Axis Wins/Losses

[AgentOrange]

Is it just me, or is it way more often that the Axis wins in this game?

The reason I ask is because I have now played the game only 6 or 7 times, and on Thanksgiving I saw the first Allied victory ever.
Luckily I was the Brits. 

[frimmel]

I have only seen one Allied victory. One was the very first game we played and we were mostly just concerned with getting the mechanics down. Dig in at St. Lo and stall everywhere else. I have also found that using the fortune cards hampers the Allies more often than the Axis. Especially if the rolls for High Seas keep going against them and they can't land their reinforcements. If the Allies aren't getting hits with their aircraft it is often not even close to an Allied victory.

[critmonster]

we played twice today and they were both allies blowouts, are we doing something wrong?  you can still move to the beach if their are blockhouses there right?  i saw another post that stated otherwise but have not seen it in the rules.

[frimmel]

Uncertain. What were you doing? 

Or more precisely what were the Germans doing? Were they trying to hold everywhere? Stalll at the beaches? Were the Germans getting ART pieces in the reinforcement zones to provide some cover against Allied aircraft?

Were you using the fortune cards? If the Germans keep coming up with a six for card 15 that tips things significantly to the Allies if of course the Allies aren't suffering the same misfortune. I've found that sixes on card 10 hurt the Allies significantly more than any other misfortune.

Tell us some more about the strategies used.

[critmonster]

one game with fortune and tactice, one without

the germans tried to hold at caen and st. lo, pushing reinforcments there and only using the cherbourg units already on the board to stall the allies.  the allies pushed strong in the center and used air to harrrass the reinforcment zones, bombers to target blockhouses and 88's.  as soon as the art was thinned i stacked fighters over the cities to shred any reinforcments he had coming in. slaughter.   
it was fun and quick but seems like it will be a repetative game.

[frimmel]

It does get repetitive. I guess I don't have a large enough sample at around a dozen games. Just seems like the Allies have a far tougher row to hoe. I have never tried holding anythng but St. Lo. You must have enjoyed some good shooting with your aircraft. The only games that are ever close are the ones where the Allied aircraft get lots of kills. How many aircraft did you have over St. Lo and Caen?  You didn't miss that there is a limit of four FTRs to a zone did you? I'm guessing the German AA didn't shoot anything down either?

[critmonster]

4 figs overhead, avoided aa guns for the most part.  i hit them with bombers whenever they were alone (targeted attack with bombers seems overpowered) first i harrassed the reinforcment zones and he didn't stack aa guns there in the first game, kept moving them up. the second game i stacked the fighters between his zones and the towns and after picking off the 88's in town with bombers i put 4 figs over the town and moved in.  maybe the fact he conceeded instead of fighting to the bitter end made a differenc, did your games come down to the final turn on the final town?

[frimmel]

It usually goes the distance. Ain't over till it is over. Especailly if I forget which number it is, there is a fortune card that ties the Allies up only allowing them to move from two zones.

I tend to keep at least two ART in all the reinforcement zones if possible or leave one zone on each side purposefully empty to try and draw Allied aircraft to it and bring the units on in the other zones. Maybe I've just been seeing a good run of luck. But how the Allies handle their aircraft and how the Axis uses its AA seems to be the most important things.

[Cobert]

I just got it for christmas and played it twice.  Allies won both times.

They were both very close game, having the allies take the 3 cities on turn nine and wipe out an attacking German force during turn 10 to secure victory. 

4 German artillery attacking 3 inf and 3 armor in Caen...Briatin got lucky and got the 4 1's and 2's it needed.

Cherbourg got taken easily both times, the axis just use units already nearby to stall.  My friend who has palyed before said Caen is easy to take, but it seemed hard when I played, since Germany always had 2 88's and 6 armor in it.

Like Frimmel said, the allied handling of planes is very important. Bomb lone german artillery whenever possible, then fly planes into cities to stop German reinforcement.  One a single beach head is clear, begin the march to the city in need of reinforcement, and just flow troops through this funnel.  Once you get a steady chain, direct your planes to defending the funnel, or use them to tie down German divisions trying to flank and cut these reinforcements away.  Any German unit without artillery supports is a dead one.

As Germany, Im not sure what to do. It seems to get pretty close.  Keep Artillery in you reinforcement zone, move some artillery into cities, use tanks to block the allies push to St Lo, move Infantry into cities.  I think the reson Ive lost with the Germans is because Ive split my forces between St Lo and Caen.  Next game Ill probably devote more forces to Omaha beach and trying to stop my funnel tactic.  Caen is easily reached and becomes a game-long struggle, and Cherbourg is hopeless. St Lo and the area between it and Omaha/Gold beaches are the game-breakers.

[critmonster]

played out 3rd game, i was germany and totally stuffed the allies.  hot dice early are better for germany than later, i held uk to the beach for 3 turns and surrounded st.lo as best i could sacrificing a few units to caen to pin the british armor down temporarily and feinted towards cherbourg to keep usa honest up there.  turn nine they werent' even adjacent to st. lo.  3 88's in each reinforcmetn zone in the center scared the figs away (also shot down 2 in the first turn) we used fortuen and tactic cards  which at lest ad a littel variety but this game looks like it plays itself out and stagnats quickly, i see us playing it maybe two or three more times and being done excpet maybe for playing it with my kids

[Cobert]

I too won with Germany for the first time yesterday.

Cherbourg had great die rolls and held USA off until turn 9, Caen was taken by turn 5 (british beaches cleared quickly), and I htought I was going to lose VERY soon after that.  Then I swept my tanks up and cut off british troops moving towards St Lo, and kept reinforcing St Lo so it was the US versus Germany. 

Of course, it helped that the allies had terrible reinforcement rolls, such as the united states rolling a 2 in the heat of the mid-game struggle for St Lo.

[Pervavita]

i know it's an old thread, but i will give my input.
i have played 3 games, each one as the Germans. i find it to be easy to hold, i have yet to have a game end before turn 10 (although one was close when i had killed almost ALL the Allied troops). it has been over a year sence i played, but the games were all good. i find that it seams to favor the Germans. but it could be who i was playing.
and no we didn't use any cards and most the rolls fell about avarage.

[frimmel]

They usually have some sort of bid for Germany in the Orgins/Gencons tourneys.

http://www.geocities.com/headlesshorseman2/DDaytournament.htm

I've never played in one of the tourneys so I'm not real sure what the average bid ends up being.

[AndrewPeters76]

Well, between the games I played on my own and the games i've played with a few buddies of mine (total of 7), I have seen pretty much a split. 4 Axis wins, 3 allies wins BUT, all the Allied wins were with Fortune Cards, all the games played with normal cards were won by the Axis.

[Mr Morden]

What are you guys doing ?

The Allies can't lose , you just park aircraft over the central city and annihilate anything that tries to get into it.The other two cities are either swamped by the British , or cut off by the Americans....