Should i play with or without factories ?

Greetings All,

I am a newbie and have gone through most of the forum posts over the past few days. Let me start by saying thanks to all who answer the questions so there is a lot of info to read. I am a FMF Navy Corpsman who has been playing since teen years in early 90s. I started with 1st Edition and bought Revised several years ago to play with my sons. I recently pulled it out to teach my nephews who are ten and fourteen.

Game modifications we made to make it easier and faster:

Inf moves two, arm three, all ships move four, eliminated art, added heavy tanks instead of rockets on WD. We changed cost of inf, trn, sub + AAA to 1: arm, fgt, des to 2, bmb, AC, BB, and IC to 3. We switched bomber and transport defense to two and transport attack to one. Â

They took Allies and I took Axis. I used Jpn to set up a sea blockade using SZ 60, Phil (sz49), and continued around to India through EIND and Borneo (sz48) with an IC on Borneo and Kwan. Jpn currently has Midway as well.

I had Germany take SZ 2 and form a blockade with sz 6,7,8, to ward off attacks to WEUR. I killed UK with Sealion attack supported by heavy bombers and long range aircraft. � We are into round six with Russia surrounded and German naval forces ready to attack ECAN or EUS from UK with minimal opposition.

Looking for thoughts, suggestions, ideas?

How does it work? And is anyone interested in playing? I’m kinda new to the game, but start to get the hang of it.

@Advosan:

A successfull IC in India imho demands also for 1)a 6 inf stack in BUR,4 inf in XIN and a soviet ftr in NOV,2)a successfull Uk1 attack in FIC with 2 UK ftr in either WR or Russia and 3)a US1 China IC(given it is still US owned),or a US1 double IC in both XIN and China if J1 puts an IC in Asia.I would be giving it a shot if G1 buys only 1-2 armor and does a lousy job at AES.

Edit: And of course destroy the lone tranny.

The problem with attacking FIC UK1 is you only destroy the units 70%.  So you are staking a lot on that attack if you’re committing to building an IC there Uk1.

In my first games as Allies I tried playing a India IC/USA Pac combo alot.  For ipc reasons I preferred to counter Egy UK1 though.  In alot of games, I wasn’t even building fleet with UK–if I was, I wasn’t getting to Africa or helping Russia with it till around UK4.  Since a Germany with Africa in its pocket can produce 10 armor a turn, I needed the UK1 Africa counter and sometimes UK1 and USA1 drops as well to mop up the dark continent and keep UK prosperous.

That meant that I was frequently allowing Japan to capture India, and then retaking it with the Russians.  I’d still build UK2, but I’d be short on units, and might require Russian assistance.  Ordinarily, the Japs became less fixated on India because USA was 100% Pacific.

I’m wary of a Sink IC unless Japan got really diced bad on the mainland J1.  It costs 24 ipc with the first bombing raid and the aa gun.

Certainly a successful FIC attack is a huge victory.  After a successful UK1 FIC if I’m Japan I might not even try to get India–I might just play defense and wait for Germany.  So at that point Africa is also critical because if Germany gets it they’ll get to Moscow that much faster.

I hope people will keep experimenting with IIC and other KJF tactics–it makes for good games.  The problem for KJF in 42 as opposed to Revised is its much harder to get a UK established in Europe and able to sufficiently distract Germany from Moscow.  The advantage for KJF is Japan’s fleet is weaker without those transports as fodder units.

@Keredrex:

I would say Russia…

It is very true that Russia only has to worry about a few territories and doesn’t have a lot of buying opportunities. However, Russia is a tactical nightmare for anyone who wants tan easy game… Don’t expect to gain a lot of ground much less win as Russia unless you have REALLY good Allies. They also have a terrible income… But as Keredrex said, you only have to buy land units pretty much.

