knp
Hey Black Elk,
Snicker, snicker.
I know right?! :-D Talk about embarrassing, though it wouldn’t be the first time something in the manual gave me the slip. Still that’s a pretty massive misreading on my part. I Can’t even tell you how many times I got stalled out a round driving in Russia, or using Japan to launch into China/against south east asia, trying to coordinate the armor with the mech for attacks. The way my buddy and I handled it the pairing 1:1 was strictly enforced, so when I saw it being done in tripleA, I just figured the opponent prefered a “mech always move 2 no matter what” style of play (similar to other tripleA games that included this Mech unit before the 1940 games ever even came out.) So in that case I figured we were defaulting to two moves and I might follow course. But I always thought this was unofficial. Insane!
TheMethuselah
First off, I don’t quite understand the 109 attack. Sending one sub there invites a 4 scramble, which deletes your sub for a 1/3 chance of hitting the dd. The transport will die only if UK whiffs 1dd/4 fighters.
The way I interpret it, the reason to do this move is specifically to force the scramble here rather than in 110, where it would potentially be more damaging to Germany. Now it could be that your UK opponent has been burned off scrambling altogether, in which case it doesn’t matter. But if they are a scrambler, then I’ve seen instances where Germany loses half the luftwaffe in the 110 attack and UK preserves their fighters. If UK scrambles 110, with a brutal first round dud by G, and a decent first round hit by UK, Germany could lose a lot more TUV then they lose by forcing a sz 109 scramble. This is why I will sometimes bring the fighter from Holland to 109, since this guarantees a UK scramble, albeit at a cost of 16 total TUV to G to force UK’s hand, but then you come out much cleaner in sz 110. Again, this doesn’t matter if the UK player is the sort who avoids scrambling for fear of air losses, which isn’t uncommon to see.
YG
or they take a plane into France which I personally think is unnecessary because it gives the French AA Gun something to do.
In my view bringing the Stuka into France is a solid move. I understand the reluctance to take a 1 in 6 risk that the AA gun will hit, but this play also activates the Stuka’s attack at 4 rather than 3, and there isn’t a whole lot else it can do, other than attack Yugoslavia. The way I play, bringing it into a Yugo attack does little good, since it increases the likelyhood of a sweep, where what I want is to do is Strafe, and then bounce as many Greater Southern Germany units to Romania as possible.
This Romania bounce sets up a much better G2 option against the Russians, instead of forcing you to wait till G3. Waiting till G3 is probably better anyway, but this at least gives you a stronger forward option. Also the Stuka into the Yugo attack doesn’t do anything more against Taranto than the lone fighter would, since the AB in S. Italy maxes out at 3 air anyway. So I will always bring this unit into an attack on France. Sure if it gets shot down you’re pissed, but that only happens 1 out of every 6 attempts on average. Which are solid odds in my book.
DizzKneeLand33
I haven’t crunched the numbers, but I will say this. After winning a game when the France attack failed (because my opponent was also attacking Southern France – I can’t even imagine also attacking Normandy)
Again I understand how getting burned even one time in Paris, will encourage players to really pad this battle. But going all in on France (with the Stuka) is on average 13 units remaining vs 10 units on average remaining if you peel off units to attack S. France or Normandy. Both battles (All France, and France +Normandy or S. France) are still 99% chance for Germany to prevail. So its a difference of basically 3 more fodder lost on average, to take the extra gamble.
Everything in France comes down to the first round of combat anyway, so you can still get screwed on hits regardless, no matter how much you throw at it. I think this parallels the W. Russia attack by the Russians in the Revised game, where the defenders hits were basically out of your control.
If there is no plan for Normandy or S. France, then I agree, its not really worth doing just for the income. But if it is part of the plan, I don’t think the odds are so low to be totally against it, or that you can necessarily say its a foolhardy play. People take odds on Black Jack or Sports that are way worse than the odds on some of these battles, betting real money, so I kind of think it comes down to what sort of player you are dealing with. Not everyone want’s to be conservative and run their games with the least risk possible. Some players like to take a risk, provided the odds are in their favor. I think it would be hard to provide advice that fits every situation, but in terms of the broad outlines, I think advice on the water is going to be more important for new players than advice on how to handle France. The sea zones and the scrambling, where to land etc. I find that’s what trips a lot of people up, especially if they haven’t played a full game before.
barney
so we have operation “All in on Russia, Allied landings be damned” and operation “overkill is good”, which could be the same thing.
They both sound cool :)
Haha I dig it! Operation Overkill
YG
Also, I prefer Mech Infantry towing 1 artillery unit each as a house rule that makes Mechs better.
I remember we had rules that joined Mech to Artillery like this in BigWorld 1942 (a tripleA variant I made with WanderingHead). This game had Mech about 5 years before they were introduced as a standard unit in normal Axis and Allies games. Probably earlier now that I think about it. In various drafts of the BigWorld1942 game, the Mech infantry unit was essentially a land transport, and it worked by providing a movement bonus to infantry or artillery, i.e. it could tow 1 of either along with it while it moved 2 spaces.
Later they had Mech that moved 3 spaces, though I provided no input on that. The inclusion of China and 3 space Mech, is when I stopped working on BigWorld. Both ideas I could never really sign off on. But I do remember the earlier Mech worked like a land transport over 2 spaces, and could haul infantry or artillery along with it 1:1.
There were some other Mech rules I recall exploring too, but none of them looked like the Mech unit we see in G40. This was around 2004 as I recall in the Revised Era. Many unoffical tripleA ideas from that time seem to have found their way into official games later on, by the power of osmosis I guess ;) But sometimes aspects of the ideas get lost in the translation. Like how to handle Italy in an Axis and Allies game comes immediatley to mind heheh. I suppose in the 1940 games, the idea was to have a unit that paired mainly with armor, though originally our ideas for mech were that “half-tracks” gave a movement bonus to normal infantry. The price there was 4 ipcs to match artillery, but it had different complimentary uses, all of which related to infantry/artillery rather than armor.
Gah! I still can’t believe the Mech can move 2 into an attack over a friendly territory OOB in 1940! That’s such a huge revelation for Axis strategy! :-D
