Posts made by nimitz1

I agree with Jen, the dilemma for the US is where to concentrate on the first 3 turns.  Having experimented with a J2 or J3 attack on the US fleet in the pacific, I am now reluctant to leave my US fleet anywhere near the possibility of attack on J2 or J3.  I move it to SZ64 (Panama) asap now and defend the west coast with ground/air units.  That way I save the pacific fleet and can build a reasonable task force in the atlantic to cause some havoc against the Germans/Italians.  Also if the jap fleet has gone hunting the US fleet, then I declare war on the japs with the UK/Anzacs and use my transports to take as many islands as possible which is great nuisance value (as well as generating more income for the allies) and turns the attention of the japs back to the DEI/Australia etc. I use the two turns it takes the jap fleet to get back into action (against the UK and Anzacs) to build some nice BB’s and CV’s for the yanks, join up with the intact pacific fleet and then off I go hunting.

Its about buying time as the allies…do as much as you can to avoid engaging the japanese fleet too early, it is too strong.

So to summarise, retreat the pacific fleet to safety, build in the atlantic the first 2 turns (2CV’s, a BB, 4 destroyers and 3 or 4 transports will do the job) and then concentrate on building up the pacific fleet thereafter.

I target Norway (vide Gibraltar) as the yanks when possible in order to build a US factory on Germanys doorstep.  The atlantic build also gives the German player something to think about when considering sealion.

Just my experiences.

Let him come to you, build infantry and one fighter each turn, retreat everything into moscow leaving one infantry in each territory to block his advance to one territory (i.e. one step closer to moscow) a turn.  You have 3 builds before you are attacked, then another 3 turns before he is next to moscow.  So you should have over 50 infantry in moscow with some artillery, a few tanks and around 6 or 7 fighters by the time he gets to your doorstep.  See how enthusiastic he is when facing 10 red chips of infantry and a heap of fighter “4’s”, even if he succeeds it will be a Pyrrhic victory, he will be decimated, leaving  him very short of ground forces.  This Turtle strategy works almost every time when playing Russia who only needs to hold out for the UK to do its job and open up a second front.  The key to taking out russia for the Germans is to attack it on G1 or G2 at the latest, with 37 IPCs a turn for the first three turns, russia can build 27 infantry and 3 fighters…a lovely start to a defense of Moscow.

@Butcher:

If you’re going to conduct Sealion, just have Japan invade the turn before Germany invades the United Kingdom.  Problem solved.

What do you mean here by having Japan invade first?  Invade who? US? where?  and do you mean on J2 before a G3 Sealion?    A step by step explanation please…because I cant see how that can be achieved (a US mainland attack) by Japan until J3 at the earliest and then with little chance of success.

You don’t need a naval base to build a fleet, simply a factory.

Leaving German transports unprotected 3 zones away from the UK does not guarantee their safety.  As UK I took out seven unprotected transports in SZ113 on UK2 simply by building a carrier in SZ110, then launching 1 fighter from england (range 5) to hit the transports and then land on the newly built carrier.  49 German build points lost without a dice being thrown.  The carrier was later attacked and lost (though I did take out another 2 subs) as was the fighter but at 26 points total it was a good trade off and prevented sea-lion from occurring on G3.  Tough lesson learned by the German player.

As the German player I never leave my transports unprotected, in fact I go to great lengths to look after them until their real job is done.  i.e. getting as much ground troops across the channel and into UK asap.  Sea Lion should always be the germans first priority and the G3 attack on UK should be co-ordinated with a japanese thrust towards the west coast of the US and towards the US fleet.  This should make the US build in the pacific rather than the Atlantic and give Germany time to consolidate in the UK and reduce the UK’s chance of liberation by the US until much later in the game.

Once the UK is secure you can concentrate all of your resources against russia and you will eventually prevail.  Without London the UK is out of the war and cant replace its losses.  Africa also becomes a one sided affair since the allies cant replace lost units.  Thats the key to winning this game as the axis…taking out your enemies capacity to build units to replace losses.

