Australian IC ?

what Hobbes is saying is 100% true.  But, where tanks become a real problem for the allies is on Persia.  Stack 8+ there and use German force to open Kazhak.  Even if the Allies know to look for it, the mere threat of it is often enough for them to give up the Caucausus complex.

Not much sense to Germany or Russia building ICs in Revised.  Germany already starts with the ability to make 16 units a turn–that’s all you need.  The only interesting places I’ve seen Germany place an IC are Western Europe (for naval strats) and Ukraine (to help aggressive stack there).  And I’d argue stacking Ukraine is better achieved by simply buying more land units and moving em out.

ICs are expensive enough as it is–no need to buy em w/o reason.

Australian IC is a great idea
and personally i favor it
i can say its my standard move, altough i must say UK play depends( a lot or not ) upon the G1 move

so Australia IC can be put in round 1

even in round 2 if its a surprise

but i agree with Emperor Mollari without USA going forcefully in Pacific, UK forces down there are doomed

and altough this strategy is great, if Australian IC falls to the Japanese, it leads Allies to almost certain defeat, since UK spent a lot of IPC on their fleet here and (partially) egnored European theatre, so overall

i would say anyone go for it

and dont be dissapointed if it fails, even a few times, find a way to improve the strategy, it can be done, but it requires a good coordination, USSR and USA are (very) important here altought it doesnt seem that way on the first look

thats my view upon this…

To bad I missed the party, I’d drink to that.  :-D

-LT04

I’ve seen a German in E. Canada before.  Of course, this was a game to the death and England/Russia had already fallen and Germany was just putting teh coup de tat on America.

@Cobert:

So the best way to counter the Australia IC is to b**** out?

Gotcha.

No really though, I understand.  Thats kind of a good strategy for any nation though, just a bit hard to execute because Japan is spread out through islands.

Mm hm.

Australia is an awesome naval base that gives the Allies a great deal of freedom in the Pacific.  But either US or the UK must come to the fight with some naval units.  While they build naval units, Japan and Germany press the attack on Russia.

Japan’s position degrades very quickly after Australia gets going, but it is almost impossible for the Allies to capture Japan itself.  Far before Japan is in any real danger (with a stack of infantry and fighters on it), Germany and Japan should be able to make Russia fall.  From that point, it’s really Japan and Germany vs. UK and US.  In a 9 VC game, that means that Germany and Japan together have a deathgrip on 8 VCs (all in Europe and mainland Asia, probably including India, Karelia, and Moscow), but have probably lost the Phillipine Islands.

Since Japan cannot be broken, and Germany cannot be broken, the victory should go to the Axis, with a navy and air force fueled by Russian IPCs, and a positional advantage that allows Germany to threaten London itself as well as threatening Africa and Brazil with only minimal IPCs invested.

Of course, the Allies are not locked into defending Australia, but any IPCs spent there are IPCs not used elsewhere in those important early turns.

Never.  Never build an IC with Germany.

Two transports cost 1 IPC more.  They can shuttle four units into Ukraine a turn, or can hit Egypt.  Transports make the Allies require more time to hit the German med fleet with pure air, and if the Allies draw within two spaces of the Med fleet, the Med fleet can suicide along with German air to kill the Allied fleet.

Early game, you don’t need an IC, transports are better.  Late game, you can’t afford one.

1. I have tried it.
2. I usually try to have 6-8 Russian infantry defend Sinkiang. You need about that much and sometimes the Russian fighters to deter a full push from Japan if his goal is to knock it out.
3. I’ve done that a few times. It scares the crap out of newer players. However you have to understand that you’re letting the Kwangtung transport and the Solomon Islands sub to live.
4. My friends have done both. Personally I think it’s a mistake to gun the British fleet down in the first turn in that scenario. Letting Pearl Harbor survive is a big mistake as it allows the US to accumulate a significant naval force 1-2 turns faster than usual.
5. Well, what do you mean by work? In the short term doing all of those things (both ICs, combining British fleet, sending us fighters and russian infantry) will indubitably control Japanese expansion. But past that it’s all up to what the US does. The ICs alone won’t stop Japan for long; if you look at the math Japan can overwhelm India on turn 3 even after doing Pearl Harbor. Japan simply has too many fighters to stop early on if he is focused on his targets. If the US continues to gun after Japan then you will stop Japan from being strong permanently, but then Africa will fall to Germany quickly. You always also have to keep a very careful eye on the UK because a tricky Germany player will pop out 6 transports in one turn and try to overwhelm the UK since he’s been building troops in India and is down all those IPCs in Africa.
6. A tough question no doubt. Like I said, I think it’s asking for trouble if you let Germany take over Africa, which means it’s a good idea to have the US liberate it early on. However, if the US doesn’t follow up on those ICs, then Japan will overwhelm them if he’s good.

