@anzacguy That is a big question in a little sentence. I will try to answer as concisely as possible, but it is impossible to answer in specifics.

First, Italy.

Italy is the only Axis power that depends totally on the actions of the Allies to decide its course of action. If the UK does things right, Italy has very limited options.

Assuming the UK does things right, Italy can and should provide ground forces to free up German resources for the destruction of Russia. After defending itself, Italy should position itself to help with the defense of West Germany, Southern France, and Normandy (assuming Germany or Italy was dumb enough to take Normandy).

Second, Italy should annoy the heck out of the UK by depriving it of its NO for as long as possible, maximize its income, and force the UK to try to neutralize that income. The best options for doing this are taking Cyprus if you have a surviving transport – this is very difficult for the UK to recapture without costing it extra resources. Taking African territories works only in the short term.

Finally, the Italian fast movers should move in advance of German forces to clear blockers and also allow German planes to land with the German stack that moves into the territory captured by Italy. The presence of defensive fighters can make a German stack feasible in circumstances where Russia might have odds of 50% or better when attacking the stack.

If the UK does things wrong (or just gets really unlucky)…

Italy might have navy play. Boost your income as much as possible and keep the UK tied up by taking its territories and forcing it to fight in Africa instead of reinforcing Russia. Keep can opening for Russia. With your boosted income, you can also keep building ground forces that can move to Europe or invade Africa.

Now, for ANZAC. Like Italy, it’s sucking hind tit. It has to support the major powers that keep it alive while not dying and thwarting the enemy as much as possible.

There are two schools of thought here – that ANZAC should turtle and that ANZAC should fight for possession of the Dutch East Indies. BOTH are true – ANZAC should do everything possible to not die while fighting for the DEI. To do these things, it needs US support. US fighters can reach Queensland from Hawaii in a single move. ANZAC ships can strengthen the US fleet to make it safe from Japanese attacks. The US can can open for ANZAC transports to let them take territory.

A major factor here is when Japan makes its move – with J1, ANZAC has less options than with every other Japanese opener. With J1, ANZAC should activate Dutch New Guinea on J1 for its NO. Without J1, ANZAC typically activates Java for income and possibly ferry fighters towards India via Java while building more defenses. (Whether or not to do this also depends on what’s showing for J2.)

A major limitation on ANZAC is factory capacity – there is one IC, and it is not in the best location. Some folks will tell you to build an IC with ANZAC, but timing is everything – too early, and your income will never support the enhanced capacity. Too late, and you’ll be giving initiative to the Axis powers. Also, the right blend is important – too many ground troops and you can’t help much. Too few ground troops and you’re a liability to the Allies.

A general rule of A&A combat is that fighters are sexy, but infantry holds off hits on more expensive units while they kill attackers…the more infantry you have, the longer your fighters live.

So, if you send a fighter off to India, it needs to be replaced but you also need to keep the infantry up. Combined with you factory limitations, this typically means you might build something like a fighter and two infantry, or a transport and two infantry, or a destroyer and two infantry.

Both of these minor powers require great skill to play properly – they both depend on balance and judgement of the enemy. Properly played, they can and have turned the tide of games.

Have fun!

Marsh

@Alex-Phillips said in OOB or BM3:

@AndrewAAGamer I’ll be baited. Unfortunately I think there’s a lot of arrogance displayed by some of the more serious/veteran posters like yourself, Gen. Manstein, etc. It puts me off joining any league on here. I like to post the occasional snippet, read interesting strategies, but that’s it, thanks.

With all due respect, I think you’re misunderstanding Andrew.

I’ve played with him many times and lost many times, having won against him only once when his partner made a massive mistake in the Pacific that cost the US catastrophically.

Three other times I’ve come close to beating him:

Once he and a friend took the Allies against me as the Axis in Global. I threw the script away and launched a devastating mechanized attack against Russia (which appears to be me to be the basis for Andrew’s current Axis plan, albeit with some refinement). The question, “How are we going to beat him?” was asked and the answer from Andrew was “I don’t know.” In the end, I made a bad attack and beat myself.

The next time was Anniversary again, and three players against Andrew (running the Axis by himself I believe). The US and Russia did their parts, but the guy running UK was a horrible player who liked making questionable attacks. He did not want to do anything that his partners needed. At the end, the attack on Moscow would have never happened if the UK had killed just four more German infantry.

Once he and his buddy ran Axis in Anniversary, and I was on a team with two other players. One of the players was very new and a very good player who made Russia look interesting and easy, but at the end despite the fact that Japan was beaten in the Pacific Germany took Moscow. Japan was beaten but standing (and it would have taken many more turns to crush it completely). US fighters, a whole darned stack of them, were one more turn away from Moscow and that would have ended the game definitively in favor of the Allies, with Germany having no chance of success in Europe and Japan having no chance of success in the Pacific. The new player had refused to take a UK fighter in defense of Moscow in order to keep his objective. That resulted in a 50/50 battle that could have been like 35/65 in favor of the Allies. The dice came up against the Allies. With Russia defeated, we felt there was no way to achieve victory unless we risked defeat in the Pacific.

