Posts made by murraymoto

nice game.

had my first game of 42, was the axis.  Did the Bomber buy 1st round, scared the UK with the new sub rules as the baltic fleet moved into the Atlantic.  Scared the US away till turn 3 from landing in Africa and was able to combine on turn 2.  Pulled back Japan’s navy, killed the Indian fleet, then turned back on the US Fleet.  On turn 4 I was able to destroy both US fleets in the Pacific and Atlantic and took Australia.  A few Allied troops in Africa and had left India’s IC alone except for buffering around it.  Turned on Russia through China and after suckering the allies into throwing everything at Caucaus after i left most of the German army out to dry there, 2 Jap tanks were able to blitz from Sinkiang to take Moscow.  Allies gave up as the Axis ruled all but the North Sea.  Not too wacky of dice, save the loss of my German SBR bombers over Moscow.  
 I haven’t played AA50 much, but I am lovin’ the naval rules applied here!

gotta admit too that those new Russian ship sculpts are absolutely beautiful…sitting in the box never being used.

@maverick_76:

What I have found is the game is not broken at all. If you lend UK fighters to Russia (they can send two every turn!) it becomes very hard for the Germans to bust through.

the only problem with the UK sending 2 fighters per turn is if they can’t afford them due to the loss of Africa and their convoys.  If all that the US/UK are doing is planes, they aren’t buying ships to clean out the convoys.  Germany doesn’t need the Middle East or Africa for a Tank Push in general, but purely fighter builds will often give Germany easy access to those areas.  Moving Fighters to the Middle East then weakens Russia’s defense.

With all that armor heading to Moscow/Karelia/Caucasus you should be able to get something into France to help turn their attention back to the West, or is Italy just protecting their flank?
 Somewhere there has to be something that gives if they are sending all that focus in one direction.  (how cliche right?), but still.  If Russia can hold with just INF, then the storm can be weathered.  A couple Allied fighters could help in the end as well even with the loss of the NO, if it will keep them in the game for a couple extra rounds.  
Africa could be open, France could be open, Italy could be open, Karelia couldn’t be too heavily defended if the drive is straight on to Moscow, do not pass go.

AAE runs much like AAR, just Europe only.

Yes, to bonus starting income for each side.

Convoy Zones in the Atlantic and Oil territories in the Middle East give Axis the ability to lower Allied income without taking ‘Allied land’ per se.

Russia has Lend-Lease (Soviet Patriotic War-so named in rules) from Allies

Take an enemy capital and hold for a turn to win.

AAP is a very different animal with special rules from Japan’s first turn, Convoy Zones different from AAE, Victory Points, CAP rules, Sub rules and so on, definitely a rule book reading needed to get into that.

the TP is about speed, because you have to abandon most of the Western defenses to overwhelm Russia.  So you do everything you can to stall with what you start with in the Atlantic in hopes of breaking Moscow quickly, the combined income of the Allies is too great in the long run of any game.
  The RW is about throwing a huge speedbump in front of the Axis that they can’t avoid, which fatally delays their offensive.  Is it a guarantee?  Likely that nothing is guaranteed when you roll dice for a living…

@Krieghund:

There is no official rule for this situation.  An argument could be made that they have one movement point to land, as fighters whose carriers are destroyed do.  An equally valid argument could be made that they are destroyed, since there is no specific mention that these fighters also get a move to land.

Not that I would necessarily get a vote as to the FAQ per se, but I would vote for the fighters to get a move point, ie CV fighters as mentioned.  I would argue that it would be more likely in the rules to make note of what is destroyed than not and without a direct statement as such, that remaining fighters are destroyed, they would be free to move to possible safety.  As all combat is simultaneous, they would still be in the air during the battle.

Great question OutsideLime!

true dat.

it’s another of those reasons that you have to forget all the other game’s rules, but the differences are also the strengths I think.

glad to hear you are enjoying it too.

@Imperious:

in this attack the general gives his units +1 in first combat round either attack or defense. ON defense you allocate your general to one battle after the enemy attacks. So even if your under attack by 3 different nations out of all these attacks your getting to place general or admiral once. The general is placed after combat is declared.

This reminds me of the Castle Risk variant with the Generals and Marshals cards.  using them gave your highest die a +1, but if at any time it was beaten, so was your Gen/Mar. and you lost them.

That was the first thought I had when the commander units were mentioned, that it would give you a +1 whether for a round or more, a type of unit for the battle, or be unit specific–if it were to be Patton, he would always +1 tanks under his command.  If it were Zukov, it would be Infantry, if Yamamoto it could be fleet based fighters.

You’re probably spot on there frimmel.

I thought about taking the Guadalcanal line and allowing superfluous hits to be assigned to the next available target, but that would seem to heavily favor the Axis for the first half and by the time the Allies could catch up (if at all) it would be too late.

other AA games have taught us that each battle has a simple outcome where one side is destroyed, and the 3 entries into the line that have more of a locked in combat aspect (DD/GC/BOTB) all have a learning curve for players to overcome this preconceived notion.  But once you overcome it, they are the bomb!  I just turned another AAR player last week into a BOTB player and now they prefer it.

I’m hoping that the reference to truck will actually end up being a halftrack/apc unit, which I could see calling a truck…  (fingers crossed)

–luckyday
  appreciate the feedback on your game.  hope it opens up new gameplay and strategies for you.

–moony
  probably best if your group doesn’t know about the TP,  Axis’ best strat appears to be to fight the more balanced war anyhow and fight the delaying aspect in the West and throw more into the East.  Not a 50-50 split, but not the 100-0 of the Tankpush.

