@calvinhobbesliker:

All Chinese units can move to Bruma at any time, even if the UK is still neutral

Calvin, I remember needing to verify this just recently. And your reply didn’t jive with what I recalled. So I’m looking it up again. The rulebook states the following…

“Kwangtung and Burma are special cases. While they are not Chinese territories and cannot be controlled by China, Chinese forces can attack Axis units there and occupy them, but the IPC’s generated go the United Kingdom (unless India is under Axis control). These are the only non-Chinese territories that Chinese units can occupy.”

The phrase “can attack axis units there and occupy them” suggests they can only enter Burma to attempt to retake it (from the Axis) on behalf of the UK. I suppose it then becomes a matter of what the word occupy actually means. From a wartime perspective, I think of the word denoting an occupying force that previously invaded and has now established control. So I think of the Chinese as invading Axis controlled Burma to occupy it, on behalf of the UK.

If occupy simply means to exist in, I wish the sentence was worded differently to establish that it is not a cause and effect relationship.

So you’re right. Scrambling is for islands only.

I don’t know the acronym VC. I see on the acronym thread there’s a CV for Cruisers. If memory serves, I had 4 cruisers and 2 BS for bombardment options. By Japan’s R3, the US and ANZAC fleets were, together, noteworthy, but not yet in position.

Ok, so it worked.

FIC turned out to be way more valuable than I ever thought. In fact, I concluded that building an Airbase, Naval Yard and Minor IC there is better than a major anywhere else, provided I keep funneling men down from Japan every turn. FIC is within 3 spaces of both Japan and India, and cannot be reached from Queensland in 1 turn. Further, having planes stationed there for both scrambling and general attacks is very very helpful.

The J3 India Crush plane landing site can reliably be either Ceylon or Shan State, depending on whether I’m blocked in the DEI. So I have a choice.

I played the Allies as well, knowingly engineering their response to prevent the Crush as I played it out. Based on this, I think I can reliably win with Japan now (barring BS rolls), so long as I follow a very strict set of guidelines and movements.

Now if this is the case, with only one reliable way for Japan to win against seasoned Allies, a way the Allies cant seem to prevent, doesn’t that make for a boring game?

You know, the good kind of disgusting. Good for Japan anyway.

Of course I should just offload them both onto Ceylon, and then move them again on J3.

Making the assumption the UK fleet is in the India SZ on R2, I could have moved a loaded AC, Battleship, loaded Transport and Destroyer into that SZ (39). Further, a sizable SZ6 fleet could have moved to SZ (38) with it’s 4 Aircraft Carrier planes participating in the R2 SZ39 engagement. If India uses scrambling to assist its 3 ships and any ANY of those planes are lost, that would be spectacular for Japan.

If the UK fleet is in SZ41 on R2, the Ceylon technique won’t work, but that won’t have changed what I was doing in Asia, so I would simply switch to one of the other alternate landing sites for my planes. And this alternative opens up bombardment capability.

That sounds pretty disgusting.

If I was to use one my 6 available ground troops to capture Ceylon on round 2, is it still legal to offload the other one into India?

If you placed an airbase in Kwangsi or FIC on round2 and landed your planes there (with intent to land them in Yunnan/Shan State on round 3), then you would have two rounds to capture, lose and then stablely recapture Yunnan or Shan State.

That might be a possibility. I’ll have to test it, but it sounds promising. I’m guessing this is what everybody else is doing?
Can I assume that I’m correct about the maximum number of ground troops that can be placed in India on J3 (4x Inf, 1x Tank, 1x Art)?

I apologize if this has already been covered.
My account is apparently not allowed to search any of the forums.
I sent a PM to a mod a few days ago, but no response just yet.
Google searches of this domain were not helpful.

I have read the J3 India Crush instructions for AAP, but not for AAP1940.
The AAP instructions can’t be right for this version since they suggest you can build 2 transports on J1 and use them to offload troops into India on J3.
They also suggest possibly using those troops in J4 for a crush, but that is pointless because all 4 ANZAC planes will be nestled comfortably in India by then. This crush has to happen before ANZAC can do that.

