L24 BM4 Playoff Semi-Final Adam514 (Axis) vs Gamerman01 (Allies+22)

[gamerman01]

Maybe one of these days crockett is up to interviewing us, if you’re still up for it when the time comes.
It would be the first time we’d have both players in the interview along with @crockett36 is quite good at reviewing.

There were several highlights in the game as there always are in a competitive game of A&A

Off the top of my head, from my side they included,

1. Bottom 4% chance on Paris G1, 6 tanks survive. Any worse than that and the dice would have maybe even decided the game on G1. That would have been unfortunate.
2. German (mostly or all) air attacks on the Allies went fantastic the whole game. In my opinion that was really a killer.
3. J1 took a few extra hits that might have been critical. Every infantry counted in the India crush, which had to be called off, and probably not by much. Several things had to happen in the first couple rounds for me to even have a chance. One was Japan taking a few hits, especially J3 attacking Java. Those ground units threatened India and Australia at the same time.
   This is one of the points in the game where I think I would have lost quickly if it went a little differently.

[gamerman01]

4. I had the chance to wipe all Italian can openers and even shut down the North Italy factory at the same time. The US bomber failed in the 80% shot on an Italian tank.
5. German airstrike of 95, as partly listed in #2, was devastating. 3 planes less than average lost.
6. In one of the few, what I would respectfully call, weaknesses in the Axis game was Italy’s attempts in Africa, BUT would have ended the game I7 if a bomber/tank could have succeeded against 2 2’s. But they didn’t, and I had to play 7 more rounds.

[gamerman01]

7. ANZAC7, the 3 Italian ground can openers were all killed with only the loss of 1 ANZAC plane. Again, breathed new life into my doomed game and helped me survive 7 more rounds

I pretty much stopped keeping track of dice by this time because the first several rounds matter so much, what happens after that is really only important because of all that had happened before that. That’s how I look at it.

One other highlight is how Egypt had to be evacuated before the Germans even got there, I think because I went for 112 and the US planes were needed in Egypt. But. I wouldn’t have held Egypt long anyway.

MAYBE if before playing G15 you got drunk, fell, and suffered a significant head wound I could have taken Berlin for a turn, but I’m not going to make it play out until then after the disaster in Kenya that would have kept me alive a bit longer.

So… good game, I apologize for delays but I need time and energy to play big moves. You do have 4X as many BM games completed as I do (THERE’S an excuse) but now, more than your rating and record,
I am above all impressed by your speed.

[gamerman01]

It was really fun to play you, just a lot of work like all games against good/great players are.

Either you or farmboy will win your respective 2nd championship, so that is cool.

Farmboy is going for back to back!

Is going to be Adam Axis vs farmboy Allies? Probably!

[Adam514]

Good game!

If your targeting of the Italian can openers had worked, that combined with the low amount of remaining German land units would have made it quite hard to get through Russia.

German air got good results on attack, but on its few instances of defense they got caught lacking.

My money is on Axis for the championship game!

[Adam514]

I’m up for the game discussion.

[gamerman01]

Thanks Adam, as usual your few words go a long way. I wish you two a fun and long championship game

I’m glad I can let you know when Randy talks to me or both of us about the review

@crockett36

[farmboy]

this was an interesting game to follow. And I don’t think I’ve often seen a game like this. The stats are worrisome for the allies. But Germany is denied Caucasus and volgograd and the soviets are pretty strong. Japan is dominating but there is no real danger of a pacific victory any time soon. Congrats to both of you and looking forward to the final!

[gamerman01]

Well said, and I’m thrilled you paid close enough attention to the game to comment,

I couldn’t deal with losing Africa that quickly (good dice in Kenya would have slowed it down a couple turns though I anticipated a reload at West India and a naval base, or just a German overwhelm)
Or Europe getting to the point of being easy to defend.

Where I had hope:
I thought the Japanese fleet was going to dominate and a few rounds ago I told my self that I can’t win the game unless the USA is able to get the upper hand AT SOME POINT

I was surprised that I found the USA actually could compete earlier than I thought, but I couldn’t keep up with the race for income worldwide.

Russians might have possibly cut the fast Germans from the slow for a very long time, and the Indian stack moving to help block off the bottleneck. I’m sure Adam had great plans to take care of all these things, but this is what it looked like from my side of the table.

I don’t have much experience with games 12+ rounds. So I discovered the power of Greece out of necessity with all other landing places walled off. For me it was mainly as an airbase in the middle of the theater where planes were going to be able to reinforce Moscow, Normandy, and even Norway in a single turn. It’s not just about a beachhead and a factory and trying to push an army where Germany can’t easily get to.
Now I know.

I’ll leave most of my thoughts for the hopefully to come game review with Adam online, especially so I don’t say too many foolish things about my great plans that he could demonstrate how he was going to easily stop.

But finally I’ll just say that what happens after the first few rounds are largely depending on those few rounds, that is, they decide the course of the game.
In my view, I was playing catch up the entire rest of the game after the very successful G4 air raid on Z95. That was a very deciding battle in my opinion.

Against 95% of other players I would keep going and waiting for the crack. I just set up a pretty good attack on Berlin that would have been easily countered with a wave of 10 ground on Berlin, but there is a chance lesser players would miss that or some other things. Also, hard hitting attack possibilities on the West coast thanks to the airbase on Greece. German/Italy income increasingly hampered by subs newly added, but after 14 rounds with Adam I knew it would just be a really long exercise in futility because like I suffered with @Pejon_88 and @farmboy , the Axis reached the point where they could easily be defensive and not lose the game (with experienced and expert play that all 3 have).

The Allies have to prevent the Axis from getting to that point. I’m kind of late to the party after only returning moderately the past 2 years, but demonstrated 3 times it is crystal clear. My Axis game should be strong again after experiencing 3 thorough demonstrations.

And I have to acknowledge again that I7 the game would have been over immediately with average dice on Italy taking Egypt but I got lucky.

I’m really happy to have so many fantastic and experienced G40 players here all in one place.

[gamerman01]

I also want to acknowledge that as I recall, after a perfect India crush set up (that was hampered a little by J1 dice)
India was doomed even with ANZ 3 fighters that were sent immediately (and I think I managed to get the Singapore army to help out)
It was just a matter of how many Jap planes would be lost.
I could argue that the attack should have been made, I’m sure Adam went back and forth (right?)
But Adam knew he didn’t need to take the chance there because he is a greater player than me, not a lesser. A lesser would have taken the shot and with a little dice assist I would have been in real trouble (if the lesser player were actually to set up a perfect India crush like that)

In other words, I nearly lost in round 2 or 3, and I nearly lost in round 7.
And there might have been another near death like these, in fact, I think Russia was in very real danger although I stumbled on a way to slow the advance by maybe even 2 turns.