@Eggman:
Only fighters can intercept. Bombers, of either type, cannot.
Right, but the attacking bombers still get rolls at 1 in the intercept phase, correct?
AFAIK all aircraft engaged in a SBR Intercept get the opportunity to roll @1, both defensive and offensive units.
Hence flying 3 Ftr to escort 3 Bombers may discourage the defender from intercepting with their 3 Ftr because they are exchanging 10 IPC aircraft and unable to stop the SBR before the factories roll.
The best use of those Russian units is to get 3 IPC for China and allowing China to place units in Manchuria (hopefully with artillery).
Doing this creates problems for Japan as a large stack of Inf covering a growing Chinese Army is problematic.
Granted this doesn’t always work out the way you want. However, as Russia I am always waiting for the opportunity to take Manchuria so that China can stack an army there.
I don’t particularly care for the race back to Moscow with those units, because it basically gives Japan the green light to ignore the northern Chinese front which means the DEI and India face more Japanese units. Even worse is when you’re halfway back to Moscow and all of a sudden Japanese armor just sucked nearly 5 IPC / round of territories from you and you have to decide to stop the bleeding and make a stand or keep retreating to Moscow.
I still think that Russia should have the option in something like Round 6 to move half the 18 Inf via “train” to the Western Front, forfeit the Mongolian event and lose the other half of those Inf.
I know, I reached out to a statistics wizard I know and when he started getting into the calculations of it I basically said “nevermind” as it was too complicated to follow with my Business Stat 101 understanding of probability.
I generally just stick to counting up my roundels that would count as hits in the first round and count up the defender’s roundels and if I outnumber the defender’s roundels, its worth a single round of die rolls. When the roundel tide turns against me in that battle, its no longer worth rolling dice and is time to retreat.
I make exceptions for when a counter-attack would cede the territory I’d be retreating to as I’d rather weaken the counter attacking force’s fodder than retreat and cede the territory with only a single round of die rolls likely to occur.
Be interesting if there was a “cheat sheet” for different combinations of units getting at least 1, 2 and 3 hits.
We don’t allow the use of outside “inputs” once we start a game, but would be nice if you could commit some of the more standard combinations to memory such as 2 Inf 2 Art getting 1, 2 or 3 hits or 2 Armor and 2 Mech scoring 1, 2 or 3 hits.
I always liked the Bulgarian addition to Italy. Those 4 Inf are useful, but it sort of commits Italy to covering Romania for German advances in the North which generally means a stream of Mech coming from N.Italy to Romania.
Its one thing to tamper with income levels to create balance, I’ve no objection to that.
But pretending that infantry walked, and tanks drove across the world towards battle fronts is warping us into a parallel universe.
You could always design your own game ;)
The only help I give Italy with Germany these days is a Ftr to scramble against the UK attack against the Italian BB on UK1
The question is… What to do?�
I wouldn’t veer off your normal strategies just yet. With that said:
Take Sumatra and stack your UK ships there. Bring 2 Inf. This forces Japan to either ignore your ships or fight your ships and bring enough units to displace your 2 Inf. Every diversion buys you time in the Pacific.
Counter attack at Hawaii, bring every air unit in range (basically every aircraft you have on the board can reach), plus your fleet. Sunk Japanese ships are good, particularly early in the game. I’d buy 8 SS on US1. Get some of them to convoy Italy, with the rest in position to threaten a counter-counter-counter in Hawaii if Japan is even position to do so. Japan has limited DD, so forcing her to deal with a average sized fleet and fat stack of SS poses problems. You can convoy the J1 gains rather quickly with 3-5 SS sitting off Tokyo before the mid game hits.
I don’t see how Sea Lion makes sense with that Russian strafe. Buy your normal 6 Inf and 1 Ftr. Send your Bomber and your remaining units after the Italian fleet. Shut Italy down from shucking units to Africa and keep her on the mainland whilst setting up the US to get SS into convoy Italy out of the game before she can respond to the threat.
As Anzac I’d take DNG, get the 5 IPC NO. Its worthless to Japan, but worth 5 IPC to you. She doesn’t have time to divert resources to take it away from you with a J1 DOW. Stack your ships with the TT, forcing Japan to split her fleet/aircraft to address both the UK fleet off Sumatra and the Anzac fleet off DNG (I’d consider flying my 3 Ftr there as well).
Basically Divide and Conquer Japan and call Germany’s Sea Lion Bluff.
WW2 is something everyone relates to. World.War.Two. It engulfed the Pacific and European areas of the world in dramatic fashion and was fought by every major power in the world (even if they didn’t know they were a major power when it started).
Some of those powers still exist today, and there are still people alive that fought in those wars, whose kids heard stories, whose grandkids heard stories and those grandkids are getting ready to have their own kids if they haven’t already. Its a generational thing. World War I is slowly lost in memory. For example, when I was in high school we barely broached much of WW1 in history class and outside of Germany being the bad guy, I don’t know how it all developed. Many of the other wars we know are less involved, and in many cases isolated to one region or country of the world. Less… glamorous.
What makes WW2 magical from a board game perception is how involved the entire globe was in it. Not many wars (if any) can even boast of that. That makes the board game of WW2 so magical.
