Beating J1

[Arthur Bomber Harris]

@mikawagunichi Land units are so key to the game. India should be in retreat after a normal J1 attack as the massive air force should be scary enough to prevent the UK from wanting to risk half of its defensive strength. The IJN moves are also bizarre as the fleet is missing an aircraft carrier group and three transports that should be in the theater at the end of J2.

With such poor gameplay from the Axis, this is hardly convincing that the USA bomber build strategy will hold up during the first 4-5 rounds. I see this problem quite frequently for innovative plans that are good against bad players but don’t stand a chance against more seasoned opponents.

[mikawagunichi]

@arthur-bomber-harris

If you read Andrew’s original write up, some units were moved back to SZ6 to protect the newly built units there. Could have done with less if a blocker was used but for some reason he didn’t want to do that, or at least prove it wasn’t mathematically necessary.

The OPs question was how to deal with a J1 attack, but there was no mention of what was going on in Europe. IME Germany is a much bigger threat to win the game than Japan and I personally like to use US money in the Atlantic early on, but that probably wouldn’t be a helpful response.

[Arthur Bomber Harris]

@shadowhawk The map I posted was the standard cow J1 playbook opening results that are stickied in the Forum. The dice are reasonably typical of a normal game with some battles being above and some below the typical outcome.

It would be easier to discuss how to respond based on this “standard” end of J1 map instead of all of the permutations, especially those without a successful attack into Yunnan.

Everything in the entire game changes if that move fails and China becomes a monster with a large artillery-containing stack supported with additional Russian/UK Pacific pieces that can’t be addressed until much later in the game and at enormous economic consequences to Japan. No point turning this thread into what happens if Japan gets diced on a J1 or what to do against a poor Axis player who does a J1.

[MarshmallowofWar]

Asking again – is this thread about stopping J1 or about dealing with J1?

It it’s about stopping J1, that’s easy. Bid two strat bombers for Amur and Sakha and destroy the Japanese fleet in sea zone 20.

Alternately, bid three strat bombers for Amur, Sakha, and Buryatia and destroy the Japanese fleet in sea zone 19.

Each one also gets to kill a Japanese transport if dice go average. At least one of the bombers can land safely out of range of Japanese ground forces with some Chinese infantry, and then head west on R2 to annoy the Germans or stick around in the Pacific to annoy the Japanese.

This was not my idea by the way, but it seems like it would be pretty effective at stopping J1.

Marsh

[Arthur Bomber Harris]

@marshmallow-of-war agreed that we are getting side tracked of using the bid to beat J1. I should not have introduced that topic. Anyway, spending a large amount of the bid in the Pacific theater is probably not as efficient as a European/African/Atlantic bid.

[Arthur Bomber Harris]

@ShadowHAwk that BB hits a considerable fraction of the time. I usually roll that battle last as it can be a tough decision whether to lose the ship or a plane. So much can depend on the outcome of the other battles as they will determine how much will be needed to go after China vs pushing into the Spice Islands/India

[MarshmallowofWar]

@arthur-bomber-harris It’s a no-brainer – you lose the fighter. You have spares of those, but not a lot of spare ships and the US Navy is coming.

Marsh

[mikawagunichi]

@shadowhawk

Agreed. I usually only send the fig and 2 strats. Save the cruiser with the borneo group. Need as many escorts for those TTs as possible.

[AndrewAAGamer]

How are you protecting FIC if you do not block with the Cruiser?

[mikawagunichi]

@andrewaagamer

I’m not. If the UK wants to sacrifice their only transport to take back FIC for one round instead of a higher value use in ME/Africa/DEI that’s fine with me.

[Arthur Bomber Harris]

and even if there is a Cruiser, the UK can choose to strafe the two FIC infantry, ensuring that Yunnan remains in Chinese hands on round 2. It is a risky gambit for the Allies, but worth it if playing G40 without bid.

You have to take big risks as Allies in the first couple of rounds because turns 3-5 are mostly scripted with little chance for luck to get involved. In many matches, the game has been decided by turn 6.

[MarshmallowofWar]

@arthur-bomber-harris I dunno, I’m in Andrew’s camp on this one. When you win by gambling big, you have to take a lot of big gambles and eventually one will not work out.

Marsh

[MarshmallowofWar]

@shadowhawk Yes, but the UK does have to kill the cruiser if you leave it, putting more forces at risk. The UK on the other hand really can’t do anything about the fighter until you use it against India, meaning the UK won’t put any units in harms way for you to destroy and can use those units elsewhere.

Marsh

[AndrewAAGamer]

@mikawagunichi said in Beating J1:

@andrewaagamer

I’m not. If the UK wants to sacrifice their only transport to take back FIC for one round instead of a higher value use in ME/Africa/DEI that’s fine with me.

Not sure what you mean by higher value.

1. Taking Persia gives UK Europe $2 and sets up a take of Iraq on UK2 instead of UK3 so it is basically a $4 play. The transport survives.

2. Assisting an attack on Ethiopia takes a high chance battle to virtually a guaranteed battle saving probably on average an infantry or $3. The transport survives.

3. Taking Sumatra gives UK Pacific $4. The transport dies.

4. Hitting FIC results in a standard 83% take or 98% if a fighter is lost if necessary. The transport is lost. Japan has no ground units to retake Yunnan so China is helped and without control of FIC Japan does not get a mIC in the south for one entire Turn. UK Pacific gains $2.

