Game Report Game 129;

[taamvan]

Game 128 Fortress America;  I was America I died on turn 7

Lessons learned: Partisans rock. Going to have to fight the Eastern Invader more than the Southern one.  Texas Strat was ok.  Make someone else play USA next game…

Game 129;  Axis and Allies Im Allies  Bid +12 per Black Elk’s advice 4 infantry in USSR

Attack Ukraine retreat leaving 1 armor 1 plane
Attack Western Russia move in with everything
UK sends over 1 fighter survives to land in West Russia
UK buys 1 inf 2 arty 2 fighters
US KGF

Germany moves a mighty stack to Karelia G1
Japan builds 3 + had 1 transport

Turn 2
USSR buy men arty again.  Stack West Russia with every unit I have. Take Ukraine only, now have 2 german terr.  No help to China this time.
G2 = he attacks west Russia
1 sb 2 fig 9 arm 8 infantry (he had 4 more fighters that could have come only if G1 played differently)
I had `14 inf 4 art 4 arm 2 AAA 3 figh

he annihilated my guys pretty quickly.  Rolled 5 hits on 2nd to last round so I ended up holding the territory with 1 fighter left
he took back Ukraine and built tanks and a few men g1-3

Japan sets to attack India Turn 3 with 9-11 guys and all his air.  After moving the small stuff I had 4 inf 2 arty 1 AAA 1 fighter (which left for Moscow)  I could have built a few more units but there was no point in the face of 16-22 Japanese units with bombards.  I just decided to attack Burma and take that back, instead of trying to hold india, just to push some of his units back.  this worked amazingly well as Burma held up against a counterattack lol

On UK 3, with west Russia and archangel impossible to hold, I sent the UK fighters to Africa

US came over most of Africa was getting liberated at this point.  Japan easily picked off my pacific fleet because he didn’t need the air for india.

G4 Germany came in with all his remaining air (pared it down to 1 sb 3 fig at this point) and 8-10 tanks, 6 men…maybe a bit more.  I had 2 full turns of ussr buys primarily infantry with 1 fighter left and again I was annihilated (rolling 2/11 hits for "2"s I call this the rule of “2s” never rely on infantry to defend you because they can’t)

Lessons Learned; play axis

[baron Münchhausen]

You have been diced on G2.
2% vs 98% Soviet victory. Avg 4 art, 4 arm and 3 Fgs.

G player made a wild guess, but succeeded.
Part of difficulty with early Russia, luck makes it difficult to overcome unusual losses.
Russian player is on the razor’s hedge like no other.
An unlucky strafe on Ukraine (loosing Art and Inf with no hit on G) or a too lucky one (having to captured Ukraine) is difficult to come back of. A too lucky defense of Wesr Russia make almost a R2 retreat to Russia.
A lot of luck swing TUV on the hopeless situation status until G Eastern front is more depleted so smaller battle have less luck impact.

Don’t know what to say, but usually I tried to keep 1 buffer zone and to capture weakest G TTy to force G to split up units. Anyway, as a German player I probably strafed your WRussia stack. If first go well, I would make another pass. Retreating after first bad combat round. If none, then WRus is toasted.

[taamvan]

maybe my notes are off but not much because I wrote down what I thought we had.  This guy rolls like 5/6 with 3’s all the time.  Its devastating luck, but I guess I am making some serious mistakes too as well…

It was a soviet victory I killed the entire attacking force…it just left me with 1 fighter lol

[Argothair]

Yeah, that’s an absurd result on the G2 battle – you’ve got 27 HP to his 20 HP, and you’re rolling 60 pips of defensive punch to his 45 pips of offensive punch, even assuming you miss on all three AAA shots. By the numbers, you should have wiped Germany out and been able to follow up by taking most of Eastern Europe.

I never know what to say to people who complain that they are repeatedly getting results from the dice where the odds are 100-to-1 against. It’s a bit like someone who complains that vampires keep sucking their blood. I don’t believe in vampires, and I don’t believe there’s such a thing as persistent bad luck, so my advice isn’t going to be that helpful. Maybe try playing the game using low luck rules? Also, just to make sure, are you remembering to take your AAA guns as casualties? Some players miss that rule, because it’s only a few years old. The extra couple of hit points in West Russia can make a big difference.

