Game Report Game 129;

I agree the problem is a very weak middle for the Allies. Have to play with the Bosporus Strait closed. Generally I like a bid of around 12-17, although I have sometimes beat my friends at 9.

A Russian fighter for the bid helps a lot, you can attack Baltic States and West Russia, and then land them in Egypt, Transjordan (with a tank) and Evenki. You get a pretty big opening, hold the Suez canal, put yourself in position to counter Japan for a single crucial turn, and lay a trap in the Caucasus while stacking W. Russia to receive British fighters. This is nice because it lets you help the British in the beginning but you end up with a Russian fighter, which is the unit which gets the most action in any game, making or breaking a lot of trades and adding a lot of defensive power. Also if you convince Germany to buy navy round 1 then you at least spare Russia through round 5.

Once you get over 15 with the bid you can start doing stupid stuff that totally changes the game… which can be very fun.

Good video along with the turn 1 video in HJ’s thread. One thing I do have to comment on is there must be some horrible, horrible rolls for the Germans in turn 1. Getting Egypt in turn 1 is usually dicey so not getting it is possible, I tend to take Trans-Jordan to make blocking  the canal a sure thing. But not getting Karelia is a definate blow to the Axis, especially with the 2 Russian Fighters there waiting to be picked off. When I play as Germany I love it when Russia packs Karelia at the end of their turn with Tanks and especially their Fighters. At least the Axis got into the precious Russian Tanks though. Also Japan taking their SZ 37 fleet into a blocked Suez Canal was a move I never seen before, but might be deadly for them as it seems USA is going all out Pacific in this one. As it stands with USA looking to dominate the Pacific and UK having an Atlantic fleet at the end of turn 2 with no US help, looks like an Allied victory is almost certain.

Good videos though, looking forward to seeing how it plays out.

@Cow:

Rommel I made my scientifically proven starting setup changes.

I know about those. I love them, but I meant a whole map redesign (example: China has 3 territories). That would be even cooler.

OK - look forward to hearing what happens then  :-)

I find the concentrated bomber strategy very interesting as an approach for the US, for the reasons outlined here - the cost of getting US infantry into the action is incredibly high, so much so that Air power compares much better vs. land forces  for the US than for other nations.

How many bombers is too many? I was picturing maybe 2 US bombers on US1, but for the purposes of strategic bombing, the early IPCs denied will be magnified throughout the game, so perhaps a US1 buy of 3 bombers makes sense?

Unless Japan was posturing in range of a US attack, I imagine I would build the bombers in western US and then send them directly to the UK for use in SBRs vs. Germany (or sinking/deterring a German fleet). Would you agree?

Hi again. Bombers can do Strategic Bombing against a Factory and damage them. This makes placing units harder or more expensive.
Battleships and Cruisers can aid in an amphibious assault; that is called a Bombardment.

… I can’t really tell what to do with the Allies at this point  :-D

I just tried instead of Karelia to push directly with the Germans for a G4 Caucasus capture, as Cow suggested on another thread, and it’s a pain to stop.

R1 fighter to Egypt is solid but at the expense of Germans taking Caucasus on G1 or spend nearly all your tanks on Ukraine. But if you have a strong German push you risk being overstretched with the Soviets because you’ll have 4 attacks to make R2 and 3 of those will be countered (Karelia, Ukraine, Belorussia) and the units destroyed.

One possible option for UK/US is to perform the SZ37 UK attack and invade Solomon Islands with the US forces but buy everything for the Atlantic on US1. If the SZ37 attack is successful then the Allies briefly reach naval parity with Japan but that will change quickly. But this way you’ll have two fleets, both capable of having some effect.

The latest “preview” is up. Special tanks to Variable for writing this great review/overview:

http://www.axisandallies.org/p/axis-allies-1942-second-edition-game-review/