@genken Might be cool to have a house rule that 1) 1, 2 or 3 the ship is damaged in a way that it moves at half but attacks full or 2) 4, 5, or 6 it is damaged in a what that it moves 2 spaces but attacks with a hit on 1 or 2 vs 4 normally.
Turn one attacks that must not fail
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If England lands everything there, I would almost prefer not taking Paris with Germany round 1!! This only makes strafing it better, in my opinion, because now you have a completely neutered England who won’t be any kind of threat to Europe - and no pesky aircraft racing to Moscow to help defend there.
Or am I missing something? (not that I am looking at the map right now.)
Anyone have numbers on what the likely result would be of a strafe? Assuming Fighter, armor, artillery but I don’t remember exactly what was on Paris round 1. Germany I would suspect would keep all armor and artillery that were used, maybe some of the infantry/maybe not.
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Ms. Jennifer,
What you propose is how you execute the Italy Strong Strategy. Germany attacks first, killing almost everything, then Italy takes it, along with a heap of money, lots of income and all new possibilities for Italian Rage.
I do see what you are saying about intervening with UK between the Axis turns. The Italians can attack with 2 inf, 2 art, 1 armor, 2 fighters, 1 SB. Since you can bring a crazy amount of fighters (4, plus 1 Tac) to defend the French, 6 planes (also with an SB as a cas) might be an effective defense against that Italian attack.
This happened to me in a live game, and I chose not to intervene in Paris. This could have been because I didn’t see how many planes I could really bring by committing everything. Also, I may have perceived that even with the 6 ripping fighters, the Italians should probably attack anyway, just to inflict more casualties.
If UK does this, they cannot
Stop a G2 sealion
Taranto
Tobruk
Take Somalia without risk
Attack German subs with planes on UK1So, overall, I’m thinking that this attack plan creates some risks for the Axis than it appeared to in live play. The strafe isn’t hard to execute, but leaving only a single fighter might be. I foolishly believed that somehow Paris was going to live until its turn.
If you do stack the planes, and somehow you prevent Paris from being taken, the French can bring in a bunch of stuff on their turn, and buy (???). Still, at that point, Germany will annihilate everything a turn later than usual, taking the entire UK airforce with it. It’s wasted an entire Axis turn on a failed gambit, but they still killed everything you had. This attrition can work in the Allies favor…
Overall however, the strategy is kinda flawed as well. If you make Italy rage, and if UK doesn’t commit to the defense, it can kill your fleet and forces in Africa. Then, you begin the game with a minor power having a ton of money that it might like to spend on strategic assets (ie buying a new fleet) but we’ve seen again and again that no matter how much Italy builds up in the Med, it isn’t going to be adequate after US5. Italy will grab the oil and north Africa, but German is permanently neutered by the fact it never got a threshold income to buy a stack of tanks or arty with, and so killing Moscow early is off the table.
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Overall however, the strategy is kinda flawed as well. If you make Italy rage, and if UK doesn’t commit to the defense, it can kill your fleet and forces in Africa. Then, you begin the game with a minor power having a ton of money that it might like to spend on strategic assets (ie buying a new fleet) but we’ve seen again and again that no matter how much Italy builds up in the Med, it isn’t going to be adequate after US5. Italy will grab the oil and north Africa, but German is permanently neutered by the fact it never got a threshold income to buy a stack of tanks or arty with, and so killing Moscow early is off the table.
I agree with the last part of this. A few of my friends argue this same strategy idea for the Italian Rage and I gladly offer them to try it however I want the allies alone. I don’t want any false ideas that it worked but in reality it’s cause of a over passive Russian player. I am a firm believer that this strategy isn’t a good idea. Germany needs the money more then Italy does. There is ONE VC in Africa and THREE in Russia. Italy cannot gain an axis victory with German help.
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@Cmdr:
If England lands everything there, I would almost prefer not taking Paris with Germany round 1!! This only makes strafing it better, in my opinion, because now you have a completely neutered England who won’t be any kind of threat to Europe - and no pesky aircraft racing to Moscow to help defend there.
Or am I missing something? (not that I am looking at the map right now.)
Yes, what you’re missing is now Germany has spent two whole turns trying to take Paris, at a disastrous cost, and there is no way that Germany can win in Europe. Russia and the UK are more than capable of constraining Germany and Italy by themselves at this point, leaving the US for a full court press in the Pacific.
In short, there is no way the Axis can win if you wait to take Paris on G2 because the UK defended it on UK1 and you failed to attack with the Italians.
Marsh
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@Marshmallow:
I’ve been pondering the turn one attacks that absolutely cannot fail – i.e., if these attacks fail you should concede and start a new game. This is my list so far:
1. G1 Paris attack – yes, you can let Italy mop up, but it changes the whole dynamic of the game. Germany has lost a lot of resources and is deprive the Paris income. At best you now have to give Italy a large role in the attack on Russia which gives you a severe disadvantage because you now have to use an Italian sacrificial attack to soften up Moscow and then two-punch with Germany, and at worse you’ve lost the game.
2. G1 sea zone 110 attack – in this case, absolute success means destroying the fleet with no aircraft lost. If you leave ships alive or lose multiple aircraft, it changes the whole dynamic of the game. Is it worth a restart though? Probably not unless you lost three or more aircraft and left ships alive.
3. J1 attack on Yunnan – if your J1 attack on Yunnan fails, is it a total catastrophe? My opinion is yes. This rises to the level of “Japan will never be able to win” in my opinion.
4. C1 attack on Yunnan – if you lose this attack, India will fail on J3 with absolute certainty barring insanely fluky die rolls (by “insanely fluky” I mean “you get 12 antiaircraft hits when Japan goes in and Japan misses its entire first round of attacks”). Losing this attack is an utter disaster for the Allies.
