I have twice within a period of two weeks attacked Japanese-held Yunnan (containing three units) with six Chinese infantry and the fighter (99% according to the simulator) and come away with almost complete destruction of the Chinese infantry stack. (Incidentally, it takes I believe 9 attacking infantry to turn that battle into a 100% battle for China).
That’s pretty horrible and probably the worst dice I’ve ever personally experienced.
Marsh
I will share a tough luck experience for my buddy whom I was playing against. He was attempting Sea Lion on G3 with 7 fighters, 5 TB, 2 SB, a Battleship, Crusier and 4 TTs, carrying 4 infantry and 4 Tanks. I had 5 AAA, 4 Fighters, 1 tank, 1 TB and 18 infantry. The odds were slightly in my favor, but the first wave of rolls didn’t help his chances. I had only 1 hit on 14 tries with my AA and he hit with both ships, but then he only got only 6 hits with the rest of his attack. On my first roll with my 18 infantry I got 10 hits! We were both shocked. I then got another 5 hits with the rest so 15 defensive hits to 8 offensive. Statistically it should never have happened. I wiped his ground forces and more than half of his Luftwaffe and left him badly crippled. The US and Russians were entering the next round so it was pretty much a death blow.
What he should have done (but I never pointed it out to him) was land in Scotland so he could essentially double his landing force and buy a few more bombers. Even with me getting an extra build to defend, I think he would have probably had a 75-80% chance of success.
Edit - I ran the numbers and he would have had an 80% chance of winning if I buy all infantry and 92% chance of winning if I buy 4 infantry a tank and a fighter and he buys 3 more bombers.
@jscam74 Funny how those 0% likely results happen a lot! The Dice Goddess is a fickle one.
LOL @MarshmallowofWar
Reminds me of a quote - many years ago - my best A&A gaming buddy said…
“One percenters seem to happen a lot in this game”
Yah ain’t seen nothing yet though.
Being that the whole “Italians are incompetent” joke goes around, well its reality.
Was doing well in North Africa with German support as Italy ready to invade Egypt against a moderately sized British force but one that wouldn’t stand a chance to what I had to bring.
Began the battle, right off the bat missing EVERY landing shot from my cruisers and battleship, and in the end getting wiped by the British. Like, the dice rolling was so bad it wasn’t even a joke at that point and here I was waiting for Larry Harris to tell me “Its just a a prank bro.”
This was actually in Axis and Allies Classic (MB / 1980s) so I do not know if I may post this here but:
Battle for Moscow
Six german planes
AA gun fired (one hit per attacking airplane)
Result:
4 ones = 4 planes hit
Before…
After…
Battle in Eastern Persia
British attack with 1 armour, 2 bombers, 14 fighters, 2 infantry and 5 mech_infantrys
Germans defend with 2 armour and 15 mech_infantrys
British roll dice for 1 armour, 2 bombers, 14 fighters, 2 infantry and 5 mech_infantrys in Eastern Persia, round 2 : 7/24 hits, 10.00 expected hits
Germans roll dice for 2 armour and 15 mech_infantrys in Eastern Persia, round 2 : 11/17 hits, 6.00 expected hits
5 mech_infantrys owned by the British, 7 mech_infantrys owned by the Germans, 4 fighters owned by the British and 2 infantry owned by the British lost in Eastern Persia
British roll dice for 1 armour, 2 bombers and 10 fighters in Eastern Persia, round 3 : 4/13 hits, 6.83 expected hits
Germans roll dice for 2 armour and 8 mech_infantrys in Eastern Persia, round 3 : 7/10 hits, 3.67 expected hits
4 mech_infantrys owned by the Germans, 6 fighters owned by the British and 1 armour owned by the British lost in Eastern Persia
British roll dice for 2 bombers and 4 fighters in Eastern Persia, round 4 : 5/6 hits, 3.33 expected hits
Germans roll dice for 2 armour and 4 mech_infantrys in Eastern Persia, round 4 : 3/6 hits, 2.33 expected hits
1 armour owned by the Germans, 2 bombers owned by the British, 4 mech_infantrys owned by the Germans and 1 fighter owned by the British lost in Eastern Persia
British roll dice for 3 fighters in Eastern Persia, round 5 : 0/3 hits, 1.50 expected hits
Germans roll dice for 1 armour in Eastern Persia, round 5 : 1/1 hits, 0.50 expected hits
1 fighter owned by the British lost in Eastern Persia
British roll dice for 2 fighters in Eastern Persia, round 6 : 2/2 hits, 1.00 expected hits
Germans roll dice for 1 armour in Eastern Persia, round 6 : 1/1 hits, 0.50 expected hits
1 armour owned by the Germans and 1 fighter owned by the British lost in Eastern Persia
British win with 1 fighter remaining. Battle score for attacker is -114
Casualties for British: 1 armour, 2 bombers, 13 fighters, 2 infantry and 5 mech_infantrys
Casualties for Germans: 2 armour and 15 mech_infantrys
What should have been +27 resulted in a -114, nuts! @Giallo
@windowwasher damn, thats a good one
What should have been an 100% outcome ended in a 50/50 situation.
