I have a dream. I thought it up during some game while I was looking at my Axis stacks and wondering what else they needed (more inf? more arm? more art? nah, no art) before marching on Caucasus. And it also came out of seeing the raw power of a tank stack. They’re so easy to add up. You take the number, divide by two, and that’s how many hits they’re gonna get, per round, on average. And they account for a lot of the offensive power.
Infantry are the human shield and the great defender, but the game isn’t just defense. Play only defense and I bet you a bajillion dollars that your enemy’s capitals will not fall. No, they have to be wrenched out of your enemy’s cold, dead fingers. You also need a killer offense. And a killer offense is centered around tanks (as well as regular animal sacrifices to the dice gods – can’t forget to keep up with those).
Back to that human shield thing. Infantry are great because when they die, that’s only an infantry. Only 3 IPC (not 4 or 5 – or 10!). But what if in certain circumstances you didn’t need the human shield advantage? What if you had exactly enough infantry to soak up all the hits the enemy scored on you? Well, that would be interesting. What else would you spend all that IPCsies on? Um, tanks? I mean, I’ve heard that they’re strong…
A really neat aspect of Axis and Allies is that, no matter how big two stacks are, when they get into a to-the-death fight, the fight only lasts a few rounds. The infantry/artillery are usually burned off in the first or second round, and after that, a stack’s power starts to plummet. So how about avoiding all that? Why tough out those four or five grueling rounds (especially when your infantry leave you all defenseless by about round three) when you can live to fight another day?
So in case this idea doesn’t absolutely fizzle, I’m calling it (just made the name up a few minutes ago): the tank punch mechanic. Have just enough infantry to guard against what the enemy will throw at you during the first round (or maybe two) of battles that this tankish stack gets in to, and have the rest be tanks tanks tanks. In English: throw this scary stack at stuff, burn off your infantry, then retreat into your infantry reserves. Which brings up another nice feature. Instead of taking territory and getting ahead of your supply lines, you fall back. Next turn, you’re read to punch again.
Part of me is saying “duh” right along with probably many of you who just read all of that; you use throw-away infantry and drive your offensive might with the tank. That’s basic A&A tactics.
But I don’t see that most “duh” of tactics played out very aggressively in games. I seriously don’t. Even when I’m playing Germany (aka probably more aggressive than I should be), I usually end up with a stack of infantry and just as many tanks. I dunno, maybe that’s a lot, but for me it looks like 1:1 inf-arm parity could be improved upon.
Besides, I think what I’m suggesting is more of a defensive setup. If those tanks get ahead of their already smaller infantry groups, they are gonna burn up quickly. Assuming this tank punch idea isn’t some half-baked strategy: Who would need to sit around and throw tanks at approaching enemies?
Maybe Russia. Maybe. To an extent, that’s my goal as Russia. Get Germany into a really good fight where you can burn off his infantry. Now he’ll never make it to Moscow.
I don’t see this happening (sadly) for the US or UK unless they can get mainland ICs. And they’re usually all about the burning Berlin before Moscow gets too charred.
But hey, wait! Berlin! They’re famous for their tanks. And they like their capital! Maybe they could throw Tigers at the Allies until US/UK says forget it, we’re moving to Norway.
I dunno, just something I’ve been thinking about. Somehow ncscswitch’s infantry speech inspired me to make a tank one.