Well well well somebody finally did sea lion first turn and Germany pulled it off. Funny how it wasn’t tried before or sooner. A few later turn tries got blocked by a weather event card or
an AA gun defense was rolled good with a NA radar @3 instead of a @2 for UK.
Plus Germany got Wolf Pack Tactics and Manstein’s Panzer Blitz NA’s which would help with more convoy raids and Russian attacks. Germany received 48 Icps from UK and UK’s capital went to Ottawa and Quebec received an upgrade minor factory to 6.
So that delayed UK 2 turns before they could start doing something with the USA planning and building more on Europe side. In the mean time Italy was doing a good job in Med. based not much UK pressure after turn 2 but UK did get some good naval rolls there.
Double click on pics to blow up.
Here is a picture below of Germany after there turn 2. They took Scotland and for the next 3 turns UK US went back and forth taking back London until the allies finally secured London. The allies did finally make a huge landing in Western France but Germany was able to take it out with there planes and Germany’s good play south way in Russia to force Russia to split some of there ground units to help defend Stalingrad.
So on the Pacific side ( pic below ) Japan and US doing there thing and in this pic below it looks like Japans fleet is split and of course Japan is going for the oil islands for the extra money they need to help towards an axis victory.
What happen in a few turns later the Japan fleet did get together and the US fleet moved to Java sea zone while Japan’s fleet moved to inside sea zone of Malaya and Borneo to protect some oil money islands and then the US fleet attacked the Japan fleet based the allies needed to deny 2 victory points for the axis controlling Singapore but ended up losing the naval battle along with Japan mostly but Japan could recover faster based on making decent money from oil islands and US spending more on Europe side ( sea lion ) with really no US fleet built at San Fran.
This next pic below shows Russia now Taking back Stalingrad and some ground moved out to help retake back Stalingrad again if Germany counter. But they didn’t. Italy moved there ground between the 2 Russian ground troop groups and Germany moved some units there with them.
And also the allies have control of London.
This pic below is at the end of turn 5 and Russia did attack that ground troop force ( off the map on a task card ) where the 3 SS Panther tanks are left. Russia retreated to Moscow with all his tanks to help defend and left Germany with those 3 tanks and not in pic yet the Russian figs landed in Stalingrad to help defend that too on any axis counters. Also in this pic Germany attacked all those ground units in Western France but not in pic. But if you look at London there is no ground units.
So after 5 turns the Axis had 29 points but Japan would get 2 more and Germany would hold Rostov to win the game with 31 points. 30 need for the win.
In this pic below is Pacific side at end of turn 5. As you can see on next turn Japan can get all of China for another victory point and get Sumatra for another victory point and also axis be pretty close to another axis victory point for total axis income.
So it was a great game and to finally see what would happen with a sea lion and to make any tweaks. Just going to take 2 ground from Scotland and move them to London on setup.
Its nice to see that yes Japan needs to help also with Italy mind you to win the game.
With Germany making good ground moves in the south with some Italy ground ( which has to stay south in game ) prevented the Russians to do any really counter attacks.
Also Germany did finally get to influence Spain late in game to help counter the allies landing and with Italy backing that up with ground units.
Russian held its own again and only game out there where Russia can hold Moscow based on some German play and or Stalingrad. Were seeing stuff in those 2 city’s that I’ve never seen before in any game. ( might be one out there ) But hey you got to stay on your toes as Russia.
A minor mistake then will cost you the game. So that’s that.
Oh by the way IL’s walking dead Bunker in Germany never got in game.
General 5 stars ( SS gen/GEN MANSTEIN) out !!!