased?
Did you play dice or low luck, and if dice did the Allies get lucky on many occasions?
Very interesting that the Allies would win this game, especially “obliterating” the Axis, without at least one of the two above being a major cause.
@marshmallow-of-war
That’s correct, and in this scenario Japan takes Celebes on J2, and the US first US bombers don’t arrive in Queensland until US2.
@andrewaagamer said in Beating J1:
So I am not understanding why you seem to think the UK ships and/or ANZAC ships can get to Malaya on Turn 3? At the end of J1 there is a large Jap fleet in the south threatening SZ54 off Queensland. Therefore, the ANZAC DD and CA are not going to be off Queensland on A1.
They don’t need to be there at the end of A1, just A2. At the end of J2, I have the Jap southern fleet divided between Sumatra, Java, and Celebes, with a TT in each SZ. The Celebes TT can be left unprotected as no Allied units can reach it. The Java group needs the most protection, so I have roughly 2/3 of the southern fleet there, and the rest off Sumatra. Only the stuff off Java can reach SZ54, and attacking SZ54 would be suicidal for the Japs on J3. They’ll take a few hits from the DD, CA, and 3fg scramble and then be creamed by the USN and all US planes on US3.
@andrewaagamer said in Beating J1:
Since the Japanese will take Shan State and Malaya on J3 there is no landing zone for the US tactical.
I have the Indian land units consolidate on Burma on UK1, then move to Shan State UK2. Japan can’t kill that stack and Malaya on J3 unless they want to sacrifice around 4 planes, if so be my guest. A more typical response I see is to consolidate the Jap fleet off Malaya and use a blocker in SZ42. UK can take back Malaya on UK3 unless you made the aforementioned plane sacrifice.
@andrewaagamer said in Beating J1:
I am not sure how ANZAC is taking Java on A3 unless the Japanese abandoned it and why would they do that?
Not sure what you’re proposing as an alternative, but since you want to attack both Malaya and Shan State J3 and not use any blockers, I assumed you would load all units from the J2 $ island grab back onto the TTs. If not you’ll have an empty TT.
Overall, you’ve got a situation where the 6th VC should be safe until at least J8 or J9 and Japan goes several turns with a 9 IPC hit to income from losing Sumatra and the NO. The most vulnerable VC is Hawaii, and yet that is the easiest for the Allies to take back given it’s proximity to the massive US industrial base.
This strategy should accomplish the following:
After playing it out through round 4 and following your purchases and moves as much as possible, here is where I see things:
-On your point about taking Malaya with as minimal fleet forces as possible on J3, I do not believe that is advisable. The UK should easily have a stack on Burma, and likely one on Shan State (especially in a 1v1 since you wouldn’t have the potential complication of splitting countries and the UK player not knowing the US strategy). By holding any one of of the territories bordering SZ37, the allies can attack the Jap fleet there with DD + CA + 3fg by Anzac plus anything purchased AZ1. They can also attack presumably with the 3 UK planes and any ships that are off India or otherwise in range. A small fleet would likely be wiped out. Therefore in my play test, I assumed all the ships that took Sumatra and Java J2 go to SZ37 (2CV, 2BB. 1CA, 2DD) This should be enough to deter an allied attack Rd3.
However, even this assumes that the US has not moved anything down to Queensland yet. The way I play, I move bombers there ASAP, and also would fly the tac down, since it is excess to the carrier and 3 plane scramble from Hawaii. So I would already have 5 bombers and a tac there. With a 3 phase attack of:
US: 5 bombers, 1 tac
UK: 2fg, 1 tac, ships depending on location (I moved them west to keep them out of range, so none in my example)
AZ: 3fg, 1 DD, 1 CA
I think the cost of taking Malaya would be rather extreme and those ships should just head back to the Philippines J3. If the UK has stacked Shan State, Japan won’t even hold Malaya for a turn.
Now, onto the $ islands.
In my scenario AZ can take 1 back AZ3. I chose Java (reason based on UK ship positioning).
US4 take back Celebes and Borneo.
UK4, take back Sumatra. TT had previously been moved west to keep it safe from the Japs.
So now, beginning rd5 I have the massive Combined Fleet sitting at the Philippines plus a 3fg scramble (since those planes are clearly not needed on the homeland for the time being).
US and AZ fleet and all planes on Queensland and SZ54 with the following exceptions:
US DD blocking in SZ25.
US DD blocking in SZ46.
AZ DD blocking in SZ45.
I think the situation for Japan at this point is quite worse than you had laid out.
AZ is safe at this point with all the land units and fighters stacked there. Queensland can’t be attacked until J7 anyway since J5 and J6 would have to be spent killing the blockers then killing the fleet. But even then, 5 fully loaded TTs and 6 fully loaded carriers isn’t enough to take it.
India could be threated on J6 but the burma stack will have time to retreat and Japan would have to sacrifice multiple planes to take it.
