Just one thought on a house rule - has anyone place 1 UK inf on each of the UK islands from Borneo to the Solomons?
Maybe it would at least delay Japanese expansion. After all they have the best NO in the game - 3 territories with no resistance on? Even the Germans have to kill some Russian inf G1… and that’s still a giveaway!
It’s always worth remembering that the US bombers can get there - in case the Japanese forget and mistakenly drop a couple of transports in their waters J1.
I’ve only played a few games - but what I’ve found is that the Japanese are pretty much unstoppable!
Efforts to stall the Japanese with a IC in India seem to be fairly successful if my nook and by crook and by some lucky Rnd 1 dice you can prevent India falling Rnd 2.
I’ve tried building a US fleet (subs ahoy!) and ended up with 13 subs, 3 cruisers, 3 destroyers, and AC and 2 Ftrs and a transport.
By this point the Japanese were virtually in Moscow and had matched my sub buys with about 9 destroyers. They retreated to Formosa SZ and simply kept guard over the Asian mainland. I wonder if I also had built an effective India IC whether the pressure might have overwhelmed the Japanese - but as it was Russia and the UK had their hands full with Germany - and had received virtually no US support…
Can some of the more seasoned players offer feedback about stopping the Japanese with a Pacific strategy? Is it possible without losing Russia to the Germans?
@ABWorsham:
The Soviets had the T-34 and KV-1 when the Germans still had the Panzer III as a frontline machine.
But that was only for the first year, and the Germans still kicked a$$.
is it not strange that the halting of the German advance coincides with the US’s entry into the war?
The Germans were able to advance dramatically again in 1942 though. I don’t think the major impact of US involvement came till the middle of that year - and the need by Germany to support Italy in North Africa. By 1943 large amounts of German armour were being pulled from the eastern front to save Italy itself. The 1941 defeat of the Germans had two architects - Hitler and the Russian winter.
However - it is fair to say that once the US was at war with JAPAN - the Russians knew that their back door was safe for a while enabling to concentrate force that had previously been in limbo awaiting a possible Japanese invasion.
I think some people even use AAA for anti-aircraft artillery.
I joined it up with the US carrier force loaded with art+inf.
The Japanese had taken Hawaii, so the US bought subs to scare the AC’s off and the brits took hawaii back turn two where they rendez-voused with US Carrier, ftrs, dd and subs on that US turn.
A couple of rounds later they took the carolines, and the Japanese did not have transports in range to take them back.
Then they got sunk.
Is it necessary to have France in the game at all if we are going post Dunkirk?
I understand that the conquest of France can be seen as split tactically between the initial Blitzkrieg through the Ardennes to Abbeville and the coast and then the much more convential mopping up of the Battle of France (during which time the Germans reverted to much more Poland like tactics). Therefore it just makes me wonder what this game will be like…
I’m not sure. I think that the further we go from the Axis high water mark the more complications come into play. For instance - without ridiculous numbers of pieces how will the Battle of Britain be simulated? Radar stations? Convoys? Airfields? London? Also - going immediately post Dunkirk leaves the Germans no alternative but to wheel round and attack Russia like they do in AAE anyway. Unless you figure in the non-agression pact and restrict the Russian player from breaking it. In which case - why have a Russian player?
I’m skeptical - sorry. I know it’s all a bit negative - but if you pull this one off you’ll be a genius!
Im firing off a letter to these shitstains and I advise all of you to do the same.
‘Dear shitstains…’ :lol: :lol: :lol:
But falcomrider. Why not just play on the revised board? I actually prefer the fact that the reviseed map is in a different style. As you say - reproducing the style of AA50 literally just makes this board seem like a dummied down version of that game.
Also we must remember - revised is a good boardgame in its own right!
C’mon guys. Is there ANY A&A game that has the board set up on the back? I’m sure they all have some mythical mid-game scenario set up. In which the Japanese have China, Australia and Hawaii, leaving the Russians secure enough to buy a battleship and the british hurrying to save South Africa.
@Subotai:
I don’t know very much about the WW2 in the Pacific/Asia, the WW2 was mainly decided in Europe. But we should have some relevant Asian warfare also, although the global power policies for several decades was determined by the outcome of WW2, and in this context the European relevance was the strongest, and both Europe and Asia was important theaters for the post WW2 world.