As the Germans the british fleet and france should be the priority (even if that means leaving Normandy for a turn, though you can generally pull that off as well) your G1 build should be one CV and 2 subs to join your BB and CA off Denmark.  Turn 2 buy is 9 transports and move everything you can to west germany for a G3 sea lion.  Forget Russia…buy infantry on G3 and tanks on G4 to simply block the russians.  The key is to take out the UK and with 10 tanks and 10 infantry, supported by as many aircraft as you can muster you should crack it.  Now you have an additional 26 ipcs, UK is out of the war and if the japs have done their job, then the yanks should be more concerned about their west coast than saving their british allies…so with the western front sewn up you can then focus your full attention on Russia.

Meanwhile in the pacific the Japanese move everything to sz6 and build another carrier and a transport.  If the US entire fleet is in Hawaii on turn 2, attack it.  If its on the west coast, move your fleet to Hawaii (along with the transports) for a J3 attack on the US fleet.   With an invasion threat on the west coast of the US, the US player is less likely to build/commit forces in the atlantic to retake the UK.  In any case on J3 you attack and kill the US fleet (you may not have enough troops to invade the west coast but that doesn’t matter, the transports can be used to take hawaii and other islands that will affect its income bonuses).  You then have at least two to three more turns before the US can assemble enough ships to make their presence felt in the pacific and again if he’s building in the pacific he is giving you a free hand in europe.  Build troops and transports in Japan and move as much south as you can towards india…You should have enough time to press through china towards India which should be the major target and your overall priority.

Remember the priority should be to take out the enemies capacity to wage war, it they cant build troops then you must eventually win.  Easiest targets for the axis are in this order…Paris, Sydney, London, India.

VOLUNTARY DESTRUCTION OF ASSETS…SCORCHED EARTH POLICY.

I would like a ruling on whether a player may opt to voluntarily destroy friendly airbases/ports/factories rather than allow them to fall into enemy hands. Seems perfectly legitimate to me if done in the owing players turn.  Retreating forces in WW2 rarely left anything intact for enemy to use and this is especially true of ports and airfields (which generally had to be rebuilt by the advancing forces) and in regard to factories, those that couldn’t be moved (underground by the Germans) or by the Russians were destroyed by friendly forces.  Official ruling please and thanks in advance.

Not yet…real life has caught up with me recently and I’ve had less time on my hands than I expected.  I’ll post here when I get it underway.

@Cow:

if japan sets up to sink me in hawaii… I pull back to west usa. that’s not hard to do.

That wont help you if Japan decides to attack the US fleet before turn 4.  J1 everything to sz 6 Buy CV and destroyer. J2 Buy transports and another CV and move everything to Hawaii.  J3 Buy 2 bombers and some subs. J3 attack philipines (cv and transports purchased on J2), attack hawaii and/or attack the us fleet (if it was silly enough to stay on the west coast). J4 Move bombers and subs to hawaii (to smash any subsequent us navy builds on the west coast).  This should free up the jap fleet to wreak havoc at will in the pacific.

So what exactly are the German moves/builds(and where) for Germany to secure the UK on turn 3?  Im thinking AC + transports turn 1 in 112, then transports again in turn 2 in same sea zone? Yes?  Could an effective counter for UK be not to build at all on turn 1, save the ipcs and build 2 BB’s on turn 2 in sz80.  With the 3 scrambled fighters they might get lucky defending against the german fleet on 5 fours.

My group of fairly experienced AA gamers have played Alpha +2 five times so far.  Here are my observations.  Germany must decide to either attack the UK or Russia, it cant attempt both and hope to win.  Japan has three choices but again must decide on which course to take and do it as quickly as possible, 1) Go for India  2) Go for the US Fleet and island groups(to deny the US some NO’s) or 3) Go for the easiest 4 VC’s (Hong Kong, Philipines, Sydney and Honolulu).  Both the Germans and Japanese must substantially achieve these objectives by turn 3, any later and they will eventually lose.

