N00b school: Pearl Heavy v. Pearl Light


  • I’m trying to understand what people use to attack pearl on J1 and how do you decide when to take each approach.

    The way I understand it Pearl Heavy would be sz60 BB; sz45 sub (if alive); sz50 DD, CV, & Fig; Japan bomber and another fig.

    What exactly do people mean when they say “pearl light”?

    And the real reason I’m asking is how do you decide which approach to take (or when to go somewhere in between)?  What circumstances would lead you one way vs. the other and what are you trying to achieve?  Are you still trying to clear sz52 with light or is it meant to be more of a strafe?  How much does it depend on what was done in the pacific on UK1? And finally, when do you pass up pearl altogether?  Does passing it up really make KJF more viable for the allies or does it usually just mean one more US fig and a couple more boats in the atlantic around turn 4?

    I know it’s a lot of questions, but this is an area that people seem to have some “standard” options in mind but as a new player they’re difficult to find because they’re scattered in a lot of other discussions.  I just thought it would be helpful for people like me to see a discussion of it in one place.

    (Oh, and by the way, please assume ADS only, and ADS v. LL is not relevant to this conversation ;) )


  • @TimTheEnchanter:

    (Oh, and by the way, please assume ADS only, and ADS v. LL is not relevant to this conversation ;) )

    Nice caveat  :)


  • Not Pearl means a easier Pacific strat for the allies. That 3 pieces are a big difference.

    I like send sub, dd, 4 figs, 1 bomb. If all goes Ok, you’ll only lose dd, sub. If bad, it’s not the doom because Japan still have his capital ships


  • @TimTheEnchanter:

    I’m trying to understand what people use to attack pearl on J1 and how do you decide when to take each approach.

    The way I understand it Pearl Heavy would be sz60 BB; sz45 sub (if alive); sz50 DD, CV, & Fig; Japan bomber and another fig.

    What exactly do people mean when they say “pearl light”?

    And the real reason I’m asking is how do you decide which approach to take (or when to go somewhere in between)?  What circumstances would lead you one way vs. the other and what are you trying to achieve?  Are you still trying to clear sz52 with light or is it meant to be more of a strafe?  How much does it depend on what was done in the pacific on UK1? And finally, when do you pass up pearl altogether?  Does passing it up really make KJF more viable for the allies or does it usually just mean one more US fig and a couple more boats in the atlantic around turn 4?

    I know it’s a lot of questions, but this is an area that people seem to have some “standard” options in mind but as a new player they’re difficult to find because they’re scattered in a lot of other discussions.  I just thought it would be helpful for people like me to see a discussion of it in one place.

    (Oh, and by the way, please assume ADS only, and ADS v. LL is not relevant to this conversation ;) )

    Great question. Let me first say although it may seem there are standard options, you will find that even many of the good players do not agree on them.

    Second, the way I decide whether to hit Pearl heavy, light, or not at all, is what’s going on with the UK fleet and what they did to me. If they left me alone in all areas, I will hit Pearl heavy, because it has the nice bonus of not only using a bb to absorb a hit, but also conserves fighters for the land battles. You only need 2 figs + 1 bom with heavy pearl, but if you go light pearl that sucks up between 3-4 fighters. You ideally want to use the other fighters to clear kwang, or even if kwang is clear, then you want to blast China to smithereens instead of losing 3-4 inf there.

    Generally Pearl Heavy is the most flexible and solid opening, great for both KGF and KJF, but you only take it when you believe that you can actually hold Pearl Heavy. Remember, the US counterattack is 1 btl 1 tran 2 fig 1 bom, and that is enough to kill 1 btl 1 car 2 fig with a decent chance of the bb surviving. So you need to do some quick calculations to give you a majority chance of surviving with 1 btl 1 car 2 fig and a sub or destroyer.