Well… in a sense we hear more about the ramifications for Europe. But probably the single most important aspect in Asia of the allied victory was the liberation of an enormous part of China and millions of people there. Which though it isn’t spoken of as often is probably comparable to the ‘liberation’ of eastern Europe and the Caucasus, Ukraine and Belorussia. (I place it in quotation marks because we didn’t really liberate them - we gave them to Stalin).
It is undoubted that had Japan not been defeated - they would have been left with a massive, savagely administered empire throughout east Asia comparable in scale to the most megalomaniac of nazi ambitions in Europe.
The problem faced by game designers is recognising that the size of oceans is counteracted by the freedom of movement. Basically - although the distance is immense - you could sail from Hawaii to Japan (without opposition) much more quickly than you could move over ground from Berlin to Moscow - where the density of enemy forces is greater, you are restricted by transporty networks and terrain. After all - off the top of my head - it only took the Japanese carriers about 2 weeks to physically cross the distance from Japan to the USA. Similarly the ‘doolittle raid’ in 1942 by US bombers on the Japanese homelands took about 2 weeks to get within striking range of Japan.
This illustrates the fundamental difference between terrestrial and marine combat - which war games have to factor in. The distances across the world’s oceans ARE vast - but they are also relatively empty - and a fleet at full steam can move with surprising speed around them.
Even the lightning success of Barbarossa in 1941 put the Germans within striking range of Moscow 4 months after crossing the starting line at east Poland. (Hitler’s meddling slowed things - but again this was a symptom of the greater compexities of facing a foe on solid ground that they have occupy).
Also - just taking the distance across the aleutians as a guide - but the Pacific Ocean (massive as it is) seems to have been made EVEN bigger!
I think that many of us in our minds eye (especially those with an interest in the history of WWII) idle occassional moments imagining where we would put extra ‘pivotal’ territories or where it would be better to have an extra space (In AA50 I hate the proximity of Australia and the Phillipines as opposed to revised), but really I think A&A does a good job. I mean we could reach a level of complexity where we are adding hedges to western France to simulate the bocage. At which point I might as well give up work, study, food, romance, or socialising entirely and just retired to a boardgaming commune!
PS: It does suck about triple A. If anything because a lot of people spent a lot of time putting all that together and now it’s been f**ked.
It’s just important to stay informed about where things go from here. Where there’s a will there’s a way. There must be ways for the willing to get around legal restrictions.
We wait and see.
PPS: I doubt an A&A game is going to come out from Hasbro. In reality - whenever I looked at Triple A they had at most a few 100 downloads. It’s hardly a market for a commercial game is it?
That’s why I don’t understand Hasbro - they seem to be being rather petty about it all. It’s not like there’s copies of AA50 not flying off the shelves while triple A downloads are hitting their second million. (I live in London and got my AA50 from NEW ZEALAND for chrissakes).
Hey ho.
@Imperious:
.
Advanced Artillery, Mechanized Infantry and a few others are ‘tricks’ to avoid directly adding these units to the game as new pieces, but ‘invented’ by taking the existing ideas and adding nothing really in terms of a new idea that leads to a new dynamic strategy.
NO reality has these technologies in a game. Both existed in WW1. If you look at the actual major technologies that were important and first used in WW2, both of these would NEVER make the list.
Well maybe they could have done both - had it as tech - and create pieces which could only be used after the tech was acquired. I always thought they should have done that with jet fighters from 2nd Ed. on.
You could have a helicopter tech! (God knows what it would be).
I feel it would be worth saying how to calculate the odds of getting x hits out of y dice. I’ll use 2 dice having to land at a one as an example.
There are 2 possible ways to have one 1 showing. Die A is a 1 and Die B is something 2-6 or Die A is something 2-6 and Die B is a 1.
You then find the odds of each event happening.
Die A is a 1: 1/6 x 5/6 = 5/36
Die B is a 1: 5/6 x 1/6 = 5/36And you then add the two probabilities to find the total.
5/6 + 5/6 = 10/36 = 5/18 = 27.8% chance that you will land one hit.I hope this helps.
Hey Butcher, thanks to you and Pin for the explanations - I’m not great on maths and you both have a good way of explaining this stuff. Just one thing to point out though is the typo above, I guess the probabilities being added at the bottom are actually 5/36 + 5/36 as opposed to the 5/6 you typed.
Just thought I would point this out as it had me scratching my head for quite a while before digging out my calculator and before I realised it was typo! I may not be the only one!
No offence Adler, but it was pretty clear to me!
Hey Corbeau,
I tend to play with dice - and (being bored at work!) I tried out your strategy on triplea and got some good results - with good German dice. In fact - Germany held Karelia and had 3 Fighters!