–historybuff
  very true, the TP is as you describe and as luckyday lines out–it isn’t unstoppable, but it stopped a lot of players in their tracks thinking it was.  Knowing that the Axis’ goal is to take a capital, you know they have to pick one of the 2 closest, and Moscow is the more likely choice.  Using the Allies as allies can thwart the Axis advance, but you have to play to your strengths and not theirs.  The combination of Allied air shipments to Moscow and the proper application of ‘leverage’ of the Russian ground forces will give the TP a very bad day.

i had the attack games by eagle games, and used their pieces for AA add-ins.  they had a bunch of colors and was like $3 or 4 a color set, close scale to AA.  eaglegames.net i believe is their site, though at the time I had ordered from ebay for a whole game for like $8, just for the pieces.

@Upside-down_Turtle:

BREAKTHROUGH CHART 3

1. Heavy Artillery
Your Artillery attack on a 3.

2. Heavy Tank
Your tanks now attack and defend on a 4.

3. Increased Factory Efficiency
All units now cost 1 IPC less

4. Combined Bombardment
Your surface combat ships can now fire in the first round of an amphibious assault, in addition to the Opening Fire stage.  Ships are vulnerable to enemy fire during the first round of combat.

5. Naval Night Fighting Skills
Your surface combat ships now fire twice in the first round of sea combat.

6. High Altitude Bombers
AA Guns now roll two dice for each of your bombers.  They hit on a combined roll of 3 or less (5 for radar).

Overall, I have to say I like it, more options are always nice.

thinking out loud thoughts maybe, but….

for 1–heavy artillery.  instead of attacking at 3, what if they were long-range artillery and could attack one territory away, could be useful for support from neighboring sites.

2–heavy tanks are great, but if combined with the factory efficiency, yipes is correct.  what if they still attack at 3, but could choose their target on rolls of 1.

3–since infantry isn’t technically built, maybe it would apply to everything else.

4–nice

5–i like the concept, seems overpowered though. what jumped to my mind when reading it was increased AA defense on ships, like they would get a preemptive shot at 1 or 2 for BB before the battle.

6–frightens me if someone would get this with heavy bombers

@LuckyDay:

so can Germany still win the game in your opinion/experience without the tank push?

i think so, yes.

the RW is designed as a counter to a specific Axis strategy, the TP, and should force the Axis to then change away from a TP.  The best way to counter the RW is to fight a more balanced war, which I believe is the best way to win as the Axis in the first place.  I believe it is possible to hold/delay the Allies in the Atlantic and take out Russia.  The game really isn’t designed for the Axis to take out anyone else.  The game considers Barbarossa to occur whether or not Germany attacks Russia, so for Germany to truly consider taking any other capital would require a fundamental change to the game with this.

But more to the topic, I believe that Germany can win starting without the TP, but also to start with it, see the RW and then swing away from the TP and counter the RW and go back to fighting a more balanced war and still win.  Granted it’s harder, but if the Atlantic is played well to begin with, I think you can add subs from G3 on and delay the Allies to still fight Russia.  Probably will depend on the strength of the aircraft Lend-Lease employed, but the more of this, the less strength in Allied shipping, so there’s a give and take.

I could see them maybe more in GC than pacific, with all the cap rules and things, I think it might overcomplicate, but in GC, could be a whole different story.
  then you may want fighters to be able to protect these bombers the more actual bombers, while fighters wouldn’t actually attack ships, only other aircraft.  After air combat, surviving torpedo/dive bombers could attack…

As usual, spot on Krieghund.

@Casanova:

second: do players retain the supply tokens given by turn even if they don’t use all of them?

I would just add as to the supply tokens that these don’t have to be moved onto the board as they are added per turn.  for example, as the Axis, you get 9 I believe, and if you only wanted to move 6 of them onboard with trucks, the others would be left off board and could be moved on during your next turn, much the same way that not all of your reinforcements have to move on-board, but could be left off-board.  they still would move on in the order from the chart though.

I think DarthMaximus hits the Pacific nail on the head.

That’s one of the most frustrating parts of the game to me, the non-valued islands.  personally, I think that every territory that can be invaded on the map should have some IPC value.  Strategic positioning of territories can’t be ignored, but come on, without the money-side, what’s the real point in the US putting units into the Pacific until they have to in defense of California?

the percentage is gonna be changed on what you bring with it to screen, how many subs they can throw at you to target them and how much general firepower they can bear on them.  Being in the Slot means they could be more open to airfields and artillery as well.  there’s not going to be a guarantee on it either way.  If you want to use the aircraft on your CV offensively though you have to be fairly close to do it, with their flight limitations so you may want to bring them closer into the fight.  if you can rely on airstrips more, you may need CVs more for defense.
  My play with GC is limited, but I’ve taken CVs into the Slot and they survived and I have also lost them.  But I also kept them to the sides at times and had them taken out too.  wherever they are they are targets because of the VP attached to them and since it takes double the hits for BBs, they are more likely to be shot at with subs.

It’s the fleet that starts off Italy that is being referred to. It represents the historical Italian Fleet that was there.

The German units in AAE represent the collective Axis forces in Europe beyond merely the German ones.

I agree too, alot can be determined by G1.

but aside from letting the Axis determine what you are doing, a heavy INF buy I think isn’t going to break you and whereas in other versions where you may get one turn to buy something else, here you can buy mixed unit types more frequently, even every turn and still be competitive.  Still, INF needs more time than Armor to get to the front unless you just sit and wait for the front to come to you, but then you may be buying just INF from then on…