How to take care of the 18 Russian infantry on the Pacific Map

Careful use of blockers can buy you a round or two.  Sometimes they can be used to help your fleet escape if you don’t want it to die in sz6.  After it’s escape it can round India, convoy raiding the Middleeast, and then support the Italian fleet.  Just an option.

Since the problem you seem to be having is Russia, I think you need to rethink your mainland strategy.  What do you hope to gain in China.  Can you gain those same objectives with a holding force instead of an attacking force?  Is China really a threat to japan since it’s troops can’t leave china?

Now those Russian inf.  How much of a threat are they compared to Chinese?  Can they take Korea?  Can they retreat to moscow to fight the Germans?  Both of these are things the chinese can’t do, I don’t see any reason to fight the Chinese.  Use that army in China to attack your real enemy, the Russians.  You know, the enemy that Germ and Italy are also gunning for.  Not China.

Of course if you like your strategy, then stick to it.  I try to follow the advice of ‘The Princess Bride’, don’t get involved in a land war in Asia!

Weather or not Russia retreats the infantry stacks R1, attack Amur J1 with all land units from Manchuria and Korea also fill 2 transports with 3 infantry and 1 tank and land them in Amur as well. Than park most of your air units in Manchuria, that will force Russia to move back one more space R2 (to Yakut). Than, during J2, move your land units closer while intimidating the Russians with your fighters (the trick is not to let Russia attack your units) Once you have moved them back, create a dead lock with your infantry and leave them there all game (Russia will not attack infantry with infantry) Retreat your aircraft and use them elsewhere. Use the tank to mop up empty Russian territories in the soviet far east. You will gather $5 IPCs each round which will make up for the $12 and it helps take some income from the soviet union. The biggest bonus is, you will never need to worry about losing territories to the Russian infantry. WARNING: don’t get greedy and push further west, you will spread yourself too thin.

Young Grasshopper is right!  Attack them early and push them back.  I have found that 8-10 inf and 2-3 fighters is more than enough to stalemate a wise Russian player.  But don’t get greedy is right!  You can run out of steam real quick.  Also if the Russian player doesn’t consolidate those forces R1 attack them always. It is totally worth it, I have found that those 18 inf can disrupt a great game plan by Japan every time!  Good luck!

@majikforce:

Young Grasshopper is right!  Attack them early and push them back.  I have found that 8-10 inf and 2-3 fighters is more than enough to stalemate a wise Russian player.  But don’t get greedy is right!  You can run out of steam real quick.  Also if the Russian player doesn’t consolidate those forces R1 attack them always. It is totally worth it, I have found that those 18 inf can disrupt a great game plan by Japan every time!  Good luck!

It took 522 posts until someone finally said that I was right, thanks man.

Young Grasshopper, I like that idea of only going so far into Russia with Japan and kind of stalemating them.  In our group, whomever plays Japan, IF they decide to attack Russia they always go deep into Russia and like you said, they get stretched too thin and lose too many troops in the process.  Then if Russia is holding off Germany fairly well, it’s not problem for Russia to stamp out the (at that time) small Japanese force and start rolling those territories back up.  Plus, if Russia is able to send a sizeable force to do this, they could threaten Manchuria and Korea as Japan’s attention will probably be focused south on India and China or out in the Pacific with the US Navy by then.

@knp7765:

Young Grasshopper, I like that idea of only going so far into Russia with Japan and kind of stalemating them.  In our group, whomever plays Japan, IF they decide to attack Russia they always go deep into Russia and like you said, they get stretched too thin and lose too many troops in the process.  Then if Russia is holding off Germany fairly well, it’s not problem for Russia to stamp out the (at that time) small Japanese force and start rolling those territories back up.  Plus, if Russia is able to send a sizeable force to do this, they could threaten Manchuria and Korea as Japan’s attention will probably be focused south on India and China or out in the Pacific with the US Navy by then.

The ideal place to create a stalemate is the border of Yakut S.S.R and Buryaria. This can be done with 13 infantry and 2 fighters ( like I said, the trick will be to prevent a Russian attack long enough to land the fighters on Buryaria). During this time, Japan’s navy should be getting into a position to make a push towards Callcuta and attacking the phillippenes J3. Remember that most of japan’s air units will be unavailable the first 2 rounds due to forcing the russian infantry back, so the J3 attacks will only have the carrier fighters to use. However, if you land your 2 strategic bombers in Formosa, it will give you the range for both objectives. To summarize, this overall strategy will allow Japan to attack China and the UK without ever worrying about Manchuria or Korea.

Attack the 18 men as soon as possible, and invade Russia.

This is the best solution.

@Gargantua:

Attack the 18 men as soon as possible, and invade Russia.

This is the best solution.

Never works in our games, not yet anyway.

Here is a simple steamroller plan for Japan to go all-in against USSR before USA enters the war:

J1 invade Amur with EVERYTHING available (activates Mongolians in alpha 3 but that’s ok), build major IC in Korea.

Spend everything on tanks (J2) and mech infantry (J3 and J4) built in Korea.  Spend on Pacific needs J5 onward (perhaps hunker down in Japan & Korea and wait for European win)

Move the whole horde 1 space westward each turn, with tanks and mech infantry moving 2 spaces per turn to catch up.  Bring bombers.  If USSR infantry are retreating, chase them.  If they stop, kill them.

The 4 waves (infantry/artillery, tanks, mechs, mechs) will catch up at Novosibersk on J6

Moscow falls J8.