Ok, so let me tell you my two limiting factors that confuse me regarding how a J3 crush can work…

1/ You must defeat Shan State or Yunnan on J1 and KEEP IT so you can land your planes there. Up to 11 Fighters, 7 Tacticals and 4 Bombers at the most. On J1, you capture one of those properties, either of which can be done with ease. On J2 you maintain it, so you can land your planes there. On J3, the India crush occurs. If your planes aren’t in 1 of those 2 places, they cannot participate. I toyed with the idea of building an airbase somewhere, but I once again relearned that airbases are really only useful for scrambling. Giving a plane a +1 movement has proven to be 90% useless because it needs +2 to get back to where it came from. So airbases will not help at all with this tactic. Furthermore, it is easy for the UK to take Shan State back (with 2 men from Malaya and a wing of planes), and for China to take Yunnan back. My experience has shown me over and over that China should immediately abandon all of Asia in favor of Szechwan and Yunnan only. With that much support, China will have no problem preventing the Japanese ground planes from participating in a J3 India crush.

Now I can get 4 bombers, 3 tacticals and 3 fighters into the J3 crush by virtue of the aircraft carriers. But after testing the rolls, that is insufficient to get through India’s AA, 14 Infantry (typical if Allies are anticipating the crush), 1 artillery, 4 fighters and 1 tactical. Bear in mind, you will not get the opportunity to bombard either because the UK’s 3 warships will be parked in India’s SZ (again assuming the Allies anticipate the crush). I like to assume that they’re going to anticipate it if this is the only realistic tactic Japan can use for victory. In my games, Japan never wins without BS rolls.

2/ At best, I can get 1 tank, 1 artillery and 4 infantry into India for a J3 crush by virtue of the existing transports. There is no opportunity to build more transports and expect to land their troops in India by round 3. That’s precious few men to couple with 4 Bombers, 3 Fighters and 3 Tacticals. If you could get your other 18 planes in the fight, then you have no problems at all.

So I have to assume that I’m missing a wonder tactic, unaware of some special rule, or just don’t understand the Crush technique for Pacific 1940. For example, maybe you’re not expected to take over India on Round 3. Maybe it’s a 2step process completing in Round 4. But like I said, if you wait till round 4, 4 ANZAC fighters will have appeared in India, which messes the whole thing up. I am continually surprised by the offensive and defensive capabilities of the seemingly weak ANZAC.

The one good thing I’ve noticed is that this can all be done without a war declaration (by virtue of using Yunnan) until J3. So that’s cool. Thanks in advance for your input.

@Belgarath:

I actually recieved 12 tac bombers and 2 battlestrips. And none were damaged.
So double thanks from me

can of worms incoming!

I got my bombers and strip.

I never mailed anything in, just created a case with WOTC on their website. Although I did create it before their announcement.

Of the 6 tacticals I received, 3 were damaged. Only 1 had instantly obvious visible scarring, but none of were broken or unplayable. In truth, I only wanted 2 more bombers anyway, so I’m happy on that front.

The battleboard was severely damaged. It was filled with pockmarks from bomber pressure points. The center has a vertical slice right through it and the entire board is warped as if someone dipped it in water and let it dry on the pavement. In my opinion, this component is unplayable. BUT, I dont care about the battleboard. Never did since I’ve never used them. It just seems inconvenient to transfer all the pieces to somewhere on a table that is highly constricted for space already. And even if I did want a batteboard, Bob has given us a superior solution anyway.

Now one thing I did want (and I requested this originally) was a pair of Japan and ANZAC setup stickers to overlay onto the incorrect ones. I expect these corrected stickers must exist anyway for the reprint.

I’d still like more Japanese mech inf and a new rulebook, but that’s picking nits I suppose. Overall, I’m happy.

Mechanized Blitzkrieg…

I know that a mechanized infantry has to move along with a tank in order to successfully blitz an unoccupied hostile territory, but my friends and I kinda got into it over exactly where those two units are required to source from. Do they have to start out in the same territory? By definition, all combat moves occur simultaneously, so a lone mechanized moving into a hostile territory couldnt have the intention of blitzing due to a lack of knowledge of the laterally approaching tank. However, that’s assuming they’re uncoordinated. Technically, I dont see why it should be a problem, but the MI blitzing description says it has to move “with” a tank, inferring initial movement with the tank.

If an MI cannot blitz in this fashion (starting from a separate territory than the tank), it would cease movement at the unoccupied hostile territory and be unable to assist in the engagement one space further away.