• '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    @Nix:

    As i said before, Japan Navy doesn´t need to kill the whole US one.

    It´s enought to attack and kill all US trn´s.  (if US takes expensive capital ships and figs as casualties they die quickly) if they take trn´s as casualties you can take a minimum casualties yourself and retreat the rest of the fleet if the numbers are against you.

    And then repeat the procces.

    You’ll never get to the transports if you cower.  IF you do attack them, you’ll loose all your ships from defensive fire.  (You really think America’s going to put transports in range without battleship(s), destroyers, carriers, fighters and maybe a few submarines to defend them???  You’re in fantasy land if you think so!)

    So you cower around Japan making it so America cannot attack your fleet because you’re stronger defensively.  Meanwhile, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, New Guinee, Borneo, Philippines and East Indies are in allied hands dwindling your income to next to nothing.  But you have your fleet!!

    Now you have America (and probably England and Russia) putting infantry into your mainland holdings and over whelming you.  All they need is a British IC on East Indies, American IC on Borneo (worth 4 each) and their fleets near by to defend them from Japanese incursions.

    Now what?  You have to either build fleet to match the Allies and thus remove money from attacking Russia, or give up Japan and hope Germany can take out Russia (and minimal British reinforcements) before Japan is reduced to an island.

  • 2007 AAR League

    if the States go purely Pacific…

    Russia will fall long before the Japs ever will.

    How do you plan on killing there navy etc?  your talking about many turns of constant all out navy to get anything achieved.

    Japan starts with 2 trns, 1 SS, 1 DD, 2 AC, 2 BB, 6 fgts , 1 bmb (not counting first turn looses) + add some extra 2-4 trns and thats one nice defensive unit.

    trust me its just not worth it to go all out in the pacific, you will simply not get anything accomplished in time before Russia falls. One Russia falls… Japan definetly has a bigger economy then The States after turn 3-5 and it will be easy for them to defend themselves.

  • '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    3 Turns, remember you arn’t attacking the American fleet unless it’s next to you.

    42+40+38 = 120.  2 Carriers, 1 Fighter, 2 Destroyers, 8 Transports on top of 3 transports, 1 battleship, 2 destroyers and 3 fighters you start with and keep past J1.

    You going to attack that with 2 battleships, 2 carriers, 6 fighters, 1 bomber and 4-8 transports???  Or are you going to spend valuable Japanese income building ships to defend/attack that force and risk being pushed off the mainland by British aggression?  (And you’ll need a British IC in India or America’s wasting their time.)  Leave the transport on India, get the fighter there so you have 5 infantry, 1 fighter, 1 AA vs whatever Japan brings, the transport stops any Battleships from firing and allows you time to get 3 armor, 2 fighters more in there.

    You can put up a very manly attack force in India to counter a Japan who’s building navy to stop America.

    Yea, Germany will fight Russia and England. (England’s still probably moving 3-5 units into Russia a turn.)  And they’ll eventually over-whem them, but not before Japan’s off the mainland and is down some of her larger islands (East Indies, Borneo and Philippines.  2 of which will probably have American IC’s on them shortly to full their war machine so they don’t have to go back to the States for manpower.)

    Japan’s now stuck on her island with a few inconsequential holdings in the Pacific, unable to effectively prosecute the war and now you can start pumping out 7 or 8 tanks with America, 3 tanks with England and drive them into Germany.

    (And yes, I’m assuming USA/England still drop off forces into Africa to resecure it from the West.  Germany gunna bleed off forces from the Russian front to take care of 8 Allied units in Libya/Algeria/Egypt, or give up Africa?)

    As I said.  Your goal is to dwindle axis forces by pulling them way out of position and/or destroying them long enough to over whelm them with Americans.  If you let Mercy pull 40 infantry back into Germany you’re the one pulled out of position.  Much easier to crush Japan.  Now Geramny can turtle all they want, you’ll just hammer em over and over and over again.  (Japan’s stuck on their island anyway.)


  • @Jennifer:

    3 Turns, remember you arn’t attacking the American fleet unless it’s next to you.

    42+40+38 = 120.  2 Carriers, 1 Fighter, 2 Destroyers, 8 Transports on top of 3 transports, 1 battleship, 2 destroyers and 3 fighters you start with and keep past J1.

    You going to attack that with 2 battleships, 2 carriers, 6 fighters, 1 bomber and 4-8 transports???

