• In my experience China doesn’t outlive the 4th round. Japan has about 30 units to strike in that round and China has about 18 units to defend (Kansu where they usually retreat to).

    What is your experience with China?

    Thanks!


  • China is way too weak in the game - several threads in the house rules section try to remedy this…

  • '15

    Well said Shadow.  China’s purpose is to annoy Japan as much as possible, thus taking attention away from the rest of the Allies.


  • My China attack goes as follows:

    J1 you take four Chinese territories: Chahar with 2 inf., Ahnwe with 3 art.+1 Mech+6 Inf, Hunan with 2 inf+1 art (1 inf dead) and Yunnan with 1 inf+1 art (2 inf dead). You place 3/4 inf on Jehol behind this invasion force, and you land 1 armor in Kiangsi. You buy a MIC on Kiangsu.

    China can only converge on Shensi to stay alive, and usually takes Yunnan back (if possible): 12 inf+fighter…

    J2 Japan takes Yunnan (2 inf), Kweichow (4 art+6 inf+mech+armor), Hopei (1 inf) and Suiyuan (1 inf and 3/4 behind). You buy 3 mech inf on Kiangsu.

    China usually goes to Kansu with 16 inf and fighter…

    J3 Japan takes Shensi and puts 3 mech inf on Hopei.

    How is China going to escape from this?


  • Good day Tolstoj.  I have done relatively well with China in a few games.  It is a completely different animal to play.  It is a guerrila war in that you do not immediately plan to drive your enemy out with sweeping battles.  It is a war of attrition.  Think of the Soviets in Afghanastan in the early 80’s and the US in Vietnam.  The point was to make the enemy pay for every territory they took and and they couldn’t count on any territory being secure.  The Chinese “pop up” in any owned territory. The Japanese player must leave defending troops behind or be threatened with losing an unguarded territory.  China is to slow the roll of the Japanese…not defeat them until later in the game when China with some UK help, can claim all of the mainland.  ShadowHAwk is right.  Spread out and become a thorn in the Japanese players…neck.  If you use house rules, add some artillery or consider allowing the US to supply additional flying tigers before they enter the war.


  • @ShadowHAwk:

    @Tolstoj:

    My China attack goes as follows:

    J1 you take four Chinese territories: Chahar with 2 inf., Ahnwe with 3 art.+1 Mech+6 Inf, Hunan with 2 inf+1 art (1 inf dead) and Yunnan with 1 inf+1 art (2 inf dead). You place 3/4 inf on Jehol behind this invasion force, and you land 1 armor in Kiangsi. You buy a MIC on Kiangsu.

    China can only converge on Shensi to stay alive, and usually takes Yunnan back (if possible): 12 inf+fighter…

    J2 Japan takes Yunnan (2 inf), Kweichow (4 art+6 inf+mech+armor), Hopei (1 inf) and Suiyuan (1 inf and 3/4 behind). You buy 3 mech inf on Kiangsu.

    China usually goes to Kansu with 16 inf and fighter…

    J3 Japan takes Shensi and puts 3 mech inf on Hopei.

    How is China going to escape from this?

    It does not need to. UK-Pac will be making 25 a turn, Anzac 14 and later 24 for a few rounds.
    How will you even condider attacking the stack of 30+ units in india any time soon?

    UK-Pac can even declare war and attack your stacks in yuhan from burma. 
    With this strat you are not attacking anything else but china and yes as allies ill take that bargain

    ANZAC never reaches more then 14 IPC when I’m playing Japan. How can they reach 24? I never let them take Dutch New Guinea without taking it back, and I always take the treasure islands back. And India is no threat to the Japan, even if they reach 30 units. I always make sure they can’t move forward or be crushed in the process.

    I do not stack any unit in Yunnan, I take it with minimal force. So UK-Pac can do no harm. UK-Pac cannot move any units to Burma, because Japan can wipe those units out (from the Philipines or other)…

    I’m still not convinced how you can stop Japan from taking China in one go in R4…


  • @Dafyd:

    Good day Tolstoj.  I have done relatively well with China in a few games.  It is a completely different animal to play.  It is a guerrila war in that you do not immediately plan to drive your enemy out with sweeping battles.  It is a war of attrition.  Think of the Soviets in Afghanastan in the early 80’s and the US in Vietnam.  The point was to make the enemy pay for every territory they took and and they couldn’t count on any territory being secure.  The Chinese “pop up” in any owned territory. The Japanese player must leave defending troops behind or be threatened with losing an unguarded territory.  China is to slow the roll of the Japanese…not defeat them until later in the game when China with some UK help, can claim all of the mainland.  ShadowHAwk is right.  Spread out and become a thorn in the Japanese players…neck.  If you use house rules, add some artillery or consider allowing the US to supply additional flying tigers before they enter the war.

    My point is that it is not a war of attrition (Ermattungskrieg in Delbrück’s terms) if Japan goes in in full strength. But I will try this tactik (of spreading out) in the next game. But spreading out is against all I know about A&A-strategy. From Shensi Japan can wipe out all Chinese units, no matter where they are spread out…

  • '15

    China is a key player for the Allies, in fact, they can’t win without China!

    The thing is, China, like Russia, will always fall if the Axis are allowed to focus on it.  Heck, China will fall anyway.  That’s OK.

    It’s what happens in the late game that matters.  Once Japan starts being beaten back, China’s job is to make sure that they will be forever denied Kiangsu.  Without that VC, it doesn’t matter how strong Japan eventually gets - they can’t win.

    This allows the Allies to focus all their efforts on the other side of the board.


