@Krieghund Thank you!
2nd Edition Battle Report
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I don’t know about all of you, but I always loved seeing the battle/war reports from peoples’ games. I foolishly didn’t take any pictures from our game we started this weekend, but I like these anyways :-)
My dad, brother and I started a game on Sunday for Father’s Day, and got through the first 2 rounds Who knows when we’ll play again, between all of us working, but I’ll post here when we do!
We’ve all played for a long time. My dad, for all he tries, just doesn’t seem to see the whole table all the time. I have a hard time (thought he wants me to since he doesn’t see them) not pointing out things he should do during his turn. My brother is a good sport about it, but also wants moderation. My brother has not played in a while. As you’ll see below, he made a couple of errors that he kicked himself over immediately following his turns, but nothing as of yet that has drastically altered the game this early on! Point to all this being, there will be mistakes here you may not always see in your games.
Here’s the layout:
Brian (my brother) - Axis Powers
Pat (my dad) - UK, ANZAC, France
Chris (me) - USSR, USA, ChinaTURN 1
Germany - The Fuhrer is ready to unleash his hordes. Germany invades France, easily felling Paris with the loss of only two infantry. Normandy also falls to the wayside. Southern France is left for Il Duce. UK naval forces in Scapa Flow (SZ 111) are wiped out, with a limping Bismarck left remaining. Goering, to Hitler’s extreme frustrations and in typical Goering fashion, forgot to take out the Allied navies SZ110, causing great consternation. The UK ships in SZ109 also sank to the bottom. Yugoslavia fell to the Wehrmacht as well. In their free movement, Finland joined the Axis cause in hopes of revenge against the hated Red Army. Soldiers begin moving eastwards…
USSR - Stalin wonders what to think of German forces moving towards his borders. Surely his ally would not betray him? The Red Army pulls back from the borders, leaving an infantry in each territory, and moves reinforcements up closer to feel out the next moves.
Japan - The Sino-Japanese War rages on! Imperial ground troops take control of more Chinese land, moving into Chahar, Anhwe, and Hunan. Most of the Japanese navy consolidates in SZ6, a curious move from the cunning Admiral Yamamoto. A minor industrial complex is built in Korea to help bolster the mainland forces.
USA - The USA continues it’s isolationist ways. Worry of Japanese attack from the large naval buildup in SZ6 causes a naval buildup out of San Francisco. Destroyers are sent to sea to block potential Japanese movement to the north.
China - Chiang does what he can to hold onto the Burma road as long as possible, consolidating most troops to the south, leaving token resistance in the north. Anything for more Western supplies!
UK - The PM cries for the country to fight back across the world! The remaining UK fleet from SZ110, and Canadian based naval forces, as well as the cruiser from SZ91, takes out the remaining U-Boats off of SZ109, consolidating the entirety of the UK Atlantic fleet. The Bismarck is destroyed. Curiously, the Mediterranean fleet decided on the easy victory of the small Italian fleet at SZ96, leaving the Italian navy largely intact. The best outcomes were the UK receiving secret intelligence from their Yankee cousins that both a German and an Italian transport were left undefended, the RAF in Malta and London gladly took the easy kills, while Fascist leaders steamed at the mistake. Far East Command sends troops to Sumatra.
Italy - Mussolini wishes to impress his mightier ally to the north, and longs to bring Italy back to it’s former glory! Italian forces overrun Southern France, ridding the Allies of their last mainland bastion. The UK Mediterranean Fleet is predictably sent to the bottom. The French fleet is also destroyed in SZ93 Tunisia is overrun, and Kenya is taken as the Abyssinian arm moves out. Italian forces then move to activate Bulgaria to join their cause.
ANZAC - With little at their disposal, the Aussies and Kiwis mount an expedition to Celebes to help bolster the outer defenses.
France - de Gaulle calls for all Frenchmen to resist! Colonial troops maneuver where they can, the French Fleet in the Channel merges with the UK fleet in the Irish Sea. de Gaulle demands to be treated as an equal partner in London…
TURN 2
Germany - The Wehrmacht rests and reorganizes. The Allied navies pay for leaving their whole navy in one place: the entire Luftwaffe annihilates every last ship, as well as Allied fighter planes that scrambled to support, with only a couple planes lost in the process. Goering has made good on his earlier lapse of not destroying the UK navy earlier! A minor industrial complex is built in Norway…Hitler grins menacingly to the east…
USSR - News of the Allied defeats at sea begin to worry Stalin even more. How will he be supported? Reds continue to maneuver, staying close to the front, but out of harms way. If war comes, Stalin hopes to catch the German hordes in a mistake…
Japan - The Imperial Army continues to brush aside measly Chinese resistance. Suiyuyan, Hopei, and Yunnan all fall. With the fall of France, the Japanese move into French Indo China, ignoring Vichy cries of protest. A large portion of Yamamoto’s fleet moves to the Marianas Islands in SZ22, another consternating move that the Japanese loathed in hindsight, as they were taken out of range of the Hawaiian islands.