    Also to consider is what kind of airforce/navy the Allies have to bring against SZ60 and SZ61 if you send your btl off. If they’ve staged Bury hard and have lots of air ready to hit you (remember hawaii fig + e. us bomb can hit SZ60 and land in Bury….and in case of the bomber he can land yakut as well, and look out for uk bombers in moscow or sinkiang), then you have to think hard about how to protect your transports. You might decide that it’s better to keep your btl at home so you can build your tps safely in SZ60 and either ignore Pearl altogether, or do light pearl.

    Basically to sum up, heavy pearl is the ideal option due to fig conservation and use of the bb, but sometimes heavy pearl is too risky due to uk reinforcement of pearl + kwang attack. Sometimes it’s better instead to smack Bury if it’s stacked and keep the bb at home, and either do light pearl or just avoid pearl. Avoiding pearl isn’t the end of the world; it only gives the US one extra fig to use against Germany, and they still have to work very hard to KJF; hopefully though you did something useful with the forces you conserved.

    And remember when considering Pearl attacks, that the Caroline fighter can go to Pearl without the assistance of a carrier because it can land in Wake. So simply bringing one carrier within range of pearl can bring 2 more for 3 figs. Light Pearl involves not sending the carrier actually in to Pearl, but rather in range to pick things up. The dest/sub are simply fodder and you don’t care if they survive or not.

    If you are really scared of KJF, you can always hit Pearl Heavy regardless if the UK reinforced or not because you can bring the 2 figs from E. Indies for a total of 4 figs + everything else. Don’t be afraid to sac a fighter or 2 or even your bomber if you need to kill Pearl to stave off imminent KJF; it’s worth it.

    I know I’m rambling now but feel free to keep asking for clarifications.

  • '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    Noobs should ALWAYS go “Pearl Heavy.”  Actually, I’d say “Pearl Super Heavy” which is 4 fighters and bomber plus all the surface warships that can reach.

    Veterans can go Pearl Heavy if they think KJF is coming or Pearl Light if they want to blitz Russia faster.  Up to the individual player.


  • @Cmdr:

    Noobs should ALWAYS go “Pearl Heavy.”  Actually, I’d say “Pearl Super Heavy” which is 4 fighters and bomber plus all the surface warships that can reach.

    Veterans can go Pearl Heavy if they think KJF is coming or Pearl Light if they want to blitz Russia faster.  Up to the individual player.

    I’m very curious why you think there should be a difference with n00bs and vets. Why would a newbie need to go super heavy?  I’ve never seen anyone send that much equipment (or is this just a ploy to get people like me to do something foolish, since I fall squarely into that n00b category)  This seems a little too rigid considering all the possibilities of what the UK might have done.

    Also, how do you send 4 figs and a bomber if there’s a good chance of a couple menacing boats in sz59 threatening your transports (perhaps with UK bomber coverage as well)?  I figure 2 planes are in China, that leaves you nothing to deal with any other possible threats.  The E.Indies boats alone make for a very shaky attack on a destroyer and CV (even worse if stacked with the trn as well).  They’re heavily favored to win, but you stand a very good chance to lose at least one, if not 2 capital ships.  That doesn’t even address the possibilities of whether there’s a sub in sz45, a stack in bury, or what you might want to do with those fighters on J2.  Sending 5 planes on a tour of hawaii seems like overkill, and would ultimately hurt you elsewhere.

    Also, I’m curious how pearl light helps you blitz faster. How are you using the fleet to accomplish this?  Doesn’t that pull MORE planes out of range for turn 2?  Maybe I’m just not seeing the options on the board correctly.

    Thanks everyone for the input so far!


  • I’m skipping pearl now, but the best players (in the lobby) do pearl, sometimes light, sometimes heavy.
    Personally I wouldn’t do pearl light in ADS.
    I change tactics frequently  :-)

    Very few if anyone of my opponents build in WUS so I might as well do pearl heavy because of the TUV trade.
    With 6 inf in Bury I think I would kill that stack instead of pearl.