  • Tolstoj, reading through your posts it sounds like you see a lot of J3 attacks. In that situation Japan is pounding China because they don’t have much else to do except getting their navy into position to make a splash on their 3rd turn. In games like this if Japan still doesn’t attack J2 you should defiantly consider attacking Japan on UK2, especially if Japan has ground units with-in your reach. UK and Anz will get their war time bonuses (be sure to take NG w/Anz), plus it allows you to pull back your transports to safety if you want to. Might get a chance to block part of the Japanese navy w/dd somewhere too. You can make China a meat grinder for Japanese ground units if things fall into place. Again it may only be worth it if you can kill a bunch of Japanese ground units at the front between China (who goes first) and UK Pac on the 2nd turn.

    It will probably keep the US out of the war until they can DOW at the end of their 3rd turn, but they still get their war time bonus. In this case it would be US4 before they could make attacks or move the Atlantic fleet, but their is still a chance (rare) that Japan will attack on J3 anyway and release the USA?

    You only think the Japanese have an advantage, wait until you start seeing J1attacks on a normal bases LOL


  • I am now playing a game in which Japan is DOW in J2.

    Again only Russia or the UK can help China, because the initial Japanese units are used to kill off the Chinese. We’re now trying to spread out, but I don’t see that helping the Chinese. And Russia is now threatening to take Manchuria (with 18 infantry), but that also doesn’t help much.

    Landing 5 or 6 planes (UK/Russian) doesn’t help much either. Japan is happy to destroy those to in R4!

    Look in R4 Japan has so much more fleet and air units that the ANZAC/US fleet is behind 5-6 units. India cannot step forward. You are right that Japan has much to do in J3, and maybe they prevent Japan from taking all the treasure islands in R4, but after that Japan is master of both sea and land!

    I’m really interested to know what it is we’re doing wrong, what can ANZAC do? What can the US do? If Japan builds 1 carrier in R3 and R4, with some destroyers and subs, the allies never have enough to counter that.


  • I’m playing a gam right now where my opponent is somewhat struggling with Japan, finally! Unfortunately it is because he made a few mistakes, but still.

    The main reason is that I could place 18 Russian infantry in Manchuria in R3. The Chinese forces will be destroyed though, one way or the other. The Chinese fighter is going to escape to Manchuria…

    Stil a bit of hope for China!


  • I have to wonder, is having the UK stack Burma and declaring war on Japan on UK2 (presuming J is setting up for J3 DOW) a reasonable way to go? What’s the downside to UK (and ANZAC) unprovoked declarations against Japan?


  • That Japan can take the Dutch Indies without being at war with the US…


  • never mind, question answered while I was posting

    So the price of UK2 DOW on Japan is the US entering the war one turn later. I guess the next question is, is the potential to contest Yunnan before Japan can consolidate there worth the trade-off?

  • '15

    @SubmersedElk:

    But the US enters the war on their next turn… isn’t Japan typically going for those islands on their next move anyway? How does J3 and US3 change in practice with a UK2 DOW?

    Now that I’m thinking it through the whole way, is there a good reason UK and ANZAC shouldn’t DOW Japan on their 2nd turns every game?

    Funny you should mention this because I had the exact same revelation yesterday.  The only thing I can come up with is that if the US is planning heavy Atlantic activity and really wants to get to Gibraltar on turn 3.  Otherwise, there is no reason not to do this.


  • @Nippon-koku:

    @SubmersedElk:

    But the US enters the war on their next turn… isn’t Japan typically going for those islands on their next move anyway? How does J3 and US3 change in practice with a UK2 DOW?

    Now that I’m thinking it through the whole way, is there a good reason UK and ANZAC shouldn’t DOW Japan on their 2nd turns every game?

    Funny you should mention this because I had the exact same revelation yesterday.  The only thing I can come up with is that if the US is planning heavy Atlantic activity and really wants to get to Gibraltar on turn 3.  Otherwise, there is no reason not to do this.

    OK good to know I’m not totally crazy… so unless there’s some huge benefit to having US units in Gibraltar in turn 3 rather than turn 4, it sounds like a good idea for UK/ANZAC to take the initiative instead of waiting for Japan to maneuver at its leisure. Whatever Japan’s plan was for J3 then gets disrupted at least a little bit, and that seems to give China a much better chance to survive.

  • '15

    @SubmersedElk:

    @Nippon-koku:

    @SubmersedElk:

    But the US enters the war on their next turn… isn’t Japan typically going for those islands on their next move anyway? How does J3 and US3 change in practice with a UK2 DOW?

    Now that I’m thinking it through the whole way, is there a good reason UK and ANZAC shouldn’t DOW Japan on their 2nd turns every game?

    Funny you should mention this because I had the exact same revelation yesterday.  The only thing I can come up with is that if the US is planning heavy Atlantic activity and really wants to get to Gibraltar on turn 3.  Otherwise, there is no reason not to do this.

    OK good to know I’m not totally crazy… so unless there’s some huge benefit to having US units in Gibraltar in turn 3 rather than turn 4, it sounds like a good idea for UK/ANZAC to take the initiative instead of waiting for Japan to maneuver at its leisure. Whatever Japan’s plan was for J3 then gets disrupted at least a little bit, and that seems to give China a much better chance to survive.

    Exactly.  I’m resuming a game tonight (about to start turn 3) where I did just that and the result is that between the Chinese units, Indian units, Russian units (got 2 tanks, 2 mechs and a fighter there just for this turn) and Anzac planes, Yunan will be held J3.


  • Well the result is that when Japans DOW in J3 the US is NOT yet at war until the end of her turn. So Japan can do what it wants until US4…

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