Goofy Russian Opener

My worthy Russian opponent does this with his Russian opener.  He builds two Russian fighters.

But he doesn’t use it to to attack the German med fleet.  He uses them for attacking into Germany.  He then spends the bulk of his IPC’s on infantry with the occasional artillery thrown in.  The two fighters gives Russian a much needed offense punch for his Russian hordes.  You could use armor, but then become fodder for the inevitable next-turn German counter.

Then, there was that one game, where he rolled Russian jet fighters on turn 2.  But, we won’t talk about that.

And, by his logic, he will never be able to build Russian fighters after turn 1, because he’s too afraid of waisting the IPC’s.  So, might as well, have some fun now, with them.

That could be a useful strategy for knocking out German ships in the north stlantic as well. I think that would be more useful for Russia than the mediterranean. because it’s always been my experience that Germany needs that transport to keep people in Norway and attacking Karelia.

@Rising:

That could be a useful strategy for knocking out German ships in the north stlantic as well. I think that would be more useful for Russia than the mediterranean. because it’s always been my experience that Germany needs that transport to keep people in Norway and attacking Karelia.

In my experience, most players simply just abandon Norway when the Allies walks in, but based on where germany has based its Russian Karelia might shift ownership several times.

Regarding Trihero’s idea. I made a quick calc and you have 2,47 surviving fighters from the battle, this could very well mean 1 extra fighter for the rest of the game, if Luck is your loyal ally  :-P
you have to take into account that the extra fighter makes for even more effective territory trading with the germans, and thus, more IPCs to buy inf. Its not much but it might mean one extra territory per turn, which is 2-3 extra IPC per round. Besides an extra fighter could be a real pain to the Japanese player, maybe to slow down the Japanese Invasion later in the game.

Well this is all just random thoughts, has anyone else any thoughts on this.

Regards,
Daniel Malus

And then the counter…

Russia buys the FIGs…

He is then weak SOMEWHERE, and has no reserves.

You can;t use the typical West Russia Stack open… doing so leaves Caucuses to be taken on G1… and the “territory trading” becomes Caucuses instead of Ukraine or some other German territory.  That means the GERMANS are the ones up 4 IPC’s each round, and Russia doggedly trying to get them back so they can just stay even on revenue.

And if you are trading Caucuses… that extra FIG, and all the others, will eventually succumb to AA fire…

I haven’t had trouble yet, but my opponent is using an alternative German opening. So it’s hard to tell if the opening word work under normal situations.

I’d say one fighter is good enough.  I mean with one fighter you don’t have 4 infantry on the board, but in an 8 round game that fighter should hit something 6-7 times.  7x3 is 21, that’s a lot of power over time.

oops my bad I meant 2 infantry and an art…

If you pull back hard in Asia to replace the troops not built in Russia on R1 (your land forces are almost certainly going to Caucuses) then you can probably get away with 1 FIG, AND even make it work to your advantage…

TWO FIGs… I am going to drive HARD as Germany to grab Russia IPC’s and make sure that those “missing” INF NEVER get built, and allow for a massive and rapid press on Russia when she lacks INF to block me, and to eat up defensive fire on her counter-attacks.  Add in some good use of certain AA guns…

it is not a goofy opener, just a bit extreme.

i dunno, 2 figs is pretty risky

i guess it depends on how quickly you can expect help from the uk (and usa) , i can see one fig and have been considering doing that next time i pull russia (work schedules SO get in the way of quality gaming time don’t they?) but two figs is a little to out there for me

you can follow this strat in the games fourm under bebovstrigger, trigger is actually trying this opener and has pushed the jap forces back to china

Well, after two rounds I’vel ost a ton of land with this opener. But the FIGs allow me to reinforce any territory I think is in danger.

Nice, I’ll go check the game out right away!