What's the best sea unit?

@panther Thank you very much panther…

@Hobbes:

@stebobibo:

Can you buy and deploy units on the first turn? Because in the rules it says you collect income at the end of each turn, therefore you would have no IPCs to spend on your first turn. If you do start with IPCs and can buy on the first turn, how many IPCs do you start with? Is it the number printed on the set-up cards? Or would it depend on the territories you have under your control at the start of your first turn? Example, USSR on his turn has taken some German territories worth 4 IPCs in total. Would Germany therefore start with 40-4=36 IPCs?

Germany (and the others) start with the money printed on the setup charts. At the end of its turn (after it places the units it purchased with its starting money) it receives income based on the number of territories it controls and their value. So, if G has 36 worth of territories, it will receive 36 IPC that can be used on beginning of its next turn to buy more units.

Actually, Germany starts with 41 IPCs instead of 40; the UK with 31 IPCs instead of 30.

These inaccuracies really bother me because ANYONE involved in the production of this game could have caught them before printing… but didn’t take the time to. Really careless work, and misleading for new players.

In fact, the rulebook as a whole seems largely geared towards an existing player base, rather than carefully explaining gameplay in a methodical fashion to beginners. Things could easily be laid out in a much more logical and intuitive fashion; once again, Wizards misses a trick.

@Mannstein:

This has probably been subject of discussion before, but I want to give it another go; Who’s your power of choice? Not the most fun or exciting or challenging power to be, but the most succesful or “safe”? If you had to play for money, would you prefer to be axis or allies? If it was a matter of fun or excitement, (and luckily it usually is) I’d play axis anytime. But it seems allies have a lot better chance of winning usually? I’d say it’s about 70/30 allied favour? … What do you think? Maybe Hobbes and Bunnies will reply also - they seem to have played a few games, maybe they have some statistics they’d like to share?

Thanks in advance…

There is no most successful or safe single power.

The game’s pretty much about using the powers in combination effectively using calculated risks.  If you don’t work well with your allies or your allies don’t work well with you, you will probably fail.  If you don’t take calculated risks, emphasis on risks, you will fail, because only by taking risks can you maintain a forward position and therefore enough income to remain competitive.  You cannot “play it safe” and win unless your opponent is also “playing it safe”.

Luck and skill are far more important than which side you play in Spring 1942.  (Which is NOT the case for Revised.  There, I think the Allies have a REAL advantage, which can be offset by giving the Axis a bid.)

If pressed to commit to an answer, I would say I think the Allies have the advantage.

I personally find the Allies more interesting and challenging to play, because I pretty much know what I want to do with the Axis at any given time (I might stare at the board for quite a while, but I usually end up with a very concrete idea of what I want to do.)  On the other hand, I feel my Allies game is a lot looser and has room for a good bit of improvement.

That’s why I feel Allies have the edge.  I think I know what the Axis can do, and I think I don’t know all the things the Allies can do, and I fear the unknown.  It’s scary, sort of like when you open up the refrigerator and discover you’re out of carrots, then you wonder if there’s any carrots left at the grocery store.

Do you mean a landing in Caucasus? Or landings around the med in general?

Neither should really be a big problem, Caucasus should be covered (over land) by taking (and retaking) Ukraine (and W.Russia) as Russia. Land your planes in Caucasus and build enough units there to be sure.
Landings in Africa / Middle East are abit of a pain, but should be fixable in a few turns with some US help (and those are germans not going to Russia)

@Nomarclegs:

The most important asset for any power in Spring ’42 is flexibility.  Japan (with her large air force and navy, as well as local production facilities) has incredible flexibility.  As USSR I’d opt to preserve as much of my flexibility as possible. That means keeping my men alive.

I agree with the issue of flexibility for both, but the first round is a window of opportunity to harass Japan’s flexibility by giving it a lot of targets to hit so that it can’t focus on everything. If the results of Russia’s opening attacks favored the Russians or just gave out the average losses then those units can be used to throw a few speed bumps at Japan or pressure it.
If you combine all 6 units on Buryatia then Japan has a very big problem to solve, in addition to the usual ones:

US fleet at SZ52 China UK cruiser/carrier at SZ59 UK sub at New Guinea/Solomon UK transport from SZ40 Remaining UK fleet on the Indian Ocean India

And this assumes that the UK didn’t went to attack FIC or Borneo, instead of retaking Egypt. If I’m playing Japan, one option is to attack SZ52, China and Buryatia, but to do so it would mean the Indian advance will be delayed, as well as any reinforcement of the Germans on Africa until round 3. I’ll have to use a lot of the airforce, to prevent any dice failures.
The other is to hit China, SZ52, and get rid of most UK naval units, while reinforcing Manchuria and transporting 1 inf, 1 arm to Indochina, ensuring the fall of India on J2 (and opening the possibility of building an IC on J3). At the same time it positions Japan to reinforce Egypt with plenty of fighters and units carried by the transport, which can also be used instead to bring the 2 inf from East Indies to attack India.

On the first one, Japan will kill 6 Russian inf at the average cost of 2 or 3 of its infantry. It will also have to bring more land forces from Japan if it wants to advance past Yakut. The UK will also have attacked Indochina, taking away the possibility for an IC build there until round 3, the same round that India should fall. Indian IC on built on round 4, produce units on round 5 that can finally be used on round 6. Meanwhile Africa should fall sooner to the Allies, will take more time to threaten/reinforce Africa with Japan.
But…  if Germany got lucky against the Russians (the deciding factor for me) and destroyed a large part of their army then this option is a must because it will give 2 simultaneous blows to Russia’s power.

Second one, the 6 Russian inf get away or make a kamikaze against 2 inf, 2 ftr on Manchuria. Usually they are pulled back and can reach Russia by round four. If there’s no Russian threat to retake India then I’ll get that IC for it and by round 5 I can start using its units. Meanwhile, the UK’s production is going down and down (India, Persia, Jordan, Egypt, the rest of Africa, possibly Australia), either forcing the Allies to retake Africa or start facing a losing economic situation, which gets worse as Japan keeps building its attack forces and advancing towards Russia.

Tough call? Yes, it can be.

@Nomarclegs:

Hmm… So by “friendly” destroyer/s the rule book is referring to only those of the actual attacking power?

In the case of the attacker, yes.  A friendly destroyer must be “in the battle” in order to affect subs.  Since allied units don’t attack together, the only friendly destroyers in the battle will belong to the attacking power.

The defender, however, will benefit from destroyers belonging to an ally, since all units in the sea zone defend together in a battle.

I just located a place that can print my maps on mouse pad material!!  from 4 to 10 feet long.

This is something that i have been looking for and the resolution is fantastic.

I got two new maps in production to finalize the quality.

This by far is the best method. It will never bend and will stay flat and make it easier to moves pieces. This is because the pliable nature of the material gives a bit. This makes picking up tokens easier.

I will post the results ASAP.