Japan revised Kill America First

On Sep. 27, Wizards of the Coast hosting an AAZ launch party with the Puget Sound A&A Players Meetup group. Attendees played the game, met the design, and left with good first impressions of the game.

Click here to see the full blog post

Please note, this is the complete article in one post.  I posted it in parts in the Revised forum and further discussion is taking place there.

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=14410.0

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The German Lurch:  Revised Edition

The Lurch is a mid-game stack based German strategy that is used to coincide with a strong push on Moscow by Japan.  The goal of the Lurch is to gradually move your German stacks East eliminating trading territories for Russia as you continue to get stronger while Russia gets weaker.  You are playing for control of Wrus and Cauc, which aren’t easy to get, but using a Lurch strategy you can attempt to claim them without a fight by manipulating your stacks such that any Russian advance can be easily countered, while your advances can’t be stopped because you are able to merge multiple stacks into a single targetted territory.

Unlike Classic where the Germans Lurched from EE to Ukr (to Cauc) and then to Kar, in Revised the Germans have 3 initial avenues to consider:
1 - EE to Kar
2 - EE to Belo
3 - EE to Ukr

Each one has its pros and cons, but all should result in the same conclusion, a German stack in Wrus or Cauc.

Before we get to Germany lets first talk about Japan briefly.  If you are planning on using a successful Lurch you will need Japan, so they should be focused on Asia and getting to Moscow.  You’ll likely need a few of Japan’s fighters in Europe so take Aus early (round 2 if possible) and make sure you always have ftrs in range of Ukr after J3.  Your goal should be to have Chi, Sin, Bury, Sfe, Yak by the end of J3, one factory on the mainland, and 4 trns running your shuck from Japan.  A 5th trn is a great bonus which you can use to pick up Aus/NZ/Hi.  I think these are modest goals and definitely achievable in the vaste majority of games.  The only issues that may arise would be an ultra aggressive UK 1 open and/or a possible KJF strategy, but then again if the Allies are going KJF you do not want to use a mid-game Lurch with Germany, you’d want to be much more aggressive.

As for German bids, you can use the Lurch with most land based bids, whether it is placed in Africa or Europe, but the Power Africa bid (2-3 units in Lib) tends to be a little better since it is vital that you are able to blitz Africa and gain its IPCs.  You have to make sure you can take Egy and hold against any UK 1 counter.

Now to the Lurch.  The theory of the Lurch is to leverage your initial IPC gains in the early rds (1-4) into a sizable attacking force that can be put into motion from round 4 on.  You are ulitmately playing a position game rather than an IPC (or economic game).  While there are periods where the Axis can out earn the Allies, it is very difficult to maintain this advantage against quality opponents.  Time is typically on the Allies side, so the Lurch is designed to maximize this effect before the Allies can block the threat to Moscow and begin to close in on and cripple Germany.  Your targetted time frame to take Wrus/Cauc should be between rds 6-9.  Anything much later than this and it may be too late.

So, how do we go about employing the Lurch and leveraging these early gains to a positional advantage?

Lets start with the Purchases.  Buy Infantry.  Buy infantry early and often, an upgrade for an armor or 2 is also recommended, but with excessive Rt purchases you may be limiting your effectiveness.  If you like to buy Rt, buy it early (rds 1-2) b/c you’ll need the mobility of armor later.  8 inf, 4 rt in rd 1 is a good foundation as is 12 inf, 1 rt, however you can’t go wrong with the Inf + Arm buys.  Remember you aren’t really interested in attack you just want to project force to prevent an Allied stack and then you want to move your stack into the vacant territory, so you are more concerned with the cheap defense of Infantry and added defensive muscle of the Armor than the added attacking power of Rt.  Armor is also vital to your initial defense of WE, so again don’t go Rt crazy with your buys.

