Yeah the first time I played it was just on a whim, a crazy experiment to see how much damage it would do to the overall balance of the set up. But I found that it worked surprisingly well. If you think about it in terms of the normal OOB set up, or a normal bid, then any given bomber battle seems like it would be rather broken, but when you factor in all the other bombers together, they actually play off each other rather well.
Just as an example with Egypt, the real problem for G attacking the canal, is not the 50/50 battle for the territory, but the trade off of leaving the battleship exposed to a two bomber attack by UK after a narrow battle for Egypt that the Germans might lose anyway. That’s only if the Russians send air cover though. If they don’t then Egypt is in play, which it’s usually not OOB. Perhaps even more amusing, it is actually possible for the Russians to eliminate any possibility of an Egypt attack, by destroying the battleship in sz 15 in an opening air assault of their own at 60% odds. This is of course a rather insane play, since it requires the Russians to build carrier in sz 16, but I did see it happen once. Which was hilarious, since who in their right mind would think Russia would ever have a use for ships! Again, not exactly a winning play in my view, and hugely expensive in the TUV trade, but it certainly was novel for a change of pace. The power of some extra reach that a bomber can provide is hard to overstate.
:-D
Another example is the UK opener, because the British bomber can be used to either clap back on the canal, sink a German battleship, or attack Japan. It also gives them another defensive pip which can help with a russian supported Szech stack and coverage on early Japanese fleet movements, since its possible to get more attack power in range of the Pac for UK2. And of course, the ability to disrupt Japan at sea, also has a direct impact on their ability to wage war in China, so I found that again the inclusion of the bombers is something of a wash. Considering what the Western Allies can do in the second round, if they have 2 starting bombers in range of the Pacific instead of just 1 each, this set up change actually provides some pretty interesting options against Japan, even on the mainland. These can be made even more potent via first round purchases, with forward positioning for possible round 2 attacks against the IJN.
Originally we tried the Russian bomber at Moscow, but it was almost too overpowered for the KJF, so we tried the secondary VC thing instead, which worked pretty well and was at least consistent for everyone.
Because the bomber units are more likely to survive the first round, as opposed to say subs or infantry on the bid, their influence gets magnified over time, especially with additional bomber builds, and encourages earlier attacks in general, so it seemed to cut down the overall playtime needed to complete the game.
I think what has me liking it most, is that the set up change is distributed with extra attack power and mobility across all 5 nations. So rather than providing a one sided bid advantage, with a narrow focus, it actually changes the opening dynamic for everyone. And its fairly easy to explain, even to a new player. I’ve been using it as a way to accelerate the usually grinding early rounds, by front loading some attack power and mobility into the starting units, so you can get the ball rolling faster.
Just throwing it out there, for people who are bored of the normal bids, and want a faster game.