Global 1940 House Rules Expansion Game Report
via TripleA
Axis: barnee
Allies: VictoryFirst
Link to our game thread: https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/41097/5-barnee-axis-vs-victoryfirst-allies-g40-house-rules-expansion-by-the-captain
Save file: exp-game-5b-victory-allies9.tsvg
Barnee and I just finished our 5th game. It was an awesome game so I will try to write an awesome game report about it 😀 The report will be broken up into three parts, each consisting of three rounds of play.
Early Game (Early 1940 - Early 1941)
Germany:
The Germans did a standard waffen-buy with an elite and 4 U-boats. They made standard attacks against France and attacked both Allied fleets in SZ 110 and SZ 111. All attacks went well except for the Paris one, where they lost a bunch of units due to bad rolls, and the SZ 111 one where the poor-performing Luftwaffe broke off the attack and let a damaged HMS Hood sail away.
They invaded Yugoslavia but retreated after round 1 so that it was an easy walk-over for Italy.
They continued to build up their Kriegsmarine with some U-boats but they also reinforced the Heer with Waffen units and Panzer-grenadiers.
Russia:
The Russians went mine-heavy this game. They purchased a shitload of mines along with two combat engineers so that they could move and dig them in more easily.
They set up a dynamic defense with units in the West and the East.
Japan:
Hirohito surprised everyone except himself by declaring war on the Allies on turn 2. Naval bases in Kwangtung and Malaya were captured still intact, however the Philippines attack was a disaster for them. Due to a communication breakdown, two infantry in Kwangsi didn’t take part in the attack, and together with some bad rolls, they did not manage to take it while suffering heavy casualties.
In Early 1941 they continued expanding by taking parts of the Dutch East Indies and advancing further into China.
United States:
After the defeat of France, Roosevelt didn’t like the look of Hitler and was therefore poised to go heavy on Germany the moment they were able to join the war. However, the early Japanese surprise attack forced a response and therefore threw a wrench into the American plans. They increased their Pacific naval production significantly and quickly formed a large fleet to counter Japanese aggression. A naval base in Wake Island was constructed to help with their logistics over the seas. Still, Germany was not forgotten and the Atlantic saw some large reinforcements too.
United Kingdom and China:
Admiral Dudley Pound was delighted to see the HMS Hood still being around and moved him to Iceland, only to see him become part of the bottom of the sea anyway by a German U-boat attack.
Attacks against Ethiopia and SZ 96 were made to slow down Italian expansionism. Nevertheless, the Italians quickly stood with a large army on the doorsteps of Cairo, with some help from the German Luftwaffe. A factory was built to stop their advance, however, with the railroad connection between South Africa and Cairo cut, preventing vital reinforcements from coming, it was uncertain if they could withstand the massive sudden pressure from the Axis forces. Therefore, the British built another factory in Persia in case Cairo wouldn’t hold.
An early Japanese attack allowed early British entrance into China. Yunnan saw some heavy reinforcements by Chinese and British forces, to ensure that the Burma Road stayed open.
Italy:
Italy did standard stuff, focusing on Paratroopers and LCVs. They made a sneaky declaration of war against the Russians in Early 1941, opening up ways of attack for the Germans.
The British had to scramble for troops to defend Cairo, but in the end, it proved to be just enough to hold out. The Italians then moved away from Cairo and turned their eyes to the Middle East.
ANZAC and France:
The Australians produced a mixture of land units, destroyers, and transports. They also upgraded their Sydney factory to heavy industry to maximize the number of units they could bring against Japan.
The French managed to kill an Italian sub in the Med, but their boats inevitably got destroyed by German Lufwaffe.
Click here to download a high-resolution PNG file of the map at the end of Early 1941: Early 1941.png
Here is a preview:
Mid-Game (Late 1941-Late 1942)
Battle of the Atlantic:
The Germans started gradually decreasing their investment in U-boat production as the war against the Soviets required the most attention. The U-boats did limited damage to the British shipping and were quickly swept away by Allied naval task forces, consisting of numerous destroyers, a US Heavy Battleship, and two carriers. By Early 1942, most of the U-boats were already destroyed, and by Late 1942 the Allied fleet was entering the Mediterranean.
Eastern Front:
Because the Russians had numerous units operating elsewhere, the Axis were able to make a strong push into Soviet territory. The Russians avoided large-scale conflict and mostly retreated, while digging in numerous mines on the frontline to slow down the advance. However in Late 1942, the Germans were able to move almost their entire army to Smolensk, putting a lot of pressure on Moscow.
Africa/Middle East:
After a short siege of Cairo, Italian troops started marching to the Middle East. They also scooped up a not-very well-defended Gibraltar in Late 1941, although it was recaptured by the Allies the next turn. At the end of round 4, they were at the peak of their power, collecting 37 IPCs.
The Persia and Cario factories were bombed by German Luftwaffe, as well as the naval base. The British moved the Persian factory underground to avoid further bombing. Their complexes were running at full speed to reinforce the area. In Early 1942, the Russians supported the British in the Middle East, and destroyed an Italian corps in Northwest Persia, and also captured Iraq with a paratrooper assault, giving them some extra income (also a +3 bonus because it is a pro-axis territory). After a subsequent British attack, all Axis troops in the Middle East were eliminated.
With the Allied fleets arriving, the Italians started preparing for a German Takeover and used the rest of their forces in Africa to make a suicide attack against Egypt.
Asia:
Things started to go wrong for Japan as the Soviet Union made an early declaration of war against them in Late 1941. A Soviet Army Corps entered China through the Sinkiang mountains and caught a Japanese contingent in Kansu off-guard with a surprise strike. They also invaded empty Korea, but the rest of their forces stayed put in Amur to preserve strength.