USA - With Japanese Navy leaving question marks, the American government continues to pour naval resources to the Pacific. Small forces begin to gather on the east coast as well for training.
China - Chiang Kai-Shek knows that if there was ever a time to fight the time was now! The Burma Road must be kept open at all costs! A Chinese force counterattacks the Japanese forces in Yunnan, with support from the Flying Tigers, and reclaims the territory for their own. Supplies can continue to flow…for now.
UK - Greatly troubled by the loss of the entire Atlantic fleet, 10 Downing Street struggles with what to do. Though German naval assets are weak, the Luftwaffe has hardly been hurt. With the loss of fighter support at home, the enemy air superiority could very well be all that’s needed to overrun the island…if Goering is willing to accept that kind of loss to his forces. Infantry are built to bolster the defenses. South African troops are moving north in the hopes of taking out the Italians in east Africa. The garrison in Sumatra jumps to Java. If the Japanese are consolidated so far north, the British Raj will take advantage and risk spreading itself thin. Ground troops begin to move closer to the Chinese border.
Italy - Mussolini, feeling invigorated by his Bulgarian allies, foolishly attempts an attack on Greece with an inadequate force. The Greeks hold on with a single division remaining, and join the Allied cause. Hitler fumes at his ally’s incompetence, and now realizes fully he’ll need to assist him in the Mediterranean. Alexandria falls to Italian forces, as well as Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and Algeria.
ANZAC - Still unsure of what to do at this point, the ANZAC continue defensive preparations, but are also ready to jump on the offensive. All depends on what the Japanese Navy has in store…
France - French forces continue to maneuver where they seem best to help. A destroyer supports at SZ81 at the Suez Canal, French Equatorial Africa is reinforced in hopes of slowing the Italians down. Algerian troops had fallen back to Morocco the round before, in hopes of holding the ground for an eventual Allied landing.
We only got through the first two rounds. As I stated above, my brother didn’t kill the UK navy right away, but got seriously lucky in the second round that my dad A) consolidated his whole force in one spot, and B) that the die were in his favor and he only lost I think two planes and a sub for the loss of a UK battleship, 2 UK and a French Cruiser, two destroyers, a transport, and 2 RAF fighters and a French fighter! This was slightly balanced by his attack on Greece with just 6 infantry and a tank that ended in ruin there. His Japanese navy movements are puzzling to me. He really was mad that he moved to the Marianas islands with no NB. But his moves do have me on edge as the US player and is drawing most of my resources to the Pacific because of it, at a time where they could be used in Europe based on the UK navy’s current state.
I’ll post more once we get to play again!
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Great stuff, I love it!
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Thanks for sharing, not every game turns out the same way, and new players are a big reason as they explore what is possible with the board build. Those first 4 turns take some serious time, and you’ll be playing that early game more often than any other phase so it just takes a lot of time to learn what’s best and what’s better left undone.
Hope you guys can finish your game, before next FD get together.
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Thanks guys!
Yea taamvan, I hear you there. Like I said, my brother knows the game, just not necessarily all the different strategies as I might. But I agree, it makes it fun to not have every game scripted the same, keeps me on my toes! That, and the die can really make a difference sometimes depending on how well or badly you rolled! I’ll hopefully be posting updates soon!
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cool report, I am looking forward to see what happens next, especially with the Norway IC.
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We got another round in this last Saturday! Wasn’t extremely eventful, but here it is before I forget!
TURN 3
Germany - Irritated by Il Duce’s newest level of incompetence, German forces are ordered into Greece to finish what the Italians could not. With war looming in the east, the Allies are not quite sure what to expect from the Germans. Tanks are built in Norway, and transports are created in SZ112. Operation Sealion is maybe not out of the picture just yet…
USSR - Stalin, a bit unsure of what to make of German transports, is still playing cautious and continues to build infantry for defense of the Motherland. Though he sees opportunity to prepare offensive forces. Next turn will be telling…
Japan - Imperial forces continue their slog west into China, though with a small setback, it can be seen that they are slowing down. While Shensi was taken with ease, the Chinese garrison in Kansu fights back hard and eliminates all but one advancing unit. The Burma Road is not touched this turn. Yamamoto orders all the fleet back to Japan, where the naval base there expands their options.