Now don’t get me wrong, some wars touch people in different ways, but we’ll never glamorize Korea or Vietnam the way we do WW2. Although the Civil War from a strategic perspective is awesome, I don’t think it can sell well when it was over slavery and an embarrassing admission that it existed as was fought over in the USA. There may be board games to replay those wars, but the scope pales in comparison to how compelling WW2 was on a global effort.
I highly doubt a WW1 or Civil War board game will reach as many kitchen tables as WW2 games, particularly of the A&A Brand.
http://www.mailsbroadcast.com/the.artofwar.6.htm
I’d like to emphasize that with the Allies, the goal is to remove Axis initiative, so think about some of the things Sun Tzu wrote about with the ultimate goal of forcing the Axis into defensive buys instead of aggressive ones. From that point forward you can starve them of resources and ultimately force them to concede.
With that being said, some things to remember:
Japan can only win the game if the US does nothing in the Pacific. So while you are waiting to join the war, get ships in the Pacific with a general outline of matching Japan’s fleet size and never splitting your own fleet. This basically means 1 Battleship and 2 Carriers in the Pacific. You have enough planes to fill those carriers. Consolidate on Hawaii and follow Sun Tzu’s strategy to beat your enemy to the position of strength. Japan has a much harder time replacing her ships than the US does - so trading ships with Japan is not a bad thing, particularly early.
The US can assist in Europe by establishing a Convoy against Italy. Make sure your US2 and US3 purchases include subs. This is the fastest way the US can assist with the European War Effort. Placing 2-3 SS off of Italy really hurts their income.
The US strategy of getting the SS into the Med goes hand in hand with the UK plan - which is two fold:
First is to defend London. Purchase a large amount of Inf on UK1 and possibly a Ftr (depending if you elected to scramble on the G1 attack).
Second is to neuter the Italian Navy. Trading ships with Italy is fine, as Italy finds it much harder to place a fleet once she loses it. Even if it costs the UK most of her naval presence in the Med, slowing down Italy’s expansion takes pressure off of Cairo which is generally the lynchpin of a European winning strategy.
Further, this strategy opens the door for the US to stage off of Gibraltar and follow another of Sun Tzu’s writings: Strategic Positioning. The ability for the Allies to mass their fleets at Gibraltar through UK purchases in Canada and the US purchases allows you to consolidate into a single place of power (another Sun Tzu strategy). This coincides with another Sun Tzu writing: Confuse the Opponent. By staging in Gibraltar the Allies threaten every major IC in Europe:
-N.Italy
-S.Italy
-W.Germany
-In a 1-2 punch you can take Denmark and then land on Berlin
Above all, remember this when playing as the Allies: Be ever ready to change strategy according
to the changing conditions of the opponent.
Ah so minors are the global equivalent of pro-axis or pro-allied neutral with the wrinkle of contested territory thrown in.
I was trying to follow the Romanian part where Russia considers the Romanian units her own.
Does that mean if you reinforce a contested location, all allied units participate both offensively and defensively?
Yes, moved and positioned like a few have mentioned. Now at turn 5 two main fleets, J in Philippines and US in Pearl are poised. So I suppose the next move is upon Japan. Europe side as some have mentioned, I have a few transports and cover at Gibraltar, not enough to take and hold but enough to redirect Germany off of USSR a bit. So I think by happenstance its panning out sort-of textbook in nature.
Concerned that J will bring his fleet down on my Pearl fleet but I think loss or marginal win I, the US, will win due to IPC superiority. Japan sitting at roughly 44 and US at 75. These next couple turns later today will determine. India is not threatened to heavily as his fleet does not have enough ground troops to do anything.
If you are playing face to face, you might offer up some table talk that you don’t think your fleet in Hawaii would survive a Japanese attack.
The reason I say that is as follows: You are much better off as a defender in a naval battle than the aggressor. Japan sacrifices much in attacking a large US fleet with that considered. So acting like you don’t expect to win may encourage the Japanese player to attack you in Pearl - which is exactly what you want.
Why? The US can replace her fleet much easier than Japan can. And generally, if Japan loses her fleets, the war in the Pacific results at worst in a stalemate, and at best Japan convoyed out of the game and isolated on her little island chain.
So, act like there’s no way you can win and mention offhand that you’re going to have to figure out what to do when you lose Pearl.
Just my thoughts, let us know how it goes.
Remember you can always NCM past a blocking ship if you clear it during the combat phase. Blockers are not the be-all end-all of naval strategies.
Note the Axis can blitz into Spain from S.France, Normandy, Paris, N.Italy.
It can make landings in Spain from WGr, S.Italy and Germany depending if the English Channel is blocked or not.
I wouldn’t expect you to hold Spain long even if you effectively took it on US2 or US3. Besides, the Axis could easily afford that blitzing investment with free units in Sweden and Turkey putting 42 free IPC worth of units on the board for them to address Russia.
All the while Japan is going apeshiznit in the Pacific with only token presence of the US there to deter them.
I’d expect Japan to be making 70+ IPC in no time and potentially forcing the US to abandon reinforcing Spain because Japan only needs the Aussies or Hawaii to win the game in the Pacific.
