Posts made by SgtBlitz

Methinks that to really take down the Russian collosus, it’s going to take teamwork between at least 2 if not all 3 Axis powers.

If Russia is reduced to building all infantry 2-3 turns after the initial invasion, the defending stack on Moscow will be insane (70-80-100? Inf), plus any FIGs the other Allied powers land on it will just add to the mass.  It’s probably a safe bet that Germany can get a stack of its own in striking distance, with the right units to attack it (the right ratio of tanks and planes to infantry, just not enough stack overall to kill the Russian stack).  Germany/Italy and Japan will probably have to have alternate stacks on Russia with enough force between them to chew the stack apart.  I’m thinking a Japanese stack of like 20-30 ground units plus 10-15 planes, and a German/Italian stack with 40-50 ground units and 5-10 planes, against a Soviet beast of 70-80 inf plus whatever else is lying around, maybe 5 planes.

Japan would have to start off the initial attack from its stack in the Caucasus and essentially sacrifice its stack to get as many causalties as possible piled up (hopefully about even numbers for the units its killing off, 20-30 Russian inf or so), then Italy would follow (hopefully getting 5-10 more inf killed), and finally Germany would land the killing blow (probably just barely too, with the forces available~ 50 vs. 50 land units) before Russia’s turn where it would be able to build more inf again.  This order could be changed so that Japan deals the finishing blow, but with the way things are set up in the Pacific with Japan unable to attack J1, I believe Japan will be arriving in Russia much later than Germany does (plus the Reds will have a turn to build some inf inbetween attacks).

The Allies would most certainly land more fighters into Russia once they realized what the Axis are doing, but this seems pretty much the only way Russia is going to be taken down (with a HELL of a lot of casaulties!).

Calvinhobbesliker,

1. You’re up on our Global game for Russia’s turn.  Quit spending all your time whining about the Royal Navy and get to that PBF game!  I’ll never get to mess around with the US’s 82 IPCs a turn at the rate its going!

2.  Yes, its ahistorical that the Germans are killing 90% of the RCN Round 1, but how else did you expect the game designers to balance the game with the UK???  Traditionally, the UK always took a pounding from German navy and air G1 in every single iteration of Axis and Allies.  But they still had a HUGE military advantage; just like the US, their main capital is not in range to be invaded and serves as an unstoppable base to send out units without reprisal.  The UK is realistically never under attack or threat of invasion (unless they’re really dumb with bad UK1 builds), and they get to raid the Germans at will, pretty much like every other A+A game out there, with an insane re-built navy stack, for 2/3s of the game.  Most AA50 games I played Germany usually had to abandon Russia due to UK raids into Poland or Leningrad from the Baltic, and I’d leave an inf stack in Germany just so the Brits couldn’t surprise-attack-end-the-game there.

Hell, the Denmark straits closed rule is the best thing I’ve seen in a long time towards balancing out UK’s insane naval advantage, especially for the Baltic (finally!).  It was incredibly ahistorical that the British could send its entire navy through the Straits of Denmark without worrying about mines or Luftwaffe strikes.

Where in the hell are Italy’s SUBS???  Italy had 116 subs in its Med fleet at the onset of war, and NONE are represented in this game.  Germany at its peak had about 250 submarines, of which 5 units are represented at game start surrounding Britain (which was highly unlikely for all of them to be concentrated so at this time in 1940)!

Give Italy 2 SUBS at game start to balance out the Taranto fleet; with these 2 extra soak hits perhaps the Brits would think again about a UK1 raid!

@eddiem4145:

I completely agree that the game is broken. After all, not making the game so Italy can have a 50/50 chance of taking all of africa and making it very likely the Germans have to do it and regulating Italy to a subserviant role is completely broken. What were they thinking. It is like they were making a WW2 scenario in 1940 or something.

Oh and add the game being broken because of France too. I mean, really. France has no chance against Germany. Who would want to play France.

Heh, that you, Ed?  We Axis players are just whining about the indefensibility of Italy.  Damn history, we want this game to give the Italians a fair shake!

@chompers:

Italy got shut down by the Indian air force 4 of those games, and once by the UK fleet blowing up the Italians the first couple turns.

See?  Here is another example of a broken UK Taranto attack.

