Oztea AA Balance

Yes 2 tanks might not be enough…I find it is important for Russia to have some tanks as well so when necessary, it can run to India for temporary support. Just UK and US planes alone are not enough to support India at first few rounds.

@Mursilis

All the best to you. Maybe a good suggestion would be to have copies of 42.2, AA50 and Global and then set up the board that fits with the time, players and space you have. Many people can’t leave a big board set up over multi sessions and so a shorter, lighter game would be appropriate for new players or shorter meetups.

I still keep my playbook for this version in mind, as it is consistently the best attended and largest tournament at Gencon–you get to play 3-5 games in just over 2 days so its alot like a chess/bridge/cribbage tournament…busy and having fun all day with a variety of opponents.

What is a standard bid?

I’ve played about 30-40 games, and won against some other pretty experienced players. Axis is favored on this map. My personal view is that a bid of around 7-11 is fair among experienced players. This is a newer game, so it’s not surprising that people haven’t come up with an exact amount.

Among beginning players, this bid probably needs to be bigger because players don’t recognize deadzones and leave pieces in the open. Germany has many more offensive pieces than Russia, and Moscow is at serious risk of falling early if Russia loses a stack. This is less true if Germany loses a stack because 1. germany starts with more pieces (compared to Russia), and 2. UK and US aren’t a threat until round 4.

There’s already great threads on bid placement to have the most impact. I won’t go into depth, but inf in cauc, karelia, egypt ; uk sub off egypt or india are likely have the most impact per IPC bid. Among beginning players, I would probably give uk 1 inf in egypt and ~6 infantry for russia in moscow. That’s my suggestion for a dynamic game among beginners of approximate skill.

I find the concentrated bomber strategy very interesting as an approach for the US, for the reasons outlined here - the cost of getting US infantry into the action is incredibly high, so much so that Air power compares much better vs. land forces  for the US than for other nations.

How many bombers is too many? I was picturing maybe 2 US bombers on US1, but for the purposes of strategic bombing, the early IPCs denied will be magnified throughout the game, so perhaps a US1 buy of 3 bombers makes sense?

Unless Japan was posturing in range of a US attack, I imagine I would build the bombers in western US and then send them directly to the UK for use in SBRs vs. Germany (or sinking/deterring a German fleet). Would you agree?

@Uncrustable:

USA lost the 1 move Canada chuck
Now it both costs more and takes longer for the USA to make a real impact

This cannot be understated. It REALLY slows down the America. I didn’t used to mind US making about the same as Germany, but now it is hard for them to have an impact. Add to this the fact that Germany can sink the US Atlantic fleet on turn 1, and America just got a lot  harder to be effective.

:(

Yes.

I only ever use Bombers as long range Navy killers or against territories without AA.
Nothing more annoying than having one shot down when your opponent rolls a “1”.
And if he doesn’t, you are guaranteed to roll 1 damage!