I have gone to the two events that happened this year and they were a blast. Everyone there is easy to get along with, and mustang does a great job as host. I was on the losing end of that sea lion event, and I hope to settle the score next time around. :) Can’t wait!

Hey grace! welcome to AnA. I am from Waterbury CT and my group plays about once a month. We have 8-12 players most of which are new to the game as well. We mostly play just 1940 global, just also sometimes play 1942 2nd edition as well. This Saturday 6/17 we have a day with 9 people playing and we are running two games at once. If you don’t mind the drive, we are always looking for more people to play with :)

Instead of buying a naval base for johnston islands I suggest just taking over the Caroline islands and save the 15 ipcs. Caroline islands can threaten more locations than Dutch New Guinea. Having  access to the entire Chinese coastline as well as the ability to hit 3/4 islands and mainland japan from one location gives the allies a solid opportunity to be a real threat to Japan, and forces them to keep their navy close to home, and maybe even suicide some DDs to block you from hitting those pesky minor ICs in Asia.

It worked well for 10 or so years. Until We had a game where the two best players wound up being axis and we had a new player completely rage quit and never play again because of it. We decided to even out teams in advance to prevent scaring away more players. We have 1-2 new players almost every time we play, which gets complicated at times.

Worse nation to be on turn 1? Hands down for me would have to be France. The only country in the game that losses it’s capital on the first turn. :'(

Picking teams out of a Hat? Oh man. We used to always roll the dice to see who plays what. Eventually the better players revolted and now we balance the teams based on skill level nd bids.

Blowup boxes sound like great idea. Maybe use them like coasters. Keeping the blow-up boxes on a loose piece of wood or cardboard, and only put them onto the board when needed could negate needless clutter.

My group and I usually just use a national marker on top of a specific colored chip to mark on the map where a large army/navy is located. This keeps the main board cluster free, usually putting the large stack somewhere in unused areas of the map for reference.

OP: If you are spending money focused solely in one area of the map, you are giving the axis breathing room in other sectors. With this plan, it would become more viable to Germany to go sea-lion, or even do a neutral smash and blitz it’s units through turkey into the middle east ASAP. If the axis wanted it enough, they could get the middle east. Everything that you invest there can most certainly be dealt with.  I think reactionary play as allies is the best strategy you can devise. Playing cat and mouse with the Axis, always trying to make sure they lose more IPC value in every skirmish. I’ve played games were Moscow falls, but the axis still surrender due to lack of economy, or even a lack of unit presence in key locations. While I’d never be against a strong allied presence in the middle east(I make an IC there almost every game), Such a large scale investment doesn’t allow you to apply pressure in other crucial areas of the map. Give the axis so many options of attack that they can’t possibly hit everything. What they decide will show you where they plan to focus their attention.

Off-Topic:
I always wondered why the allies get a buff instead of giving the axis a nerf. Has anyone tried this? I am 100% a board only player, and usually paired up with or against newer players. We never need a bid since majority of the time one of the axis powers is just not experienced enough to make any sort of real impact on the game.

From what I can see the bids are made to balance out the game vs equally skilled players. Instead of always putting allies in the chair, why not give the axis a negative bid and have them decide what they should lose in order to re-balance the board a bit. An axis player that has more attacks than units to be put into those attacks is always hard pressed to make difficult choices, which could help out the UK more considerably than slapping in a few units to cripple Italy.

There are so many experienced players on these forums. If they say I’m wrong, I would believe it lol.

Hi all. Relatively new poster here. I have been playing Axis and allies for around 10 years now. Strictly on board only, with the rare occasion of online play against my fellow friends. The vast majority of our games I have play as axis and have been playing 1940 since it’s release.

I am a firm believer that an axis strategy built around the sole purpose of focusing on one major allied nation is flawed. While the USSR should always see 90% of your income, forcing your enemy to do things that they don’t want to do is an immensely great idea. That is why the sea-lion fake is so widely known as the META(Most effective tactic available)for German openers. Even if the UK player knows without a doubt that Germany is going into Moscow, they are still forced into building defensively for at least 2 turns. If Germany isn’t threatening invasion, then the UK is free to spend it’s income where it wants. Usually ICs in the middle east, sending mechs/air to Moscow and India, and keeping Egypt in allied hands. The US wouldn’t have to worry about supporting the UK, they could focus all their income on getting troops into the fight. Ideally you would want Italy wasting almost all of it’s time and income on harassing the UK over Egypt, while also using a small force of units to defend stacks and open opportunities for Germany. For Japan you want to go HAM on anything and everything you can reach. I usually keep all my air units in the kwangsi area. Placing an air field there allows them to hit all of your priority coasts which is helpful in case Anzac or the US decide to try and take the money islands from you, and also allows you to drop Calcutta without having to land on Burma. For Germany I am either buying ships or bombers. Bombers are more flexible, but ships are great for eventually getting into the MED to support Italy.

@taamvan:

If he had no ground forces on japan except AAA guns when you had transports in reach then something is wrong

Just played an extremely close game in January. I had a gigantic allied fleet parked in the Carolina Islands and japan who went all out attacking the USSR and spent little focus on the money islands was just sitting in sz6. When he finally decided to leave sz6 and take the Philippines he left 2 DDs to block my advance on Japan. I was able to can open with the US fleet, and use the Anzac transport/fleet to take Japan. Never forget about can openers -_-