USA - Still unable to do anything yet, American forces continue to build up naval forces in the Pacific, and more transports in the Atlantic. Warhawks finally win the day though and, rather than wait for disaster, declare war on the Axis powers! American military might will now be felt next turn, how will Axis forces respond…
China - Encouraged stiff resistance in the north, Chiang Kai-Shek decides to hold positions this round, but bolsters the northern defenses more. Now that the US has entered the war, more Western support can be expected in the form of reinforcements from India!
UK - While American entrance into the war is encouraging, a long road still stands for their English cousins. Positive news abroad in the Empire! French Indo-China and Siam are liberated from Japanese oppression, and naval forces consolidate in Celebes. In Africa, Italy’s east African forces are overrun, but a large threat still looms on Cairo. The home front is the darkest. Defensive forces are prepared in London, hopeful they can hold out until American support arrives. The added German transports, along with the strong Luftwaffe presence, may just be enough to invade…
Italy - While the loss of forces in east Africa is regrettable, Italy overruns Cairo with relative ease! UK incompetence with the dice strikes again. Gibraltar also falls, closing off the Mediterranean to Allied shipping for the time being. But French allies have a better go of it, and hold out in Morocco! This denies Italy an NO, as well as leaves open a safe landing point for hoped for American reinforcements!
ANZAC - Without wanting to commit much until the Japanese show their hand, ANZAC troops consolidate back in Sydney, ready to move out to where most needed.
France - With Italian forces eliminated, French infantry easily liberate Anglo-Egyptian Sudan for their English brothers in arms.
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Hi all! Well, we finally finished our game this last weekend. The ever present long work days and real life make it so hard to play regularly! I’m a paralegal and had to head to LA for 12 days for a trial, so that really put a fork into things as well.
I hate that I’m going to do this, but I’m going to shorten the report now that the game is over (and the turns start to blend together in memory now). In short though, the Allies pulled out the victory!
Germany - The Germans waited an extra turn until turn 5 to invade the USSR, giving Stalin more time to consolidate his forces for the defense of Moscow. While the Germans did make the push all the way to the city gates, Feldmarshal von Bock rushed his attack. The Germans saw the USA closing in, and knowing they had limited time, decided to strike. While the Germans had around 35 tanks, the Soviet hordes had almost 100 infantry stacked in Moscow. Brian (my brother, Axis player) took too much stock in his tanks, and really discounted my having to roll 2’s to hit. The law of averages said that my superior numbers won the day (though I will say I did get lucky with some rolls, killing 40 Germans in the round of combat!)! It was the beginning of the end on the Eastern Front. General Rokossovsky was able to slowly start to push back, retake Stalingrad, and begin the push West. Germany, also irritated by English excursions to Norway, sent too many resources North to retake the precious factory there as well. Germany, in the end, tried too hard to keep naval forces in the West also, thus resulting in too few men in the East.
USSR - Having played a defensive strategy from the beginning, Stalin knew that, despite the extra time given him by the delayed German assault, he was still waiting for that attack on Moscow. Too few offensive units having been built made brining the fight to German soil early out of the question. The massive amounts of infantry were enough to hold back the German attack, and, having 12 tanks and 3 aircraft still available, it was enough to start pushing back with the around 30 infantry that remained. All of the Southern USSR was retaken before Axis capitulation, while Leningrad would have soon fallen in the North. To flip the script, the Soviet infantry in the far East made a bold move and invaded Manchuria. While taking out the few tanks that were there, the Japanese did hit back, taking out 2 of the stacks of 6 infantry, but not being able to get passed the last stack on Buryatia. This was a calculated move by the USSR. The goal was to draw resources away from the Chinese and India in the south and give them time to take some territory back, and it worked!
