All right, I’m a little late to this party, because it took me a long time before I was able to block off a solid hour to watch GHG’s videos. But General Hand Grenade’s Middle Earth strategy is such a crazy mix of good advice and bad advice that I just have to put my two cents in.
SUMMARIZING GHG’s VIDEO:
- On turn 1, buy 6 inf, 1 ftr for London. Do a full Taranto attack, send your Med transport to Iraq, and support the attack on Iraq with the Indian air force. Activate Persia on noncombat. Leave a couple of units in Alexandria and Sudan to tempt the Italians into attacking you there. Land the planes from Iraq in Jordan. Move the entire Indian Ocean fleet west, and if any Atlantic transports survived, start sailing them southeast toward South Africa to join your Indian Ocean fleet.
- On turn 2, assuming you’re not in trouble from Sea Lion, buy a factory and a naval base for Persia, and a fighter in South Africa. Kill any remaining Italian boats in the Med as your top priority, and maybe attack one group of Italians near Ethiopia.
- Starting on turn 3, buy 3 ground units (including some mechs) in South Africa, shuck them to Persia, and use any remaining money to buy a mix of units in Persia (including some fighters). Repeat this pattern for the next several turns, stockpiling a mobile force in Persia that can reinforce Egypt, the Caucasus, or India as needed.
- Russia is supposed to aggressively counter-attack Germany in order to fight Germany to a standstill all on its own. Meanwhile, the Americans are supposed to simultaneously contain Japan and wreck Italy by sending first submarines (for convoy damage) and then infantry from New York through Gibraltar to Rome.
THE GOOD:
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As other commenters have pointed out, an early factory in Persia is really useful. It slows down your Atlantic game somewhat, but it eventually pays for itself by securing Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Persia, and West India. The mere fact that you have a factory in Persia can shut down some Axis strategies even when you don’t build much there.
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A full attack on Taranto is a standard play, but it’s standard for a reason: it’s a strong opening move.
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GHG correctly identifies the fact that attacking Ethiopia on turn 1 is optional. Many non-Middle-Earth players radically overestimate how important it is to hold Alexandria or attack Ethiopia on turn 1 – it’s nice to collect your NO on turn 2, but it’s not essential and you shouldn’t be designing your entire opening around picking up an extra 5 IPC for UK Europe.
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Preserving your Indian Ocean fleet and keeping it close to the coast of Africa can give you some extra mobility while denying Japan the chance to pick off British boats for cheap. The West Indian Ocean is too far away for Japan to bother sending significant forces there in most types of games.
THE BAD:
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Trying to claim both Persia and Iraq on turn 1 is a good way to set yourself up for senseless casualties. At most you can bring 3 land units and 2 planes to attack 3 defending Iraqis. This weakens your position in Egypt and has a 45% chance of killing off your mech infantry without providing you with any important benefits. It’s better to save Iraq for turn 2 or even turn 3 – there’s no rush to take Iraq. It’s pro-Axis neutral; it can’t go anywhere. As long as you get there before the Axis do, you’re fine. By pulling your entire air force away from India, you remove your ability to counter-attack weak Japanese positions in Burma, Shan, Hong Kong, or Yunnan after a J1 or J2 attack.
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Landing planes in Jordan doesn’t guarantee the ability to eliminate the Italian fleet on UK2, because Jordan is 3 spaces away from SZ 97. By the end of G2, the Axis can easily sink your UK Med carrier, conquer Yugoslavia, and conquer Greece. That leaves you without a valid spot to land fighters or tac bombers if you try to launch from Jordan and hit SZ 97. Italy has no particular need to reinforce north Africa on I1 if you pull Egyptian troops east to attack Iraq. They can just stack up in Alexandria, build a second transport in SZ 97, and get ready to hit Egypt hard on I2.
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Italy is under no obligation to attack the bait you leave out in Sudan. Instead, they can combine all 4 of their east African units in Kenya, where they deprive you of your NO and are hard to kill on turn 2. You will need to send both planes from Jordan, plus both transports from the Persian Gulf. That will put you seriously out of position – your planes will have to land in Sudan, where they’re not in range of India or SZ 97, and your boats will be stuck in SZ 72, where they will lose a full turn of deliveries to Persia.
THE UGLY:
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The expensive naval base you build on Persia only gets used when you send ships from Persia to South Africa. You don’t need to buy that naval base to move from South Africa to Egypt, or from Persia to Egypt, or from Egypt to India, or from Persia to India. It’s really doing very little to enhance your strategic mobility, especially since you’re already building at least one mech inf. per turn, every turn. Instead of paying $15 to set up a shuck from South Africa to Persia, you can run your shuck from South Africa to Egypt and back, and pay $7 for one extra transport. That extra transport can shuck your 2 slow units from Egypt/Jordan to Persia every turn, and your fast units can reach India all by themselves from Jordan, without any further naval assistance. You start off with a reservoir of infantry in Egypt, so this won’t even slow your strategy down. This analysis should be obvious. You already start with 2 naval bases on the east coast of Africa, plus a naval base in Gibraltar and a naval base in India. How could it possibly be an optimal strategy to purchase yet another naval base? Naval mobility is not Britain’s bottleneck on this map.
