3 Realities of 1940

[JDOW]

Hey PainState. Welcome to the forum, glad you found the community.

Regarding your realities, frankly, all 3 of them are wrong/irrelevant.

Italy and Anzac are scanvengers and dirt-eaters for Germany or USA. None of them is decisive or the key to the game.
Obviously it is better for the Allies to get Italy down and to keep more workload on the Germans. But there are plenty of ways the Axis can win the game even if Italy was taken down to very low income.
If the Allies invest too much in getting Italy down, the Germans are not distracted enough

Japan is obv. one of the 2 major Axis powers so playing the accurately is certainly essential for the Axis but if there is ONE key nation for the success I would say it is the Germans.

If I would have to name 3 realities I would name the following:

1. The German Russian front is all that matters. If you want to be successful with the Axis, make sure you play hard against the Russians and break through Bryansk South as fast as possible. For the Allies sz110 is the key factor to win because it stretches the German attention in the opposite direction of Moscow.

2. Keep Moscow and India safe. IF Japan wants India no matter the cost, they’ll get it but you need to keep the price high. Getting India must force Japan to lose air and/or to bring the fleet out of position. If Japan gets India without making any concessions, Allies are in trouble.

3. There is NO such thing as a hammer head strategy the Allies can crush the Axis. Well played Axis simply cannot be crushed early with extreme strategies. Even if USA plays 100% Japan, they can hold the position for a while and in the meantime the Germans will go crazy.
The Allies kill the Axis by the 1000 bites tactics like Ants kill an animal 100 times their sizes.
Split your fleet, play the fleet bold, make landings here and there, stretch the Axis attention, try to reuse transports (that’s why 110 is so important!), invite the Axis to attack your fleet or your beachhead even at overwhelming odds IF this diminishes their power against Russia or India.

[Cow]

When I first started doing J1 DOW, I won a bunch of games in the Pacific and USA put all of its income in the pacific by round 3 or 4. Japan can ramp up really fast especially if it takes UK pacific out on round 3 or 4, it is really easy from there on out.

[Cow]

Honestly, I been seeing lots of USA all in the Atlantic lately and it has been a bunch of free wins for me. They think, yay at war thank to japan DOW 1, go atlantic. They send like 10-20 guys to Norway and take Normandy or something. what I do with Germany is rounds 1-4 I buy everything I need for russia (mechanical inf and armor) because I see USA is buying transports left and right.  itally just buys inf/arty to defend the homeland so Germany can get the most going to Russia.Yeah you can land and take away Norway/Normandy for awhile, but Germany still stacks up to Russia and gets the cash flow.

[oysteilo]

Interesteing posts.  Personally I think most people underestimate ANZAC.  Anzac is KEY to prevent a Pacific win for Japan.  If you don’t believe me, try buying a minor in Persia with anzac,  It is such a powerful experiment explaining why anzac should stay in the Pacific and nothing else.

[Cow]

Yeah when I see USA full Atlantic usually Anzac has lots of inf stuck there. Force me to go Hawaii for win take over Africa and Siberia.

[The Skipper]

@WILD:

Nice post Skip, and welcome to AA.org. I like to read game reports like this, especially from players just getting started with G40. I assume that you have purchased the G40 2nd edition that has the latest rule set. I just wanted to point out that the USA can’t upgrade the Southern French IC to a major, and for example they couldn’t build a major on Norway either. The only territory any power can build a major IC on is their own original territories (not islands) worth 3 IPCs or more that have their flag printed on it. So it would also be illegal for Japan to build a major IC on Manchuria because it is an original Chinese territory (although Japan starts the game with it). Japan could however build a major on Korea if they wanted too.

Good gameing

Thank you WB, I should have known better.  You are correct I have G40 2nd edition, as this was a recent purchase.  I remember reading this point in an earlier thread when I first got the game and getting familiar with this rule set compared to Revised while looking at various Forum topics.  My Allies opponents asked the question of completing the upgrade knowing you need to be at least a 3 IPC for a major, not clicking that this also has to be an original territory.  I tried to talk them out of that anyways in the 20 IPCs would be better spent for 1 D and 2 SS for Pacific as Japan monster was growing and their U.S. transport conveyor to Europe was securely established.  They could still safely shuck 8 units across the pond + 3 build in Southern France, and use remaining spend for Pacific build that needed to start.  They wanted to shift the transports over to Pacific, of which I said it would be too late and of no benefit.  By the time they got there, they conceded realizing Japan could not be stopped from eventually taking Hawaii, even if U.S., shifted all its spend over at that time to Pacific since Japan income was already in the 80’s and it’s fleet/air already outnumbered U.S. in theater.

[majikforce]

@JDOW:

Hey PainState. Welcome to the forum, glad you found the community.

Regarding your realities, frankly, all 3 of them are wrong/irrelevant.

