Back from the holidays. Just in time. Please add me to the OOB tournament.
Best posts made by Arthur Bomber Harris
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RE: Post League Game Results Here
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RE: Tutor game: AndrewAAGamer (X) vs trulpen [and everyone else] (A+50) OOB
@trulpen yeah, BM is much tougher for the Japanese in China. I waste way too many men trying to suppress the rebellions. I hate it when an American bomber knocks off the lone defender and a Chinese soldier pops up in Tibet.
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RE: Axis Hail marry
I had an unusual game where the Axis captured Egypt early. The Americans focused heavily on the European operations and the Allies were steadily making progress on that side of the map. I built up the Japanese air force and sent it on a suicide attack into Moscow around turn 8. Stripping off 15 infantry Allied units in Moscow can change a battle from a 95% chance of losing into a 95% chance of winning when the Germans get their turn. It also means that Germany will keep their air force intact, allowing them to reclaim any European victory cities if necessary.
The best part of this strategy is that the extra Japanese planes can hold the Allies at bay for several turns, forcing India to cower and Anzac + USA to be more conservative with their fleets. All of the planes can raid Moscow from a base in Sichuan, meaning that only one turn is required to setup the pivot from Pacific to Europe.
Of course the Russian AA’s shot down half of my Japanese raiders and the German tanks had their turrets pointed backwards, leading to an abrupt and unhappy end to a genius strategy.
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RE: Warfare Principles of Axis & Allies (By AndrewAAGamer)
@crockett36 Normandy should be left completely unoccupied by the time the Allies have a sizable landing force. As you mentioned, there can be considerable devastation to any Axis force situated in that territory and it cannot be reasonably defended without diverting from the main goal of crushing Moscow or heading into the Middle East/Egypt. Normandy or Norway will fall, it just is a matter of on which round and whether the Axis will be able to retake it with a counterattack of ground units supported by planes. France is the best place to have the Axis counterstrike infantry/artillery. Mechanized units can help counterstrike from W Germany. Usually, though, a wave of UK fighters add enough defensive might to Normandy or Norway to ensure that the Axis are unable to strike back.
Aircraft carriers and subs are the best investment for the US as they have dual purposes of defending the fleet and attacking/convoy raiding. Build enough destroyers to prevent German wolfpacks from roaming the Atlantic
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RE: L22 OOB FINAL LL Myygames (X) VS ABH (L+50)
@Myygames redo the whole Japan turn then including builds and combat. I don’t think it is appropriate to win because of a rule misunderstanding.
Normally I get victory via superior luck.
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RE: Bonus Movement is Unrealistic Nonsense
There is a sub-forum for house rules. You are free to change the game however you like when playing with your friends. I personally enjoy naval and air bases. They enhance the strategic options.
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Am I winning or Losing: data analysis of high-level BM4 games
With the release of Elo rankings, I could identify BM4 League games between two high-level players of similar talent (no more than 100 elo point gap in skill level and greater than 1700 average Elo). I eliminated a few games which had a player surrender due to personal reasons, and analyzed 17 games from the last three years.
The following graph shows the magic cutoff point of a 20 point Allied advantage after turn 10 which guarantees victory or defeat. This is a useful threshold to calculate which territories you want to hold in order to ensure victory.
Interestingly, Moscow and India hold for a much longer time than in the “old” days. This isn’t surprising as the balance mod gives more income to Russia and handicaps Japan. The improvements of Axis gameplay has allowed them to eventually overcome Allied defenses despite territory advantages that previously would have marked doom.
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RE: 2022 OOB Playoffs R1 - AndrewAAGamer (X) vs oysteilo (A+60)
Incredible match. I thought Oysteilo had the W after the mid-game when Moscow was so strong and the Allies had a foothold in Greece. Such masterful comeback, Andrew. I haven’t seen such high-level play from two players in a long time.
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RE: Which side does axis and allies favor?
If you are new to the game, whoever is better will win with either side. Usually one person has a very defensive personality, focusing more on not losing than pushing towards a goal. That will inevitably lead to defeat as the other person finds weaknesses and builds an income advantage.
It takes a large number of matches to have the natural Axis advantage manifest itself in face-to-face games. Don’t worry about the imbalance until you are able to predict what happens during the first six rounds of gameplay based just on the first round of dice rolls and spending. Fun game for both beginners and masters.
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RE: Post League Game Results Here
@Myygames thank you so much for the fun match. I learned so much playing against you. This was my first time attempting a Dark Skies for the United States in the Pacific and it was an interesting experience. I couldn’t recapture the Money Islands, but I could force Japan to spend so much income defending Tokyo and eastern China. I was curious if it would have succeeded in the long-term.