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America is not going to be able to quickly shut Italy down cold while also quickly building a large enough Pacific fleet to keep Japan totally engaged near the money islands. Japan starts with a big advantage in the form of its surplus air force. Japan can build a carrier and have it be automatically loaded; the US has to load its own carriers. Japan also has a bigger starting fleet and the ability to make kamikaze attacks. So, if you split the US income in half so you can take down Italy, then Japan will have enough spare boats in the opening to sail about a third of its fleet over to the west Indian Ocean, sink the British fleet, and occupy the Persian factory. The naval base you build actually makes this easier for Japan, since it helps them return home in a hurry if America pivots to a 100% KJF strategy. Normally it’s not worth it to sail that far west just to harass Britain, but if Britain is staking 80%+ of its strategy and economy on being able to ship reinforcements north from South Africa, then even just moving a carrier group in range of that shipping traffic shuts down the British shuck-shuck and cripples the British momentum. If Japan can also sink 3 transports and capture a factory and naval base, then it’s totally worth it to go all the way west to persia.
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If Russia is able to stalemate Germany all on its own, with no support from the western Allies beyond a couple British fighters in Moscow and some American pressure on Rome, then Russia would be able to do that using any British strategy. Like, I’m not going to sit here and argue with GHG about whether Moscow will fall by turn 7 or not against a group of Allies using the pure Middle Earth strategy (spoiler alert: I think it will probably fall) because that’s a complicated and controversial question that depends on tactics, strategy, dice, and circumstances. But if Moscow does hold, then that has almost nothing to do with Britain. If Moscow can hold using Middle Earth, then Moscow can hold if Britain uses a totally conventional strategy like attacking France and Norway. The credit here, if any, would go entirely to Russia. Britain’s not doing anything special to help Russia with Middle Earth. Middle Earth has some modestly helpful effect on Moscow by weakening the Italian ability to build extra can openers. That’s about it. So if you think Russia will hold under those circumstances, why worry about the Middle East at all? Clearly Germany has its hands full and then some trying to stalemate Russia. Better to have Britain and America and Russia all attack Germany all-out so they can overwhelm the weak little German pushover state and quickly end the game.
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Another way of framing this point about “Why worry about the Middle East?” is to point out that the Axis don’t reach the Middle East from Eurasia until around turn 7 anyway. The Axis typically don’t attack Russia on turn 1. On turns 2 and 3 they’re fighting their way through the Ukraine. On turns 4 and 5 they’re fighting their way towards Moscow. Only on turns 6 and 7 do they have a chance to pivot south past Stalingrad, through the Caucasus, and maybe into northwest Persia. If you’re worried about Iraq or Egypt, now we’re talking about a turn 8 or 9 Axis capture. Why invest your whole economy starting on turn 1 to prepare for a turn 8 attack that might never come? If Russia can hold off the Nazis singlehandedly, then the Middle East is never going to come into play at all. If Russia can’t hold off the Nazis singlehandedly, then you as the Western Allies need to be doing something to generate counterplay in Rome, France, Norway, or Western Germany. Efficiently shipping troops from South Africa to Persia does not generate counterplay.
MY ALTERNATIVE:
I like to build 2 inf, 1 fighter for London on UK1, activate Persia by pulling 1 unit from Egypt, and use my Indian transport to either take Ethiopia with Indian troops, or occupy Sumatra (if I’m facing a conservative Japanese player). I use the remaining money to buy a transport and an artillery for South Africa. I leave 1 infantry behind in South Africa to fill up the transport, and now that transport can hit Kenya, Sudan, Egypt, or Iraq on turn 2, as needed. Depending on what Italy does, I have the option of buying a factory in Persia or Egypt on UK2, or neither. You don’t always need a second factory in the colonies. A full Taranto raid with a follow-up attack on the remaining Italian ships is often enough to permanently eliminate the Italian navy, which means that even shucking 1 inf, 1 art from South Africa to Egypt each turn will be more than enough to hold Egypt and start pushing Italy back toward Tunis. Starting on turn 2, I build at least one sub every turn to either sink newly built Italian boats or start convoying the Italians down to zero income. GHG gets it right that the primary goal has to be gaining ironclad control of the Mediterranean Sea – it just turns out that you get there by building your first three subs in the region, not by buying your sixth naval base.
Buying only 2 inf, 1 ftr for London while doing a full Taranto does leave London vulnerable to a Sea Lion, but not that vulnerable. You can build 10 infantry in London on UK2. That leaves you with over 25 units defending London. By buying a transport + artillery in Africa instead of a factory, I ensure that Britain can keep fighting for a few turns in Africa even if London gets temporarily shut down. If you can keep Italy stalemated near Alexandria, kill off 40+ IPCs’ worth of the German tank corps, and force Germany to invest 70+ IPCs in naval units, then it’s perfectly fine to let Germany take London for a couple of turns. Russia will be a monster, America can liberate London, and Germany won’t make a profit on the transaction.