For simplicity’s sake, yes Russia is easiest. But from a tactical/“winning”/strategy standpoint, it’s pretty hard.

i agree but if you really wanted too it caould wor for like 8 ipcs (or ten since you can place em any where)

@Granada:

Although I can see the argument that for the experienced players the AA50 is more attractive and for everyvody there are too little changes to revised. I think actually Spring 1942 is actually quite different game to revised because of the change of the transport rules you cannot use many startegies developed for the revised.

Anyway I still cannot understand why the community would not give the Spring1942 more support.

The basic strategy is the same for the Axis: kill Russia as quickly as possible. The Allies might have a better shot if they decide to go after Japan, and both KGF and KJF strategies might have similar odds of succeeding, although this is highly debatable. From what I’ve seen so far Allied players are sticking to KGF (I haven’t played against a KJF yet and it is my standard Allied strat), which is harder to accomplish because of the German subs and airforce, plus any Japanese planes sent to Europe, and the transports’ lack of defense.

AA1942 is a bit like the ugly duckling. AA50 and AAP40 are new and bigger, plus there’s the stigma of being seen as the new rules being stuck on Revised along with a few map changes.

@WTFchris:

Why do you guys put factories on Asia?  Seems like a waste to me.  Japan only has enough income to buy 8 units for transporting anyway (can increase to tanks and inf later with more income).

If you spend 15 on IC, then you put 3 units there a turn, but you aren’t using Japan IC fully because money shortage.  You gain no movement either (except through China corridor, which will be almost defenseless in a turn or two).  You can drop from Japan to Buryatia which is just as close to Russia as any mainland IC.  why waste 15 IPCs?  I also build no ships until I see US pacific fleet amassed (which rarely happens).  Since you took out Hawaii fleet (doesn’t matter what you lost as long as their’s is gone), they are not within reach for 2 turns.  Only build boats in response to US massing.

I have made India IC though as income increases and you can’t spend all your money at Japan IC.  This allows for pressure on Caucus at same time as northern pressure.  Then I just mass at Yakut and India until I have enough to hit either Russia IC.

I think your reasoning applies very well to Revised…but I’m not so sure about this game.  It may well be that transport tactics that work well in Revised will apply here (for instance I think popular Germany tactics like the Lurch are still applicable here), but there are a couple problems…

It’s hard to buy transports if UK is applying pressure.  If UK has a bomber, sub and possibly a fig in range of 62, Japan can’t drop any new transports w/o keeping a bb and a loaded carrier in 62 or buying some surface navy.  Going with a factory (or 2) on J1 allows Japan to go after the Allied navies without having to worry about protecting convoys.  The alternative is staying in 62 and going after Pearl with air/subs only…I’m not crazy about that option but it is an option.

The one area where factories are superior to transports in terms of mobility is being able to drop 3 tanks at a time that are already situated on the mainland.  My impression so far is that tank heavy strategies are more tempting for Axis since Germany is frequently defeated quickly in Africa…giving Allies the advantage in the long game.  Meanwhile, it takes longer for the Allies to set up an Atlantic shuck than in Revised…so Russia is more vulnerable to being tag-teamed by the Axis.

nice game.

had my first game of 42, was the axis.  Did the Bomber buy 1st round, scared the UK with the new sub rules as the baltic fleet moved into the Atlantic.  Scared the US away till turn 3 from landing in Africa and was able to combine on turn 2.  Pulled back Japan’s navy, killed the Indian fleet, then turned back on the US Fleet.  On turn 4 I was able to destroy both US fleets in the Pacific and Atlantic and took Australia.  A few Allied troops in Africa and had left India’s IC alone except for buffering around it.  Turned on Russia through China and after suckering the allies into throwing everything at Caucaus after i left most of the German army out to dry there, 2 Jap tanks were able to blitz from Sinkiang to take Moscow.  Allies gave up as the Axis ruled all but the North Sea.  Not too wacky of dice, save the loss of my German SBR bombers over Moscow.  
 I haven’t played AA50 much, but I am lovin’ the naval rules applied here!

gotta admit too that those new Russian ship sculpts are absolutely beautiful…sitting in the box never being used.