Andrew doesn’t believe in luck. He believes in hard work and patience, and he works harder at this game than anyone else I’ve ever seen or heard of. I’ve never heard him complain about getting diced (although I have seen him lose games because his opponent got lucky with the dice). He just waits til he has the best possible chance of success for an attack. He practices constantly.

He’s proud of his skill. I don’t think that’s arrogance. He works harder than any other player I’ve ever met to improve his play. There’s a difference between pride in your effort and arrogance.

Yes, Andrew is a serious player. He’s not a better player because he’s more gifted at strategy. He’s a better player because he works harder, period to understand the mechanics of the game and how they will play out. That’s not arrogance – that’s determination.

He’s not a better player because he blames other people for his mistakes. He accepts responsibility when he makes a mistake. That’s not arrogance – that’s honesty with himself, something many, many people in the world should consider taking more of.

I’m probably a better instinctive player than Andrew, but where I come up short is determination. Me, I spend my time on city government, running a D&D game, working on a book, and learning two different languages while juggling my day job and pondering graduate school. Why does he beat me? Because he practices harder and longer. Because I’m not as patient as he is.

Playing against him has made me a better player. He has always been willing to offer advice without judgement and to help me get better. He has taught me new things about the game both with and without trying to do so.

So, with respects, reserve your judgement and get to work. When you win as much as Andrew does, you’ll have the right to decide whether or not he’s being arrogant.

Your first turn build is being spent trying to psych out the UK, forcing them to spent their entire build reinforcing the UK rather than anywhere else.

For the record, I love the psych-out. I once won a game entirely by psyching out my opponent on turn one. When his teammates finally convinced him I was full of <bleep>, it was too late for Japan to build properly.

But I digress – back to your note.

You start behind Russia on total infantry. You build ships, and this allows Russia spare room to build tanks and artillery. By the time you start building for the Russian invasion, you are a full turn behind Russia in deployments.

You use those ships for Novgorad. So what – the ships don’t land and are a liability that you have to protect now. Without an air base to cover them, you have to build either an airbase (locking down your planes) or more navy (which ALSO don’t get you anywhere) and in the mean time Russia is building MORE ground forces. You will never catch up.

In the mean time, the survivors from the 8 or 10 units you were able to land can now be crushed by Russia (which had an entire turn to stack Belarus and Bryansk with pretty respectable stacks). Even if you swap unit for unit on your defense roll (you won’t), Russia comes out ahead here. Your ground offensive stalls out.

Solution: Stop wasting your money on ships that don’t actually get you anywhere. Alternately, use the ships to get troops to somewhere they can be effective.

No, anyone in our local area playing the Axis would have conceded long before that happened.

Marsh

Also, I have yet to actually receive a 60 IPC bid from Andrew.

“Let’s eat Grandma”

“Let’s eat, Grandma”

COMMAS SAVE LIVES.

@tchenao If you control Normany, the German battleship should have repaired in the G2 purchase phase.

Since you can’t move it into the Med unless Italy took Gibraltar on I1, it would be better to move it to sea zone 112 where it can have air cover.

Marsh

@tchenao We once play a game where the French were the most effective minor power on the board. They could do no wrong on defense. At one point my partner (who was running the French) responded to the player running Germany saying, “Two guys and a plane should be enough” with “Are you sure? They’re French.” and the other player winced visibly. The French in that game killed more German units than the UK…

Fun day!

Marsh

In all frankness, I have never seen KJF work. Yes, I have seen Japan be completely hosed, with income down to the teens. Despite this, the US still has to spend money to keep Japan down and is unable to dedicate 100% of its resources to Europe.

Admittedly, I have only played with a few dozen players. Maybe there’s a good KJF out there that I have yet to see.

It is hard to script out KJF because Japan has soo many options, but here are a few random thoughts:

First, Japan has other income options that don’t depend on its navy. Crushing China early and taking Russian territory helps Germany and Japan while impeding Russia.

Second, it does not take that much US income to give the UK and Russia the edge over Germany and Italy.

Third, it takes almost the entire US income to overcome Japan’s navy.

Fourth, it is completely up to Japan when to go to war with the US.

All of these factors lead me to believe that KJF as a primary plan can’t work because it fundamentally assumes that your opponent is going to do certain things a certain way.

If you know your opponent always does a J1 attack you can certainly plan a response for that, but in terms of strategy that works against every opponent you need more tools than that in the toolbox.

Marsh

It’s not boring.

It’s tense, hanging on the edge of a knife. Germany pouring as many resources as possible into the destruction of Russia, and Russia and the Allies trying desperately to avoid mistakes and stave off defeat.

Definitely NOT boring. Just not action-packed!

Marsh

@YUMYAM said in Need help defending as UK until USSR joins:

@MarshmallowofWar Also, Germany currently has 3 battleships. The silver marker in the Baltic is a fresh battleship, and there two side by side in the English channel.

Uh, wow.

So, at this point Russia should consolidating forces to ATTACK Germany. Russia starts ahead of Germany on infantry and with Germany having spent 40 IPCs on battleships is not going catch up anytime soon. Have Russia press the attack on Germany as quickly as possible.

