@Commando:
Piet Hein,
If the Russian players leaves his inf on the coast for Japan to attack, then Japan should kill all those infantry. I’ve seen Russian players move their 18 Inf to the coast, in hopes of taking Korea and Manchuria. Will all that Japan can get there, they destroy the Russian infantry on Turn 1 and just start moving west unimpeded. Not good for the Russians. Then, they focus their efforts on the UK/Anzac and China and it’s not good for the Allies.
I know, I’ve seen that happen. I usually spread them out on R1 over 3 territories, say Sakha, Buryatia and Amur, and fly 2 planes over to Yakutsk. If the Japs see what I’m doing and reinforce - I do nothing and fly the planes back. If they don’t realise the threat and start moving all their land units out of range, which they often do cause they need them badly in China, and sail south with their fleet, I move the whole bunch in R2 to Amur and if he has even left Manchuria relatively open, because he didnt think you’d risk it with the 10 IPC bonus and all, you can already attack that with the 6 guys in Amur and the 2 planes, that can land in AMur as well.
Now he starts getting annoyed, having to pull troops back that are hopelessly out of range, and if you’re lucky, you can take Korea on G3 with 18 inf and an AA, and the only thing he has in range are planes, which he does not want to lose against your inf and AA, so he waits a turn to gather some meat from Japan, and then you surprise him again with landing planes there from Kwangtung (may have already been captured though) in addition to you Russian planes. If not possible, you can move some US/Anzac planes to Hawaii/Wake on ANZ3 when the US is already at war and they can reach it on US/AZ4
Now its starting to become a problem, Japan’s logistics are getting screwed up, you build an IC and so on
I’m not saying this is a must-use strategy it’s got a whole lot of IFs and if one of those assumptions is incorrect, dont do it. Still, if it works, could be a gamechanger