Hello,
I’ve been following the interesting discussion of Allied strategies from
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/40354/allied-playbook-g40-collection-of-essays-compiled-by-jacobgeo24-nov-18-19-2023/86
and would like to see the groups’ Axis response to the following Russian T1 tactic:
I normally play G40 BM games, and recently played against an unusual variation of KJF strategy. Bid unit of 1 inf placed in Yunnan. Others were in SS in Med and Atlantic --mostly unimportant for this discussion.
For Russian T1, they declared war on Japan and moved 1ftr + tac from Moscow to Yunnan.
1 tank + mech crossed the border, but can’t get to Yunnan T1.
At this point, I thought, no problem. Sure, the Japanese will have a bad go of it, but the Russians just gave up 21 IPCs and their best defenders. The Germans will roll on Russia. My G1 buy had been 6 art + 2 inf to begin the Crussia strategy anyway. The battle with all Japanese forces that can make Yunnan T1 was 85 -15 favorable battle. Probably lose a plane or 2, but Japan has to engage that battle, right?
Of course, at this point, the game went very south. The Chinese defenders obliterated me. The 1 in 6 chance of losing the battle happened…worse I didn’t even hit a Russian plane! The loss of planes + bombers on J1 doomed the Japanese position and the Chinese ran rampant for the remainder of the game.
This got me thinking about this Russian tactic.
First take = I would not want to lose 5 games in 6 because without these defenders, Moscow falls easily (G6 -7) and that can be devastating to the overall game. So bad tactic.
But can I improve upon it? A typical BM bid ~13 IPCs, so buy 1 Chinese inf + 1 Russian ftr. Now the battle is 50-50! And IMHO, the problem now becomes one of “gamesmanship”…if I’m playing against a better player than me, then a 50-50 battle that may decide the game is probably a reasonable choice, and gets to the crux of my question:
What does the Japanese player do in this situation?
A 50-50 battle that should lose planes to take Yunnan with at least 1 land unit and could be a devastating T1 loss is a very hard choice to make.
I would expect an alternative is stack Hunan / Kwangsi and take down Yunnan J2?
But (and this is where I feel like this tactic has real merit) the Chinese are now an offensive threat with 3 artillery and 5 extra inf (since Yunnan was not attacked). The Russians planes can return to Moscow when necessary, and it moves the Turn indicator 1 full turn to allow the Brits into the game.
Heck, if the Allies wanted, they could throw the kitchen sink into Yunnan (Brits declare war+Russian mobile units) and the battle becomes 85-15 winner for Japan, but they lose ~ 2/3 of their air force and -100 TUV battle, sounds like a very Pyrrhic victory.
The whole point of bid units is to have an immediate impact T1 and hopefully keep them around for the future. This bid seems to do that.
I guess an alternative strategy is J1 DOW, which was quite in favor for OOB games, but not in BM 3/4, but even in that scenario, the Chinese will probably rage and the Russians will return. A KJF strategy at that point would probably work and although Moscow will fall, the rest of the world against the Germans should be enough to win.
Interested in hearing from the group.
I am pretty sure I know the opponent in question, as it was done to me quite recently. I did the full attack, came out clean with above average dice for the Japanese.
And i have a game going in OOB where I had my bid as you describe - inf in Yunan, fig in Moscow. The Japanese player left Yunan alone, did not JDOW. We are only on I1, so hard to judge yet.
To start with just the Russian air in Yunan - average losses for a successful attack if you went with 4 inf, 1 art, 1 fig 1 tac and 2 bombers is 4 inf, 1.5 air.
That is heavy for J1. Kwangsi is not easily reenforced at the beginning of the game. In BM, with the guerrilla rule, the loss of the inf plus the loss of 1-2 air is a huge early hit on japan. Russia can be made whole in its defense with UK help, as long as the Allies act accordingly in a coherent strategy. UK1 DOW on japan
would not, in most circumstances, be advised in this case, as it does permit japan to hit the money islands without worry of US intervention. But its a threat that Japan can not ignore, and will dictate some of its movement.
Now, with the extra fig, the odds of Japan winning drop to 66%, with heavy air casualties guaranteed. Not a good bet on J1.
I have been pondering this since it was done to me and i decided to try it myself.