  • i aggree, why should Noobs always go pearl heavy?
    i love playing Japan, and had abandoned the Pearl attack in the old game, and in the new one i have only been Allies once and Axis 2x’s (classifing me as a Noob i would imagin), i saw the new set up and saw Pearl as an option and have gone heavy one time and light one time, both i thought were good, but i would never go supper heavy, that seams a little much (ok a lot much); even heavy seams a little much.

  • '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    Pearl Light allows you to move faster with Japan into Russia because your fighters don’t have to return from the Pacific first.  They never go to the Pacific.  That’s a two round advance on your fighters.

    Pearl Heavy would be recommended to newbs because they may not be able to gauge accurately the level of equipment needed to hit Pearl Light or how to select casualties to maximize any counter attacks needed and their defenses.


  • then they are most liklly playing other Noobs who may not see the opertunity, make the same mistakes, or get lucky and make the hit. even then though Noob vs Noob they will make mistakes.
    as for Noob vs Vet, i’m sure most Vet’s go easy on those they know are Noobs as it realy isn’t fun to get stomped when learning a game from some one who knows the game already; they may not want a rematch or even look at the game again… as a Vet when playing Noobs you should tend to let errors slide (not in rules), so that they can learn, but not all other wise they will learn them as good moves. maby point out the error but by pass it. i mean the idea is to teach them so they can play a good game another day IMO.


  • @Cmdr:

    Pearl Light allows you to move faster with Japan into Russia because your fighters don’t have to return from the Pacific first.  They never go to the Pacific.  That’s a two round advance on your fighters.

    Maybe I’m misunderstanding pearl light… doesn’t that mean sending mostly planes and landing them on a carrier @ wake or on wake itself.    That’s kinda what I thought when I started this thread and it seemed to be confirmed by some of the other comments.  If you’re sending 3-4 figs to pearl, how is that not the pacific?

  • '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    You send in planes, but you land them closer to the mainland.

    Since they are closer to the mainland, you can rush them ashore faster.

    Since your warships are closer to the mainland, you can rush your infantry into Africa faster.

    It just allows you to exploit Russian resources (and British resources) faster, IMHO.

    Pearl Heavy is great for those instances you think it’s a KJF game.  (ie, England  put up an IC on UK 1 and Russia stacked 6 infantry in Buryatia.  Good tip off.  Or when your opponent says she wants to test KJF, this ALWAYS results in Pearl Heavy by my opponents.)


  • Just to add this in…

    Pearl Ultra-Light:
    Only the SUB (if it lives in SZ45) and the DST for surface ships to SZ52; plus 3 FIGs, and 1 BOM.
    AC moves to Wake SZ to recover FIGs if needed, excess FIG to Wake Island.

    Does not work well if the UK has a SUB alive in SZ45, and is very dangerous to Japan’s remaining ships if the DST does not survive the battle.

  • '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    Yea, well, you’d just have to take more fighter casualties to keep the destroyer alive to block for the carrier, I guess.


  • @ncscswitch:

    Just to add this in…

    Pearl Ultra-Light:
    Only the SUB (if it lives in SZ45) and the DST for surface ships to SZ52; plus 3 FIGs, and 1 BOM.
    AC moves to Wake SZ to recover FIGs if needed, excess FIG to Wake Island.

    Does not work well if the UK has a SUB alive in SZ45, and is very dangerous to Japan’s remaining ships if the DST does not survive the battle.

    Just so I understand, the DD is to protect against the US boats moving up, but the UK Sub (if it survived) would still get a pot shot at the japan carrier in this situation, right?

  • '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    If it survived, yes.


  • I don’t understand any of Jen’s arguments about Pearl light allowing you to blitz Russia faster. Heavy Pearl immediately frees up 2 extra figs which will land in Kwang or F. Indo; and they are already on the mainland at the end of J1 for a total of 4 fighters on the mainland.

    Light Pearl now has you with 4 figs way out at sea, because there’s no way for them to land on the mainland on J1. What’s up with that?