@BadSpeller:

Ah yes, AAG40 is hours old.  Some games started, FEW game actually finished to completion, and already the ‘I declare it is broken because I am so smart and can predict the future’ claim has started. :roll:

Dude, it totally is broken.  Every game I’m seeing out there have the British attempting this attack.  (Which is like 3 of them, but still…)

@BadSpeller:

Next time, keep the UK honest by purchasing a transport and have your 2trn & planes ready to take London on G2. If UK protects against a London takeover, Italy will have their fleet. Then use German 2trn to get units to Russia faster.  Everything is a trade off though. Nothing easy or for free in A&A. :)

Doesn’t work.  The UK bringing up the DD, CV and TAC to help protect the UK only INCREASES their chances of being destroyed on G2 by leftover subs and airforce.  The safest place for those naval units to be is to join the French units off S. France in the Med, so they might as well try a Taranto raid.  Even if the raid goes badly, the UK can send 2 FIGs from England to land on the undamaged carrier.  I think the UK1 Taranto raid is badly broken, and doesn’t give Italy a fair chance to respond on its turn.

If the UK builds all inf every turn, there’s no chance the Germans can take London unless they build ALL transports on G2, AND move every single land unit they’ve got within range to get on the boats for G3.  They’ll have no reinforcements for Russia, and the Americans with their 82 IPCs are right behind the the Brits, even if they win.  Sealion is only good for Germany if they can pull it off on the cheap (like with 4-5 transports), and they can only manage that if the Brits have stupid builds on their first round (like who ISN’T going to notice that Germany built all transports the last round?).

@calvinhobbesliker:

@chompers:

Hey, I’m down for anything that makes the European theater more compelling so I hope you’re right.  You sure about it being sea zone 127 though?  There’s no convoy symbol in that sea zone, while there is one in 125.

Well, why would Russia lose an NO for ships on Norway? If it is Z127, the -5 ipcs to Russia acts as a convoy.

The Allies did send Lend-Lease material to the Soviets in convoys through that area west of Norway, and the Germans historically launched several (unsucessful) raids against those convoys.

@plumsmugler:

@13thguardsriflediv:

Britain buys a few new ships and decides to attack the western Italian fleet with a fighter, tac bomber, destroyer and cruiser. The carrier joins the French units to pick up the surviving planes as the Italian fleet goes down without much of a bang.

This is a REALLY good idea.  All these British units involved cannot be attacked (or virtually cannot be) before they make this move and of course the Italians don’t have a turn before this occurs.  This practically wipes out the Italian fleet without any effort or risk on UK’s part and when you consolidate the carrier and the planes with the French Med fleet Italy cannot effectively counter-attack this force nor rebuild its lost naval units.  Not to mention Italy will more than likely not be getting any bonus income now because they more than likely cannot take Egypt with their Tobruk and Ethiopian forces.

This almost seems like a broken attack of opportunity.  By wiping out those Italian naval units without a second thought as to the risk behind the attack it seems to knock Italy out of the game before they even get their first turn.  Even if Italy throws everything it has left after that at the remaining British and French units it will more than likely lose everything and leave the UK with a carrier with one or two planes left on it.  The end result is Italy with no naval or air units left and the British still having a presence in the Mediterranean.  This means Italy has lost the game already!  They will have no more than the income they can pick up from southern france and the balkan states and no way of getting to Africa.

If I’m playing as the UK I will do this move first turn every single game and there is no reason to use those units any other way.  This seems incredibly broken to me.

Aye, the Taranto raid really is broken for the UK, as there’s absolutely no reason NOT to do it, since the Germans can’t reach SZ 91 on G1 and Italy’s turn goes after the UK.  It actually seems the best move since moving the CV, DD, and TAC up to help defend England will just get them killed by the German U-boats and Luftwaffe.  Italy doesn’t have enough naval units to respond, which I find is crap, since they had a fairly large navy for just the Med, and also quite a few submarines (where are Italy’s 116 starting submarines?  Germany had about 250 throughout the war and starts in AAE40 with FIVE)!

So “fails”, dice are gone and need to be rebought.  The “research dice” and “researcher” thingums are separate, got it.

Nothing in the rules this time around about whether the tech dice are rolled again next round if they miss (like the research dice in AA50) or if you have to spend money all over again.  I’m assuming its back to the previous tech rules for Revised and Classic, but there’s nothing said about what to do even if your research rolls fail.

Can somebody clarify this, please?  (Kreighund, IL?)

Yo!  I just moved the Lubbock, TX area this month to complete my schooling, and I know absolutely NO GAMING GROUPS out there at all.  There were a few friends in Austin, TX that I played AA50 a few times with, but alas, the arrival of Global AA40 coincided with my departure.

