Best posts made by Stucifer

I printed a PtV map image on banner vinyl. Playing our first game on it this weekend!

@dawgoneit @mikawagunichi Thanks guys, appreciate it -
I don’t want to freak anyone out, this is a personal break but I’m in good health and looking forward to coming back eventually. I found that I had crossed the balancing line in my personal life. Need some time away to recalibrate and have healthy space for my gaming addiction(s) while still accomplishing my work/life goals ;)

Cheers
Stu

@gamerman01 Absolutely correct!

From left to right
@Daaras
@avandoo
@stucifer
@mikawagunichi

Been playing Stalingrad and Global (Larry Harris 1942 setup with GenCon Tournament Rules) with @mikawagunichi and @Daaras this weekend!

I posted this in the strategy discussion thread, I published a video going over my J2 strategy a couple days ago and a new video today discussing PTV changes from OOB.

J2 Strategy video:
https://youtu.be/0JK0TXDrYGY?si=U_sTL42aK_FfuH4j

Introduction to PTV:
https://youtu.be/YPJ_I0qxGBU?si=bYbZHALTBa0n49-e

@crockett36 said in Anzac Shuck Into Europe:

@FranceNeedsMorePower I think it is imperative that Anzac stay in its lane in its ocean PTO.

Can’t agree more. ANZAC has very limited income and production capabilities. If they are making 20 per round due to NOs Japan is going to be in serious trouble. They can build 2 subs and a destroyer each round and assist the US deep in the Pacific. This is far more effective than shucking infantry into Africa or Gibraltar.

One of the #1 rules of Axis & Allies is to use overwhelming force. For that reason it is better to have most of your income and units being controlled by as few powers as possible. Germany at 80 IPCs/round and Italy at 3 is far more dangerous than Germany at 53 IPCs/round and Italy at 30.

The Allies income is already very distributed, which when coupled with generally longer supply lines, lowers the effect of their income lead. If you take Brazil with ANZAC you are:

1. not projecting any threat of trading islands or securing objectives with that ANZAC transport in the Pacific;
2. operating a very weak power far away from their power base

If you continue down this path, what do you do with the ANZAC infantry if you get them to Gibraltar or Africa? You need artillery, and preferably heavy air support, to go on the offensive.

Spending 34 IPCs (factory, harbor, transport) to then spend 6 IPCs per round shucking 2 ANZ infantry into a theater where they have no ability to project power is a complete misuse of resources and will cost you the game against a solid opponent. If you spent the same amount in the Pacific, you could have an additional fighter and 4 subs, plus another sub each round; as @crockett36 mentioned having a sub count higher than Japan’s destroyer count and the opportunity to shotgun them out to start convoying can do some serious, serious damage to the Japanese economy.

I went through 14 more pages and collected data on 226 more games to input.

Fun, watching it while I work. Love @crockett36’s comment about engineers and accountants, my older brother that got me into A&A is an engineer and I am an accountant. Who would have guessed!

Congrats Farmboy on the 2023 title!

Also, in a wild tech- (and quickly jet-)fueled match, heavy favorite @gamerman01 's Germany steamrolls through the USSR and towards Egypt for a decisive triumph over the Allies, despite Japan withering on the vine in the Pacific.

OOB +51 bid for Allies. I haven’t played OOB and didn’t realize just how weak the USSR is, tried to do too much with it, both stacking Yunnan with the aircraft and rushing fast movers to Iraq and toward Tobruk/Ethiopia for the N.O. cheese.

Tech played a factor, although Gamerman didn’t need it to cement a victory, it just assured it more quickly 😉

Germany got Long Range Aircraft on round 3 followed by Jet Power on round 5, with a purchase of 4 tokens total. USA missed 16 tech dice rolls in a row (1 token round 2, and then 3 tokens over the next 5 rounds).

https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/post/1719409

@regularkid said in League General Discussion Thread:

@Stucifer that is so freaking epic! very impressive. how are you differentiating the marines?

Right now, I have Marines for the US that I got from Historical Board Gaming. However I do not have marines for the other countries, so we are using German infantry with a Japanese occupation marker underneath for Japanese marines.

@regularkid said in League General Discussion Thread:

also, how do you handle the vichy units?

I put a black-backed occupation token on each Vichy territory and left the French units on the board. Since Germany opted for Vichy and the French fighter was lost in the 113 scramble, it’s not too confusing.