If you can muster five or more planes, kill the stack of two battleships before it becomes three battleships. You’re going to lose planes in this battle, so you need to build at least one replacement.

Start building ground forces in South Africa on your next turn. Since Italy has no factory, you’ll need to force him to either build one or keep building transports to keep expanding in the Med.

If Italy does not take Egypt this round, consider a retreat from Egypt so that you can prepare a proper counterattack there. I would go East to secure Trans-Jordan.

Consider activating Persia using your transport and on your next turn build a minor IC there. Between it and the South Africa factory, you’ll be outproducing Italy 2 to 1 in the immediate area and force Italy to spend its income defending Egypt instead of expanding into Africa and the Middle East.

In the Pacific, go totally defensive, reinforcing ANZAC and Hawaii so that Japan can’t win. Push hard against Japan with China. Build up your US Pacific fleet so that Japan can’t annihilate it. With the little spare funds you have, keep Italy from obtaining it’s NOs in Africa and keep Gibraltar from falling.

Marsh

@philip1989 said in Houston, TX:

@MarshmallowofWar thanks for the interest! I’ll try to find a location in the Woodlands. I know there are some public gaming venues near the galleria, but that’s probably too far for you!

Sure, but I can make Galleria too. Main thing is I’m working during the week.

Marsh

@YUMYAM I am unclear if Italy is about to move or has not yet moved but based on your message and the position of the units it looks like UK1 is complete but I1 is not yet complete. If that’s correct, you’ll have to wait until Italy and Germany have completed their turns for you to plan your next moves.

Your fleet in the Suez is safe because you control the canal, but if Italy marshals all available forces Egypt is lost.

Have a great game!

Marsh

I think maybe he’s confused over the cruiser. It looks to me like there’s a German battleship and cruiser in sea zone 110, but it’s hard to tell if that second unit is a cruiser or a battleship.

Marsh

I’m not in Houston, but I’ll be visiting family in Conroe for the bulk of November if you want a game. You’ll need to host though.

Marsh

@shadowhawk Well, you could always just tell them that it’s in the rules.

Marsh

The rule is in place to save play time and prevent dumb arguments from people who are bad at math.

A rule that saves me from at least some dumb is a rule of which I approve. A rule that saves me time is a rule of which I approve.

A rule that does both is great.

Marsh

@shadowhawk said in Germany and Italy should not take Normandy until after Moscow falls:

Not having it also means that the first player that lands there can also land a lot of planes. Having 2 french units and say 8 infantry and 6fighters is a lot worst then having just 8 inf on that zone to deal with. Sure the US cannot build 3 tanks but the ability to land a huge airforce there does mitigate that issue the first round.

This is a concern. However, considering that this actually places a further defensive burden on those aircraft, I think it’s acceptable. If those aircraft are defending ground units, then they’re unlikely to fly away. Also, the Allied player now has the opportunity to make a mistake and to leave the fleet less protected than it should be in an effort to secure the beachhead with fighters.

@shadowhawk said in Germany and Italy should not take Normandy until after Moscow falls:

Bombing the harbour does nothing at all. You would normally land from SZ110 which has a UK harbour anyway so bombing it only exposes your airforce to AA fire without any benefit.

It is rather pointless while the UK naval base is operative. If both bases are damaged, it prevents an Allied pivot to the Med from sea zones 105 and 110 as well as the 1-2 Denmark-Berlin punch from sea zone 105 (admittedly sea zone 105 is a pretty weird sea zone). However, I have never been concerned about the Normandy naval base at all.

Marsh

@SuperbattleshipYamato said in Germany and Italy should not take Normandy until after Moscow falls:

@MarshmallowofWar

It doesn’t make much sense historically.

With respects, the winning strategies in this game for both sides are not based on actual historical events. If the Axis players were forced to make the same blunders, the Axis would need a bid to win!

@SuperbattleshipYamato said in Germany and Italy should not take Normandy until after Moscow falls:

If Germany historically left this area completely unoccupied it just guarantees a bunch of ports for the Allies to use without those frantic battles in those fortresses, gives a ton of land to them for free for little gain (allowing the Allies to begin their push closer to Berlin), and puts Allied aircraft closer in range to Western Germany. Plus Germany will have no Atlantic ports in France, basically making the Battle of the Atlantic even harder. Shame that the game simulates none of these rules to the point where it’s actually advantageous to not take the territory.

You can accomplish the same thing by strategic bombing the naval base. With France proper in German hands, there is no way the facility can actually be used.

And again, no matter what the Allies have stacked there, it’s a tougher nut to crack if the Allies can also build new forces there as opposed to transporting them.

@SuperbattleshipYamato said in Germany and Italy should not take Normandy until after Moscow falls:

Too bad I started playing too late that all the strategies have been figured out. At least there’s a new game to come up with strategies for. 👍👍

I’m working on a new strategy right now that I have never seen before personally.

Marsh

@Cornwallis I call thee necromancer, as thou hast brought a thread back from the dead!

Also, don’t know why you think I would want this, as I was the one saying that Taranto ISN’T necessary. Perhaps you could address your post to the people who think Taranto is necessary.

Marsh