Defending against a 21+ bid Power Europe

[Guest]

Well AS…

All I can do to counter your arguments about the “difficulty” in destroying the UK fleet is this…

Go look at the current game I have with Dezrtfish. 
After G1:
USSR SUB and TRN sunk
UK BB and TRN sunk
ECan TRN sunk
Gibraltar BB sunk
Eastern Med SUB sunk

Germany still has 4 of 5 FIGS, and their bomber.
UK has 1 TRN on the board, in India.  If they counter Egypt for 2 IPC’s, they lose India for 3, then Persia.  If they stay in India, they lose Africa, and India the following turn.

Reinforcements possible in Africa by the Allies in the remainder of T1 and all of T2 consist of 2 INF from the US, and the UK India forces… unless they want to send AF down there…

[DarthMaximus]

NCS, I think you’ll find much of Asia irrelevant to the Allies.  Barring KJF, Japan always takes Ind, Sfe, Yak, Sin and Chi, it makes little difference if they get these in rd 2 or 3, But what is important is that the Russian troops don’t get killed.  Retreat, retreat, retreat…then whn J tries to move to Novo you attack with at least 7-10 inf, 5-7 arm, 2 ftrs.  You can do 2 rds of strafe and severly hurt Japan.Â

Remember our game, granted there was no bid to Asia, but the principal is still the same.
Russia (and the Allies) do not need to engage the Japanese till they approach Novo, which won’t be till rd 3.
Which means Russia needs to take on Germany for the first 3-4 rds then can start to turn its attention to Japan because UK and US troops will now be arriving in Kar.

Once Germany is boxed in in Europe, Russia can hold off Japan indefinitely.

UK can easily trade Ind for kicking out Ger in Egy (and Afr), and if you can do it with out any extra shipments Germany is going to be trouble.

I just did my turn against AS, and I easily traded my 3 inf, 1 ftr, 1 bom for his 4 inf, 1 arm in egy, and he placed 4 inf there to start.  2 extra inf in Lib, will not be enough to scare the Allies.

J will get the added boost of Ind, but it still takes newly purchased units 2-3 turns to hit the front.  I’m betting I can hold down Ger enough, before these troops really have an effect.

[Guest]

All I can do to counter your arguments about the “difficulty” in destroying the UK fleet is this…

Go look at the current game I have with Dezrtfish. 
After G1:
USSR SUB and TRN sunk
UK BB and TRN sunk
ECan TRN sunk
Gibraltar BB sunk
Eastern Med SUB sunk

And I guess what I am telling you is that I would not have played r1 like he did. :wink:

I would’ve been far more proactive with the Russians in order to make it as hard as possible for Germany to destroy the fleet so as to spread them out and force them into either or decisions.  Either they lose their fleet or air or they don’t touch the WMed BB.  Either they ignore the UkSz or they risk heavy losses.

NCS, I think you’ll find much of Asia irrelevant to the Allies.  Barring KJF, Japan always takes Ind, Sfe, Yak, Sin and Chi, it makes little difference if they get these in rd 2 or 3,

Yes absolutely.

I just did my turn against AS, and I easily traded my 3 inf, 1 ftr, 1 bom for his 4 inf, 1 arm in egy, and he placed 4 inf there to start.  2 extra inf in Lib, will not be enough to scare the Allies.

I would argue however that this was a bad move b/c there is a significant risk that you lose all units and leave Germany with 1 or 2.  Ultimately it comes down to the first round attacking dice by the UK, if they get two hits then it might pan out but 1/3 of the time they won’t.  And I would dare say that every time you don’t get two hits you will probably lose whereas even in the times that you do you aren’t guaranteed of a win.  Its essentially a crap shoot with a low payout.  But your point is sound if this move is iffy with 5units in AES then with only 4 it should be an open invitation to attack.

[DarthMaximus]

I would argue however that this was a bad move b/c there is a significant risk that you lose all units and leave Germany with 1 or 2.  Ultimately it comes down to the first round attacking dice by the UK, if they get two hits then it might pan out but 1/3 of the time they won’t.  And I would dare say that every time you don’t get two hits you will probably lose whereas even in the times that you do you aren’t guaranteed of a win.

True, about the win part.  But the the battle was 10 pts vs. 10pts, the defender falls into the same miss % at 33% of the time.  I think with 5 units or less you have to hit Egy, assuming you can bring in all 10 pts worth.

The worst case Allies (rd 1 battle) is a miss and defender hit, and that only happens 22% of the time, because even though I may miss 33% of the time that doesn’t guarantee the defender will hit.  So in reality, it doesn’t pan out only 1/4 of the time or about 25%.

Again, looking at it from the Allies perspective, I’ll take the shot at Removing Germany from Afr on UK 1 esp if I’ll be successful 75% of the time.

But your point is sound if this move is iffy with 5units in AES then with only 4 it should be an open invitation to attack.

Yeah, this was the really important point I was getting at.  Further it is likely G will lose 1 unit on the attack anyway, so you could be looking at only 3 units in Egy to start UK 1.

[Guest]

True, about the win part.  But the the battle was 10 pts vs. 10pts, the defender falls into the same miss % at 33% of the time.  I think with 5 units or less you have to hit Egy, assuming you can bring in all 10 pts worth.

But even a 1 to 1 exchange favors Germany b/c the the UK needs that far more than Germany does. and once the battle begins the UK cannot retreat.  More importantly however is the fact that there is a simplier way which does not carry this kind of risk.

The worst case Allies (rd 1 battle) is a miss and defender hit, and that only happens 22% of the time, because even though I may miss 33% of the time that doesn’t guarantee the defender will hit.  So in reality, it doesn’t pan out only 1/4 of the time or about 25%.

Again, looking at it from the Allies perspective, I’ll take the shot at Removing Germany from Afr on UK 1 esp if I’ll be successful 75% of the time.

But like I said you won’t be successful 75% of the time only 66%, and that doesn’t subtract that even doing so doesn’t guarantee you a win.  Even if you can win 4/5 of the 1/3 left this will drop the overall down to below 60% and probably even 55%.  And when you take into account that I believe I can win 80% of my games against this bid I think its a lot of flash and no substance.  The only way to do this was to hit the fleet too which risks almost all of your airforce and is therefore not a good move.

Yeah, this was the really important point I was getting at.  Further it is likely G will lose 1 unit on the attack anyway, so you could be looking at only 3 units in Egy to start UK 1.

I would add that one reason why I thought your move was not wise was b/c it left Yak open to attack which isn’t a bad idea.  IMO the only way to defend against a bid of 2unit Asian bid is to either give up Yakut, or to get 8units there.  I will ignore China if it comes to that, or even better is to have bid an armor into Kwan and move 1inf somewhere else.  Once you made your Russian move you were more or less committed to Yakut and therefore not placing your ftr there was an invitation to attack.

[DarthMaximus]

I would add that one reason why I thought your move was not wise was b/c it left Yak open to attack which isn’t a bad idea.  IMO the only way to defend against a bid of 2unit Asian bid is to either give up Yakut, or to get 8units there.  I will ignore China if it comes to that, or even better is to have bid an armor into Kwan and move 1inf somewhere else.  Once you made your Russian move you were more or less committed to Yakut and therefore not placing your ftr there was an invitation to attack.

Yeah, my intention was to land the UK ftr there.  I thought you’d do Syr and possibly leave the w med bb.  Which ment I would have reinforced Yak with the UK ftr.

I’m actually glad you did that move (not because of the outcome or anything like that), because I don’t see that a lot and it is nice to know that I better take into account that move in the future and that good players may indeed bypass Chi.

I guess, That’s why you play the game.  :-D