I think the best general strategy for the Axis against a bid that telegraphs this move would be to set up a G2 DOW on Russia on G1, not attack Yunan J1 but position your units to hit China hard on J2, all along the front, but particularly threatening Yunan. And NOT JDOW1. Most if not all the airpower directed to this area. Give the allies a choice of abandoning Yunan to get the Russian air back to the eastern front, or committing to China, and giving the Germans an easier time to get to Moscow.
Still pondering how italy helps, because you need to consider UK1 Taranto, gibastion, or india fleet. But I would think it has to be aggressive to either Egypt or Gibraltar to keep the British pressured; I would think pressuring Egypt would be best, to keep a persian factory from building fighters to send to moscow without worry, but I am not sure.
In the OOB game i am trying this allied tactic, the italians attacked the french fleet with 55% odds, southern france, greece, and the gibastion fleet with 51% odds. Battle score not yet determined. Effects of the overall strat will be hard to determine from this example, as it is OOB and the G1 buy was a dark skies purchase.
I can only speak for OOB. Recently @farmboy and @Arthur-Bomber-Harris used this strategy of bidding a Russian fighter and Yunnan infantry and beefing up Yunnan. Both games were won by my opponents as I did not revise my strategy based on what they did and I performed my normal J1 DOW. That proved to be problematical. I have since realized that if the Allies stack Yunnan as described the key for Japan is NOT to do a J1 DOW. With the added Russian presence if Japan DOW’s on J1 then UK joins in and Japan cannot get Yunnan ever; which is a disaster.
By waiting to DOW Japan can bring everything to bear against Yunnan and force the Chinese and Russians to pull out. While waiting to DOW is beneficial for the Allies, at least this strategy allows Japan to get Yunnan under control which is paramount. Japan is behind but not out.
From these experiences, as the Allies, I would certainly use this strategy and Bid as it definitely hurts Japan in the Pacific for a mere $13 in Bid money.
@AndrewAAGamer I absolutely agree the inf + fighter is a great use of $13 and Japan should not attack Yunnan or DoW on J1 unless you are going against a superior opponent. In that case I think you need 2 extra Russian fighters in the bid to discourage a Japan-Yunnan gamble attack. The ability for Japan to retreat after the first round of dice rolls tilts the math to favor the test of Lady Luck. I certainly would try that against you if you were playing Allies!
Holding Yunnan on J2 is nearly impossible unless Japan goofs, but with improper Japan play China can hold it on J3. A few art in Siberia forces Japan to reinforce Manchuria, leading to the potential to have the Allies plan to stack Yunnan during the second turn. Hence 35 PUs bids spent disrupting the Japan opening.
@Arthur-Bomber-Harris in my current game against @MrRoboto, while I did not DOW, I did make the Yunnan attack. Unfortunately, Japan only got 2 hits while the Allies got 3 so I had to pull back. However, there is a 50% chance that Japan could have won that battle. I think it was @oysteilo who consoled to make the attack and see what the dice are for the first round then continue or retreat. I think that is good advice.
I agree with you that against a weaker player I would want 2 additional Russian fighters for the Bid to avoid this contingency.
Agreed. Perhaps you can add that to your warfare principles. From personal experience (I don’t play with bids so can’t comment on the beefed up version) I can say that if the Soviets intervene heavily in China, Japan is definitely at risk of losing their ground on the continent (doubly so if the UK intervenes early).
I’ll definitely try this strategy.
My next game as the Allies I’ll have a 14 IPC bid. Hopefully even without an artillery in the Far East the fighter and infantry purchase will work.
Thanks all for the replies!
So a follow on question would be, is this an optimal use of the bid?
I suppose that is too broad of a question. To narrow it, assume
A) a BM3/4 game where bid is 13, so that this would take the entire bid.
B) evenly matched opponents.
@surfer top value is a fighter in Scotland. It preserves one of the fleets and can be used in the UK1 counter strike. Probably adds 25 TUV of benefit immediately on turn 1.
For 3 PUs, you can gamble on a Yunnan infantry if you are going against a better foe and need dice on your side. Against equal or inferior opponents, an inf in Africa will help swing the tide of a battle there.
This gambit is actually quite good if you look at it.
With low luck you would trade air for air with japan having the more expensive units lost.