Yunnan turned into a defensive stronghold and the Japanese were unable to take it. This gave the Chinese much-needed resources for the war effort, and they were able to turn the whole front into a stalemate, with the Russians supporting in the north.
The Japanese factories in Shantung and Kiangsu were producing combat units at full speed, however they were simply getting outnumbered and to make matters worse, in Late 1942 the Americans were able to land in Shantung, destroying one of the complexes.
Pacific:
The swift victories in Early 1941 were quickly shoved away when the Americans captured the Caroline Islands with a sizeable fleet. The Japanese, running out of landing forces, weren’t able to take the well-defended islands of Sumatra and Java. They instead reinforced the IJN with two Yamatos and later with another carrier. Both fleets had a stand-off for a while, staring at each other from a distance of around 3000 km 😀. The Japanese faced a lack of screening ships, allowing the Allies to make amphibious landings with transports.
By Late 1942, all of the Dutch East Indies had been liberated.
Download a high-resolution PNG file of the map at the end of Late 1942 here: Early 1942.png
Here is a preview:
Late Game (Early 1943 - Early 1944)
Asia & Pacific:
The war has now seriously turned against Japan. They are being outnumbered on all fronts and are unable to hold on. They managed to recapture Shantung but were forced to abandon the Philippines. The superiority of Allied screening ships became prevalent as they were swarming the Pacific, blocking off the Japanese fleet in SZ 6.
After another Allied landing - this time in Kiangsu - the second Japanese industrial complex in Asia was destroyed. By Early 1944, they lost most of China as well as numerous Pacific islands. However, they eventually did manage to make some gains against the Russians in Siberia, but it was too late.
Europe:
With the poor show-off from Hirohito, Hitler knew he had to pull the trigger to have a chance of victory. Not the trigger of his Walther to shoot himself (😂), but the order to make a large push against the Russians. The Germans prepared for Operation Typhoon and made moves to encircle Moscow.
The Russians were significantly weaker because they sent large army formations to help in various areas of the board. 3rd Army Corps was still chilling in China, the Soviet infantry army in the Far East was having some clashes with the Japanese, while the Soviet Middle East army was making its way back home. Still, Stalin ordered his generals to avoid retreat and make large counter-attacks against the German spearheads. All attacks were successful, but in the heat of all action, he forgot one important thing, and that was the defense of Moscow.
Late 1943 was a good turn for Axis Germany. Italy was about to be taken over and the previous turn they made attacks with Paras and landing crafts against the Caucasus. After the Takeover, these units became German and were able to attack again, causing a disaster for the British in the Middle East. They were ill-prepared against this move and therefore hadn’t set up good defenses. Using SZ 128, the Germans were able to capture Persia and its factory, as well as Iraq.
The German generals grabbed their calculators and computed the odds of a German attack against Moscow, getting a result of 55-60%. Given the inevitable downfall of their Pacific ally Japan, they decided against it and mustered all of their units for a final push. The Soviets defenders were caught by surprise and missed a bunch of their rolls. After the dust had settled, the Germans were driving around the Kremlin with an intact panzer army, two waffen panzers and one German plane. A terrible defeat for Stalin, who blamed his generals for the disaster and executed them.
Still, the Russians had several units around Moscow and were able to recapture Moscow, although the loss of the capital was a big blow for them, together with the loss of the British factory in Persia, which deprived them of a direct supply line of Allied fighters. Fortunately, they managed to keep a path through Novosibirsk open so that British units from China could still rail to Moscow. The Germans were scrambling for troops to have a chance to deliver a crippling blow to them.
In Early 1944, the Germans weren’t able to muster enough troops for a second Moscow attack and were getting pushed out of the Middle East and the Caucasus by the British. Persia was liberated, although not before the Axis destroyed the underground factory there… (cheeky move 😀)
The Allies, after having built up their strength for several turns, now finally made a large-scale landing in Holland, with a US tank army and large amounts of fighters and bombers.
However, they didn’t get to fight any further because the Allied income at the end of Late 1944 reached a level of 194, thus ending the game.
Download a detailed PNG image of the final look of the map here: Early 1944.png
Here is a preview:
Post-game commentary:
Funny enough, this game showed a lot of resemblance with our 3rd game. In that game, the game also ended on turn 9 due to an Allied Economic victory, Japan got beaten back pretty badly, and Moscow got captured but it didn’t change the outcome of the game. All these things also happened in this game, even though for the most part we employed different strategies. As the US, I tried to go more or less 50/50 on Germany and Japan. I wanted to go after Germany at first but with the early Japanese DoW, I had to do some stuff against them as well. In many A&A games, this strategy usually doesn’t work, but in the Expansion, it worked out pretty well, which I really like!
Unfortunately, I made the same stupid donkey mistake of letting Moscow get captured. Now that it happened again, I will try to make sure the defense of Moscow is safe above all things. It can’t always go right!
I now think Turn 2 is too early for Japan to attack. At first, I thought it was the best turn but after this game and the game between me and Panzer, I’ve changed my mind. Early on their empire is kinda unstable so they are vulnerable to attacks. If the Allies put enough pressure against them from all sides, Japan could have some serious problems very quickly. Above everything, they should prevent the Allies from forming a stack in Yunnan which I think is the worst thing for Japan ever. If they attack Turn 3, Turn 4, or even not attack at all, they have more time to focus on China and prevent this.
From now on, barnee and I will play our games on the TripleA forum, however we will still write reports here in this thread.
@barnee Hehe already looking forward to the next one 😁 Feel free to share your thoughts on this game as well if you want!
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