Lastly, Japan could go to the Carolines J5, then take Hawaii J6. This would at least force the US to invest in units to protect the west coast. But with several more turns for UK and AZ to build their forces getting that 6th VC would be impossible for several more turns. The US bombers could be flown to India to wipe out any units on weakly held Jap territories and allow UK to take back the entire peninsula.
Meanwhile with all 4 $ islands lost, Japan will not be in a great position economically regardless of the direction they take unless they start re-taking islands, which will likely delay the assault on any VC. And Japan definitely needs to kill the allied TTs J5.
Another downside of building so many carriers is that remaining number of planes on the mainland is significantly reduced in order to load the carriers. This makes it even more difficult to kill the UK stack, wherever it may be.
I also think it’s important to keep it all in the context of the OP’s question. It’s a J1 attack and the Japan player won’t know that the US is about to use a bomber spam strategy, so highly unlikely the J1 buy included any warships. Also whatever strategies the OP has been trying so far haven’t been working. I think 2 CV + 1DD +2SS is a pretty common US1 buy vs J1 attack. Maybe he can give us more detail on what he’s been doing and subsequent movements.
I’d also add, that the Allied player can hold back the UK and AZ TTs for a few rounds so that they can swoop in a reclaim $ islands once the US has forced Japan to turtle in the Philippines. Any island which Japan doesn’t immediately recapture can be bolstered by landing AZ fighters on it. That would force Japan to commit more resources to reclaim it or have a lasting impact on their IPCs.
I’m working through a game now based on the Japan 3 CV purchases and consolidate in the Philippines scenario Andrew laid out above. Busy at work today but once I get through about 4 rounds can put up some screenshots and/or share the triple a file.
Between US, AZ, and UK you start with 4 TTs in the Pacific. I typically buy one with AZ once every few turns. You should be able to take back at least a couple $ islands if Japan is just turtling in the Philippines. Japan can take them back, but of course that also means they have to move TTs and probably something else to help attack if you leave units on the islands which means you can kill that stuff. Japan also has to use 2 blockers to prevent the fleet in SZ54 from participating in the attack, and typically they’ll have one in SZ16 as well. So they are going to be investing a ton of IPCs into ships in your scenario, resulting in fewer land units on the mainland. That gives India a chance to turtle and build up a huge stack of inf.
I play almost entirely online, I could probably dig up a saved game or if not just make a new one as an example.
IME only 2 rounds of US investment into the Pacific is pretty low. And to be clear, I’d be going 100% Europe after that for around 4 rounds straight. After that typically just some modest investment to make sure Hawaii is protected. I think Germany is much more of a threat to win the game than Japan, but Japan can be a major threat if they get some momentum going. Bombers, being the unit with the greatest movement, allow the Allies to stunt Japan’s progress more quickly than anything.
If it’s a J1 attack then the US will already have the factory upgrades in rd1. So 4 bombers rd1, 6 bombers rd 2. As for the other planes, I fly all the planes the US starts with (assuming PHI is dead) to Hawaii. 4 can land on Hawaii, 2 on the carrier, then all down to Queensland next turn.
So if it’s only strats that can attack, and we assume the entire original IJN is in one sea zone minus 2 DDs assumed to be used for blocking, you’re looking at all 5 capital ships damaged, both DDs dead, and planes having to land on land. Then between UK and AZ you’ve got another 2 DDs, 2 CAs, and 6 planes to attack the wounded IJN, before even adding in any purchases. IJN may end up with a few ships left, but they will have to backtrack to a naval base to repair and join with newly purchased ships to create a fleet stronger than what the US has.
Also, if the IJN is parked off Malaya, the Allies need to hold only 1 territory bordering SZ 37 and the fg/tacs from Queensland can also join the attack.
Granted, a good Jap player probably won’t let this happen but the mere threat makes the entire corridor from Queensland/Malaya/DEI/India very treacherous to navigate. Typically the Japs will pull back to the Philippines to consolidate the fleet and have kamikaze’s available. But if they do that and therefore don’t kill India within the first 4-5 rounds, that’s already a big win for the allies. If the allies are able to take back any DEI before rd 4 that just provides even more landing spots for planes and less places the IJN can safely navigate. Hard to Japan to be a threat to win if you’ve cut them off from India and started to drain their income.
One strategy I like is buying all strats with the US rds 1 and 2. By the end of rd 3, you have the entire US fleet plus 11 strats and 4 fg on Queensland. This makes it very difficult for the Japan player to position the IJN in a spot where it is not vulnerable. They will usually end up wasting a bunch of DDs as blockers, which is in the Allied players economic advantage. Even if you can’t reach the IJN with your fleet, but can with planes , a triple whammy of 11 strats followed up with attacks by UK and AZ units typically leaves the IJN in a very diminished state and allows you to move the US fleet into a better position once the blockers are cleared out.
And if the Japan player is very cagey or really focuses on protecting and/or bolstering his fleet, the strats can be quickly reallocated to Europe by flying to India, then wherever. Then you can balance out the US spend by buying more fleet in Pacific whilst using the strats to help increase the attack power of whatever US units you managed to get to Europe in rds 3-5 or so.