I think your strategy is looking much stronger than in some of your earlier games; you’re showing more flexibility and more ability to adapt to the situation on the board. My only criticism is that when it’s time to abandon west russia / archangel, the usual place to put the retreating fighters is in Moscow, not in Africa. There’s not much point to liberating Africa at the cost of losing Moscow! It’s OK if Africa is kind of a wash – you can trade back and forth forever in, e.g., Libya or Sudan, because the territories are only worth 1 IPC each.

[taamvan]

Thanks Argo.  My luck remains terrible, but my play may not be much better and so that could be responsible for the 4 turn blowouts.  He may have had 1-2 tanks more in that battle.  I believe that I got 2 hits with my "2"s with 18 dice lol, that’s pretty consistent

The fighters had to run to Africa, not to defend it but because they didn’t have any other way to transit.

Working on AAA and getting maphead to play with us

We are playing Game 130 now and I was the Axis.  Allies luck was much better, so they are still alive starting turn 5.  Will report on it as soon as we are complete.

[Argothair]

Taamvan, sometimes I feel like you and I are speaking different languages! You say the fighters had to go to Africa because they couldn’t make the transit…but West Russia is adjacent to Moscow! Even coming from India, you can move fighters from India -> Persia -> Kazakh -> Moscow in one turn. I just don’t understand.

[taamvan]

I’m sorry if im being unclear.  What I said was that the fighters flew to Africa from the UK because they cannot reach WR or a landing space in another Russian territory.  I’m trying to buy the fighters on UK1 on London and hopefully UK2 on London and get them directly into the defense of Moscow, which is the whole point of putting everything I can on West Russia.

My point is that there is no way to cross Germany unless you own Karelia, archangel, WR or another zone, the only alternative if you don’t own a safe LZ is to head to Gibraltar or Africa, which takes forever to get into the fray.  Once the LZ is lost, the fighters might as well just hang out until UK can get a navy (often doing nothing as there is no navy left to attack after G2) or try for US carriers because crossing via Africa is too slow.

The problem is that while I’m stacking West Russia as advised (and attacking Ukraine), my opponent views this as an invitation to attack in massive force and has consistently won this battle 3-4 times.

I realize that the odds calculators do not lie, but they also do not necessarily represent the kind of outcomes that will occur with real dice (such as rolling 1-2 casualties with 18 "2"s, then rolling 5/5 hits on the penultimate round of combat).  I actually did “win” this battle, because a single Russian fighter survived, so this battle didn’t actually fall in the 2%-ile.  He lost his entire force.  I bring in everything including the AAA.

Because the attacker has the luxury of seeing as many rounds of battle as he likes (and with up to 13 “3s”), and re-evaluating after each round, it means that each strongpoint is subject to at least being strafed, if not annihilated.  You and BE have repeated that the Germans have less than 50% odds to make these attacks, but he doesn’t necessarily need to win any given battle or wipe out the Russians to gain an advantage, he just needs to kill them without losing all his tanks.

We finally have a game going where all the Allies are alive at the beginning of Turn 5, dave is playing Allies.  After this, there could be a long game for the allies, but the Axis still have all the $$.

[Russiangoat]

Personally, I don’t like the Ukraine strafe because when it goes sour for me it is tough to regain position in Russia. Â

I haven’t had a problem with the West Russia stack.  Getting diced absolutely sucks, but if you keep floating these odds (with or without the strafe into Ukraine) in games you will end up with way more games where you crush his attacking stack and maintain a lot of your stack, and really limit his ability to do anything else on the front.  And on UK1 or UK 2 fighter support should start flowing in and that really tips the balance.

One other possibility - Are you absolutely sure your opponent is bringing everything legally?  Not that he’s cheating, but we’ve all made errors in how far a unit can travel, and maybe he’s bringing units that can’t quite make it to the fight?  I’ve played guys who insist a move is legal because they always do it, but when we count it out it doesn’t actually work.

Per fighters to Africa - even when West Russia is taken, unless Iceland was grabbed G1 it should still be a 2-move route to Moscow from London.

