This is a thread for posting your hard luck stories in A&A.
It is multipurpose. Misery loves company. This can be a place to go after enduring a disappointing dicing, so that you can remember that you are not alone. We all love competing, and this includes having the worst bad luck story, so this is a bit of a competition as well.
I’ll kick off.
The most memorable bad dice battle I’ve had was in AA50. I attacked 3 USA tanks in CUS from WUS with Japan with 13 tanks.
All 13 of my tanks missed. All 3 of his hit. (Order was restored after that)
That’s 16 coin flips going against me all at once, 1 chance in 65,536.
That’s a 0.0015% chance.
I also got hit by 4/5 AA fire in AA50 with UK attacking 2 German territories. That was all the air I had, so my attack power for future turns was decimated. Fortunately my opponent continued to make bad decisions and I won anyway, but I remember this dicing.
Those aren’t very good stories because they didn’t even cost me a game. I’m sure you have endured worse (as have I, but I don’t remember EVERYTHING).
So…… tell us how you were horribly diced. And let this be a rest haven for war-weary A&A aficionados who’ve just been handed their butts by the hardest opponent ever. The dice.
Stickied by request.
I’d tell tales of woe about how bad the TripleA dicey was with AA guns, but it seems it has gotten significantly better (no longer getting close to 100% accuracy anyway!)
It’s not so much WOE but my title under my avatar is there for a reason. I have yet to engage in a naval engagement where all the calculators say I should lose and not come out miles ahead. I do attribute a lot of it to luck, but I also think the calculators don’t adequately take into account many of the choices that can be made during the battle so I am not sure if it is “dicing” or if it’s “skill.” I would like to apologize to just about every person I have ever had the ecstatic, orgasmic experience of scuttling their fleet in these games over the past few years! :evil: (Yea, Flames of Europe, AAMC, Frood, TripleA, etc, etc, etc not a one of them ever comes close to actual results when I engage fleet on fleet. Small battles sure. Large ones? No way! Off by 2 or 3 dozen units left!)
Well, I do have an anecdote of getting diced badly and it cost me the game.
Attacking Bryansk vs. Allweneedislove.
49 infantry
4 mech
8 artillery
2 fighter
1 tactical
vs.
19 infantry
4 mech
5 artillery
12 tanks
2 fighters
6 tacs
2 strategic bombers
Round by round. Should be able to get into the tanks/aircraft before retreating.
42% chance of actually destroying everything and winning.
Round 1,
I score 11 hits (average is 14.5)
He scores 22 hits (average is 20. Both bombers hit with 1’s)
My odds have gone from 42% to 5% and that’s with him saving bombers
Round 2,
I score 5 hits (average is 10.8 )
He scores 18 hits (average is 16.3)
I lost 40 infantry
He lost 16
Anything in the top 80-85% range of results would have been good enough for me, but at the crucial time I rolled this stinker. :-)
In one of my first games of Axis & Allies revised, I was Germany and I was attacking the Caucuses and the Russians shot down all 3 of my attacking fighters with his AA. :-P That made me scared of attacking a place with an AA gun with air units for a long time.
Yeah, that’ll make you gun shy!
Here’s a couple, both involving Germany attacking Moscow.
In one game a little while back, Germany came at Moscow with 2 fighters, 2 Stukas and 2 bombers. Russian AA got FIVE 1s.
In another game, Russia stacked up the infantry and had about 60 infantry, 3 artillery, 2 mechs, 2 tanks, 1 tac and 4 or 5 fighters all on Moscow. Their factory was maxed out in damage and they had so little territory at this time, they could no longer repair their factory or buy new units.
After two large German attacks consisting of all types of land and air units and one Italian attack consisting mostly of tanks, mechs and planes, the Russians still had 1 infantry left. After all that attacking, Germany and Italy couldn’t even get through the Russian infantry.
After that, Germany and Italy both had to go on the defensive as the US and UK were making their presence felt. The Eastern Front sputtered and died. Not sure if the Axis were getting bad dice rolls, the Russians were getting good dice rolls or there were just too many Russian infantry to wade through but that eventually cost the game for the Axis.
Here it is - 98% battle. And yes, I manage to lose almost everything. I had an art and 2 bombers left.
The Calc.
As Boldfresh famously said a couple of years ago, before we were playing with Triple A…
“2 percenters seem to happen an awful lot in this game” (meaning A&A in general, not that specific game)
2 percent on each end of the probability distribution adds up to 4%. Could be top 2 % for you or top 2% for him, so 1 in 25 times you get a “2%” result
In one of my first games of Axis & Allies revised, I was Germany and I was attacking the Caucuses and the Russians shot down all 3 of my attacking fighters with his AA. :-P That made me scared of attacking a place with an AA gun with air units for a long time.
Sick - In a board game against my brother two weeks ago, they shot down both my bombers - and then rolled 5 for 5 inf - TWICE.
Btw, welcome to a fellow Numenorean!
