I have read a lot of suggestions for R1. They seem to all say two things: that Karelia is a lost cause because G1 will have it and also to get Uk fighters to Russian aide. If the Uk is busy turn 1 sinking subs with their destroyer and fighters how or when should these fighters transition to Russia. What if West Russia needs to be used for an offensive in R2, where would the Uk fighters land?
I consider myself VERY well versed in this game. Russia can go either standard Infantry/ artillery or 2 tanks/ infantry. Kariella is a lost cause. I tried every conceivable gambit, but soak off against Ukraine with 3 tanks, 2 planes, and rest of Caucasus dumps and kills as many and retreats back to Caucasus. The entire balance of the other forces in range take out west Russia. Each following turn build one tank or more depending on the aggressive nature of German player. In the east, all infantry toward Moscow except an equal number of infantry adjacent to Japanese interests. The reason is psychological, If you have more Japan will feel threatened and attack, if you have less he will feel you are an easy target and kill. Also, don’t put your sub with the UK naval assets, use it instead to kill any German units. The UK force is lost with even light German pressure so don’t add another sub.
Latter keep those tanks equidistant to attack either German or Japanese army units, and control Caucasus at all times. Once its gone, USSR is gone. West Russia/Ukraine are secondary importance.
Thanks for the response. However the question I asked was about getting UK and US fighters into the rescue. I think the only way to get them there safely would be to end R2 with the major force in West Russia (4 spaces from Uk). I think all other spaces would be too vulnerable to loosing that fighter.
I have played take W Russia and strafe Ukraine several time against people and computer. My concern for that opening is the battles, especiallyUkraine, do not have overwhelming odds of success. Typically one of the battles goes okay and the other a little worse. Expecting positive outcomes on both, I find to be foolish. This has lead me to want and try to keep one central Russian force together from the big inning. R1 to west Russia, R2 would likely take it to retake Caucuses, R3 either retake W Russia, or move to Russia. Thoughts on that strategy?
I have a very specific strategy that addresses this, but it’s only applicable/worth doing OOB. In LHTR you have outright better options available to you and in AA-Online (which uses 42.2 as a base) you can’t land FTRs on Allied Aircraft Carriers, so the strategy doesn’t exist.
Anyway, here goes:
Now, Germany can take Karelia under these circumstances if they send literally everything they have from Belorussia/Finland/Ukraine + all of their Air Units, but if they follow this strategy they give up killing the UK Fleet (the one with the BB), Egypt, and West Russia, which gives UK a ton of tools to work with and allows Russia to just do what they’d normally be doing anyway (turtling with INF in Moscow all game). Plus, the odds for the all-in on Karelia aren’t amazing, so if Germany loses they’ll find themselves in decently bad shape.
I’m not going to get into Japan much here because they’re irrelevant to your question.
A1: Whatever you buy/do, at least make sure you wind up with 1 CV/2 FTRs in the SZ off the U.S. East Coast. This is vital to the strategy, do whatever you want otherwise.
R2: Assuming Karelia survived G1, pull everything back to West Russia and retake Caucasus ASAP. As IL said, if Caucasus goes Nazi long enough for them to spawn units there, you’re dead. From this point on there’s nothing special to the Soviet strategy, just don’t die.
Germany will take Karelia this turn. This is unavoidable and trying too hard to hold Karelia will result in you getting your stack wiped out and Germany getting Moscow by G4. You can’t afford to stick your neck out too far with Russia in this edition, as Germany’s starting units are way too strong for you to feasibly deal with for at least the first 5-6 rounds (unless your opponent builds navy or massively overextends).
Again, Japan’s off topic here.
For the rest of the game (or at least until Germany is contained), the flow for your Allied game will be:
Soviets: Defend yourself/control the territories immediately surrounding Moscow. Stack W. Russia and wait for your chance to retake Karelia/Ukraine and regain the initiative.
British: Keep India alive/use your starting Air Force to pick off small German/Japanese stacks. Eventually build up enough of a naval presence in Europe to start landing against Norway/Finland/Baltic States/Karelia.
USA: Do what you can in the Pacific, get Africa back under UK control. Buy 2 FTRs every turn, which will use a two-turn process to get to Russian territory:
Turn 0: Buy the 2 FTRs, spawn them on the Carrier off U.S. East Coast.
Turn 1: NCM those 2 FTRs to the British Carrier in SZ7.
Turn 2: Move those 2 FTRs into Russia. From there, they can act as a massive swarm, picking off increasingly large groups of Axis land units for minimal risk.
Again, this ONLY WORKS OOB. In 42SE, you can’t hold Karelia R1/attack the German Baltic Fleet because you need to attack Ukraine with everything that can reach in order to kill the German Bomber there. In AA-Online you can still use the strategy, but it takes additional investment from the US as they need to physically move the 1st CV they buy to SZ7 (which takes two turns), and build a 2nd CV to park off the U.S. East Coast. Fortunately, ranked AA-Online uses the LHTR so you don’t need to worry about this anyway.