Okay we know our buying strategy, what about the layout of Africa and Europe?
Africa is easy, use your bid in Lib and take Egy heavy.  Surviving Armor should immediately blitz everything insight, while 2 more units can land in Trj in round 2.  In round 3 you have a few options, positioning your fleet to help in Europe, getting out of dodge to take Mad and then perhaps a combination of Ind/Aus/NZ/HI, going around Afr to take Bra, reinforcing Perisa, or just safely remaining in the Indian Ocean and re-invading empty territories in Afr.  While blitzing Africa you want to keep as many of these units alive as possible so you can ultimately get them to the Middle East as well.  You’ll probably need to get them back Trj by round 4 otherwise they risk being trapped, which isn’t terrible since you can still cause some trouble in Afr, but it is always nice to have the extra threat to Cauc from Per.

Europe is a bit different and requires some patience.  You aren’t planning on blitzing to Moscow so you need to set up your initial defenses and get into position to trade Kar/Belo/Ukr with your infantry and airforce.  You also want the bare minimum of defense in WE b/c you want to maximize what you are sending East.  This is where tanks come in handy, you usually don’t need all of them to deter a Russian move so you can spare a few for WE and their 3 on defense is enough to make any UK landings highly unlikely.  How many units should you have in WE?  You want just enough inf to survive the first wave of a UK attack and enough arm/ftrs to wipe out the entire land based attacking force.  So if UK can attack with 3 inf, 3 arm, 2 ftrs, 1 bom, you’d want 4-5 inf with 8-9 arm/ftrs.

Now that we’ve got a basic plan for our early WE defense, lets get busy Lurching.  First your EE stack, move everything that isn’t needed elsewhere to EE.  SE can go to Blk if they aren’t needed in WE.  This is the foundation of your offense, you will be using your infantry and ftrs to trade Kar/Belo/Ukr.  Standard trading logic applys (2 inf + planes vs. 1 inf), however in trading Belo and Kar you can feel free to match inf for inf, so if you have to attack 2 inf, only bring in 2 and overload planes.  You do not want to bleed off too many inf and you do not want infantry out of place depending on where you plan to lurch first.  For example, a few too many infantry in Kar may hurt the potential to Lurch to Ukr and vice versa.  You aren’t likely to be able to Lurch anywhere for the first 3 rds, infact I’ll work under the assumption that G4 is your first potential chance to move out.  Side note:  If at any time in the first 3 rounds you can safely move to Kar/Belo/Ukr please do so, it may require an extra “build-up” turn later but you’ve denied Russia a trading zone.

Okay, so we’ve got our stack of Infanty in EE, a few Inf/Arm/Ftrs in WE, and our arm are done blitzing Afr and heading back to Egy/Trj while Russia has a stack in Wrus trying to prevent further German aggression.  How do we proceed?  First, find the path of least resistance.  I’ll go through each possible Lurch but you ultimately want to pick the easiest one or one that fits in with your Japanese strategy as well, and I’ll touch on that within each Lurch.  These are listed in no particular order and I’ll give pros and cons for each so you can decide.

EE to Kar

Here you are lurching from EE to Kar.  You are confident the Wrus stack cannot kill your stack, while you will still be able to tade Ukr with either Blk inf or EE reinforcements, while Belo can be handled from EE or your new Kar stack.

Pros:
You can cut off the other Allies from reinfocing Moscow.
You are now able to trade Arch and possibly Nor assuming that wouldn’t drain too many inf.
You maintain a threat on Wrus.

Cons:
You are vulnerable to both UK and US attacks as well as a Russian follow-up.
You only threaten a move to Wrus, so Cauc can potentially be lightly defended.
Russia could counter with a Ukr stack, so depending on your total forces in Kar (what you estimate could make it to Mos if you went to Arch)  you may be forced to back track a bit.

Japan:
Works well with a northern Japanese push via Bury to Eve or Novo or with Japan placing a major threat on Cauc via Per in an effort to split the Russian defense

EE to Belo

Here you are going to Belo first, and from there you can then expand to Kar, Ukr, or Wrus.  You also maintain the ability to trade both Kar and Ukr.