    You post a 3 turn build up of USA, and compare it to what Japan has after J1

    To get your fleet, you are NOT countering Pearl, or you lose a chunk of those units.  Japan may very well add a DST to that fleet with ANY luck at Pearl (2 hits by US on average, wounding the BB, losing the SUB).

    Also, at the end of your great build up, you are still 2 moves away.  that is FIVE TURNS that Japan can IGNORE the US.  In 5 turns, Japan has added 48 divisions or more to Asia.

    If US attacks the Japan fleet, EVEN IF JAPAN DOESN’T SPEND A PENNEY ON NAVAL IN 5 TURNS, the US will win, with a 10% chance of having ANY transports alive.  Add 2 more turns of US builds and moves to get TRN’s to risk Japan.

    Meanwhile in Europe…
    UK has lost their fleet to a joint Kreigsmarine/Luftwaffe strike.  Germany loses their ships, and a number of FIGs, but they are immune to the UK for several turns.  Nazis turn $50 IPC war machine against Russia with no risk from the west.

    And about the time German INF is in Caucuses, West Russia, and Archangel Japan forces are in Novo, Evenk, and Kazakh.  Russia has an income of $8, UK an income of $15.
    London and Russia fall together, just before the US is finally ready to take out the big bad Japan fleet in US5.

    And again, that is without the Japs spending a penney on fleet except for 4 TRNs to empty Japan each round.

    If Japan spends JUST $16 on Navy, and adds their last 2 land based FIGs, then the great US attack has a whopping 30% chance of success.

    And I know you are going to post that US goes after Japan Islands.  Fine, they go after the islands.  But as US is taking Borneo, Japan no longer has to send anythign to Asia, Moscow has fallen.  And Germany no longer has to send anythign to UK OR Moscow.  Now the US has Borneo… but they better be buildign INF, because the Nazis are sailing from London for Washington, and Japan just dropped 8 divisions in Alaska…

  • '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    I don’t think Japan is moving that fast.

    Not with 3 Allied Nations sending 2-3 units a round each at them.  That counters their builds on the mainland.  And yea, they build a couple of units and can defend themselves better, so what?  In a matter of a few rounds America’s dumping not 2 units from Sinkiang, but 9 units into Asia (2 Sink, 3 Phil, 4 Borneo), England’s got 3 going in from India and Russia’s turtled, maybe strafing Jap stacks to weaken them a bit.

    Germany’s gotta deal with 6-12 units into Russia a turn + 4-6 units from England and the loss of Africa to British/American Invasions on Turn 1, maybe a follow up on Turn 2.

    So yea, Japan HAS to sink the British Fleet and the American fleet.  If they don’t they’re in trouble from the word go.  They do poorly in even one of those attacks and they’re in serious trouble from the word go.  The only thing that can help them is DAAK.  Because I guarentee you they’re not farthern then Bury and China by the end of J2.  That’s 33 IPCs a round…yay.  J3 they’re Yak/Bury/China/SFE.  35 IPCs…J3 they’re loosing islands, maybe have Evenki/Novo if Russia lets them get that close to be strafed on Russia’s turn.

    I just don’t see how you’re getting 48 infantry into Asia when you’re under constant pressure by the allies AND building fleet to counter the American fleet build up.  hell, it’s 5-6 turns before America gets a decent supply of units going into Europe too, this is just faster!

  • 2007 AAR League

    Good grief Jen,

    Didn’t you see how fast alone my japs moved vs you in our last game?

    First turn is an IC, 2 trns to supplement the 1-2 trns already there. (first turn you shuffle 2 divisions) J2 you build another 2 trn + inf divisions, you just shuffled and added 9 more divisions (thats 11 already) turn 3 you can shuffle another 13 divisions

    after 3 turns with just 1 IC on the mainland and 4 trns we just shuffled 26 divisions to asia (the islands should be empty by now, so going on your 33$ a turn, were looking at 11 inf a turn for 2 more turns to equal 48 divisions into Asia after 5 turns…

    and your doing your attack on Japan poorly I say… you know the first wave is going to be pretty much destroyed, why waste 8 trns… only build a few but mostly attacking ships like subs or AC’s + fgts (fgts in W-USA can reach Jap SZ 60)

    so after 5 turns you can easily shuffle 44-48 divisions into Asia

    USA --> pacific  = Allied loss


  • Now wait a freaking minute Jen…

    Are you spending all that money on fleet, or are you diverting some of it to a Sinkiang IC?  Because you can;t afford to do both.
    Your post above listed $130 IPC’s of builds by the US.  Now you also want to spend $15 on Sinkiang, and then more on 2 units a round there?  Now you need 5 turns just to build your fleet, and 2 more to move it into position.  That is 7 turns of Japan slamming Asia before they have threat #1.