[Argothair]

Yup, good suggestion – Iceland will get your fighters from London to Moscow in 2 turns in an emergency. Another option is a British or American carrier in Sea Zone 7, immediately to the northwest of London. For the most part, only German bombers can hit this carrier, so it should be pretty safe – if Germany is parking fighters in France to harass your fleet, then those German fighters can’t attack West Russia. You can also use 1 American fighter to reinforce that sea zone. Here’s one possible reinforcement schedule:

UK1: fly 2 starting fighters from London to West Russia, build 2 new fighters
USA1: build 1 fighter in Eastern US
UK2: fly 2 fighters from London to West Russia, build 1 carrier & 1 fighter in Sea Zone 7
USA2: fly 1 fighter from Eastern US to Sea Zone 7; build 1 fighter in Eastern US
UK3: fly 1 fighter from Sea Zone 7 to Moscow, fly 4 fighters from West Russia to Moscow; build 1 fighter in Sea Zone 7
USA3: fly 1 fighter from Eastern US to Sea Zone 7; fly 1 fighter from Sea Zone 7 to Moscow; build 1 fighter in Eastern US
UK4: fly 1 fighter from Sea Zone 7 to Moscow, build 1 fighter in Sea Zone 7
USA4: fly 1 fighter from Eastern US to Sea Zone 7; fly 1 fighter from Sea Zone 7 to Moscow; build 1 fighter in Eastern US
etc.

Before the G5 turn, you have now flown 8 British/American fighters to Moscow, so including the 2 starting Russian fighters, you should have 10 Allied fighters in Moscow ready to resist the G5 attack. None of this requires any heroic feats of defense – all you have to do is hold West Russia against the German attack(s) on G1, G2, and G3. You’ll have help holding it on G3 because there will already be 4 British fighters there boosting your defense. Immediately after G3, you can totally evacuate West Russia and you never have to hold it again. You literally do not need to hold any other territories besides Eastern US, London, Sea Zone 7, Moscow and West Russia for this plan to work.

[simon33]

I haven’t had any success with evacuating WR. I doubt a fall back to Moscow strategy would be optimal.

I don’t understand how the fighters in the UK could not reach WR. It’s UK->SZ6->SZ5->Karelia->WR.

[Black_Elk]

What is the Flying Tiger doing? And all the other British aircraft?

If he’s screwing you that hard in West Russia every game why not just stack it with every air unit in range? I mean there are 4 total fighters and 1 strategic bomber available that could all be on W. Russia at the end of the first round. That means 6 total fighters on W. Russia at the end of Russia’s second turn.

Maybe you’re trying to do too much with your air in the first round? If W. Russia is getting cracked on G2 every time, nothing else is going to matter anyway hehe. Your German opponent is clearly out for blood. You need to push it so far off the table that he doesn’t even consider a balsy strafe.

If he is the sort of German player that would attack Egypt, then spend 3 ipcs of your bid there so the attack drops below 50%. And keep the Russian fighter where it can do you some good in the second round.

If his cruiser always rolls hot, then maybe don’t try to hit the Baltic fleet and just leave it for the Americans to deal with in subsequent rounds.

You can cover Szech with the British fighter from sz 35 (after it sinks the transport in 61) and 1 Russian inf. The odds are to the defender with both fighters remaining. Even if the Japanese attacker wins, this is on average with only 1 unit remaining meaning you’re at least likely to kill his fighters. If that’s not enough, then spend 3 ipcs of your bid to bolster Szech.

If your opponent continues to launch risky attacks against the odds, eventually the dice are going to go your way. It just sounds like he hasn’t been sufficiently burned yet, to realize that he’s taking some pretty serious gambles.

Does he always stack Karelia G1? If so, you might consider armor rather than artillery at purchase. Preventing a Karelia stack on G1 is pretty much the only reason to ever buy tanks as the Russians. But it is possible to deadzone, if you are willing to sacrifice a hitpoint, for more attack power. Then you’d be the one with the strafe option instead of him.