Either you hit or not.
Examples like all these should make us aware while playing, that every single battle could go south and that we have to put it at least in our considerations.
And have a solid Backup plan when things are not going as accordingly.
Ticap
I thought I had a good story and then I read some others and realized this is nothing. I’ve had crazy odds ofc but this one really hurt me. First game trying out the cruisers with 2 AA shots and after a very successful Taranto raid and not much of a Italian counter, the UK is set to clear out the med round 2. But both of the cruisers AA shot a hit leaving the UK with no planes or a single fighter in the med with Germany poised to do a Sealion where there’s only 2 fighters in the UK. This is why you buy heavy for London UK1. The Allies lost pretty bad because Italy took over the Med quite well and Germany easily took London G3.
@windowwasher UK was too air heavy, which meant a bad dice roll would adversely affect UK more than Germ, as UK had much more TUV at risk. UK only had 8 ground units, so a modestly favorable G dice roll could have destroyed all its ground units on the first dice roll. Why risk expensive planes against cheap mech after that first round? If you wanted to take the territory, it would require taking a plane as a hit to save one ground unit. Without knowing the circumstances, I’d still say cut your losses. Your fighters were attacking at 3 against mech defending at 2. If you retreated, your fighters would defend at 4 and mech attack at 1. G might have planes or other units for offense that might offset that somewhat, but cut your losses.
@fmerwinrommel I needed to clear out his ground units, he could have hit my factory with those and his airforce. By clearing them, I could leave the factory unguarded and use the troops and planes on another landing. I was winning the game and was comfortable taking the risk.
@fmerwinrommel said in Hall of Shame - tales of the worst dice ever:
@windowwasher UK was too air heavy, which meant a bad dice roll would adversely affect UK more than Germ, as UK had much more TUV at risk. UK only had 8 ground units, so a modestly favorable G dice roll could have destroyed all its ground units on the first dice roll. Why risk expensive planes against cheap mech after that first round? If you wanted to take the territory, it would require taking a plane as a hit to save one ground unit. Without knowing the circumstances, I’d still say cut your losses. Your fighters were attacking at 3 against mech defending at 2. If you retreated, your fighters would defend at 4 and mech attack at 1. G might have planes or other units for offense that might offset that somewhat, but cut your losses.
Absolutely correct – yet another instance of not having enough infantry.
The calculator is correct – the odds of winning the battle are accurate assuming that the dice fall as average, but you also need to look at the TUV cost. It should have shown that UK was going to spend a lot more taking the territory (or clearing) then the Axis was going to lose on defense.
Marsh
This isn’t a big one, but it’s certainly a new one:
1 destroyer and 1 submarine (both American) died trying to kill a German submarine, which survived. The transports had to retreat.
Sorry about replying to the original post-I meant to create a new one.
This is another that although not a major battle was quite devastating because it was so early in the game–and also odd, because the bid placement hurt me.
Bid: somewhat standard SS in SZ110 to help fleet + ftr in Scotland.
G1: Elects to forgo SZ111, and doubles down on SZ110 : 2 SS+ 1 BB+ 2 sb + 4 ftr + 3 tac
No scramble, as I’m fine with losing the fleet since I should be able to counter-attack his remaining fleet.
This is where it gets nuts…
All German navy misses.
All German air hits
UK all miss (not overly excited about that since very possible to hit only 1x which with BB is unimportant–but it adds to the tale of woe…)
So because only air hits, the bid unit 1 SS survives! Germany says thank you for that and decides to retreat all navy to SZ112. Battle over.
44 IPC kill, no losses, and German navy (bought 1 more SS) has 4 SS, 1 BB, 1 CA in SZ112 and a lot of air (bought 2 more sb).
The “defense” of the SZ111 fleet was meaningless because with all the subs and bombers, there is nowhere for the UK fleet to run and is eliminated G2.
Allies now had to expend an inordinate amount of resources to establish control of the Atlantic and the game went down hill from there.
Amazing. What else is amazing is looking back, I can’t believe I read through the entire conversation back in the day (that’s a lot).
@surfer thank you for sharing.
@surfer and then the dice lords decide to poop on you in virtually every other battle in the game. I have never witnessed such consistently bad luck from the server in my entire play history. One bad outcome can usually be overcome, but the avalanche of unfairness kept coming and coming.