Some general rules we follow…
1. US concentrates on building a very strong pacific fleet and at least 2 additional transports…even at the expense of building in the atlantic if necessary. Once numerically superior to the japanese fleet (at least 2 - 1 in BB’s and CV’s) then go hunt it and kill it.  Then all new buys to Atlantic.
2. UK builds infantry and moves aircraft to UK to counter sea-lion or if sea-lion not threatened a factory in Cairo and tanks in South Africa.
3. UK India - Infantry only until US gets involved.
4. Anzac - airfield western australia on turn 2 and fighters thereafter…which are then ferried to India every turn.  These are used to consolidate any british territory gains in mainland asia in later turns (landing in freshly UK captured territory).
5. China - Infantry only and everything into Yunnan.
6. Russia - Infantry and one fighter each turn.  Slowly retreat towards Moscow and then let the German impale himself on a huge stack of infantry and aircraft.  It will be a costly exercise for the germans and leave them very thin on the ground.

In all of our games so far the allies have eventually won out and this with IPC’s of 70 for the japs and occasionally the germans at times.  The big problem for the axis is holding onto their gains.  Eventually the US will turn the tables in the pacific and retake all the japanese held territories.  Once the jap fleet is destroyed its game over for them.  In Europe, if the UK hasn’t fallen and the Germans have had no success in Russia, then they too are simply marking time and if the Italians are held in North Africa then they remain simply an inconvenience in the med which will also be dealt with.

We like the game and it is our favorite version.  We are taking turns at playing the axis and trying new strategies all the time but it looks like its a fairly tough ask to win as axis especially when playing experienced players (who dont fall for too many tricks).   Im going to give a J3 US fleet attack and simultaneous multi-island grab a go in my next foray.  I figure I can take out the entire US pacific fleet and inflict some serious NO pain to the US, in a reasonable exchange.  I may then have just enough time to take Sydney, Philipines and hold onto Honolulu for at least 1 turn to secure the victory.

Hi Noll…thats what I did the fix-up for…decent resolution and it should be good out to around 2m.  see http://www.megaupload.com/?d=13F1QLF0

I suppose it could go fairly big before it starts to lose some quality but it should do nicely for a map about 1.5 times the game boards.  Thats what I was aiming for, something about 1500mm x 800mm.  Whoever does your printing just make sure its scaled to suit your needs.

Map updated and errors addressed…thanks for the input everyone :-)  I think its right now but anything else let me know.

link

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=13F1QLF0

Thanks…anything else let me know.  Looks like I have to do some amending after all.  Will redo and repost amended map.

Sorry GH…only answered your second question.  Heres the first about the metal.  I used ordinary sheet metal, the same that is used for shaping air conditioning ducts.  Its thin and much more light weight as a result.  There’s no corrosion under my current map but it is indoors all the time.  Also the plastic covering was folded around the edges before I glued it to the mdf board.  There is just no chance of moisture getting to it.  Hope that helps.

darn my spelling…  yes your right about Palau…and correct about missing or different shaped islands in the pacific.  The paint program I was using allowed me to cut and paste the sea into the island zones but it meant chopping some of the islands out and having to repaint them.  I missed a few of the very small islands altogether (didn’t bother putting them in) as they were so small as to be insignificant on the map anyway (you couldn’t place pieces on the land anyway), so providing there was a name and a roundel in the sea zone it’s clear enough that there is a land mass there.  Cyprus is a case in point (Its under the roundel. :-)…)  Though I was in a hurry to get the map done… so these pick-ups by you guys are to be expected (and welcome).  If there is something serious that will affect game play then Id really appreciate if you could let me know and I will fix it up fix up, then I will do these few spelling errors (and put in a couple of “green spots” where the islands should be at the same time).  Thanks guys. :-)

I think you might have told them 5mm??   its not 5mm thick, its point five i.e. 0.5mm (half a millimetre) thickness. they must have thought you were building a jap tank. lol

Its about .5 mm thickness, the sheet of mdf is 1500mm x 800mm, that is the size piece of steel im going to get and the size that i will have the map blown up to, so its a neat fit on the board. Im going to stick this new map on the back of the 1942 mapboard, then just flip it over when i want a change.

5 minute epoxy, though you can only do about 10 at a time before it starts to go off.  but you could use 30 min and get an entire nationality done in one go.