Posts made by zanetheinsane

It’s to hopefully get them to shift any normal defenses west first, leaving less in the east. The idea of being on Hawaii could cause America to shift defenses to WUS for a landing at San Fran. No matter how you land, America can obviously build 10 infantry, but putting yourself in position to attack either coast always gives you the option of attacking the weaker one.

Being on Hawaii normally doesn’t cause America to buy 30 infantry, 10 on each. They’ll simply try to buff up Western. On Japan you move to SZ64, America moves what it can to Central (too many tanks to EUS means no go usually), then on Japan’s next turn you take EUS and grab the cash and promptly get crushed by the counter attack. Never said it was a good plan, but taking America is probably “bizarre attacK”.

You’re probably always going to be facing 30 infantry in America at some point if you try to take it. Again, taking out America doesn’t really happen anyway, but if you’re set on trying, might as well go for taking the IPC.

With naval superiority the key to taking the United States is a feint from Hawaii. Get a large landing force with Japan and keep it in any of the various ranges of Hawaii.

This isn’t a strategy as much as it is an opportunity. The key factors that have to happen in a game for you take advantage of:

• America has invested in the Atlantic (which means less Pacfic fleet or possibly none)

• A very defensive German/Italian fleet (possibly stuck in the med/baltic). This means that America may get sloppy about their defenses in EUS.

• America may have “sent the house” to Europe, meaning they have not left enough units in EUS to properly defend.

  America generally can get lazy or cocky, assuming they will always have enough time to properly build up some “Instant D” before any major super power can get there. As Japan when you move an invasion fleet to Hawaii the natural reaction for America is to D up on WUS since it’s within striking distance. They’ll probably also spam destroyers to stop any shell attempts.

  The trick is to instead launch into SZ64 and take Central America and Mexico. This puts you in the unique advantage of being able to strike any section of the US on your next turn. If America was sloppy and stocked up on infantry in the WUS, they won’t be able to move them back to EUS in time. You have to make sure to leave a troop in Mexico to prevent America from simply closing the straight on you.

  This isn’t a “strategy” as you can’t really plan a game around it, but when you see the opening you should always consider whether or not you can take it. Any chance at taking Washington from a sloppy American player is worth trying.

I’m curious what the strategic importance of taking Spain is. It would take a significant investment (at least a naval base) to make it worthwhile. Is it to build a minor IC and counter fortress Gibraltar? It would cost less IPC to build transports and just take Gibraltar itself. Are you simply using it as a navy-less bridge to funnel Italian and German troops to lock down the straight?

It can be confusing because of the difference between “originally owned” and "originally controlled (at the beginning of the game). The national symbols on the countries indicate original ownership whereas the colored borders are there to indicate the original occupation for the purposes of determining IPC should your IPC chart become incorrect, or if you are like us and just toss the IPC chart out the window because somehow it is always wrong every game (I have no idea how, but it happens, so we just calculate IPC at the end of every turn).

In the Pacific rulebook it states: “At the beginning of the game, Japan and China are at war. However, none of the other Allied powers…” thus implying that China is an Allied power, and Allied powers are unable to declare war on each other.

Hope they clarify some of the “murky” territory borders that they always flip-flopped on, like is Central US adjacent to Alberta and making the sea zones more accurately line up to the territories that they actually border (Korea, EUS, etc).

Either way, this is already a guaranteed buy for me  :-D

A minor IC in Alaska with no Naval Base is what I like to call the “Japan trap”. A “poorly” guarded Alaska with an IC can look pretty tempting to a Japan player. They see that IC and get excited and start making plans to take it, but they have no idea what to do once they have it. Without a NB on it their ships get stranded two turns away from mainland Japan and Japan can’t really afford to build that NB that has almost no use for them. Using that minor IC to try to “take” Western United States is pretty much impossible if the US has most of their IPC.

The end result is that Japan sends fleet and land units to conquer Alaska for a measly 2 IPC when they probably needed to use those units doing important things. Making Axis powers waste time is just as effective sometimes.

There has not been any official answer as far as I’ve seen, but A&A 1940 Europe and Pacific have unofficially been said to be getting a reprint either Q3 or Q4 of this year. That is pretty much all the information that everyone has to go on at the moment.

community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75890/28754039/?pg=last

So how is combat resolved with this one? There were a lot of posts but nothing really structured. Let’s expand this scenario:

Assume we had an AC with two FTR and then the transport. Defending area is 1 sub and 1 FTR ready to scramble.

Amphibious assault is announced, the attacking fighters move into the sea zone (with the enemy sub), the transport and AC advance into the sea zone.

