Topics created by Twigley

@General:

Whomever falls asleep first from exhaustion loses.

haha +1

I think the real challenge with A&A Europe is during 1 vs 1 with experienced players. Because the allied aspects of debate and compromise simply don’t happen. Whenever I play my friend Cat - she always without even a thought sends 4 fighters and 2 bombers to Russia ASAP from the US and UK.

When we play with more people (like her boyfriend and his housemate) you always get the UK/US ‘whining’ or wanting to do their own thing. Which makes it easier for Germany.

I must admit I played Europe (normally play revised/AA50) for the first time in a long while recently. So I had forgotten about the ‘unstoppable’ version of the infantry/tank push mechanic - and spent time consolidating forces for a crushing victory in Belorussia - which - ahem - never actually happened! (Especially once she’d added all those allied fighters to the pile!)

@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).

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction Kreighund.

I think the only place in '41 for a UK IC is in SA. Maybe one in Egypt if it survives T1, but it’s pretty universal now that everyone takes it T1 for obvious reasons. I’ve heard the case for one in Australia, but I don’t like that one either. It’s too easy for Japan to take out. On J2 it can easily be taken and for sure on J3. So if you’re going to you’d almost have to wait until B4 to have any hope of defending it. I know if I saw a B1 or B2 buy of an IC in Australia I would gun for it hard with Japan.

The Norway IC I just don’t see working because the Brits don’t really need the extra three unit build, plus for the same SBR reason that a France IC for germany isn’t the best idea.

I guess there could be some games where the US having an IC there could help, but on the whole I think that’s just not a great spot for one.

I honestly prefer buying 1 ac, 3 trannies (or 2 and a DD depending) into SZ2 on UK1 and dropping into Kar on UK2, with a grab of finland/norway.  This allows Russia to focus on the south and allows the UK to build up a large force to push toward Poland.  Only stinker is the turn before you go for the push 'n drop into Poland you will not be able to drop directly into Kar, but that is usually the turn I stack NWE with US/UK anyway so its not a big deal.  And with your fleet in SZ 4 you have awhile till G air can truely threaten you, unless they land most of there figs in Baltic which is rare.  Also, the only way G will take Kar is if she leaves her armor there to get smashed by the UK on G2 (which is actually a really nice thing).  Doing this along with a US push into africa on US3 + SBRs on G, you really wear down germany fast, as with a 2 bomber per turn buy with the US (easily done) by turn 3 or 4 G is looking at 6ish bombers bearing down on her.  The bombers being purchased in LA also helps to keep Japan honest with her transports when taking away your 2nd US pacific NO and are always nice to use against Italy’s fleet.  Just make sure with the US you start your shuck in LA and focus mainly on sending over armor to meet with the russians to stack the crap out of persia (you’d be surprised the effect 2-4 US armor a turn has on defending persia from Japan).

The really funny thing about this method is that by turn 3-4 russia is fighting Japan, the US is fighting all 3, and the UK is fighting Germany, but it does work even if it is a bit…wrong.

There was another topic in the 50th section where someone asked why Rommel was on the box and not Hitler.  This person pointed out that you saw faces like Churchill and Stalin (world leaders) not Montgomery or Eisenhower (country specific generals) for example.

The answer was that the game would not be legal to market in Germany with Hitler’s face.  I would imagine this would fall under the same school of thought.  Germany doesn’t deny that the war happened but they would like marginalize the bad PR that goes with it.

LT