I'm grateful you understand Ike, I do look forward to the day which we face each other once again (and I apologize again for copping out on you last year in the doubles tourney, I know it's a sore spot).

To be plainly honest though, if we were to play right now to "test my theory", I don't think you would get what you would expect. I wouldn't straightly build bombers along the W. Coast, because I agree that would just let Germany and Japan go free for too long, it would be like any other ill-conceived KJF where the US tilts 100% at Japan while letting everything else go to waste. I think it's better than trying to out-sub Japan, but that doesn't make it a winning strategy, and I don't play to lose.

I would still use heavy bombers, and that I would say is the real theory being tested, the use of heavy bombers, but first to contain Germany, and then to make sure Japan never again has a navy. But the alternate problem is that Japan can also develop heavy bombers which I said earlier would make an Atlantic shuck at some point impossible as well as island hopping. I think the real point I would be testing is that heavy bombers are too upsetting to game balance in the long run, but I'm already pretty certain of that because players from well over 2 years ago complained about and also LHTR nerfed them...

I'm already behind on a lot of games. I have to refuse. I don't care if you see this as a cop out. I am at my limit with A&A games right now. I have 3 or 4 games going on with Jen, 1 with aadog, and one upcoming with Mazer Rakham. That may not be a lot of games from some perspectives, but I assure you it is already more than I personally can uphold a commitment to right now.

SZ61 is out of range if you want to base from WUS.  If you want to move to the islands...  Then I am going to come after your BOM's that defend on 1's.

I would base in W. Canada.

AIRCRAFT CANNOT TAKE TERRITORY, and the game is won and lost by controlling territory...

Neither can subs.

Turn 6:  USA unleashes 8 HB's on Japan's fleet of  6 TRN, 2 SUB, 1 DST, 2 AC, 4 FIG, 2 BB

Japan wins with 2 BB, 2 AC, 2 FIGs.  Builds 4 TRN and resumes dumping into Asia and building a naval unit per turn.  USA starts building HB's for a subsequent attempt...

Why would the US make an incomplete attempt? That'd be as ridiculous as assuming the US would attack with say 12 subs and allow Japan to win, then gear up again and repeat.

And in spite of all this, Peter Morrison and I'm sure many others realized HBs were overpowered well over 2 years ago. There are other good examples to give besides the US pursuing HBs; Japan can also pursue HBs and make a wreck of the Atlantic shuck by flying a couple HBS from India to W. Europe every turn. The point is that heavy bombers at 2d are imbalanced.

But as Axis Roll pointed out, building up sufficient heavy bomber squadron is faster than building up a normal KJF navy. It's only one more turn to finish up the long range aircraft. Unfortunately the Japanese navy does have good reason to wander into HB/LRA range because otherwise they cannot offload anything off of Japan.

By the time USA gets their HB squadron built to take out the Japan Navy (assuming it sails into range of even LR HB's... no reason for them to do so...) it is probably going to be all over for the Allies.

Is this any different than if the US went sub heavy?

Long Range Aircraft.

A sub heavy fleet is not a valid counter to the Japanese navy, because they can always match you sub for sub with superior income. There is no match for the heavy bomber. Eventually heavy bombers will win out in the sea, while the same cannot be said about subs.

Also, even if you somehow overpower the Japanese with subs, then what? What are your subs going to do on land? I don't feel that a sub heavy strategy is a good one (maybe in AARE it's good because of convoy raiding  ). The Japanese can always run away before your subs hit and then you're left with 100 IPCs of subs with nothing to do on land. But heavy bombers can also make a huge wreck on land after they're done cleaning the sea.

Also, I feel the tank example is invalid, because tanks do not roll 2 at 4. They only roll 1 at 3. That makes a huge difference. There is no infantry unit either in terms of navy, there is no unit that defends at a 2 and is cheap. The "best" thing you can come up with is a destroyer for 12 IPCs that rolls at a 3 against air.