    And you want UK building an IC in India too?  Cool!  With every US ship pulled out of the Atlantic, with UK spendign half of their dwindling income in India (and with a dead UK fleet), with the US needing 5 turns to do more than send 2 units per round against Japan’s incursion…

    Moscow is not falling first. I am taking London on G3.  And the US will have NOTHIGN in range to liberate it before I get to build there.  Moscow falls 1-2 trn later.

    And in that set up, USA has not even begun MOVING to attack the Jap Fleet yet.

    You just can;t do that massive build fast enough without sacrificing your allies.


  • Fight!  Fight!  :evil:

    I think the only way to resolve this is to play it out.

  • 2007 AAR League

    I just finished a 1 on 1 match vs her with me being the axis, she didn’t go the pacific route with the States.

    I had horrible dice, lost all my navy and fgt to kill  1 trn on turn 2, and she crushed my front-line german troops with hardly any casualties.

    I prevailed in the end with my quick thinking money grabs with the germans/japs.

  • Moderator

    You guys vastly underestimate a US Pac strat.

    Now, you guys all know I’m no fan of ships or diverting from the central theme that the game revolves around the middle of the board, but I’ve seen some killer US Pac moves at DAAK.

    And you’re in for a rude awakening if you think it isn’t possible.

    The US is not 2 moves from sz 60, it is 1, think air power.

    Without going into a 10 turn example, here is something to consider:

    US buys 2 AC’s 1 ftr on US1

    US continues to buy
    1 AC, 2 ftrs on US 2
    1 AC 2 ftrs on US 3, etc.

    The US can still support UK in the Alt for several turns without making an additional purchase, I’m sure you guys can figure out the land movements for that.

    And I’m also sure you be able to figure out that Japan’s movement is quickly limited in the Pac and why.
    And that once they are forced back to sz 60 (in rd 3), they are now there to stay, and the US can unleash it’s fiendish plan on rd 4.

    NO IC’s for the US or UK!!!  Bad bad bad move.  Not until later, once you have Bor, East Ind, and the Phil.

    London will be fine and so will Moscow.
    Moscow should easily be safe for at least 7-9 rds, so it really depends on how well Japan is able to split her priorities, and the pressure really is on Germany to get to and hold either Wrus or Cauc ASAP.  If you are not there and can hold by rd 6 you are in big trouble as the US is making her move (about rd 4).

    If Japan over compensates for sea that helps Russia.
    If she goes all out land, without proper back up, she is a paper tiger and a good Russian player will see this and continue to focus on Germany.

    Japan needs to find the the happy medium of bare minimum naval purchases to keep the US fleet sill in the Wus sz.  And if you think “oh, an extra sub or dd or 2”, you’d be wrong.

    It comes down to a decision for Japan and they have to make it in Japan 2 or they start to snowball into making things worse.
    1)  Will you maintain a defensive fleet?
    2)  Or will you try to sink the US?

    Both have severe drawbacks since a defensive fleet will cost you your islands and an offensive fleet gives you a bunch of useless subs which could have been inf and arm pushing towards Mos.

  • 2007 AAR League

    Hey Darth,

    does this pacific move have anything to do with the move I pulled off on you to seal Japan’s fate and the game? using fgts from W-USA and AC’s already in the area?

    I like it so much that in my tourney game they left my pearl fleet live, so I almost convinced my partner to go along with the idea. but thing is in that case I’m glad I didn’t… horrible dice has the russians very limited in troops and territories.

    but I was found of that Pacfici move  :-D

  • 2007 AAR League

    My idea with the perl fleet still alive was to buy 3 subs, 1 AC turn 1, 4 fgts turn 2

    turn 3 hit SZ 60 with 4 subs, 8 fgts, 1 bmb possibly a BB and the AC’s and a trn. still a lot for turn 3. but that wouldn’t of worked out. He would of holed up in SZ 61 or the W-Jap SZ

  • Moderator

    Somewhat.  It did definitely help to see a you (a different opponent) use the US effectively against Japan.