[CrayzKirk]

I can feel your pain; like everyone, I too get bad rolls of the dice.  Much more than my fair share, of course.  Whether it is in Backgammon where only a double 6 will get the opponent out of trouble or rolling a dozen 50% dice and consistently getting 2 or 3 while the reply roll gets 8 or 9, it just happens.  The common reply I get is that it all evens out (the law of large numbers) however when you get a bad roll as the allies followed by a good roll by the axis, it can end the game.  This has been my biggest complaint about the entire series of five player games that often turn on a single battle or even a single series of rolls of the dice.

Unless you want to play low luck, I’m not sure what can be done.  I am fairly confident that the algorithm used to compute the dice rolls simply has it in for me…  :evil:

I do enjoy reading the game logs even if I never play.

Kirk S.

[Russiangoat]

@Argothair:

UK1: fly 2 starting fighters from London to West Russia, build 2 new fighters

Assuming G1 sinks the Royal navy (with the cruiser+), and the German cruiser is left, how do you deal with it?  If you send one or both fighters then they can’t make it to WR?  Or do you send in the DD from Canada with the Bomber?  I usually send that combo (DD/Bomber) to sink the 2 German subs off E USA, with the two UK fighters to clear the cruiser.  Do you leave any German ships alone?

[Black_Elk]

I don’t know, I think the cruiser to sz7 is a bit overkill. Pretty easy to get the job done with 2 subs and 2 fighters.

Then you can send the cruiser to sz8 to cause the British headaches with their fighter transits to W. Russia or Arch. Or you can leave it in the Baltic to defend the transport, grab a bombardment for Karelia, and maybe pick off a British fighter on UK1.

[taamvan]

I do see what he is saying though;  if you attack with it and it ends up sitting in SZ 2 8 3 or anywhere but 6 and 5 they cant simply dedicate 1 fighter to it, they’ll need to bring more.  If its hanging with the subs, it will get killed during the sub hunt.  But, if its off by itself, the UK can’t attack with just 1 fighter, they’ll have to bring more and any fighters that are used there or die can’t go to WR.

They might as well ignore it.  When its not protecting the transport, it cant really become the nucleus of a sensible new German fleet (one that the americans could confront and destroy, or the UK with their air)

to Black Elk;  sometimes I wish I was playing craps because I swear that I have rolled (within 15 rolls of 2 dice) 5 sets of snake eyes and 2 hard “3”.  the best one is when you are rolling snake eyes to hit with bombers when its overkill lol

[Russiangoat]

@Black_Elk:

I don’t know, I think the cruiser to sz7 is a bit overkill. Pretty easy to get the job done with 2 subs and 2 fighters.

Then you can send the cruiser to sz8 to cause the British headaches with their fighter transits to W. Russia or Arch. Or you can leave it in the Baltic to defend the transport, grab a bombardment for Karelia, and maybe pick off a British fighter on UK1.

Karelia is usually vacated when I play, so a bombard is not necessary.  Plus Baltic is a fly over for the UK fighters, so they can still transit to WR on UK1.

Cruiser in SZ8 accomplishes the same deal (though smarter) as what I said - screwing with the fighter transit to WR on UK1.  For an aggressive German player like Taamvan faces, it sounds like early fighter support to West Russia is critical, so this would muck with that plan.  Combine cruiser to SZ8 and a juicy undefended German transport taking Iceland G1, and the German player could make it difficult to prioritize and transit fighters to Russia in the early game.

[Black_Elk]

Yeah I’m like you, I’d always empty Karelia. Though sometimes my main opponent will leave a single dude behind to be annoying. Trying to pull a fighter out of position or keep the cruiser in place for an air strike with the optimal air route. Probably because he knows I like to spend the absolute minimum on Karelia for G1. Prefer to save max hitpoints for the second round.

Even if he leaves it empty, which is the better play in my view, sometimes I’ll stay in sz5 anyway just to transport into Baltic or Finland for G2 and take a 50/50 to nab a fighter when the obvious air strike comes. I’m not usually trying to push heavy until G3 anyway hehe. Taamvan’s situation is different though, his German opponent seems kind of crazy on the attack. I’m more conservative with the Luftwaffe.

I like sz 8 for the cruiser and Iceland on the sacrifice play with 1 dude, because it’s a pretty nice distraction for the Allies. It always seems to p�ss him off, so I like that psych warfare aspect haha.