I’m also logging each end state in TripleA. Mostly to track income with all the NO conditions, easy to lose track of one. Added benefit since we have to clear the table for an activity tonight, but plan to continue playing tomorrow if the weather forecast holds!

@axis-dominion Personally if this happened in a game with me I’d just have my opponent reroll the turn, I think bad dice to an extreme like this in the first round of play (any power) is worth a quick reset keeping the moves the same. I would also extend that to a total upset in the attacker’s favor like if the opposite had happened in 110, losing 1 sub or something only as the Axis when the brits did a full scramble.

@crockett36 Come to PtV, where Axis get the bid and lose half the games! The water’s great 😉🇺🇸🇬🇧

We’ve had a resurgence in interest in PtV it seems, looks like we are around 80 games so far this year (I count 160 finished games in the ELO spreadsheet, but they each take 2 people). Compared to 51 I believe for 2023. That is either a massive uptick in interest or those of us playing are playing a lot more (@mikawagunichi leading the way at 30! games this year). I thought I would consult some ancient wisdom from yesteryear in the PTV Strategy thread here:

https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/35558/ww2-path-to-victory-strategies

Pleasantly surprised to say, I’ve been in the kitchen cooking and have a strategy not discussed at length. Most of the discussion was around the Germany-Russia front and J1 viability. Looking forward to sparking some discussion with my post (incoming) over there!

Cheers,
Stucifer

Will be another couple days before I can get to our games, sorry for the delay
@Adam514
@666
@ArtofWar1947
@crockett36
@GeneralDisarray
@surfer

Why I love PtV -

For anyone that hasn’t tried it out yet, let me give you a couple examples that wouldn’t be possible in regular OOB or BM (and certainly not any version that does not have airbases). The addition of scrambling fighters to defend sea zones was a huge improvement on the formula in my opinion. PtV allows airbases to scramble to adjacent land battles, and carriers to scramble just like an airbase up to 3 from each sea zone. That makes a split setup like this possible. Any individual Japanese fleet could possibly be crushed by the US air force, but with carrier scramble the odds are terrible. Even clearing more than one of the blockers in the second setup will be difficult.

@farmboy @Jacob16

Seconding the Proton mail for MARTI, I switched when I started playing again this past summer and I’m a big fan.

@barnee @gamerman01
I have used edit mode during a battle with subs before in a league game, if you are methodical, you select 0 casualties with the subs and then post the game save after the next dice rolls -

Then your opponent can see the dice in the game summary (and/or their MARTI email if they are so inclined), give OOL, and then you boot up the save and select the casualties and continue the battle.

If there’s a mistake at some point with casualty selection, if you’re posting the save file multiple times it should be “not-too-difficult”—albeit possibly annoying & frustrating—to go back to a specific round and redo the battle from there.

@Martin

I also have a game with him and worried as he hasn’t posted in any other threads in the interim.

@Martin said in League General Discussion Thread:

He hasn’t replied to my SMS and didn’t answer his cell phone, and I started to worry already a while ago.

If you have his cell number and he hasn’t answered, that is very sad to hear. I hope he is ok. He is an institution around here!

@cloud7707

Axis & Allies Anniversary was the box that got me back into Axis & Allies when it was reprinted a few years ago. I loved the seemingly dynamic options of the 1941 setup. Without enough games against different opponents to find a “balance” point myself, I did find that playing with National Objectives is heavily slanted towards the Axis.

There was a discussion that an Indian IC could balance things out

I tried a few things to continue playing as Axis, with National Objectives. One of them was giving India and South Africa a starting IC. This helped the UK hold the Indian Ocean for a while longer, but it also took pressure off Germany and so it almost always still resulted in an Axis victory.

Even if the US decides to go after Japan, they cannot stop them from taking all of Asia, from India to all of China and the Eastern parts of Russia.

Egypt & India both need a little boost, if you give 1 Infantry to Egypt, India, and Yunnan, and don’t play with National Objectives I think it is a pretty balanced game despite the clear strong position of Japan (especially in terms of air force!).

I highly recommend checking out @The_Good_Captain 's excellent video discussing the balance of A&A 1941 scenario:
https://youtu.be/QModTkxr7rs?si=JSgw7Ri52RkaANXz

@gamerman01 It seems @mikawagunichi has gotten his (friends/brothers?) @daaras @avandoo back to league play, or did they return on their own…

Either way, I am grateful, more fodder for us in the middle of the ELO pack so I can intersperse my losses to ArtofWar and GeneralDisarray with losses to people my own skill level! 😉