If a dice game its also japan that will lose the more expensive units and slowing them down.
The UK fleet is funny to have but it cant go anywhere so it will be destroyed G2, so well sure you got a fleet and you can move it for 1 turn.
You already won the med anyway so this move will slow down japan and with them slowed down US can go a lot heavier into the european side of the board.
Going for the true and tested strategies all the time makes the game more of a predetermined chess match.
Well, my N=1 attempt at this bid failed spectacularly. I bought 1 ftr for Moscow and 1 inf Yunnan. With the expectation of R1 moving 2 ftr + 1tac to Yunnan, I decided I would have to scramble on an G1 air attacks. I got good rolls and took out 5 ftrs losing 3. Everywhere else Germany
did very well, and my home fleet went to the bottom.
Japanese decided to attack and killed 6/8!! My return fire was 2/8. Next round eliminated the remaining 2 ftrs, but they did hit as they died. TUV change = +33 Axis (expected -9).
Of course, this was extremely bad luck/dice. Even 2 more hits would have at least traded 3 ftrs for 2. But it was the aftermath that really gave me pause for this gambit. In the Med, without an additional unit (sub) to attack SZ96 and wanting to setup for Gibastion, I was forced to attack with ftr + tac and hope for 66% chance DD misses…it didn’t.
So I’ve moved to SZ92 with fleet. But protecting Egypt will be difficult (again bid unit in Africa usually helps here). Russia is weakened considerably. China has a little boost because the 4 hits killed the land units so they have artillery, but little top cover.
I don’t like these quick holes created in the Allied lines if the 50-50 goes bad, and as @AndrewAAGamer pointed out, because the attacker gets to decide if the battle continues, it’s not really 50-50.
A second Russian fighter bid makes it very unfavorable for the Japanese to attack Yunnan on J1. There is a fair chance that Japan would lose a plane during the first round of dice rolling so not worth trying to see what happens with Lady Luck.
@Arthur-Bomber-Harris Agreed. Adding a second ftr so that you have 3 ftrs + tac makes this gambit into a much stronger defense. IMHO, the whole point of the bid is to just deter, the Japanese from attacking. I want the artillery bonus and keep the Yunnan troops. I can position a large land force in Szechwan to continue to gain Yunnan bonus and stop any Japanese expansion to Burma. The Russian help will soon melt away and help deter the Germans, but that is fine as the point was to delay so the US can get involved.
So in OOB with bids ~ 60, it would be a useful tactic.
But I generally play BM4 games, and the bid is around 12-15. No second ftr.
I guess I need to play OOB…
@surfer said in Japan response to aggressive Russian T1? G40 BM4 or possibly OOB:
I guess I need to play OOB…
YES!!!
That’s why I like low luck. I like predictability with dice.
@SuperbattleshipYamato even with low luck, Yunnan attack on J1 still is a gamble when reinforced with 2 russian fighters and a tac. Hardly changes anything in the strategy.
As a relative novice player, dice games gives you a better chance of winning. Maybe that attack on Mosco on turn 6 goes egregiously wrong and you pull out an unexpected win. With Low Luck, many of your games are probably decided by turn 4 as there is no coming back from strategic blunders.
I meant low luck would’ve made the Yunnan Japanese victory in Surfer’s game not as one sided as it was.
@SuperbattleshipYamato Perhaps, but I find that low luck really changes game play in a manner that benefits expansion over defense.
Regardless, I didn’t like this gambit with just 1 ftr buy for Russians. The main thrust of the bid/ play IMHO is to prevent the Japanese from even trying to attack because they would be wary of the downside. That is not accomplished this way.
@Arthur-Bomber-Harris
Low-Luck is good for trying strategies as you dont have luck to factor in but for real games its rather boring. You can just calculate the optimal attack force and you can calculate if you can move forward or not.
With luck there are some variations that might throw a wrench in your plans.
Though luck should be limited imo so that there are no extremes happening.
What would happen if you combine OOB the 1 fighter for russia with a more agressive mech-arm + air move into china from russia and a UK1 attack/DOW on japan.
If you can grow china at the start it can become a real pain and both anzac and UK got good income to challenge japan on the waters. Leaving the US free to build up a force to attack germany as soon as its free.
Yeah, you’re right.
