Fall Blau (German/Italian Strategy)

@kcdzim:

@SalothSar:

USA kills it

Are you even paying attention, or just mass spamming/trolling?

We’re talking about UK1.  Not US6.

i do not think he is purposefully spamming, but he is spamming. i have just read many salothsar responses that are one word or less than a full sentence. his posts do not add anything to most threads. he posts opinions as if his are superior to others and has made personal attacks.

salothsar, i recommend you be less negative towards others.

That was removed in the errata.

Being agressive as the UK is recuired, but tempting japan into attacking you where he can is just plain stupid.

Things that you can do depend heavy on what japan did and did not. So there is no fixed you should do X or Y.

There are some guidelines taht the allies should follow regarding how to handle japan.

Simple ground rules:
A : Japan needs ground units in china and the money islands.
B : Japan needs factories and transports to get said units where they need them.
C : Japan has a huge bigass fleet that and airforce that you cannot stand up to. Dont be on the recieving end if it.

Being agressive is that you need to attack japan, not defend. This negates their bigest asset their airforce.
After japan there are 3 countries before it can go again, repairs on capital ships will not happen in between.

Assist China and the US by taking out small groups of land forces and transports.

Always try to trade money islands with Anzac, every time you take an island as anzac your income the next round should be 14 so you spend 14 and get 14 back you can keep that up forever.
It is also costing japan 14 to get it back ( you did sink their transport right ) but those units are 2 turns. That is 4 less land units in china ( 2 for the transport, 2 in the transport )

When you got a choice between sending an anzac or a US sub to kill a transpot, anzac should do it unless it brings them under 2 attack ships. its just lovely to clear a blocker with the US and then have 1 anzac sub sink 3 japan transports 😄

When japan splits its fleet, use 2 or 3 strike waves to kill it off, carriers are nice to take hits but the next wave will face not only a damaged carrier but no planes. 3 carries with planes are formidable, 3 damaged carrires are dead.

If at any point in time you can trade the US+UK+Anzac fleet for the majority of the japan fleet ( you will always miss out the odd destroyer ) do it. Anzac is close to the money islands and US can spend more on fleet then japan can. IF they are blocked out of the money islands for a few turns japan is in huge trouble.

Help out UK-Pac. as US try to get malaya or borneo back from japan. You dont get the cash but the income can be much more efficiently spend by UK-Pac. They dont need transports to get the boots on the ground.

Dont throw away UK-PAc airforce ( unless to take out the Japan main fleet ). 2 inf are worthless, 2 inf + 2 fighters + 1 tactical can trade some inf every turn.

China killing 2-3 units a turn, UK-Pac killing 2-3 units a turn, Anzac taking a money island every turn that is 34 income drained every turn from japan.

@ItIsILeClerc:

What Barney said will probably work fine, since you seem to have a pretty solid plan.

I can give two answers to your questions though, but please keep in mind those things work for me, not necessarily for you too.

1. I never ignore the Siberians. I kill them, chase them down, or screen/defend against them, depending on what Russia did and what my own plans are. Since Russia moves before Japan, I adapt accordingly. Sometimes it’s even worth it to allow them 1 or 2 turns into Manchuria/Korea if you can kill them/force them to retreat later on anyway (no later than 3rd turn after), because this keeps them away from Moscow and ‘upsets’ Mongolia.
Good thing to know: Japan can take down China + India completely without the troops from Manchuria/Korea. IJAF has 21 airplanes and it’s OK to sacrifice ~4planes if this means killing the entire Chinese (or Indian) army.

2. Use them when you can ;-). Use them to deny USN shorebombardment or to strengthen the IJN if it comes under threat of an attack so stage it off Japan and/or Philippines.

I usually let russia go to korea, but make sure I can deadzone manchuria.  Especially good idea since korea is easily convoy raided.