I talked to a few gaming stores (THE few gaming stores that exist in Lubbock) in town and they said there used to be a Wargamers West company out here that supplied the majority of their products until it went belly-up a few years ago.  Are there any people in the area still playing Axis and Allies?  I’d like to host a game of AA40 Global if there are people willing to play.

With the new complexity (and sheer size and magnitude AND duration) of the new Global setup, it’d probably take a weekend to finish a game, but I’m down with online games too (when that option becomes available).  (I also don’t mind driving around a bit, if its on the weekend, so Dallas and El Paso works for me).  Send me a PM if you’re interested.

@bugoo:

What I mean by that is i could buy 2 mechs and a fighter for 18, or three tanks for 18.  I’ll take the mechs/fighter any day of the week.  And i’ll still have more units than russia because of my income being nearly double his, and I won’t have to waste as many units defending my coasts because UK/US need more surface ships to protect there transports.

Inf, art, mechs, and planes will win the day in russia for germany.  You don’t need tanks when you can afford to buy a fighter for every tank your opponent purchases, along with a mech.

Ugh, watch Russia move in some AA guns with the infantry stacks and I’ll watch you cry.

The opponent could also buy 1 tank/1 mech for the cost of one of your fighters.

@mike:

Wait could somebody tell me how USA is making 100 IPCs? I was under the impression that with the 30 IPC wartime bonus they make something like 82.

After devouring Italy/N. Africa.

@chompers:

The more I’ve played this game so far the more it seems to benefit the Axis the most for Germany to preserve its forces after its G1 offensives and not commit to any sort of attack against either Russia or Britain.  Even a successful Sea lion ( the earliest I can see this being feasible is G3) will be snatched back in US4 which means the IPC bonus from the conquest doesn’t even come close to defraying the cost spent in making it happen in the first place.  On the Russian side of things I see even less chance of success for Germany as there seems to be no viable way of coming close to Moscow with the force necessary to beat the 10 R inf deploying there every turn before the first US transport convoys are rolling into a completely inadequately defended Italy.  The Germans in Russia are then forced to retreat back to Berlin to shore up defenses there (if it’s not already too late) thus begging the question why bother in the first place?  Isn’t it better just to leave the Germans in position to defend Denmark, West Germany and Gibraltar?  All of which eventually become hopeless fights as the US continues to leverage its overwhelming IPC advantage and Germany is forced to retreat to Berlin for its last stand while hoping the Japs can take Moscow before the US take all of Europe.

I kinda wish Germany could just occupy Italy turn 1 so the Axis could actually get something going in the Med.  :-D  As it is, removing the Indian fighters from India to Africa allows the Brits to lock down Africa and eventually the Med. as well when the Brit ships fleeing the Pacific make their way through the Suez.  Italy just can’t seem to really contribute anything substantial to the game except to hand over already built IC’s to their new American overlords.  It just seems to me the Axis situation in Europe is ultimately hopeless in the face of US industrial might, and any Jap strat I’ve come up with so far to lock up the US is solely dependent on whether the US player has any idea how to play the game, and all of which are far more risky than just gunning straight for Russia.

TL:DR
Global 40 seems to be Monster US beating up on Germany vs Monster Japan beating up on Russia.

I thought this too, in one game of AA50-41, I had Germany mostly send navy and air down into the Med to help out Italy against a determined British and US player; this ensured that the Russian front was the weakest front imaginable after 3 turns in.  After 3 turns I was building all inf/art as Germany, trying like hell to turtle against the Reds till the Japs arrived, and running out of gas in the Med.  Fortunately the Japs arrived in time to turn back the Allies at Gibraltar, but since Russia had generally been ignored for 5-6 rounds, the Japs couldn’t make a dent in their stacks with the forces they had leftover from India.  Russia eventually ended up crushing everything on the map with overwhelming numbers of inf/tanks.

Axis players beware!  If you leave your boot off Russia’s throat for too long they will come back and kill you!  Germany needs to attack Russia at some point just to give the Japanese player a chance when they come in to finish Moscow off.

Japan attacking America might work, but I think it’d be better to put their forces where the rest of the Allies are: Italy!

Jeez, the Allies are letting Japan get away with India and are still winning games?

Maybe the Japanese player isn’t doing his job of moving enough forces into Africa and Europe.

One tactic that worked well in AA50 was for Germany to either build a factory in France or a fleet in the Baltic, and somehow contrive a way for a German carrier to be put/sent into the Med to help Italy out.  After a few turns Italy could afford CVs of its own, so Italian CVs were built with extra German fighters on it to stack with the German fleet off Gibraltar.  This usually worked pretty good holding off the Brits and US for a few turns.  THEN, after Japan has taken India, they send a few loaded CVs, BB, and planes up through the Suez to join up with the rest of the Axis to hold the Med.  Usually Japan at this point can finish taking over Moscow from the Nazis and initiates the final attacks to destroy the Western fleets in the Atlantic.

