Should I as the axis kill Britain, America, or Russia first?

@Die:

I’m playing a game with some friends right now, and I have always played that you must declare all your invasions first before determining the outcome of any battle since it states in the rules that “all combat movement is considered to take place at the same time.” My friends on the Axis side aren’t convinced it means that you have to declare all invasions at once.

Another section in the rule book seems to make it clear to me that the way I have played is correct - “Combat in each space takes place at the same time, but each affected territory or sea zone is resolved separately and completely before resolving combat in the next contested space. The attacker decides the order of spaces in which each combat occurs.”

The rule seems clear to me that you can’t resolve one battle and then base your decision of where to invade next off of the outcome of that battle. But I realize that the rulebook doesn’t distinctly say “you must declare all invasions before resolving them” or something like that. I realize the last sentence in the above quote might cause confusion too.

So can anyone help me by elaborating a bit on this rule so it makes more sense? Or, if I’m wrong about it, tell me why?

Welcome to A&A.org.

thank you :-D

@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.

Let me know how it turns out.  I’m interested to see how the strategy played out, unfortunately, I haven’t been able to use it like I wanted to.  I have played one game for the last three days and boy was it horrible luck.  Not only was I doing that one little mistake that you don’t notice until its the end of your turn and its too late, but I was rolling 5’s, 6’s, and other numbers that you didn’t want (like rolling 4’s when using tanks) all day long.  Seriously, I lost a defensive battle as the Russians when my little bro attacked from Manchuria with an infantry a tank and a fighter.  I lost all 6 of my Infantry for only his fighter and Infantry after he attacked three times.  Later on in the same game I sent 3 bombers and 2 fighters from Britain to attack his 8 tanks he had in Eastern Europe.  I know it was probably going to be a suicide move, but I was trying to relieve Russia.  Before anyone asks, my 2 fighters were going to land in Byelorussia.  End result after attacking 3 times, I lost all of my fighters for only 2 of his tanks.  Worst three days of my A&A 42 experience.

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.