I will be making a second post for what you can do in LHTR. Expect it to be much shorter than this one.
For LHTR, you do not need to continuously pump FTRs into Russia to succeed, as your IPCs are better spent on the following in Europe:
R1: Kill Ukraine to kill the Germany FTR/BOMB that spawn there.
B1: Rebuild your fleet. In the Pacific make sure you send everything possible to kill the Japanese fleet of DEI (yes, you can do that in LHTR. Your odds are really good if you managed to keep the Egypt FTR alive).
B2-B4: Strengthen/rebuild your fleet (if Germany wastes their irreplaceable air assets attacking your fleet this is a good thing, as it keeps them away from Russia).
Once your fleet is setup, start amphib landings in Norway/Finland/Baltic States/Karelia. This is a boost to the UK economy and taking the 3 IPCs in Scandinavia will deny 1 INF/turn to Germany, which adds up in the long-term odds for Russia’s survival. This is better than just chucking FTRs into Russia as it’s more cost effective.
If you absolutely must buy FTRs and send them to Russia, buy them in India and send them wherever you want on the following turns. This way, the FTRs at least serve the dual-purpose of:
A: Defending India against Japan (see my last post for why this is vital).
B: Being able to 4-move to West Russia, Caucasus, Moscow, or anywhere you want, really. With India as a starting point, you can even strafe Ukr/West Russia (assuming they’re German held) while on your way to your destination.
In LHTR, you also do not need to establish the “FTR-Conga-Line” as USA that I described above. It’s still a perfectly valid strategy though. It’s just absolutely mandatory, in my opinion.
My post was referencing 42SE. IN that you cannot risk Russian fighters and use it against the German fleet, you cannot hold Kariella and you can’t attack Baltic states unless you want to lose. I don’t know anybody still playing 1st edition, since they made changes to the game because it wasn’t balanced.
@Imperious-Leader said in Fighters to Russia:
My post was referencing 42SE. IN that you cannot risk Russian fighters and use it against the German fleet, you cannot hold Kariella and you can’t attack Baltic states unless you want to lose. I don’t know anybody still playing 1st edition, since they made changes to the game because it wasn’t balanced.
My post is also talking about 42SE. My first post was for OOB, second was for LHTR. The strategy I outlined in my first post is extremely specific and does not guarantee victory. It only gives you the possibility of it. It will work against mid-level players and the TripleA AI. I used it to go like 6-1 as Allies in AA-Online before they implemented Ranked, and I did it in spite of crappy dice rolls from that game routinely causing me to lose battles I should have won (like 2 FTRs Vs. 1 INF resulting in the INF winning).
I do agree with your other points Re: Russia. Building 1-2 TANKs/turn is mandatory to survive as Russia or you’ll have zero offensive capabilities in the mid-late game.
EDIT: What I was trying to say is that the first strategy will likely not work against League Players (on TripleA/this site) and F2F tournaments (Gen Con/etc.). 42SE OOB is extremely imbalanced anyway, so I don’t know why you’d be playing it at a high level.
EDIT #2: Grammar/Spelling.
ADDITIONALLY: Both strategies I posted assume no bid. If you have a bid available to you, you’re best bet is using them as follows:
OOB: Build extra fleet to UK to kill the DEI fleet B1. This cripples Japan’s options and allows you to spend more money long-term against Germany.
LHTR: Build extra land units as Russia to give yourself better odds on killing the Ukraine stack R1. Winning that battle is mandatory or you will lose.
@DoManMacgee said in Fighters to Russia:
42SE OOB is extremely imbalanced anyway, so I don’t know why you’d be playing it at a high level.
Well the Larry Harris Gencon setup is used often, but i win either way unless Russia does stupid things and loses the plot, or USA starts just building boats and parks them off Alaska and has no combat most of the game.
USA needs to go Island hopping and buy bombers that move closer and closer with each newly captured island.
@Imperious-Leader That’s why I specified OOB. LHTR is pretty good actually. You only need like 4-6 bid for Allies to shore up the odds on the initial Ukraine fight and from there you’ve got even chances on both sides unless something goes screwy with dice in the first round or so.
My initial post was about the OOB rules. I have not ventured into playing the Larry Harris version yet. I am also playing Axis and Allies Online. I found out the hard way that you can’t land fighters on friendly carriers. I realize pretty quickly that the game was stacked in favor of the Axis but am trying to find out for myself to what degree.
@Midwit-player Try ranked out. It exclusively uses the Larry Harries rules, which is 100% identical to OOB with the following differences:
What this does is:
All of these are positive changes that give the Allies much better options against Germany in particular. If you go for/pull off the aggressive opener against Japan’s navy you can effectively neuter their expansion options in the Pacific/guarantee to hold India for at least 4-5 Rounds, if not permanently (just don’t overextend into Burma).