Italy and Anzac are scanvengers and dirt-eaters for Germany or USA. None of them is decisive or the key to the game.
Obviously it is better for the Allies to get Italy down and to keep more workload on the Germans. But there are plenty of ways the Axis can win the game even if Italy was taken down to very low income.
If the Allies invest too much in getting Italy down, the Germans are not distracted enough

Japan is obv. one of the 2 major Axis powers so playing the accurately is certainly essential for the Axis but if there is ONE key nation for the success I would say it is the Germans.

If I would have to name 3 realities I would name the following:

1. The German Russian front is all that matters. If you want to be successful with the Axis, make sure you play hard against the Russians and break through Bryansk South as fast as possible. For the Allies sz110 is the key factor to win because it stretches the German attention in the opposite direction of Moscow.

2. Keep Moscow and India safe. IF Japan wants India no matter the cost, they’ll get it but you need to keep the price high. Getting India must force Japan to lose air and/or to bring the fleet out of position. If Japan gets India without making any concessions, Allies are in trouble.

3. There is NO such thing as a hammer head strategy the Allies can crush the Axis. Well played Axis simply cannot be crushed early with extreme strategies. Even if USA plays 100% Japan, they can hold the position for a while and in the meantime the Germans will go crazy.
The Allies kill the Axis by the 1000 bites tactics like Ants kill an animal 100 times their sizes.
Split your fleet, play the fleet bold, make landings here and there, stretch the Axis attention, try to reuse transports (that’s why 110 is so important!), invite the Axis to attack your fleet or your beachhead even at overwhelming odds IF this diminishes their power against Russia or India.

When a league legend speaks, you listen!  Follow these principles to get wins.  :wink:

[PainState]

Well when talking about realities of this game. These are just top level ideas to formulate a plan of attack. It also depends on your point of view.

Looking back at the 3 realities I posted they make perfect sense from a Allies POV.

Looking at JDOW’s 3 realities they make perfect sense from a Axis POV.

Regardless of your POV there are 2 BIG realities of the game that can not be denied.

#1 The Russian Front is the most important aspect of the game. Which ever side prevails has the upper hand and then 2-3 turns later the losing side most likely concedes defeat.

#2 Japan based on how well they are doing seriously dictates the response from the Allies, mainly the USA.

So, you could say that Germany is the driving force in the entire game. IF they are doing well in Russia then the Allies are forced to deal with that threat, how ever they can. Which then opens up Japan to go crazy and seal the deal, so to speak.

Some could argue that Japan is the driving force in the game and puts the Allies in a pickle on how to stop a ever growing Japan that is pulling in 70+ IPC a turn, thus allowing Germany to focus almost 100% on Russia.

BUT

These are just top level Realities of the game. You then need to develop strategies and turn by turn tactics to stop these 2 realities from happening for the Allies to win.

In the end the Axis powers are the driving force in the game. The 2 realities of the game, as laid out above, are the context of the entire war. How do the Allies stop them from achieving these overall goals?

[Omega1759]

@JDOW:

Hey PainState. Welcome to the forum, glad you found the community.

Regarding your realities, frankly, all 3 of them are wrong/irrelevant.

Italy and Anzac are scanvengers and dirt-eaters for Germany or USA. None of them is decisive or the key to the game.
Obviously it is better for the Allies to get Italy down and to keep more workload on the Germans. But there are plenty of ways the Axis can win the game even if Italy was taken down to very low income.
If the Allies invest too much in getting Italy down, the Germans are not distracted enough

Japan is obv. one of the 2 major Axis powers so playing the accurately is certainly essential for the Axis but if there is ONE key nation for the success I would say it is the Germans.

If I would have to name 3 realities I would name the following:

1. The German Russian front is all that matters. If you want to be successful with the Axis, make sure you play hard against the Russians and break through Bryansk South as fast as possible. For the Allies sz110 is the key factor to win because it stretches the German attention in the opposite direction of Moscow.

2. Keep Moscow and India safe. IF Japan wants India no matter the cost, they’ll get it but you need to keep the price high. Getting India must force Japan to lose air and/or to bring the fleet out of position. If Japan gets India without making any concessions, Allies are in trouble.

3. There is NO such thing as a hammer head strategy the Allies can crush the Axis. Well played Axis simply cannot be crushed early with extreme strategies. Even if USA plays 100% Japan, they can hold the position for a while and in the meantime the Germans will go crazy.
The Allies kill the Axis by the 1000 bites tactics like Ants kill an animal 100 times their sizes.
Split your fleet, play the fleet bold, make landings here and there, stretch the Axis attention, try to reuse transports (that’s why 110 is so important!), invite the Axis to attack your fleet or your beachhead even at overwhelming odds IF this diminishes their power against Russia or India.

Very well said. The Allies usually win by losing inconsequential battles and preventing / delaying consequential ones.

[IKE]

@The:

U.S. got a foothold in southern France and upgraded to a major

I didn’t think you could build majors on a non-original territory.

Edit:  I see someone else already addressed that.

What is GHG’s Middle Earth strategy?

[GeneralHandGrenade]

It’s detailed in this thread and associated videos, IKE;
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=39611.0

And no, US definitely can’t upgrade the Southern France Complex.

[Caesar-Seriona]

I don’t think even France could upgrade it to a major.