  • Also, how do you send 4 figs and a bomber if there’s a good chance of a couple menacing boats in sz59 threatening your transports (perhaps with UK bomber coverage as well)?  I figure 2 planes are in China, that leaves you nothing to deal with any other possible threats.  The E.Indies boats alone make for a very shaky attack on a destroyer and CV (even worse if stacked with the trn as well).  They’re heavily favored to win, but you stand a very good chance to lose at least one, if not 2 capital ships.  That doesn’t even address the possibilities of whether there’s a sub in sz45, a stack in bury, or what you might want to do with those fighters on J2.  Sending 5 planes on a tour of hawaii seems like overkill, and would ultimately hurt you elsewhere.

    Ok great questions, here we go.

    I would say keep these goals in mind:

    1. Purchase correctly. You would very much like to build 3-4 transports immediately (4 tran is if you take 2 IPC from the bid), because of their incredible flexibility for getting units to land and providing fodder. You would not like to start with 1 or 2 complexes, but may find yourself in a situation where it could be justified. In any case, make sure you purchase correctly by purchasing something that gets units onto land, and that you defend your purchase. It’s no fun forgetting that fig/bom can hit SZ60 and land in Bury, or that the Uk bomber can bomb your complex for free, etc.

    I highly do not recommend purchasing anything other than tp/complex. A destroyer buy is useless later on and may not even be enough to deter a strafe, a carrier is overkill for J1, a btl is also overkill and doesn’t leave you any money anyways to buy tp/complex, land units are worthless since you’re looking for a way to get them off of Japan since you already have enough there, and fighters you have plenty of already for round 1. Well maybe keep fighters in mind but I’ve never had to buy them on J1.

    1. You must hit China. The reason for this is because you need to get some land, and you need to bust up the midline of Asia before it becomes too difficult. The American units there border all of your Asian territories, and you do not want to have them expanding early on, nor do you want that American fighter as an additional attacking piece on your navy. The minimum is 5 inf 2 fig.

    2. Do not overextend with too many weak attacks. You may have to allow some evil to survive, but do not do the enemy’s job for them by attacking many targets with barely enough force, because you can easily wind up losing valuable navy, which simply costs too much to replace with Japan’s income.

    3. Do not leave anything exposed after J1. This includes not only your purchases, but your fighters and other naval units.

    4. Do not be so afraid to lose 1 or 2 fighters. If the battle is very important, 1 or 2 fighters is an acceptable cost. You don’t need the full 6 fighters to push in Asia so don’t conserve a fighter if it makes life very hard for you out in the seas later on. Of course the more fighters the better in Asia, but think long term instead of simply focusing on having a shiny intact airforce.

    5. When given the option, massacre a stack in Buryatia over hitting Pearl, but do not plan to lose fighters in this engagement since it’s inf we’re talking about, not navy. This makes use of your bb shot as well as pretty much removes Russian defense in Asia leaving you free to expand. Generally though if Bury has more than 6 inf, do not hit it. If it has 6 inf, then take 2 inf Manch 1 inf 1 arm or 1 art from Japan + airforce.

    For some specific cases:

    If there’s just a destroyer off of Kwang, you can relax. If you’re absolutely crazy about hitting China hard, then use the E. Indies figs in China for 7 inf 4 fig and simply send the btl + car to Kwang. You shouldn’t even really care if you happen to lose the carrier, unless you suspect KJF. If you do care, then send 1 fig to Kwang with your BB/car and send the other fig to China.

    If there’s a destroyer + carrier off of Kwang the way I normally like to do it is send the entire E. Indies fleet at it. You have a great chance of whooping them, sometimes you will lose a carrier but big deal.

    If they sent a destroyer and it got killed, then your E. Indies fighters are generally free to go to China (rare, but remember to capitalize on good luck).

    If they sent a destroyer/carrier/tp to Kwang, then rejoice because the Germans are facing less opposition in Africa (hopefully). You can still send the E. Indies fleet at it, and there’s also a funny thing you can do which is send both bbs 1 car at it then immediately retreat to SZ60. The bb absorb 2 hits if they come, and you have nice defense in SZ60.