If you can force the Allies into spending their $$$ on ships and planes for a combined Axis fleet battle that can be reinforced easily around Italy, you can essentially split the Western Allies forces since they can only attack with one power a turn, versus you defending with three.  This way they also never can come up with the $ for transports much less ground troops for invading the mainland.  If Italy can hold in the Med, pretty much the rest of the Axis are safe as well since it would take a lot of time for the Allies to manuever their ships towards Germany.  If you hold the Allies at Gibraltar they can’t even send troops to Africa, which will eventually leave Britain as a rump state as Italy takes all of it.

@bugoo:

I’m not too sure about the ally advantage in global.  Yes Russia will be a beast, but Germany will be as well, and italy may actually be useful!  Other thing to keep in mind is the US are out 40 IPCs that they would have in the seperate games, and all NO money for UK goes to UK, not India.  Thats 5 IPCs first turn, and on turn 2 without a war dec 10 more that India does not get that they would normally get.

I actually fear a UK pincer in global with both India and London getting taken out, or at least be something that forces the allies to play a specific way to avoid losing them both on turn 3ish.

Indeed!  The Axis can really gang up on the poor British to leave them with nothing but ANZAC at the beginning of Round 4!  However, looking at the cost to the Axis war effort, that’s about as far as they’ll get if that’s all they do.  Germany will need to buy so many TRNs to make Sealion an effective tactic, that unless the USA is completely stupid, the Sealion fleet can easily be blown out of the water US4 with England liberated as well.  You can still make hay out of threatening a Sealion if Britain insists on ignoring Germany UK1.

I’m thinking more realistically that India will be the first major power to fall (less chance of major reinforcements), hopefully followed by either the Soviet Union or ANZAC.  If the Axis can’t get India to fall by Round 5, I’m thinking that with Russian help added to the British stack that taking India will be impossible.  Remember, the Axis historically did not prepare for long, dragged out wars like in WWI!  The Allies also have the biggest swing on the board, in the form of an 82 IPC Godzilla USA lurking in the background.

With an 82 IPC USA in this game, the gameplay shouldn’t drag out quite so much as previous games.

Like any Mexicans want to go to foreign Europeen war for the damn Gringo Yanquis!

@bugoo:

Um, to me it seems that a turn 1 buy of navy is foolish for a sea lion.  You would be better served to place your BB/Cru out to kill the two cruisers with some air help, make sure no brit DDs survive, then purchase a fighter or two, and some subs while hiding the transport in the baltic.  Then if UK leaves itself open with there purchases, as in they buy navy or squander it in the med, then on G2 you should purchase enough boats to keep a fleet alive in 112, and a crapton of not just transports, but planes.  Planes can hit UK, and help to keep the US at bay.

And if the UK wastes its air killing your ships, so be it.

Nope, the UK can splash your fleet in SZ 112 unless you back it up with at least 1 CV + 2 FIGs.  There’s 2 BBs in range, multiple DDs, 1 CV/TAC/DD off Gibraltar that can reach, 3 FIG off England….  SZ 112 is a gonner if you move any naval units there without serious backup.

You could try to hide out in SZ 113 the first few turns and not use the BB and CA at all, but its going to be really hard to kill the entire RCN with just the subs and airforce w/o taking losses.  Even if you didn’t move it out of the Baltic until G3, the UK can build 2 FIGs a turn and will eventually use its starting 3 FIGs, 1 TAC to take out the BB and CA unless you build extra fodder naval units.  Hence, I’d recommend a CV G1.

By G3 you’re looking at over 20 inf in the UK plus all their planes, you’d have to build something like NINE TRANSPORTS to even get even odds attacking that.

LOL, LHoffman, quit whining, Sealion is the WORST POSSIBLE GERMAN STRATEGY.  The Jerries can take England, but it will be at most for 1 turn, and then they won’t have anything left to fight Russia much less hold onto England from US counterattacks.

The G1 buy will have to be 1 AC, DD, and SUB.  The G2 buy will have to be NINE TRANSPORTS.  There’s no infantry built in there anywhere, and you’re committing around 20 ground units to the assault, for a battle with slightly less than even odds.  Even if you dice well, its inevitable you’re going to lose England since there’s no conceivable way you can hold the UK against an 82+ IPC USA.