Capturing Tokyo after sea battle

[Smack]

After axis Tokyo player left Tokyo empty my US fleet destroyed IJN leaving an opening for my transport and 1 inf  from Borneo to waltz in and capture Tokyo. My question is since this was not mentioned as an amphibious assault my opponent says I can’t do this. I say I am simply now conducting an additional attack on the island with my transport and infantry. Which is correct?  Thx Smack

[Argothair]

You have to declare all of your attacks at the same time, before you roll any dice. If you go to fight the sea battle, and it happens to go well for you, you can’t see that the battle went well and then decide to grab Tokyo because it’s suddenly open. This rule applies regardless of whether Tokyo has any infantry defending it.

However, there’s no rule saying that you have to “wait a turn” between destroying a fleet and capturing a territory. If you’re willing to risk the transport, you can always move both your fleet and the loaded transport into a hostile sea zone, declare an attack on both the fleet and the territory, fight the naval battle, and then immediately fight the land battle if you win. If your opponent literally has no troops defending the territory, then if you follow this procedure, you would automatically capture the territory.

Does that help?

[Smack]

That makes sense Argo. So because the transport did not accompany the fleet attack they can’t follow up and landin Tokyo. I come to this conclusion because they remained in Borneo during sea battle. One more ?, could they move in Tokyo on NC move or I must wait another turn? Thx

[Argothair]

Exactly, that’s correct.

And, no, you cannot capture a territory on your noncombat move, even if the territory is totally unguarded. The most you can do on noncombat is move your transport (with or without troops) to join up with the rest of your fleet.

Good questions! It sounds like you are getting the hang of the game.

[taamvan]

One sub point that Argo didn’t mention is that if you commit the transports to the attack, and the naval battle fails, that the whole surviving group retreats together, with the land units stuck on the transports until the next turn.  This makes them very vulnerable to being destroyed, which makes this type of combined sea/amphibious attack high stakes.

This is also why you have to commit to the battles at the same time; not only does it keep the flow of play clean but it also forces you to analyze all the risks you are taking at the same time.  Reshuffling your unit allocations in other planned battles after the first combats are seen is also a no-no, though in a friendly game it is ok to make some revisions.

Still, since you can choose the order you fight battles in, this can be helpful.  You can see the outcome of 1-2 big battles, and then know whether the smaller battles are worth fighting to the bitter end, whether its more important to take the territory vs just clear it.  You do have to fight at least 1 round of combat for every declared battle, my point is that gaining certain information as to the outcome of one important battle can be instructive of the need to fight other battles to their bitter conclusion or withdraw early.

We fight in this order, not sure if its required in all versions by the letter of the rules, but it can make the game have a cleaner flow…

Declare all combats, unit buy is sealed and cannot be changed after we begin to do;

1. strategic bombings in any order then
2. sea combats without land element in any order
3. sea combats with a landing in any order
4. land combats in any order
5. don’t do any noncoms zero zilch none until now because it keeps the separation of turns and moved units cleaner I realize its tempting…

lots of teams only have 1-2 combats to declare per turn so focusing on doing all your combats first (and ignoring units that will noncom) is also an easy way to keep your mind focused on one task at a time;  things that fight get committed first and everything else can be contemplated at length after combats are resolved.