    If they send dest/car to kwang and block F. Indo with a tp, then you need to watch out because you can’t reach kwang with your Indies fleet. Kill the tp obviously with your btl/car, and you’ll have to do something to protect your transports (if you build transports).

    Now there are some combination situations which are tricky. The most compound problem is if the UK hits your sub with their fighter/sub and reinforces Pearl and their sub lives and also there’s a dest/car in Kwang and there’s a bomber in Sinkiang and a stack of 6 inf in Bury with 1 fig and a blocking transport off of F. Indo which prevents your E. Indies fleet from attacking Kwang even if you wanted to. Any transports you build anywhere are not safe by themselves, Pearl is difficult, Kwang is unreachable, Bury is unattackable, and the UK sub survived.

    First you need to realize that you should not be completely doomed, because Germany should be all over Africa if you see something like this as well as having an easy time in Europe to the Russian fig being off in Bury. You are going to be hard-pressed early, but you just need to keep focused by centralizing your defenses and attacking only what you can, and you’ll just have to let some evil survive.

    With such a nasty combination on your doorstep, this is when I might abandon Pearl, either heavy or light. The reason for this is because the Allies have a massive chokehold on SZ60/61 and if you don’t have the proper defenses there immediately, it may take you far too long to get units onto land where you get your money from. But don’t take my word for it, there is the option of still hitting Pearl heavy and not building any tps, like build a complex in Kwang. That might be a good option if you really need to clear the waters.

    Consolidate the best you can, take out the UK blocker tp off of Indo with the btl/car from E. Indies, and hit China ultra hard with all airforce that can hit, and simply stage your carolines fleet back to SZ60 with a fighter or 2 during noncombat, take one inf from Wake Island back to Japan, and mobilize your tran. From there Bury is finished if they stick around unless they reinforce it with more stuff, but even if you can’t attack it next round at least you can start shuffling units to the mainland. Pearl lives, but you have nothing exposed and you’re ready to go. Even if UK/Russia walk in on manch/f. indo, you can counterattack with your China inf to collect the cash.

    Or alternatively, still go after Pearl hard, but build no tran. This will be Pearl super heavy 4 fig 1 bom 1 btl 1 dest 1 car, and don’t be afraid to lose 1 or 2 figs. Still kill the blocker tp with your Indies fleet, and China with 7 inf 2 fig. This could work, you won’t be able to counter Bury next turn but at least the Allied fleets are a non-issue at the end of J1, all they have left is a sub in Solomons and the kwang fleet which both can’t do anything due to the btl/carrier groups they’re next to. Complex goes to Kwang since it’s safe and you will have to suffer an SBR, but you can still fight your way out of the land situation.

    It’s kind of a give or take situation, do you either prepare heavy for land, or take out the seas?


  • :-o
    Right on Bean!
    I think you covered everything I’ve seen and more. :|

    Basically everyone has to consider options due to what is before them, and rarely is it always the same.
    Fact #1: Japan is best off if it has the only fleet in the Pacific and Indian oceans. A two front war is not good for anyone, especiallly Japan  :cry:.
                  So, your strat should be to control them ASAP! 
    Fact #2: The sooner Japan controls India the better. If the UK player puts a factory in there with ample defenses you could loose all your Asian mainland before
                    J4  :cry:.
    Fact #3: Japan needs 4 Transports, at least by the end of J2  :wink:. Keep them hidden, keep them safe  :-D.
    Fact #4: Japan has to be able to threaten everywhere at all times. If the US leaves it’s west coast thinly defened, you should be able to cash in on it  :-o!
      And should a KJF come your way, Build a factory in FIC and hunker down while Germany goes against Russia.
      Good luck and enjoy the gaming.
          C.I.


  • thumbs up bean.

    i usal do a pearl light.
    1 sub 1 dest 1 fighter 1 bomber.
    and the rest of the navy sails to the med.
    This is when the setup looks like a KGF

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