Probability % # units / losses
0.04% 14: 4 Inf, 2 Art, 4 Fig, 4 Bom. 1 Inf. : 3 IPCs
0.46% 13: 3 Inf, 2 Art, 4 Fig, 4 Bom. 2 Inf. : 6 IPCs
1.38% 12: 2 Inf, 2 Art, 4 Fig, 4 Bom. 3 Inf. : 9 IPCs
3.86% 11: 1 Inf, 2 Art, 4 Fig, 4 Bom. 4 Inf. : 12 IPCs
8.4% 10: 2 Art, 4 Fig, 4 Bom. 5 Inf. : 15 IPCs
14.46% 9: 1 Art, 4 Fig, 4 Bom. 5 Inf, 1 Art. : 19 IPCs
17.86% 8: 1 Art, 3 Fig, 4 Bom. 5 Inf, 1 Art, 1 Fig. : 29 IPCs
16.58% 7: 1 Art, 2 Fig, 4 Bom. 5 Inf, 1 Art, 2 Fig. : 39 IPCs
14.18% 6: 1 Art, 1 Fig, 4 Bom. 5 Inf, 1 Art, 3 Fig. : 49 IPCs
9.76% 5: 1 Art, 4 Bom. 5 Inf, 1 Art, 4 Fig. : 59 IPCs
5.98% 4: 1 Art, 3 Bom. 5 Inf, 1 Art, 4 Fig, 1 Bom. : 71 IPCs
3.18% 3: 1 Art, 2 Bom. 5 Inf, 1 Art, 4 Fig, 2 Bom. : 83 IPCs
1.46% 2: 1 Art, 1 Bom. 5 Inf, 1 Art, 4 Fig, 3 Bom. : 95 IPCs
0.68% 1: 1 Art. 5 Inf, 1 Art, 4 Fig, 4 Bom. : 107 IPCs
1.72% 0: no units. 5 Inf, 2 Art, 4 Fig, 4 Bom. : 111 IPCs
Odds for having 2bmb and 1art left or worse is 7,04% actually, even though you have a 98% win chance ;)
Good point, Rommel!
If you retreat before you lose all your units, you didn’t really put the win% to the test!
In a game with Dizzkneeland, I attacked London for the win with Germany with 98% odds of victory and lost. It was the end of the game.
In a game with Gamerman, he sunk the italian fleet in one roll and in return I got 1 hit. Later in the game I attacked Gamerman’s soviet stack of 20+ infantry in Leningrad with a stronger German force and got ZERO hits the first round. Game over.
In my last game I played as Japan.
The attacking force (ANZAC): 3 FTR
The defending force (Japan): 2 DD, 2 damaged BB, 1 CV + FTR.
Japan won that battle with 1 damaged BB left…
OFC even with this kind of ‘dice-swinery’ the ANZAC worsened it defense of Sydney to be unrepairable so I just muttered a bit about sacrificing goats to the dice-gods knowing Sydney was lost anyway but still… the swinery…
In my last game I played as Japan.
The attacking force (ANZAC): 3 FTR
The defending force (Japan): 2 DD, 2 damaged BB, 1 CV + FTR.Japan won that battle with 1 damaged BB left…
OFC even with this kind of ‘dice-swinery’ the ANZAC worsened it defense of Sydney to be unrepairable so I just muttered a bit about sacrificing goats to the dice-gods knowing Sydney was lost anyway but still… the swinery…
Thats one in 200 chance for only one bb left, and for anzac even to do such an attack they had to be real desperate.
Thats one in 200 chance for only one bb left, and for anzac even to do such an attack they had to be real desperate.
If someone would do such a move in TripleA and post that outcome, I would have really strong doubts about honesty and number of re-rolls he did…
Not in my wildest dreams I would dare such a move!
Playing as Japanese, I had a sub get attacked by 1 battleship, 2 destroyers and a cruiser. Sub sank all of them. My friend left the table and went for a walk.
On a side note, the same friend seems to get the worst luck whenever I play with him. Once, he sent all of Germany’s troops from Holland/Belgium and from West Germany to Paris…
And he failed to get a single hit on his first rolls, where-as I got every single roll a hit.
Then, in the same game, he attacked Hong Kong with 2 fighters, 2 tactical bombers, 6 infantry, 4 artillery, plus a battleship bombardment. He lost everything without causing a single casualty. Anyone know the odds of that happening in thee same game?
Those are some of the worst dice ever, Kurt. Those are impressive anecdotes.
You guys do know that subs defend on a “1” and not a “2”, right? :wink:
Yep, we were rolling for 1’s. He must break a lot of mirrors or something… I actually apologize now lol.
Thats one in 200 chance for only one bb left, and for anzac even to do such an attack they had to be real desperate.
If someone would do such a move in TripleA and post that outcome, I would have really strong doubts about honesty and number of re-rolls he did…
Not in my wildest dreams I would dare such a move!
That is exactly what I was anticipating with ‘my’ Japanese. And I don’t think my opponent was that desparate, he simply is not that great with statistics and always hopes for the best…
Actually this happend on the second game we played that day. The first game I surrendered after my Germans had ‘won’ the battle of Paris with only 1 ART (I attacked with everything Germany can get there minus all the aircraft: 38 Attack factors), thus lost an additional 6 ARM + 2 ART + 4 MECH more than the ‘expected’ outcome.
Now that I know this particular opponent a bit better I think I should have continued playing with still a good chance to win because I won the second game by taking Moscow with 50 units after which he surrendered.