Russia was on the ropes.
The only thing was that the British (I left the Cruiser to bombard) were left in the Atlantic with three destroyers and a cruiser - to which I added another cruiser and a 3 transports and 2 tanks. This was already a formidable force by UK2 which I used to decimate german units I had place in Karelia.
Germany held Karelia - but she lost all her tanks there. The only tanks available were ones I had place in Germany on Round 2. Which would come through with a G1 infantry in round 3 I guess in east poland.
Additionally - weak axis forces in the south have lost the eastern Europe NO to Russia.
I don’t know. After all it’s just me playing solitaire on triplea and I’m definitely not the best player in the world - but I just reckon that Germany had great dice round 1, and won all her battles - had income of 52 IPCs. But the UK fleet simply cannot be ignored. Or you’ll have serious troubles holding those northern coasts…
I think that put simply, the eastern Europe NO is easier to get and reinforce than the Karelia NO in G1. Why sacrifice taking that NO in favour of Karelia?
I don’t believe that Germany can effectively:
Take Egypt.
Destroy the Royal Navy.
Take Karelia.
AND take BS, Ukr, and EP.
Without desparately overstretching herself and losing a crippling amount of Airforce.
Especially when - if played well, there is no reason that Karelia cannot be taken G2.
Statistics is not my strong point. This is just my gut instinct.
Good question about low risk Japan opening Lynxes. But does it matter as much as with Germany?
How is Japan’s high risk opening punished? The Russians and Brits in Europe have the foundations of a powerful attack force which can be rallied against a reckless Germany. Who’s there in the pacific to punish the Japanese?
@Corbeau:
Nice move but even if Triple A allows to do it, I am not sure if you really can send your fighters so far out without the carriers being in range to recover.
The thing is that in theory, carriers can’t recover your fighters unless you pass trough the BB.
It works out since you can recover in non-combat but I am not sure if its legal since at fighter launch, you can’t recover them due to ennemy ships in the way.
Either it is legal, or it’s a triple A error to allow the move.
I had exactly the same doubts Corbeau, but checked it on the main AA50 forum and it was confirmed that this is indeed legal (and explained in detail on pg 26 of the rulebook). Aside US good luck - it is possible to destroy the BB, AC, DD, and Ftr - and hopefully end up with 2 carriers and 4 Ftrs pretty much out of harm’s way. Capturing Hawaii is a bit of a stretch - but I like it for a first turner anyway as it does give Japan those 5 IPCs straight away. To have a go at Hawaii you would (I think) have to take some pretty extreme risks.
1. 2 Ftrs Formosa SZ, 1 dd, 2 trns, 3 inf (offload inf Hawaii), carolines - Hawaii SZ (vs 1 BB) 90% chance of winning. (tripleA battle calc)
2. 3 inf Caolines, 1 Ftr, SZ 57 - Hawaii (vs 1 inf, 1 ftr). Which is 87% chance of a win
3. 3 Ftrs SZ 57 vs SZ 44 (1 DD, 1 Carrier, 1 Ftr) which is virtually 50/50. However - I’m not sure whether the battle calc takes into consideration that the US must lose their fighter before their carrier as the ftr has no landing spot.
I’ve tried this solitaire on Triple A and got all my targets. However - I found that the extra strain on the Japanese navy left various transports in vulnerable spots without escort and the Phillipines came down to a rather close for comfort 1 arm/1 inf vs 2 inf which the Japanese lost. Japan took Wake though so as to deprive the US immediately of the their Wake/Midway/Solomons/Hawaii NO.
None the less - the following US turn Japan would have lost most of its transports - or a carrier (in the Wake Island SZ, with a Cruiser and transport - no planes).
After trying a second time with more conservative tactics (Not taking hawaii) Japan still was overstretched. She lost 3 ftrs in the attack (30 IPCs) against the carriers for only 32 IPCs damage to US forces and her carriers are rather out of range of the rest of the navy. She also had bad luck losing a ftr and destroyer to the American battleship (which was also destroyed). Even so - she ended up with just 2 ftrs and 2 carriers which fortunately the American response (1 bmbr, 1 dd, 1 ftr) only took 1 plane off. Had the US had more luck the Japanese carriers could have been in trouble.
Overall I think it was a bit exciting to ‘wipe out’ the US carrier force in Rnd 1 - but strategically of less impact than the much easier option of the destroyer/transport on the west coast (which Japan CANNOT do if they go for the carrier - they simply don’t have the forces).