Of those four choices number 4 seems to be the highest value.

[MarshmallowofWar]

@andrewaagamer I dunno guy – it seems like you’re not taking into account the value of the transport.

[mikawagunichi]

@andrewaagamer said in Beating J1:

@mikawagunichi said in Beating J1:

@andrewaagamer

I’m not. If the UK wants to sacrifice their only transport to take back FIC for one round instead of a higher value use in ME/Africa/DEI that’s fine with me.

Not sure what you mean by higher value.

1. Taking Persia gives UK Europe $2 and sets up a take of Iraq on UK2 instead of UK3 so it is basically a $4 play. The transport survives.

2. Assisting an attack on Ethiopia takes a high chance battle to virtually a guaranteed battle saving probably on average an infantry or $3. The transport survives.

3. Taking Sumatra gives UK Pacific $4. The transport dies.

4. Hitting FIC results in a standard 83% take or 98% if a fighter is lost if necessary. The transport is lost. Japan has no ground units to retake Yunnan so China is helped and without control of FIC Japan does not get a mIC in the south for one entire Turn. UK Pacific gains $2.

Of those four choices number 4 seems to be the highest value.

1. Also allows the Persian factory to built on UK2. Getting as money UK $ spent in the ME is critical in any non-sea lion game.

2. You’ll want to have at least 2 land units survive the battle so that you can take back Kenya from Italy on UK2. If you don’t, you’ll lose the original territories NO plus 1 for Kenya. So there’s 6 IPC.

3. Also gives the chance of killing precious Jap land units when they take it, instead of allowing them to walk in to all DEI on J2. May even prevent them from taking it on J2 if you get lucky.

4. Depends on how much you value getting a factory in FIC right away. Could just put one on Kwangtung.

Also for 1-2 we should be adding in another 7 for the TT itself.

[Arthur Bomber Harris]

@marshmallow-of-war said in Beating J1:

@arthur-bomber-harris I dunno, I’m in Andrew’s camp on this one. When you win by gambling big, you have to take a lot of big gambles and eventually one will not work out.

Marsh

The Axis start with an advantage of approximately 40 PUs that would be necessary to balance the game. That bid leads to a benefit of about 30 additional PUs as the Scottish fighter can protect SZ111 and help counteract, African units can crush Italy, and other such leverage that you get from smartly placed pre-game units. By the end of the second round, a 40 PU initial bid should be well over 85 PU swing compared to a no-bid match. That type of two round swing is required just to balance the game to 50/50 odds.

How are you going to achieve that type of swing in a no-bid game? Obviously low skill by the opponent is one common way to do it as minor strategic mistakes can cause long-term damage. We saw that in the J1 match earlier where Japan didn’t attack Yunnan, failed to bring all of his units further south, and he failed to execute on a J3 or J4 India crush. Those mistakes were devastating.

For better players, the first two rounds are mostly scripted for the Axis. I can look up the standard play book for Japan and Germany and perhaps make a minor adjustment for bad dice luck for second round plans. Strategically there is little for the Allies to do in the first couple of rounds that would get the game back in balance. The next couple of rounds are even more scripted as Germany drives into Russia on G3-4 with no significant opposition, China gets inevitably crushed, and India turtles down in the capitol. A lucky minor battle can be a 10 point swing, but it is hard to get eight of those all in the Allies favor. Hence, the Axis probably has over 100+ PU advantage in a typical game by G5. People wont make egregious mistakes if using a battle calculator on turns 6-8. Good luck overcoming that Allies disadvantage with dice rolls! I will gladly demonstrate how easy it is to win for the Axis in a no-bid Forum match and I certainly am not a top-end player.

Hence, we get to the logical conclusion that the Allies must start taking high risks, and best to start doing it earlier in the game than later as PU advantages builds on itself. Take those 30% battles and see if the dice are in your favor. Strafe off those FIC troops with Indian fighters. Leave a stack in risk for the Axis to defeat it 70% of the time and dare them to attack. If your risky attacks fail, make even riskier attacks as your level of desperation is even higher. The goal is to win the game as Allies, not to force the match into additional turns by turtling down and avoiding risk.

[surfer]

@Arthur-Bomber-Harris And that’s the reason I wouldn’t play OOB without a significant Allied bid…even if I was the Axis. I want a game, not a slaughter. :)

[Cornwallis]

@arthur-bomber-harris
Just for my own culture; when you’re talking about thé scripted axis play for Germany, then you’re talking about the big march into Russia? (when UK prevents a sea lion offcourse).

[MarshmallowofWar]

@arthur-bomber-harris I’ll agree that it’s hard for the Allies in an OOB game to get an advantage without taking some calculated risks! That being said, there’s calculated risk and then there’s reckless – the latter is to be avoided.

Even OOB, the Allies do have some fairly stock responses they can use that are adjustable to situations and every Allied player should learn these and practice on how to adjust them.

When we’re now talking a bid game, that’s the point where I would discourage taking large risks at all. If you’ve already equalized the game with the bid, why risk it?

I will say that the Scotland fighter is almost becoming a standard bid element. Not everyone uses it, but more and more I see folks using it as part of their bid and usually it comes first when the subject of the bid comes up. I would expect to see that as an addition in version 3 (assuming Wizards is working on one).

Marsh