Economically on land infantry will counter tanks. 30 IPCs of infantry on defense beats 30 IPCs of tanks on offense. However, on sea this no longer holds true. There is nothing that beats heavy bombers IPC for IPC on defense. 1 hb beats 1 destroyer, 1 hb beats 2 transports, there is nothing you can do if you have equal income to defend against heavy bombers except delay for a while. I don't see why this is so hard to see.

All that you're talking about is that you have to overcome the initial inertia of the existing Japanese fleet + investments, but that is true of any anti-navy strategy, you have to overcome a huge bump. I simply think that heavy bombers can easily overcome this bump, even you said yourself it takes 5 times to build up the necessary bombers, while navy heavy takes at least 3 rounds more to become threatening.

As I've said before, in practicality, buying all HBs to take out the IJN wouldn't really be a game winning move, IMHO: too costly as well as easy to stop (as you so aptly point out)... it's not like Japan wouldn't see it coming either.

And as I've said before, I don't think it's a game winning move either, but certainly nothing else would work better should one decide to go KJF. Sub heavy or navy heavy is much slower and also the Japanese CAN match you defensively with their income, but with heavy bombers eventually they'll have to give up or roll for their own heavy bombers to keep the seas clean of all ships.

Like I said, first of all if you have just a few subs they're going to get strafed and killed by opposing fighters + carriers.

I still haven't seen a logical answer to my statement.

And just in case you answer something like well build a carrier, that means less HBs. And you still have the major problem of getting your fodder into range without the enemy navy being able to attack it with their navy. It's more theorycraft to say to build a few fodder for your hbs than it is to use pure hbs.

Also to respond once again to Axis Roll:

n a realistic example, it would be very cost ineffective for the US to build a fleet of HB's to take out the IJN, IMHO.  Sure, 10 bombers might be able to sink 2 BBs, 2 loaded A/Cs 2 DD's and 5 tpts.  That'd take 4, more likely 5 rounds (9 bombers @15) + 4 tech rolls? ($20) = 155.  Notice the minimal Japanese additional investment of my example.

In theory, I agree it IS possible to do so, but is it one that proves true in actual game play?

I am repeating myself: is there a BETTER way for the Americans to wipe out the J navy? Even if HBs is not possible in actual play, that makes any other strategy even less likely to work.

5 rounds is not a very long time, in fact most KJF strategies take until round 8 or so before the American navy becomes a dangerous force to contend with.

Everyone knows that with minimal investment Japan can make an insanely strong defensive navy. That's very obvious. That doesn't make the heavy bomber strategy less viable than other anti-navy strategies.

No you don't. Like I said, first of all if you have just a few subs they're going to get strafed and killed by opposing fighters + carriers. Second, there's no clear winner between 2 subs vs 1 hb. 2 subs is surely 1 piece more fodder, but the HB is another die at 4. The faster you kill opposing navy the faster their defense rating drops, and navy drops pretty fast and is very expensive to replace.

Yes, but how many more rounds would it take if the US built anything except HBs? Even longer. Pure HBs is the most efficient way to take out the Japanese fleet. Note I didn't say it was an effective strategy, but I said it is the most efficient way to do it. Building 2 transports instead of an HB for fodder is not a good idea. I'm referring to your previous statement where you said you prefer hbs with some cheaper fodder. I think pure HBS is better. If you build cheap fodder you run the risk of it getting eaten up by fighters or navy since most of your money is in bombers, not defensive fleet.

You seem to be talking about 2 different things. I was responding to your statement about the Americans needing fodder, and then you started talking about Japanese defensive fodder, which is a totally different subject. Japanese defensive fodder works up to a point because Japan already has a lot of defensive gear, but once the odds even up there is no naval investment that can match the offensive strength of HBs. This is very contrary to land battles where infantry are always the best defensive measure if you have the same IPCs invested.

IMO you don't need fodder for HBs, just keep building them. The reason for no fodder is that your fodder can get chewed up by opposing navy when they get into range, and also because heavy bombers are just completely cost effective for any kind of navy they encounter. It's not quite like land war where you need infantry; HBs are simply more efficient per IPC than any unit on defense, so you don't need fodder.