Pros:
It is typically the easiest lurch to make since it is only threatened from Wrus.  (UK/US can’t attack via amphibious)
You are still in position to Lurch to either Kar or Ukr.
You can maintain Kar as a deadzone, which can cut off Allied reinforcements to Mos or at the very least force them to land directly in Arch

Cons:
Time.  It is usually the easiest Lurch to make, particularly early on, but will usually require a turn or two of build up once you hold Belo.
you won’t be able to trade Arch and Nor is a lost cause.

Japan:
Works with any Japanese approach considering you haven’t committed yet as Germany.

EE to Ukr

Here you are going straight for the throat.  No time to waste up north and you aren’t worried about the UK/US quite yet.  You want Cauc or Wrus and you want them now!

Pros:
If done right, you’ll get Cauc or Wrus.
You can use your Afr forces to help squeeze Cauc.
You can use your Med Navy to help boost your move bring your SE units into play.
SE armor can immediately reach Ukr.
Japanese ftrs can boost defense from Fic (or the India Sz).

Cons:
Subject to a massive counter from Inf in both Wrus and Cauc.
Armor from Kaz/Per are also in range.
Nor and Arch are lost causes for trading and Kar may become a problem area since it would be extremely difficult to deadzone with only your EE reinforcements.

Japan:
Any approach will work but South and Central are extremely effective.  Some ftrs should always be stationed in the Fic/Ind region for added European defense.  You also have the ability for a nice 1-2 attack on Cauc with Germany doing the heavy lifting while Japan can swoop in and claim the IC.

Now that we’ve decided on the path of least resistance, you have to execute the Lurch.  You should have been buying mostly inf your first few turns along with a few armor, while blitzing Africa and waiting for Japan to get going and now its come time to make your move and start your expansion.  There’s a good chance you may have to trade WE at some point since the UK and US have the potential to each shuck 8 units to Europe.  You want to keep those units out of Russia so you can get Moscow to fall.  You will eventually need your armor in WE to move to EE as you lurch beyond Kar/Belo/Ukr and this makes WE expendable.  It is just too hard to try and defend all of Europe and threaten Moscow so you use your armor’s mobility and superior airforce to shift East and now Deadzone WE.  A typical Lurch movement may look like this:

Setup:
EE:  15 inf, 2 rt, 2 arm
Ger:  10 inf, 2 arm, 1 bom
WE:  8 inf, 8 arm, 4 ftrs, aa
SE:  2 inf

Ger buys 10 inf, 2 arm
After Lurch:

Belo:  15 inf, 2 rt, 4 arm
EE:  10 inf, 8 arm, aa
Ger:  15 inf, 2 arm, 4 ftrs, 1 bom
SE:  2 inf
WE: 1 inf
Blk: 2 inf

Now if you can hold WE with just the 8-10 inf + ftrs you can do so, but you have to get as much Inf and Armor East as possible.  But you also want to make sure the Allies aren’t going to be landing in Kar, so a little bait (like 1 inf) in WE can help the over all cause.  Assuming you do deadzone WE, the Allies shouldn’t be able to land a massive force considering the threat you can provide:  17 inf, 10 arm, 4 ftrs and at this point (round 5 or 6) the UK and US should not be able to throw a total of 16 units at you so you can trade WE with your SE inf and planes while still sending the rest of your infantry East.  The Allies may have the overall IPC lead or even army lead, but Russia’s army will not be more than Germany’s and once you add in Japan’s army it becomes problematic for the Allies.

Your next move should be coordinated with Japan.  As Germany sends its massive stack to Ukr (combine the EE and Belo stacks) and Africa corps to Per, Japan should move its stack to Kaz (Per + Chi) or Novo (Chi + Yak) while landing supporting aircraft in Europe if needed.  As much German armor as possible should remain in EE to maintain the threat on WE.  You shouldn’t move your armor out of range of WE until you can take and hold Wrus or Cauc.  Russia now has a huge decision to make which will likely cause them to vacate Wrus or Cauc since they should now be facing a German stack in Ukr as well as the prospects of a possible merger of a massive Japanese stack off the boarders of Mos/Cauc.  If Russia leaves Wrus, then Germany can stack that (with J ftr support) and once again deadzone Kar, meaning no Allied reinforcements and if the leave Cauc you gain an IC which gives you more freedom to defend WE or Kar with your Ger and EE units since you can place new units directly into Cauc.