    I saw it twice before from this guy at Daak, so I was somewhat prepared.

    That is why I countered you with mostly, if not all, air for Japan.  I had seen that ignoring the US and/or ship competition with them failed.

    There is no reason what you did in our game can’t be done from US 1 provided certain things in R1 to J1.

    In our game I could take Cauc but never had the momentum to push beyond that due to the tank heavy Russians.

    And bingo, it is VERY HARD to take Russia when they can fall back and play the tank game against an expanding Germany as their supply lines increase and Russia’s shrinks.

    Back to the Pac, I’m not convinced all Air was the right way to go, but that was slightly different as you made a mid game move.

    When I have encountered this from US 1, I’ve found ignoring the US until Rd 3 is bad, esp against a committed Pac opponent, and that you can’t rely on subs either, esp when they can’t hit ftrs which should always be a worry.  One game I had about 9 and when he moved, I attacked with subs, ships ftrs and boms, I brough everything, but when all my subs missed his AC/Ftr - BB combos absolutely leveled me.  Even if I hit on 2 or 3 it was an up hill battle, b/c (even if you go back to our game) the US can easily rebuild while Japan cannot.

    This is another reason why I really don’t like the G1 AC buy.  In my third game with this guy, I finally took Moscow, but I seriously went all out for Moscow and played probably the best game I played yet, in terms of staying focused.  I finally took Moscow in Rd 11.  Eleven!!!  After a Germany-Japan 1-2.  We are still playing but I feel a bit better b/c in order to take Mos, I have lost all my islands, some now have US IC’s,  as well as I’m now trading Fic and Kwa and he has all of Afr and the ME.

    It shouldn’t be long before I tip the balance back now and boot him off Asia for good, but had he rolled up when Ger attacked Mos, Japan wouldn’t have been able to take and I would have been in serious trouble.  and if I didn’t stock pile Inf on Japan, that would have been in Jeopardy even after Mos fell.  I took out his first fleet woth my mixed fleet in like rd 8 or 9, he finished off a few lone trns in the next 2 rds and owned the Pac from about rd 9 on.

    Luckily I planned the Moscow attack 3-4 rds ahead of time, bought the appropriate things and geared everything for that one shot, had I been diverted at all I never would have been able to take it and it would have turned out like my game against NoMercy.

  • Moderator

    @NoMercy:

    My idea with the perl fleet still alive was to buy 3 subs, 1 AC turn 1, 4 fgts turn 2

    turn 3 hit SZ 60 with 4 subs, 8 fgts, 1 bmb possibly a BB and the AC’s and a trn. still a lot for turn 3. but that wouldn’t of worked out. He would of holed up in SZ 61 or the W-Jap SZ

    I like the AC/ftr combo, b/c once he does move back to sz 60/61, you are free to expand b/c now in order to kill you, you get AC’s that defend at 3 and ftrs at 4.  And then you can even counter the next turn with your new builds if he attacked you.

    Go defensive and claim Sol, make it really hard and expensive to stop you.

    Once you inch out it becomes a real burden to stop them, esp if Japan isn’t prepared for it, in terms of what they bought their previous turns.

  • 2007 AAR League

    divertion was my ally against you.

    I believe I diverted you everywhere and anywhere, from the Med to WE to EE and most of Europe then into Asia then into the Pacific.

    The quick boot I gave you out of Africa always helps too.

    by the time you had taken Cauc (errors on both our parts led to this) The russians always outnumbered or stayed even wtih the ger/jap combo of units on Cauc which was good news for me considering I ahd 20+ tanks and 30+inf  = pretty near impossible for the axis to take. that didn’t count the few figs I had there, or the few more I would of sent and made had I known moscow would have been in any real danger.

  • Moderator

    Yeah, unfortunately there wasn’t much I could do about the diversions in our game.

    We both know I never had the Punch to take Moscow.  I had to sacrifice some of Japan just to get Cauc with Germany, but then it simply became the wiating game, when never really helps the Axis.

    My hope was that maybe you would do something while trying to create a diversion and leave an opening.  But it never appeared.  You always had forces to protect against a move on the ME or a Japan landing in Afr, then the US showed up to keep my ships at bay, etc.