The neat thing about AARE is that you can't just heavy bomber you way through navy because of how subs work; they can't be attacked by air alone, and because they can convoy raid you into a loss, you do need to find a way to kill them, so you have to build navy yourself, and probably a lot of it to counter a fat stack of super subs. But that's an aside, this is really about LHTR.

IMO the real reason why heavy bombers were nerfed is not really because of double dice on SBRs, but double dice on offense. There is no valid naval counter to heavy bombers, you can always build up offense with heavy bombers at a much higher rate than you can build up defense with navy. Eventually the sea would be clear of all navies with no possible naval action.

Yeah but Darth I had already said that defeats the point of the forums, since we can already PBEM.

This better be resolved very quickly, and by very quickly I mean before January 1st, or the tournaments will be a disaster. After all the reason why we play on these boards is not just that the information is public, but also because the format is intuitive and similar to PBEM. Right now PBEm is far superior because you can attach data files.

I encourage everyone to boycott playing games on the forums until this is resolved 

But this is AARe not LHTR.

But AARE clearly defers to LHTR if you read the rules.

So why should the submarine be allowed to move from SZ 52 to SZ 60 (in the case of my example) to attack more units when a destroyer is present in SZ 52?  We certainly wouldn't allow a submarine from SZ 55 to attack in SZ 45 if an enemy destroyer was present in SZ 52 without at least giving the destroyer a chance to detect the submarine.

I already told you why.

First, there is the logical contradiction - why do you pick on subs? For instance, a destroyer would be stopped by another destroyer if it ran into it along the way, so if there is a destroyer starting in an enemy zone, can it not run away either without fighting?

Second, LHTR clearly states that you can make a combat move out of a seazone which is enemy occupied at the beginning of your turn. You only resolve combat (i.e. roll dice and attack/defend) if your combat move ends in a contested area (or aa guns along the way, but that is irrelevant). Since the sub's combat move does not end in a contested area, then there is no resolution of combat. There is no firing, and in the case of AARE, there is no detection roll. Of course, the sub could choose to stay and fight, but there is nothing in the rules to suggest that naval ships are forced to fire if they started in a contested zone.

Third, there is a very big distinction you are not making in your example. The distinction is whether the sub is attempting to move into a seazone occupied by a destroyer - or if it already started in a seazone occupied and decides to move away. Think of it this way; if in Monopoly you land on Go or pass Go then you collect $200 dollars (if you land on a destroyer or try to pass the destroyer then you have to stop and fight it). But if at the beginning of your turn you are on Go, you do not again collect $200, you roll to move on (if you start in a zone with a destroyer, you do not have to fight, you can run away).

If this is still too confusing, think of it like this: in AAR destroyers detect on a 6. I.E., they always immediately detect subs. Yet that does not prevent the sub from running away like other naval units if at the beginning of the turn the sub started in a contested seazone with a destroyer in it. The only difference in AARE is that destroyers detect on a 3 (without techs or support). Detecting on a 3 has nothing to do with them being able to run away like the situation states, because detecting on a 6 also has nothing to do with them being able to run away.

Honestly, my opinion is that the submarine(s) gets another free shot, the defending destroyer(s) get to try to detect him/them and if it survives that, then it may retreat one sea zone. (Or it can be used in conjunction with invading naval and air forces.)

But if you think this way, then you are not just arguing subs running away, you are arguing every single naval unit running away. If for instance you have a destroyer that starts in the same zone as an enemy battleship, do you think each side should have a free shot as well? Why not, they are both already detected anyways?

I'm just going straight by LHTR, your combat move may simply be to run away, which does not incur combat. You have to end your combat move in a contested zone in order for there to be combat, do you agree? The only way in which your scenario works is if the sub sits there. You do not get to fire just because you think it is nice. The sub is not attempting to sail under the destroyer any more than a destroyer is trying to sail under a battleship. Subs can make normal movement like a normal naval unit, it just has a special condition that nothing except destroyers can stop it moving if the sub makes a combat move into it. Every other naval unit is immediately stopped when it encounters another surfaced naval unit.

Because the sub is not making a combat move into the seazone, there is no stopping and no combat.