At this point, with Germany holding Wrus or Cauc, your only concern is holding Berlin and making sure no Allied land units get to Mos, while you wait to make sure Japan has enough to finish off Moscow if Ger starts the attack.  If you’re looking for a Magic number to take out Russia’s stack you need Germany to have a 4:3 advatage in TUV and if you are planning a 1-2 attack you need Ger + Jap to have a 5:3 advantage.

Good Luck, and Happy Lurching!

If Egypt is uncounterable, Germany could send 3 tanks to Ken on G2 and land some planes in Egypt, putting the SAf IC in a big bind. For a SAf IC, I like EM’s setup more (it’s floating around somewhere in the Revised section).

If you can counter Egypt, I think a SAf IC is not worth it I think. Landing in Alg, putting your planes in WRu and eliminating the German Med fleet on UK 2 is a better way of securing Africa if that’s what you really want.

I’m thinking I should have read this sooner…. :-D

I find another problem with this entire business. We are only dealing with land units here, and also on a massive scale to boot. I can see a Russian force consisting of 30 soldiers, but if the German has 10 infantry, 5 armor, 2 fighters, and a bomber attacking, those 30 infantry are gone. but 20 infantry with 6 armor would deal more damage in my books, simply because the 3 has a bigger chance than the 2 of the infantry, and once you reach a certain point, stacking starts to go down. It’s a negative parabola. It sucks with only 3 infantry, its good with 10-30 infantry, but it starts to suck again after that… if merely for a bigger picture rather than that small territory it’s fought in. I’m sorry I can’t use particular details, or examples, but your cases of 100 infantry are completely irrelevant…

Axis and Allies Revised:  A Beginner’s Guide to Tech:

The utility of tech varies wildly depending on whether out-of-the-box rules are used, the FAQ available on the Wizards website, or Larry Harris Tournament rules (1.3 is the current version as of this writing).  Particular National Advantages also change the utility of tech.

1.  Rockets.  This is the most unbalanced tech in Out of the Box rules.  All a player needs to do is get the Rocket tech, and after that, all of that player’s AA guns will be able to effectively take away one dice of IPCs from an opposing player within range.  Germany in particular can use this tech effectively, producing mass AA guns and shutting down both Russia and UK’s production while playing defensively; in a few rounds, Germany can turn the tables and start attacking.  This tech is frankly pretty ridiculous in the Out of the Box version.

To be more specific, the Germany player can, say, invest 20 IPC in Rocket tech, having a 51.8% probability of succeeding.  If succeeding, Germany can buy 4 AA guns.  On Germany’s first turn, if the tech research succeeded, Germany can immediately take 3 dice worth of IPCs from the United Kingdom.  On the second turn, if the tech research succeeded on the first turn, Germany can take 7 dice worth of IPCs from the United Kingdom and buy more AA guns.  If the tech research failed on the first turn, Germany can roll for tech again and buy more AA guns.  By the third turn, depending on the tech research results, Germany may be doing as much as 15 dice of economic damage to the United Kingdom and/or Russia.  In practical terms, Germany can’t really do that much economic damage to Russia until Germany moves its AA guns into range of Russia, but it is clear that Germany can quickly neutralize both countries’ income. There is really nothing that either UK or Russia can do about it either; Germany can attack UK with AA guns in Germany, and Russia with AA guns in Eastern Europe, and both territories are extremely difficult for the Allies to capture.

The rules for Rockets changed in FAQ and LHTR.  There, any particular industrial complex can only be attacked by one AA gun per turn.  Germany can still use Rockets effectively, but due to the firing limitations, the tech is no longer as exploitable as it once was.