It occurs to me now that I didn’t really discuss the sz5 transport in the Germany thread I started a while back. http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=35951.0

Mentioned the cruiser play, but Iceland is a pretty good one. It should get a mention.
Alas I never finished that series. Had planned to write something for Japan and the other 2 Allies but never got around to it, just general mentions in the 1942.2 overall strategy doc. But the nation focused guides are probably easier to frame. Will have to take another crack at it sometime.

[Russiangoat]

@Black_Elk:

Yeah I’m like you, I’d always empty Karelia. Though sometimes my main opponent will leave a single dude behind to be annoying. Trying to pull a fighter out of position or keep the cruiser in place for an air strike with the optimal air route. Probably because he knows I like to spend the absolute minimum on Karelia for G1. Prefer to save max hitpoints for the second round.

Even if he leaves it empty, which is the better play in my view, sometimes I’ll stay in sz5 anyway just to transport into Baltic or Finland for G2 and take a 50/50 to nab a fighter when the obvious air strike comes. I’m not usually trying to push heavy until G3 anyway hehe. Taamvan’s situation is different though, his German opponent seems kind of crazy on the attack. I’m more conservative with the Luftwaffe.

I like sz 8 for the cruiser and Iceland on the sacrifice play with 1 dude, because it’s a pretty nice distraction for the Allies. It always seems to p�ss him off, so I like that psych warfare aspect haha.

It occurs to me now that I didn’t really discuss the sz5 transport in the Germany thread I started a while back. http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=35951.0

Mentioned the cruiser play, but Iceland is a pretty good one. It should get a mention.
Alas I never finished that series. Had planned to write something for Japan and the other 2 Allies but never got around to it, just general mentions in the 1942.2 overall strategy doc. But the nation focused guides are probably easier to frame. Will have to take another crack at it sometime.

Yeah, I agree with your second paragraph, in general.  But the Iceland play works great if you have US player that likes to transit fighters to Russia, because once West Russia looks dicey the well dries up.  Nice to mix it up, and I never really expect the transport to live to G2 anyway.

I’ve read and re-read your Russian and German openers threads a lot.  I’d like a Japan one if you ever get the time, but I feel like Japan has the most flexibility their first turn based on whatever UK did and their general multitude of options (other than Pearl Light, which seems to be pretty optimal), so it may be a LOT of writing, haha.  I’d also like a UK one, because your insistence on sinking the SZ61 transport with a fighter and a cruiser is something I would not have come up with.

[taamvan]

Evening gents, yeah loving all the ideas about the distracting cruiser micro

With a bid of 12 we can;

keep the us fleet alive 60% chance
keep WR alive 60%+ chance of a good outcome

UK can use the bid to
hit the Japanese 4 hit fleet without any sub cover this is x3 subshots etc
and/or hit the pesky DD+TT needs to die
or hit Siam with bid on the ground instead
and/or hit new guinea
keep Egypt alive and so forth

but we can only choose 1 of these things as the allies.    As the axis, as maphead plays, he is usually willing to trade the Germany spearhead for a big Russian attrition battle early on and also is consistently successful in killing Egypt (2inf 2 arm 1 sb) bid or not (and seriously, Russian fighter or not).

India is a huge vulnerability so also I’m trying to adapt some choices between the UK/india and make this costly but many more of our new ideas revolve around emptying aus/india of crucial infantry to support gambit attacks/taking income early on.  With just 4 transports and 7-8 planes, Japan can rip you apart starting J3 unless you used your bid to hit Siam there is nothing to do about it (and if you did, your pieces die to the same TT loads).

So thanks for all the ideas about air mobility for the allies/axis gamey navy, I think there is some real potential there.  Also conserving your very few infantry as Russia by not even screening.  It still feels like the crucial territories fall to the axis very early (turns 1-3) and the allies never gain the momentum.

G40 coming up Sunday Game 131…

[taamvan]

forgot to add that Germany seems really advantaged by trading “rook for rook” early, that is, taking a medium or big risk and losing a good spearhead army in return for trimming the Russians.  Once this occurs its only a matter of time before $4 Caucasus is lost and Moscow go turtle