Crazy that only one single Russian fighter remained after the raid on Moscow. Very close ending
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RE: Post League Game Results Here
Thanks dawg for the great match! I was horrified early in the match when 8 Russian defenders destroyed half my German air force on G4. I still have nightmares about those dice.
Battle in Belarus
Germans attack with 1 armour, 1 bomber, 2 fighters, 4 mech_infantrys and 2 tactical_bombers
Russians defend with 8 infantry
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Germans win, taking Belarus from Russians with 1 armour remaining. Battle score for attacker is -46
Casualties for Germans: 1 bomber, 2 fighters, 4 mech_infantrys and 2 tactical_bombers
Casualties for Russians: 8 infantry
Russians regular : 4.17
Germans regular : -6.67 -
RE: League General Discussion Thread
@gamerman01 key to winning as the #10 seed is to have good luck with the dice. 👍
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RE: Tutor game: AndrewAAGamer (X) vs trulpen [and everyone else] (A+50) OOB
@Omega1759 I do think that the Axis will be forced to leave Gibraltar soon because defending it starts distracting Germany from the even more attack into Russia or Egypt. I think that he will be gone in another two rounds. Still, that is a huge amount of extra income for Italy during this time.
I have no idea why the UK Med fleet ran towards India. I don’t see what it will do before it inevitably goes back to the Med. The 5 PU bonus for no Allied ships in the Med is a killer bonus for Italy.
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RE: Stopping Japan?
You don’t have to fully stop Japan. India and China will inevitably fall no matter what you plan. If you have ANZAC ground troops supported by American planes, you can prevent Australia from falling easily into Japanese hands. Have a couple tanks or mechs that can prevent a beachhead forming in Western Australia. Those planes can shuttle back to Hawaii if he tries to have an amphibious assault to capture that victory territory.
Uncontested in the Pacific, Japan will eventually be able to win in that theater. Still, it takes a surprisingly long time to get to that point so hopefully you can start shifting spending to that side of the board once you got the European Axis powers weakened. You just need to hinder their income by capturing Normandy/Norway and convoy raiding Italy with a big stack of Mediterranean subs. At that point Russia+UK can do most of the maintenance work to hold back Germany.
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RE: Post League Game Results Here
@martin It was a pleasure to play against you. You had quite a few successful moves surprised me and inflicted huge headaches, like that lone infantry recapturing India.
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RE: Tutor game: trulpen (X) vs Avner [and everyone else] (A+23) BM3
A single dice roll during the first round can easily be a 20 point swing, such as a German plane hitting or missing the Allied ship. Bad choices such as being overly conservative in the attack plans can have even more long-term consequences. Despite this being a tutor game, so many decisions still fall on the shoulders of Avner. Differences in skill levels will soon be apparent from the game play.
We saw this in the last tutor game where the initial 50 PU bid quickly vanished in value as the units were not used for productive attacks during the first round when such a large amount of units should have had a drastic course change for the initial orders.
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RE: Warfare Principles of Axis & Allies (By AndrewAAGamer)
@Marshmallow-of-War in poker you would sometimes raise and sometimes call. You don’t want to always be predictable since you can be bluffing. AA is a bit different that your hand is showing at all times. Against opponents who don’t want to play a dicey game, you can force them to be more conservative by establishing that you will do more risky attacks if offered.
That can be a significant advantage as it delays key moves by a turn, giving big swings of momentum. The allied fleet might wait a turn before invading W Europe, the Germans might take an extra turn before moving next to Moscow, the Japanese might not spread their fleet so thin to take as many islands, etc. Even if you don’t want to be aggressive, sometimes it is necessary to prevent the other person from taking advantage of your inherently conservative play style.
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RE: L23 2nd Ed OOB AndrewAAGamer (X) vs farmboy (Allies+60)
@andrewaagamer I disagree with your assessment, Andrew. Against equal opponents, it is worth rolling the dice in Yunnan on J1 with that type of stack. If the Allies get more hits than the Axis on turn 1, retreat. You likely only lost your ground units. Maybe one or two planes if you are really unlucky.
If Japan is ahead on the dice after the first turn, they likely will win the territory without losing their uber-important bombers. It is a major blow to China as they might not be able to stack on Yunnan on J2, and a huge blow to Russia as they lost those critical planes that are necessary to defend Moscow and strike surgical counterattacks against German invaders.
Having the ability to retreat after seeing the results tips my recommendation towards Yunnan strike for equally-matched opponents. Definitely avoid against vastly inferior foes. Curious, based on my skill level, what did you think your chance of a W was at the start of the playoff match? 85%?
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RE: ABH and Chrocket36, A+130
Italy has little to no chance to gain any ground in N Africa as long as the British have a bit of investment on the European side of the map. It was difficult to do much at all even in a no-bid match.
No reason to give France any of the starting money… far better options for other countries.