So my latest strategy with the Allies was highly experimental but successful. First off, let me say that many house rules were used. We’ve never used house rules before, so we just recently began the journey of spicing up the game. The most notable house rules we used in this game were the Neutral Block rule, transport trucks, transport planes, and a Generals rule (Japan, Germany, U.S. , Russia, and U.K. each get randomly selected commanders with different perks) Now, onto the strategy that I call “Operation Roaring Bear”: At the beginning of the game, I sent 2 Russian infantry south. Britain bombed out Iraq, so Russia marched one man into Persia and Iraq at the same time. In Africa, the U.K. used aircraft to destroy the Italians without taking their territory. Russia was able to take all those normally useless Italian territories and turn them into sweet sweet 3ipc bonuses a piece. At the same time, 1 Russian infantry boarded a British transport and sailed to Brazil. The Americans used a handful of heavy bombers to destroy all the South American armies, and the Russians collected a nice chunk of change. It was pretty hilarious to have Moscow entirely surrounded and still collect enough money for 10-12 infantry per turn. Then after the Germans failed to take the city, the Russians steamrolled across Europe.

@Karl7:

The problem of the BofBritain was that numbers alone don’t tell the whole story.  Brit ftrs were close to base, defending, so they could land quickly, refuel and rotate out much, much quicker than the Germans who had to fly much further back.

That allowed the RAF to hit way above its weight in numbers, especially when radar allowed them to see the attacks coming.

Also, the Luftwaffe was really a tactical air force, not an air superiority force.

The Allied effort to gain air superiority of Germany was massive and took 3ish years and thousands upon thousands of dead.

It wasnt the planes but the people that make the difference.
A uk pilot having to bail out could basicaly hail a car and drive back to his base and be back in the air in a few hours.
a german pilot had to either ditch in the channel and hope to be picked up, or land on the UK evade capture and then swim the channel?? Even in perfect condition this will take somewhat longer then driving 100 miles to your airbase.

@simon33:

@taamvan:

Simon33,

Yes, we set up at the game shop at 10AM when it opens, and end around 5-6PM.  Game 111 is tomorrow at 10AM.

Wow. How many rounds does such a game go for? Typically, the first round goes for about 1.5-2 hours in my experience. Later rounds might be under an hour but I can’t see getting to 10 rounds in this time unless you play significantly faster than my experience.

A few things help with this though.

Deside before the game who gets what. That way the axis can already plan germany ahead of time, so germany takes like 10 minutes to play.
Also since japan isnt affected at all by allies ( except russia ) you can also plan that 1 ahead.

A laptop with excel and some setup so you can buy using that. Saves you calculating. Also allows the allies to plan their buys ahead of time without the axis knowing about it. Just not having to calculate what the total costs of you units is and easy swapping between buys without redoing all the calculations really saves time. Again even a 2-3 minutes saved each nation is already 20 minutes a round.

Plenty of dice so you can throw a round in 1 go. Does not sound like much but saving even 10 seconds each combat adds up to about 1 minut saved the first round for germany. And with bigger combats the time saved goes up as well. Can easy save you 5-10 minutes each game round ( that is 1 hour in a 6 round game)

Russia Far east movement goes before the rest of russia ( if there is only non combat play that part and then do the western front ) since russia is so vast your dice throws will not affect this area anyway and it allows the japan player to think while you are playing russia.

Using these small things depending on the side i play i can either play the allies really fast 5-10 minutes each country maximum. I normaly buy and plan all the allies while japan is busy.
UK-Eu isnt affected and once combat moves are shown you already know if USA and UKP and ANZAC are affected and how. Sure some non combat might affect it but using a laptop swapping a few units out for others takes seconds.

In my play group there’s a guy who takes S. Euro with Germany and starts to build a small navy there. With the Italians, that combined fleet is enough to bottle the allies at Gib for a long time. I’ve seen it come out of the med from time to time depending on the situation, but usually he just drops enough men to hold Gib for a very long time. Without an allied presence in the med, Italy can typically make a lot of $$$ and either build a defensive force for Germany while they press towards USSR, move into the middle east and threaten USSR’s underbelly/India, take out UK’s SAF IC, or some combo of the above. It seems very hard to stop if done right, but I’ve yet to play with or against him when he’s the European axis and does this, so I don’t know the details of what happens in between my tours of the others’ boards when I’m waiting for my opponent to take his turn.