I do know that when you initiate the fighter scramble, sea units are drawn into combat, thus the submarine enters the fight. From the FAQ:

If you declare an amphibious assault from a sea zone containing only enemy subs and/or transports and you choose to ignore them, but your opponent scrambles fighters into the sea zone, you may no longer ignore the subs/transports. The scrambling of air units into the sea zone forces a sea battle, so all units in the sea zone will participate in it.

Now the original question: Let’s say that the defending fighter gets destroyed in round 1 (for simplicity) and the attacker suffers no casualties. Round 2 (and beyond) you have two fighters attacking that cannot hit the submarine and the AC which cannot attack (because it has no attack value).

What happens in this scenario? I know the FAQ states that:

Units that have no attack value (aircraft carriers and transports) may not attack a sea zone by themselves. In order to carry out an attack, at least one unit with an attack value must participate. This includes sinking defenseless transports. However, this does not prevent transports from attempting to conduct an amphibious assault alone if there are only enemy units within the sea zone that may initiate optional defenses, such as air units that may scramble.

Does this apply here? I imagine the carried fighters nullify that. Would the end result be that the submarine autosinks the carrier and the planes have to find somewhere to fly back to? The above doesn’t mention ships with no attack value, just units.

@Gamerman01:

You can go post on the “If I were Larry I would” thread. � You could say that you would bar Germany and Italy from leaving navy next to US territories while USA is neutral. You sure pointed out an inconsistency, there.

I guess that even though it’s “inconsistent” it’s almost a non-issue because of the difference in balance. A combined Japanese fleet off the west coast of the US would provide a massive threat, almost insurmountable given Japan’s starting fleet capacity. At best for the US it would almost be mutual annihilation.

By US3 the combined forces of the German and Italian fleets would have to be in Gibraltar by turn 2 for a turn 3 jump to the US, and their capacity is significantly less threatening.

We had a game though that due to lucky rolls the Italian and German fleets had decimated the UK/French fleets in the Med and English Channel very early and could have conceivably tried to put a blockade on the US. A strong Japan could pressure the US into having to divide fleet forces to try to combat both forces and could potentially put America out of the game before they even got into the game.

Thank for the quick reply! I had assumed it worked as such. It seems a pretty dirty trick since the US can’t do anything to “stop” this loss of IPC on their first turn of bonus income, but it’s the Axis’ mandate to hurt the Allies’ (especially US’s) IPC in any way. Also seems risky because then you have to outrun an American fleet which is probably already on top of you :lol: but it would be a good strategy to explore with an improperly balanced or small American Atlantic fleet.

Question #2: Assume that Germany and Italy have taken care of the UK and Russian fleets and lacking a better target they both decide to park their entire fleets off the east coast of America before US3. Obviously the US can’t attack either of them because it is not at war. This is technically rules-legal as per the political restrictions, correct? (I won’t speculate as to why they would ever do this, but it could come up)

It seems silly that parking your navy off the coast of a neutral country’s capital isn’t an act of war but that’s what the rules seem to indicate.

This is technical question regarding a theoretical situation. In the political rules Japan is excluded from moving to the United States’ coastline but Germany (or Italy) does not appear to have this restriction.

While Germany and the United States are not at war thus it would seem possible for Germany to move ships into the United States convoy lanes (without disruption, thus not declaring war) anytime during G1-G3. The United States, because of their political situation are thus unable to declare war on Germany and attack these ships.

On US3 it is obviously beneficial for the United States to declare war on the Axis at the end of their turn to start receiving their bonus IPCs. As this happens right before the collect income phase, they are at war with Germany and Germany is thus at war with the United States. The collect income phase happens and all prerequisites for convoy disruption are met and the US takes an immediate hit to their IPC gain. On G4 Germany can simply move this fleet away.

I am basing this on this post by Krieghund (topic=16001.msg539048#msg539048):

It all boils down to this:  If you have a sub or surface warship in a convoy sea zone that’s adjacent to one or more of my territories during my Collect Income phase, you disrupt my convoy, unless you don’t want to.

Nothing else matters.  It doesn’t matter what any of those ships did on your turn, my turn or anyone else’s turn.  It doesn’t matter if I or anyone else has any ships of any type in the sea zone also.

I had read threads that said that convoy disruption had to be “declared” on the attacking player’s turn but the above-linked post seems to say it pretty much just boils down to the two requirements (ships in the convoy zone and being at war) as being met.

Is this a correct interpretation of these rules? Again, not asking for any strategy or counters on this particular tactic, just a ruling on whether or not it works as described.