Always, always (in my opinion) stifle Japan’s growth at a minimum before you invest heavily in Europe.
I’ve found newer players try to keep the US out of the war until the US can declare.
When that is the case, just build enough of a fleet (probably US1 is 1 battleship, 2 carriers) and move every aircraft to Hawaii.
After that Japan has probably lost itself the game in the Pacific and you just need to plan on convoying her out of the game and destroying her ships so she cannot expand.
The rest of your IPC should go towards your first landing fleet in Europe. Remember you want to protect your transports, so make sure your fleet, combined with a UK one is enough to deter Germany from attacking your fleets (generally if each side has a carrier with aircraft, a battleship or two and a handful of DD Germany won’t have enough firepower to make it a tasty target to attack). The rest of your IPC should be spent to get yourself 3 rounds of 4-5 TT flowing - one from the US to Gib, one from Gib to Italy, Norway or Europe somewhere, and a third returning from Gib to the US to pick up more units.
Thats a general outline, its not very specific because the US is more of a reactive play type - as you have to react to and anticipate the Axis moves. Once the US is dictating the tempo, the Axis are on their way to losing barring a lucky roll of the dice.
I prefer the simplicity, but I see the point.
In example you have 6 units that should lose to a superior force. In the first round the attacker has terrible rolls and only lands 2 hits. You have 4 units remaining, but to save 2 units you have to leave 2 units behind for the attacker to roll against. In effect it becomes low luck by taking x amount of units off the board but you get to preserve the remaining 2 units.
I think its a better balance for the defender allowing low luck scenarios to occur, but requires the attacker to first experience an ill-fated roll. The trade-off is that the defender doesn’t lose all their units in the process, which is the biggest gripe from low luck as I see it. It gives the attacker the territory they wanted, at the expense of a few units escaping.
I would posit that the lone exception to my rule would be TT cannot retreat unless they are escorted by surface warships.
@Herr:
On a side note: is Normandy-Bordeaux indeed a good place to build subs for Germany? I’d rather spend my money on land units. Why try an arms race where the Allies can easily outproduce you? Germany buys a sub, America buys a destroyer, Russia is happy � or am I missing something there?
Every DD the Allies build to counter an Axis sub is 2 IPC they lose in the economic game. The tradeoff is 2 Inf or 1 Armor against Moscow. However, if you can effectively force the UK to spend IPC on DD to prevent convoys, they aren’t building units to invade Europe.
So with that said, a few subs sprinkled in wins an economic cost/benefit analysis early for the Axis as DD purchased by the Allies are harmless in the grand scheme of protecting Europe and equates to less units initially landing for an inevitable invasion.
The only real question is, can Germany afford to not have a half dozen infantry or 3 armor to take Moscow. That depends on the dice.
It really works well.
We’ve found that it’s not the -Big- battles where you get screwed.
It’s the little ones…
- You send two fighters and a bomber against a destroyer.
- You miss with everything and he hits…
- Having already lost a fighter, you roll your fighter and bomber, MISS again, he hits again
- Now you’re screwed, you just lost two fighters for nothing, after 7 dice are rolled.
- Do you continue with the bomber? Hell no, you’re outta there, -20 IPC’s…
That scenario has surely happend to all of you.
Medium luck eliminates those kinds of scenario’s for the attacker.
And for the Defender, Low Luck always screws them. � You have 3 infantry defending a territory you HAVE to keep, and your opponent only has 2 infantry, but a handful of planes.
With LL, he just takes your pieces off the board and removes one of his own.
With Medium luck, you can call for a hot streak, and roll to get 2, or 3 of his JUICY pieces, and then maybe losing that territory wasn’t so bad!
It’s even more historically explanable than dice.
-choosing a Low Luck battle, is like choosing a conventional military strategic approach to a situation
-choosing to roll dice, is like choosing an out of the box solution/gamble, that’s either going to pay off huge, or blow up in your face.IMO all future axis and allies games should be medium luck!
Medium luck also totally deflates the “I had a bad dice game” complaint. Because you can always throw it back “It was your call to go with dice.”
Case closed, game improves, lots of fun, there are still chance variables, but they are yours to CONTROL!
From a different perspective:
Defenders are never afforded an opportunity to retreat. Attackers are. Its not the defender’s fault they are trapped and have to roll dice to continue the battle. Further, its not their fault that you elected to trade 2 fighters for a destroyer because the destroyer cannot retreat and was forced to roll dice. There was a 1 in 3 odds that you’d lose at least one of your units in the attack in the first round.
Granted the odds were in the attackers favor, but historically odds don’t always reflect the outcome of battles.
My proposed solution:
Defenders may retreat anytime the attackers have the opportunity to retreat and elect not to. In order to do so, the defender has to leave units equal to the units lost that round in combat but may retreat all units in excess of that to an adjacent territory the defender controlled before combat begun, or into an uncontested sea zone.
Always placed dice, because, well, it comes with the game and that is what you are supposed to roll when deciding combat.
Never tried low luck, but don’t see much point to as dice put enough variability into deciding the battles for me.