I’m not really an expert on this as I haven’t tested it extensively in a while (I tried KJF a few months ago but I didn’t know a few tactics I know now). I would say though that if the Japan player is excellent, then nothing short of all 3 powers going after him will hinder him permanently. I have personally broken free of the sinkiang/indian IC very quickly without US naval support bogging me down. Good Japanese players realize that it’s OK to empty the mainland territories to charge straight into China; although it lets Russia/UK take a territory, this lets you completely and utterly bone the Sinkiang IC turn two, and you can always easily regain the coastal territories using your fighters and battleship bombardments. Your strategy is very good against perhaps low-mid level Japanese players though, looking at that combined British fleet and all those ICs on the mainland it bound to panic him.

I have some additional tips for KJF:

1. Take a good look at where the Japanese player is placing his first turn transport buys. If he is silly enough to place them in the outer Japan seazone, then blow them out of the water with the Hawaaiin fighter + Washington Bomber or just one of them. Believe it or not, the bomber can reach that outer seazone and land in Buryatia; fly up to eastern canada, then to western canada, then to that seazone bordering the north of western canda, then I think from there it’s 2 spaces to that seazone then 1 space into Buryatia, making for 6 spaces. It’s an almost instant game win if you destroy the 3 transports he builds there, and is very clever the first time you see it, although probably past then it will never work. Also if China somehow survived then the fighter there is in a great position to strike at either seazones that the transports deploy in. It takes an observant and clever Japanese player to protect his transports carefully.

2. Somtimes you can panic the Japanese player by consolidating 6 infantry into Buryatia as well as sending 2 tanks in Moscow to the east 2 spaces. Against good Japanese players this probably won’t affect their strategy but against people who haven’t seen it, they will usually panic and not attack China first turn because they’ll look at Manchuria and panic.

3. You can consolidate the British fleet into sz30 as well as sz38. Sz30 is much more out of the way of the Japanese navy than sz38, though if your intent is lure them into attacking your fleet with a lot of units then this isn’t the way to go. Putting them in sz30 though really forces the Japanese to keep an eye on it since it’s in a position to invade some islands. Load full infantry into both transports when you converge them into sz30 will make the Japanese player sweat a bit. He’ll have to keep his bship/car in west indies or you’ll invade it, and he’s not in a good position to attack your fleet with just that because he’ll probably take at least 2 hits and lose a fighter or so. He may be tempted to strafe you with all those infantry aboard but thats’ pretty much what you want because your navy will make him pay for the strafe (1 car + 1 or 2 fighters if the anglo egypt one survived, 1 sub, 1 destroyer, 2 trans).

Also Britain can send their bomber to sinkiang on turn one. This puts an additional monkey wrench in Japanese logistics if they’re used to buying all transports turn one. Now they have to protect their transports wherever they mobilize them, which means buying a destroyer or something which they normally wouldn’t do.

Another alternate monkey wrench move is instead of consolidating the fleets, do this: send the destroyer, carrier, and transport to attack the Kwangtung transport. Send the fighter and sub to attack the solomon island sub. The fighter will land on the US carrier =) Usually you’ll end up destroying the enemy sub before it can submerge. Now you have presented the Japanese with some thorns. Pearl Harbor is a little harder to attack now since he lost a sub and now that there’s an additional fighter defending there. Also now there’s this quirky fleet sitting next to Kwangtung which is poised to strike as new naval units being built if it isn’t instantly targeted by the Indies fleet. Sometimes you can incur a fighter casualty with this fleet when Japan strikes it (2 hits total).

4. When your US fleet is gunning after Japan, I personally believe that the best tactical maneuver is not to charge straight west into the Japan seazone (2 turns), but to drop down to Solomon islands. This puts Japan in a bind, because from here you can attack his money islands (boreno, philiippines, west indies) as well as the Japan mainland. He is going to be forced to attack you there, giving you the defending advantage, or risk you grabbing his money islands because he can’t defend nearly all of them and then deploying an IC there, which totally throws things out of whack for him.

There are a number of Japanese strategies to help counter these tricky KJF strategies, but I don’t want to go into them right now because I’m lazy. Besides a few tricks the basic goal is to wait for Germany to overcome Africa, take some Russian territories, and then either crush Moscow then go to India or surprise attack Britain.