    In hindsight, I should have probably deadzoned Cauc and tried for Wrus instead, maybe try and manever it so Japan could have taken Cauc, but I think there were issues with that as well.

    But the great thing about that game was seeing all the different stuff play out and really gave me some do’s and don’t’s at least for my style of play.  Which have more to do with bid/purchases/focus/when to move on Ukr/Cauc/Wrus.


  • The initial Japan defensive buy is an AC, and land based FIGs.  You lose some punch as Japan in Asia, but if you built and TRN land units to Asia, there is usually not a strong land counter by Russia.

    Dependign on US counters, etc, Japan then has 2 or 3 AC’s, loaded or nearly so.

    J2, Japan gets to 3 AC’s, and if no AC’s have been lost, they finish loading all 3.  This of course combined with TRN buys to reach 4-5 TRN.  Any remaining BB’s are consolidated.

    Your TRN’s are your fodder if needed.  Your FIGs are you main defense.  USA doing an all air strike on you with just AF is going to be expensive.

    Further additions consist of a bit of mixing… a DST if you do not already have one.  Perhaps a second if US is buying SUBs.  1 or 2 of your own SUBs, extra TRNs (to scavenge islands, re-route Asia force to islands if needed, and of course as Fodder with air defense capability).

    If US is going REALLY hard core in the Pacific, AC#4, loaded.

    Come and get me Yanks!

  • Moderator

    Agreed. 
    It is very easy to build a defensive force, but the problem is the US does not have to kill the Japan fleet, just force it back to sz 60, which is very problematic for Japan.

    Likewise, the Japan fleet won’t be able to kill the US fleet.

    If I’m not mistaken the US can have 4 acs, 7-8 ftrs, 1 bb, 1 dd, 1 trn at the sol is sz at the end of US 4 with an ac and 2 ftrs in the Wus us sz.

    This now leaves Japan with a choice, do you attack?  Which turns all your 3 and 4’s into 1’s and 3’s while the US shifts to the 3’s and 4’s?

    Or do you let them be and continue to build defensively?  Just for a strafing run to kill the trn you are looking at minimum 7 hits.

    Further, your ftrs are now stuck defending in sz 60, which means you need to buy more offensive punch for the land.  Your ftrs can’t reach very far and still land back in the sz, you can of course buy new ftrs to place directly on the AC’s but you are still not increasing your unit count for the sz.

    I’m not saying it is unbeatable or anything, just that Japan has to be very careful.  You don’t want to get caught buying a sub or 2 on J2, only to see the US continue to buy AC’s and ftrs making your subs useless.  You’d be better off buying trns, but again you concede taking out the US fleet at that point and are forced back to sz 60, otherwise the US will attack the sz and any new naval purchases with ftrs and then land on their AC’s.  But even trn buys have a downside once you go over 4 or 5, and it starts becoming “wasted” IPC’s that should be spent on land units in Asia.  And if you go IC’s you’ll need at least 2 but that is 30 IPCs on top of the trns you bought???  You can barely fill 4 trns and 2 IC’s with all inf buys (42 IPC).  You could commit to IC’s early, but then you lose some flexability on J1 and J2.

    All this can play into the Allies hands as it buys time for Russia.

    It basically boils down to, the Japanese player really needs to be on top of their game and prepared.

  • 2007 AAR League

    Japan only needs to kill the USA trn´s……  USA pacific fleet without trns are useless.

    And you do enought damage for US to pick trn casualties, so Japan win… (or get´s like 3 more rounds, and that is usually enought to win the game)


  • There is 1 TRN in that fleet Darth.  So Japan loses 1 island of value per round starting in J5 (solomons, lost in J4 has no IPC value).

    I have still sent 30+ divisions to Asia at that point, and reinforced my fleet.

    If I built up my Japan fleet at minimal level that I posted above (to 3 AC loaded, a DST, a SUB, 5 TRN’s, my 2 starting BB’s), and my BOM, I have a 2/3 chance of winning against the Solomons fleet, with 2 BB an an AC left on average.

    Even if I lose, you have no TRNs in the Pacific with the builds posted.  2 turns to build and move them into position…
    And at 36 IPC’s to the Pacific per turn (in order to get 4 loaded AC’s on turn 4, US is buying only about 2-3 INF to Europe or Africa per turn (assuming US used existing FIGs for 3 of the 8 FIGs needed) on only 2 TRN…

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