2.  Long Range Aircraft.  This is a good tech for two reasons.  In OOB (out of the box) and FAQ rules, Long Range Aircraft can be used to immediately add range to fighters, adding a possibly unanticipated amount of force to an attack; this can make otherwise unfeasible attacks can become feasible.  In LHTR, tech advances don’t take effect until the end of the turn, but Long Range Aircraft can still be useful; if Germany gets it, Germany can use the extra range to use fighters landed in Western Europe to threaten most of the Atlantic, while still having the range to hit Russian territories and land back in Western Europe.  If Japan gets it, Japan can use its fighters to attack Asia while defending the Pacific against US naval attack.  If the US gets it, the US can use its fighters to extend its effective range against Japan, taking island bases and building mass fighters to destroy the Japanese navy.

Particular OOB/FAQ uses of Long Range Aircraft include the first-turn German invasion of London (called G1 Sea Lion, for “Germany 1 Sea Lion”), unexpected US air attack on Japanese transports in the Pacific, and unexpected Japanese attack on Western U.S.  or isolated US transports (the former usually after taking Hawaii or Western Canada from Japan; on the next turn, Japan adds 6 fighters and a bomber that the US player didn’t count on).

G1 Sea Lion is not a clear win for the Axis.  First, Germany has to get the tech; if Germany invests a lot of IPCs in the tech but fails to get it, that’s a significant handicap and a probable loss.  Second, Germany will probably lose a lot of air on the attack; if lots of air is lost to an AA gun, it can be disastrous, losing Germany the attack on London as well as the immediately losing air.  Even if the UK AA gun doesn’t hit anything, German air will very likely be depleted against UK’s defenders.  Third, even if Germany does take London, it will probably only be with very minimal forces, allowing UK to retake with a battleship support shot and tank from Eastern Canada (collecting income at the end of its turn), after which the U.S. can move in reinforcements on the first US turn.  At that point, Germany will have a lot of IPCs, but almost no air; the Allies will be able to set up an Atlantic transport fleet with little fear of the weakened German air, and UK has IPCs to defend London.

For that reason, if Germany does decide to go for a G1 Sea Lion, it is very highly recommended either that Germany should start the game with an extra Baltic transport (allowing better odds for the London attack, and allowing more German air units to survive the attack against the London defenders), and/or Germany should buy transports as well as the requisite Long Range Aircraft tech dice on the first turn (if Germany has three transports available for the start of G2, Germany can probably recapture London from the UK/US forces).

3.  Heavy Bombers.  This is generally not a good tech.  That is particularly true for LHTR, which weakens the effect of Heavy Bombers and strategic bombing.  Under OOB or FAQ rules, though, a US player can use this well in conjunction with the Heavy Bombers National Advantage.  (LHTR rules change the effect of the Heavy Bombers National Advantage).

That is, the US player can build two bombers on US1 and fly its existing bomber to London; on US2, the US player can build three bombers and fly the two bombers built last turn to London, and bomb Germany for 1 dice; on US3, the US player can invest in Heavy Bomber tech, fly the three bombers built last turn to London, and probably bomb Germany for 6 dice (3 dice if the eight or so dice the US can sink on tech all fail); on US4, the US player can go for Heavy Bomber tech if it failed the first round (getting another eight dice for tech), and almost certainly hit Germany for 12 dice worth of IPC damage.  After that, Germany is pretty much out of the game, and the Allies can go on and do whatever they want.

4.  Jet Power.  This is not a particularly good tech using FAQ/OOB rules, but it is slightly better under LHTR, as LHTR adds the ability to avoid AA fire.

