i like the fighter 9 men stratbombing is russia downfall

i love the mechanized idea but if it ever comes down to a siege of moscow was it a suboptimal choice for defense unless it bought you until g7-8

a J1 can crush uk east income and units but the usa can overwhelm you when and if you greedily over commit to take the big money and fuel factories

What you say correspond s to my experience

1-5) Moscow. That is all

@simon33 no scramble, I lost 3 subs during the open, maybe 1 tac.

@simon33 At that point, he saw I had him. The repair of 13$ would have been 5 more infantry, which I could have taken.

I lost more of my planes (all the tacs) demolishing the first US crossing force. That was a solid trade, but later in the game I had to build 2 inf 1 fighter on Romania/UK because I was just so short of planes.

The takeaway is that if you’re lucky during the opener, and your opponent doesn’t build 6+ Infantry, this will usually work in 1 wave, and for certain in 2 waves. However, if you lose the 1st wave, or any planes, the game overall will be harder to win than a traditional chase after Russia. The UK sending the fighters to taranto makes it quite a bit weaker–I think he kept 3 fighters home. That meant Italy got to fight off most of the UK remnants later in the game.

I used this “Sea Lion Play Option Pass” Strategy on saturday, and it worked great.

G1 1 Strat Bomber, 1 DD save $10
Destroyed 110, 111, 106
UK 1 1 DD 1 Armor (4 Infantry on UK)
Declined Taranto
G2 ($78) 10 Transports, 1 DD
Bomb damage 18. German Tac disables Air Base. Take Normandy
UK 2 Declined to repair
Sea Lion Successful with 2 arty 3 armor 2-3 Inf left.

Japan destroyed UK East on Turn 3 or 4. Using Wedding’s plan, I’d recommend also that after you drop the first wave, you have another wave of 11 Infantry and assorted junk ready to drop on G4 in case you get diced. If UK does a really conservative build, this may not work in 1 round. If I’d had to drop a second round, I would have lost alot more ground to russia and USA. And, once you have the UK under control, its still minimal money (Germany = 52-54). repair and consistently build 3 infantry each turn to avoid a retake.

It is easy to forget that while this strategy takes UK out of the game, the other allies get pretty tough–several turns of Russia > 50, USA @ 80, ANZAC > 30. I was also pretty lucky that the UK navy all died and overall my luck was solid in the early game.

Russia took Scandinavia. Of the 11 Transports, 3 died taking Malta and trying to take Brazil. 4 lived in the med and 4 up north. Attacked the first US crossing fleet and secured bonuses with Italy. Later in the game, the USA returned in force and W Ger, UK, Rome were all vulnerable. I spent tons of money on infantry this game, a factory in Romania. Mechs saved me when I needed to stock S. Italy with forces–in the future I’d walk more slower infantry that direction as there is a recurring theme of Germany needing to cover/help Italy survive.

We used Mark Movel’s Victory Conditions and the Davemod v3.0, both of these led to a really competitive, vibrant game. Weddingsinger’s Play Option is solid, has a good chance of taking UK in 1-2 rounds of attacks–the harder part is winning the overall game in 10 turns without the income from Russia and with the other 3 allies at max power.

@CWO-Marc I’d also add that it was a preview in the reverse direction of the WW1/2 practice of US as an “interested neutral” selling arms to one, both, or all sides. Which went against contemporary International Law notions of neutrality.

So Dave and I took another crack at this and in preparation for the Gencon Tourney, took out all but 2 of the escalation cards. Didn’t play with a bid this time, I was the Allies.

Taking the Escalations out works well. I support this change–there are 6 copies (including the identical Zombie Rise) in the deck to start. Greg’s rule also says that you can’t draw a second escalation when you are resolving the first–at most you will draw 2 cards.

OOB, having 6 Escalations and also reshuffling them back into the deck, led to more confusing and overlapping play. Sometimes you could have 3-4 cards active, all at once–this rule change means at most you will get 2, and at most, twice per game. Even if you aren’t playing with the Tournament Rules, I’d suggest removing escalation (and zombie rise) from the game when they appear, then they can at most be seen 6 times.

Almost every new player I’ve introduced to this version said “dang, why do we keep drawing that draw two card!” Having 3-4 special powers/rolls on one turn seems kind of abusive and too luck driven (one game we had 2 of the “draw special reinforcements” and so the Russians got 3! free units for each of 3! zombie liberated territories).

See you at Gencon, Good Luck, Have Fun. Jon

Interesting hypothetical. My research on “King Cotton” and the abolition of the slave trade indicates that England would have been very unlikely to intervene on behalf of the south. Southern media and propaganda lobbied for this, but I don’t sense the European powers were watching developments with an eye to intervene if the South did well–they had their own entanglements. They may have been rooting for the Union to lose or at least take some knocks (divide and conquer, retard a future rival), but the risks of a failed intervention were two-fold; eventual defeat of the South anyways PLUS alienating the presumptive victor.

Setting those risks aside, the South was WOEFULLY unprepared for a premodern war. That’s not just hindsight–the South was politically and economically divided, had little industry, few railroads and rolling stock, no steel, could hardly make swords much less gunpowder and firearms. It also had serious problems with a distributed leadership, no coherent financial or economic policy, rivalry and different goals between the states–it was exactly as described and advertised; a loose confederacy of interests and states that was begging for a humiliating defeat. Part of this resonates today; the South also had no coherent MORAL raison d’etre–the promotion of slavery and class inequality felt outmoded even in the 1820s and 1830s and that doesn’t win you friends and supporters. It was not a populist rebellion, like those of 1848…that was the zeitgeist of those times.

About 50,000, landed directly on Washington, preferably by UFO to avoid interdiction by the Union Navy. Any direct support of the south would have created a similar problem as the revolutionary war—the British Navy was their strength and the occupying Army was a liability, creating resentment and support for the other side, a target for harassment and interdiction by the Patriots, and easily isolated and cut off whenever it ventured away from the coasts, cities, ships and loyalists. That dynamic meant that the British had to raise the stakes over and over, committing more and more resources to defend their initial investment; in other words a hopeless boondoggle the likes of which the British (and other European powers) were not eager to take on. An unsuccessful and ongoing adventure carries great risks whereas sitting back and watching things develop carries very little.