Japan - Brian was saying all game how much the Chinese were pissing him off. He just wasn’t able to keep them down. It was his eventual downfall in mainland Asia. With British support, the allies kept being able to open little pockets, which helped the Chinese to plant forces behind Japanese lines constantly. It was very frustrating for him! The biggest factor though (and one helped sway him to surrender in the end) was the large naval battles that occurred. The Japanese had two large fleets, one based at the home islands, and one based in the Philippines. It was one of those situations where, both his naval forces combined were larger than my American navy (though not by much, and I kept growing) individually, and larger than a combined British and ANZAC navy based at Dutch New Guinea, but split up they were vulnerable, and that’s what happened. Japan let the Dominion forces build up too strong a navy without punching at it first. The British navy (Pat, my dad) was able to attack the fleet at the Philippines in a heroic suicide mission, do some minor damage to the fleet there. But it was enough, as the ANZAC (also Pat) navy followed up and finished off all but 3 Japanese aircraft. This now left my large American navy of which had 4 carriers completely intact to head to Japan and fight. At this point, we knew the Axis would quit. I would not have made the attack normally, as I was still not QUITE in a position to take on the Japanese fleet, when scrambled fighters and kamikazes were added in, I attacked anyways just so we could see the carnage. In the end, while my fleet perished, all that remained was a wounded Japanese battleship or two. At this point in the game, even if we had still played on, the damage was done and he would not have been able to rebuild economically speaking. Brian said as much after, but he wished he’d gone for the DEI way earlier than he did, the extra money trading sides would have been big.
USA - The sleeping giant was finally awoken and went right into action. I had prepared transports and invasion forces in the Atlantic, and naval combat forces in the Pacific. Morocco and Gibraltar had not yet fallen, so I had quick access points to land in North Africa. Italy, as we’ll see, was actually looking decent in the Mediterranean. He had enough forces to push back my slow movement across North Africa a bit. His navy was enough to make it where I couldn’t just waltz into the Mediterranean. But, as my transport fleet grew at Gibraltar, he didn’t know if I’d strike at Italy, Southern France, or Normandy. In the end, I invaded Normandy with 11 full transports. The absence of any Germany naval forces was the determining factor in that location. After the victory there, and the impending UK landings to reinforce or take Holland/Belgium, was the actually moment Brian said “I lost” and essentially capitulated. In the Pacific, the American fleet was cautious. Again, the two Japanese fleets combined would have taken me out, but the Dominion naval forces being there let us be able to work it in a way that led us to victory.
China - Nationalist forces really were a thorn in Imperial Japan’s side. Japanese forces were strong in the South, but pockets would open in the North, or British tanks punched through on the coast, making the spawning ability of Chinese infantry very infuriating. The Soviet attack in the north helped stem Japanese reinforcements just long enough to allow the combined Allied forces the time needed to take out a sizable force in Szechwan, and then bottle up the remaining Southern forces at Hong Kong and the minor industrial complex there.
UK - As stated earlier, the UK in Europe and Africa did two things mainly. 1) They kept up raids on Norway. I thought it was a waste of resources, when France should have been the focus, but it did keep drawing German forces North. Even though Cairo had fallen, UK forces pushed North from South Africa and West through the Middle East, to strangle the Italians there, in combination with my American push East across North Africa. In the Pacific, the Dominion naval battle earlier mentioned was big. And British ground troops did what was needed in Southern China to help turn the tide.
Italy - Italy was looking strong for a while. Cairo had fallen, an industrial complex built there, and decent naval forces intact. A brutal spot was the Americans making a suicide attack of naval forces and taking out all three Italian transports and supporting vessels in the Mediterranean. Without the wave of reinforcements from the mainland, the minor complex in Cairo wasn’t enough. If they had survived, it might truly have been a bit of a different story.
ANZAC - The lions share of ANZAC support came in the aforementioned Dominion naval battle. ANZAC was left alone for too long to build naval forces, and it was enough for the combined efforts with the UK to take out a good chunk of the Japanese navy at the Philippines.
France - Even worth mentioning? Actually, the surviving two infantry in North Africa were just enough to hold off the Italians being able to easily take Morocco, which instead left a clear landing ground for my US forces.
So that was our game. As I stated in the first post, my brother knows the game, but hasn’t played 1940 a whole lot. The biggest thing for him and my dad are remembering the NO’s. ANZAC was able to accrue 20 IPC’s a turn, when Japan just taking one ANZAC island in the Solomon’s would have cut that in half. Would have made a difference as it turned out with the ANZAC navy. Brian also wished he’d hit the DEI’s earlier. That swing of money also played a difference. He also lamented his attack on Moscow. He wished he instead had just bottled me up there, not attacked, and then put focus back in the West. Would have been smart. He had enough forces where me going on the offensive with so few strong attacking forces would have been foolish. If we’d waited another couple turns, he may have gotten enough troops built to get me, as well as shore himself up in the West more. The Italian’s also had multiple unlucky rolling turns for him, but so go the dice!
Hope you enjoyed. After we finished that game, we started another. Me as the Axis this time. I may do a synopsis of that one as well, whenever it is we may finish!
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Yeah do a report for that one too!
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What an excellent report, you are a grear story teller!
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