How do you counter or deal with infantery spam effecively?


  • How should the alllies react to Germany spamming infantery and/or artillery? Are there any weaknesses to this tactic and how do you exploit that weakness.


  • Welcome to the forum Simon98v.

    While that would give G a slow but strong land force with which to go for Moscow, it offers no G air or sea units to fend off an allied fleet off Europe, making landings, nor fighter intercepts (if playing that optional rule) against strategic bombing raids on Berlin.

    So get those two things in place asap.

    I have not played the 42.2 map for a while, but a lack of G tanks may also afford R some options in the short term. The closer to Moscow G gets, the further its slow reinforcements have to travel, whilst R’s are on hand immediately.

  • 2023 '22 '21 '20 '19 '18 '17 '16

    Yup, strategic bombing works great against infantry spam, because Germany needs all 13 of its build slots and then some to spam infantry, so every point of damage you deal is an IPC that Germany will have to spend on repairs.

    Another option is to gradually build up a large (4-5 planes) Russian air force to help with trading the border territories at a profit. If Germany doesn’t have a huge stack of tanks, then you don’t have to worry as much about protecting the routes to your capital, so you can often afford to move your whole stack (from, e.g., West Russia to Ukraine) with some planes to take out a medium-sized stack of German infantry.

    If Germany has plenty of infantry, then you may need to “save up” infantry of your own in London to prepare for D-Day. Make sure you have at least four transports, and then if you get a fifth transport, you can build a British factory in Norway or Eastern Canada to help you fill them all. If Germany leaves France empty or lightly defended, take it with 1, 2, or 3 infantry and your air force – this will help you stockpile ground units so that later you can attack with 10-12 infantry/artillery.

    If Germany builds infantry and stays home, guarding France/Norway/NW Europe/Italy, then I recommend killing Japan first. Note that there is no rule requiring Britain to invade mainland Europe – you can build a factory in Egypt and just send units east from your colonial factories, or you can max out your Indian factory each turn with land units and then build mostly planes in London and fly the planes over to Moscow / India / China.

  • 2024 '22 '21 '19 '15 '14

    When Germany builds like this (which is really optimal play from the Axis in early rounds) I think you need to deal with the problem directly.

    It will take the Germans longer to reach Moscow with enough attack power to actually take the Russian capital, so you need to use that time as the Allies to develop an appropriately large counter weight. This should come in the form of a very large American expeditionary force. We’re talking a dozen or more transports, (in alternating shifts) ferrying a dozen infantry a round in range of Europe. On top of this you’re going to need a huge airforce, to defend that stack when it finally converges, and to make it effective on the attack.

    The window of opportunity is very narrow, but there will come a point when Germany has moved their large infantry wall past the point of no return (meaning they are too far to double back towards the fatherland, and have committed to defeating Moscow.) You can usually recognize this when they have positioned all their aircraft in Karelia and stop sending infantry into Baltic states, but instead start leaving them in Berlin to build up for the aftermath. As the Allies you need to take France and Northwestern in the same round to prevent a landing space for the German air in Karelia. You may have to transition between stacking in France or Northwestern for a few rounds, trading one (to deny the landing spot for the Germans) while trying to preserve the other as a landing spot for your own defensive Air, and reinforcing with UK units. This is because you will frequently have a 1 round gap, after you drop all your American units, to give the transports time to   return to North America to retrieve the next wave. It usually results in one of two outcomes, either Germany will quit the eastern campaign, leaving only enough units to defend and help Japan’s advance while retreating some forces to deal with the Western Threat. Or they will go all in and try to crush Moscow before you have an angle on Berlin. The real challenge in this scenario is deciding when to take your fighters off of Moscow so they can participate in the invasion of Europe. Usually you can’t do both things, simultaneously defending Moscow and threaten Berlin. So you have to choose where they will be most effective. Losing Moscow doesn’t matter, if you can take Berlin within 1 round.

    What to do with your bombers is a tough call. A solid round or two of bombing can be enough to eek out an edge. On the other hand, you will need every unit you can spare (even bombers for defense) when you make your landing. And of course, they will be extremely valuable when you get an opening on the German capital, since you will almost certainly have to Airblitz your way to victory.

    Playing against that kind of infantry spam is probably one of the most difficult things to deal with as the Allies, because of all the logistical headaches the Americans must endure to set up a sufficiently large crossing.


  • I had an idea where you were continuously sending fighters from the uk to west russia, from there some of these fighters were going to defend Egypt. My primary thought was going after Japan and ignoring Germany. How does this work?

  • '17

    We just had a discussion aboit this topic in the treat:
    http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=38594.msg1583593#msg1583593

    You might want to look at it first.

Suggested Topics

  • 3
  • 5
  • 2
  • 2
  • 11
  • 32
  • 109
  • 18
Axis & Allies Boardgaming Custom Painted Miniatures

44

Online

17.0k

Users

39.3k

Topics

1.7m

Posts