Instead of sinking IPCs into tech to get a more efficient fighter defense, it is typically better to just buy more fighters, getting another unit that can be taken as a casualty, as well as more attacking power.  LHTR adds the ability to avoid AA fire, which means that fighters can be used far more reliably in exchanging territory that may have AA guns moved in.  Although the LHTR change to the tech is a very nice bonus, this tech is generally not worth pursuing (although there may be exceptions, for example if a player has lots of fighters, and an opponent has lots of AA guns)

5.  Combined Bombardment.  This tech is, I think, not useful until the very end of the game, at which point the game should already be effectively decided.  This is for three reasons; first, no power starts with a lot of destroyers (so no power is ready to exploit this tech), and second, destroyers are of very limited use, and expensive, so attempting to buy destroyers and research tech at the same time allows an opponent to gain territory, which means that even less IPCs will be coming in to buy destroyers and research tech, and third, no power is poised to immediately take advantage of a tech research (particularly so with LHTR)

I think it may be feasible to attempt to exploit the Combined Bombardment tech with the UK or US under certain circumstances, or possibly with other powers under really unusual circumstances.  However, I think it extremely risky at best.

Destroyers are rarely cost effective.  A carrier and two fighters offer a superior defense at the same price as three destroyers, but has the ability to hit ground targets as well (with the fighters); three subs offers similar attack and defense power, but added durability, when compared to two destroyers (the subs can afford to take more casualties).  Destroyers can hit enemy air, and have an antisub effect, so destroyers can be useful.  However, any particular fleet will usually find it most effective to take along only one destroyer, and build either mass subs, mass carriers, or preferably a combination of the two.  Even Japan with the “Tokyo Express” national advantage, will probably not want a lot of destroyers.

Near the end of the game, when one of the powers is sitting on a stack of infantry on its capital, that stack of enemy infantry can be reduced by Combined Bombardment tech.  To do so, a power needs to have lots of destroyers, and enough IPC to successfully research Combined Bombardment; once the research is successful, a single infantry can be amphibiously landed, and however many destroyers are present can use their support shot.  By doing so, a power can spend 3 IPC (the cost of one infantry) and destroy up to 10 or more units.  Of course, to destroy 10 or more units, about 20 destroyers would have to be present, which is massively expensive (20 destroyers cost as much as 48 tanks).

However, the destroyers have two advantages.  The first advantage is, naval units can be produced anywhere.  Over time, the US can easily put 20 destroyers in the water and sail towards Japan or Germany.  Getting 48 US tanks into Europe is a different matter, with a limited number of transports and no US industrial complexes in Europe.  The second advantage is that destroyers protect the water; an enemy power that has an infantry stack on its capital may also be massing air to destroy any navy around it (in doing so, destroying the transports that are ferrying units in to contain the enemy power).

6.  Super Subs.  Pretty self-explanatory, they’re super subs.  If you are going to use a lot of subs, this can be worth researching.  If you’re just going to use a few subs, this is not a great tech to go for.

In a regular game, if one player invests heavily in navy, a player may counter with a gigantic sub fleet and Super Sub tech research.  Of course, if Germany or Japan invest heavily in subs, pressure on Russia is lessened, if UK invests heavily in subs, ground unit reinforcements to Europe and/or Africa is lessened, if US invests heavily in subs, ground unit support to Africa, Europe, and/or the Pacific is lessened (although the Pacific ground pressure is probably not a problem, as naval dominance over Japan must be established first).

If playing with LHTR and National Advantages, though, Super Subs can become far more formidable combined with the Kamikaze or Kaiten NAs.  With that NA, Japan can target enemy destroyers, allowing their subs to always get the first strike advantage.  If the US opted to go transports, carriers, a destroyer and battleship, a Japanese super sub attack can be very strong.  However, the US can potentially counter with its own sub fleet (since defending subs will get to fire during the opening fire step, essentially eliminating Japan’s first strike advantage), so even Kamikaze/Kaiten and Super Subs does not guarantee dominance of the Pacific for Japan.

I had intended the Allies to choose the source of the bid cash/territories.

Interesting question…
Would the USA want to give up Mexico, Cuba, Panama or Brazil from the start?

Sure, they could take it back, but it would be a detour for US forces from their main goals…

I like 8 VC games as a fun challenge as Allies.  I agree KJF is the best strat since the game revolves around India in the 1st turns, and Japan is easier to take down.

That said you still need either Karelia or a German VC to win the game, unless you take Tokoyo itself, which is tough.