5. UK1 sea zone 96 battle – this is so bad that when my opponents fail I ask them if they want to continue the game. The whole dynamic in the Med changes. The UK really cannot hold Egypt and secure the Middle East if this attack fails.I’d been thinking about this too. in my experience, France needs to fall by by I1, not necessarily in G1. And I agree on the J1 & C1 attacks on Yunnan. But the others aren’t gamebreakers.
I also want to highlight a danger with looking at battles this way. If some battles become established win-or-startover battles, players might start to cut corners on those attacks, knowing that they’ll just restart the game if they fail. That’s risky to me. Yes, France is designed to fall G1, but you still have to take in enough to win it. If Germany tries to spread itself thin by attacking too many territories, the player should have to live with those consequences, just as the opponent would have to live with them if the gambit pays off.
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If the J1 attack on Yunnan fails, what is the main problem?
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Good question. China producing artillery is a pesky situation - but that’s all. No real problem imho.
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Apparently it was the land based torpedo bombers that pulled the japanese CAP down so that they where not in position to block the US dive bombers that did all the damage.
If the movie was accurate (which may be a big if), it was mainly the Devastator torpedo bombers from CV-8 (Hornet IIRC) which caused this.
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If the J1 attack on Yunnan fails, what is the main problem?
In a traditional game with no bid, Japan can easily recover from a failed J1 attack. If there is a bid and the Allies can put extra focus on the Pacific theater, Russia can put in a couple ground units + 2 planes, China can stack 13 infantry + a plane, and India can declare war bringing in 2 infantry and 3 planes. That is a mighty stack in Yunnan:
16 infantry/mechs
1 tank
2 tacs
6 fightersAssuming that Japan just focuses everything on J2 against Yunnan, they likely will have
3 infantry
4 artillery
11 fighters
8 tacs
2 bombersJapan should win if done properly but will likely lose ~12 planes. Attacks on the money islands and Philippines gets delayed for another turn so their income is bad for an additional round.
If you are playing a balanced mod game, Japan is already struggling to ever capture India because it must leave ~7 ground units to stop Chinese insurrections. Give China an additional 3 artillery and they can launch a strong counterattack around Chi6 aimed at Manchuria. It could be impossible to stop that attack AND keep pushing towards India.
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I think the theory is (just guessing here, not necessarily agreeing or anything mind you!) that if Japan doesn’t take Yunnan round 1 the allies can stack a concentrated defense there.
Not sure if that’s what they meant, not even saying that’s a good idea. Just my theory on their statement.
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China and the UK can indeed stack Yunnan if Japan doesn’t take it, putting two Asian VCs at serious risk AFTER Japan has lost four precious ground units in the attack. Chinese strength in particular grows very quickly in this scenario because the Burma road is open. Japan can be forced to heavily defend those VCs, meaning that it probably does not have enough resources for an early victory.
On the other hand, it does pull defenses away from India if the UK stacks Yunnan to reinforce the Chinese.
It’s probably not a game ender for Japan, but it sure as heck makes Japan’s job a lot harder. Even if you are planning to not take India, you still have to hold Hong Kong to win and that defense becomes a major resource sink.
Marsh
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The Burma Rd is open C1 & C2 (assuming UK1 DOW). By J3, Japan should have taken either Szechwan via Kweichow or Yunnan itself. They can also hit Burma and India but that normally is a bit slower.
ABH, did you mean with an unprovoked DOW by the UK on UK1? If the UK did that, I’d be leaping for joy. You’re assuming that some of the USSR mobile units moved towards China USSR1 and the planes flew back to Moscow or east, but let’s go with that. Japan is probably better off to focus on Kwangtung, Malaya and the money islands. They can even keep the NO for FIC! I don’t really think attacking Yunnan J2 if they stacked it with all that would be a good move. Hit UK_Pac!
Now as for Italian rage, that looks even worse in BM. The British tank should be the last unit taken as a casualty in this particularly, because it can be used to block Vichy. As allies, I’d prefer blocking Vichy with an amphibious assault from SZ109 on Normandy if that doesn’t happen. You can’t really do that combined with Taranto though.
Let’s go back to OOB though, I submit that you should still lose the British tank last if you have the least inkling that Italian rage might be tried. Let’s say that you lose it though. You can still strafe Northern Italy with 5 fighters, 1 tac, 1SB, which wins 55%. Would that be worth it? Calculator doesn’t think so. You do likely force them to decide whether to preserve the bomber in the first round, and if they do, they’ve weakened their defence. If they lose the bomber you can retreat unless you’ve rolled well but you’ve lost on average 3 planes to kill one.
EDIT: Oops, the Gib fighter can’t reach Northern Italy and land in France. But the tank also attacks on a 3 and the AA Guns still get 6 shots. With neither tank or fighter, the attack drops to 30% and -24 TUV swing.
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Dang that’s a great point Simon. Why not turn the tables on Italy!
As I was saying, this happened to me in a live game, and now im regretting not doing either the Paris stack or the Rome attack, at least just to try this. Its an opening only the Axis can give you in attempting Italy Rage, one that (based on our analysis here) would actually be very likely to cost them the game! Since its a novel (but dangerous) gambit, it seems like a born loser…
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The Allies certainly have the option for waiting until turn 2 before stacking Yunnan if Japan fails on J1. The Chinese will easily have enough units to retake the territory and likely will just use minimal forces if Japan did not issue a DOW on J2. at the end of their Chi2 turn, they easily could have 14 infantry + 6 art + 1 fighter stacked in Szechwan. That is an impressive army against the weak Axis forces in Asia.
If this is a no-bid / non-mod game, the Axis still can come back to win the game by capturing Moscow or heading down into the oilfields. I don’t think that I could come back for a win with BM rules.
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