Just got D-Day, how to balance?

[Little_Boot]

I had recently ordered D-Day, to play with one of my friends, who wants to learn the game, but is overwhelmed by G40. I knew it was axis biased, so I let him play as them, so that it would be a more fair fight (I can beat him consistently if the dice aren’t massively against me).

I got off the beaches pretty quickly, and it looked like it was gonna be an allied win. His blockhouses didn’t do much the first round, hit a couple of units. By the second round, I was fighting in Caen, I would hold it at the end of round 3. All of his blockhouses (the ones that could fire onto the beaches, at least) were gone by round 3. By round 5 I had Cherbourg, undisputed. I had units in St. Lo on round 5 as well.

However, after all of this, I still couldn’t manage to wipe him out of St. Lo by 10. At the end of round ten, I had two tanks in St Lo, he had three and an artillery, which is an Axis win. This surprised me, that I couldn’t get him out of the city in four rounds. He had two stacks of eight in the two territories behind the city, and constantly reinforced it. If I tried to send up troops to lock them in combat, he’d move forward, leaving his reinforcement lines clear.

How can this game be balanced? I think I’d really like this game if it was a fair fight between the two sides, but I can’t really get much enjoyment if it’s that badly axis biased. Someone being able to beat me that I can beat about 90% of the time is bad.

[Gargantua]

Dude, you played 1 game.

Get over yourself, and over the fact that your friend crushed you.

IF ANYTHING this game is Allied Bias.  Clearly your strategy lacked the proper inclusion of Aircraft Cover/suppression since you failed to mention it.

Play 5 more games, THEN decide.

[Little_Boot]

I used my air to block his reinforcement zones, until he smartened up and put some artillery into the central zones. I also stopped some of his tank movements with air power, when I was able to. Perhaps I wasn’t aggressive enough with air power.
Since I am so bad at this, what sort of allied strategy would you suggest?

[allweneedislove]

Don’t be such a contrarian gargantua.

You are right little boots the game is horribly unbalanced in the axis favour. It is so unbalanced you were able to notice it after only your first play. Th#e more you play it the more you realize how unbalanced it is.

Just tweak the rules a bit or use some of Larry Harris’ suggested rule changes to help balance the game.

[Gargantua]

Shouldn’t it read:

Don’t be such a Gargantuan Contrarion?

Just saying.  :P

Nice use of sacrasm here…

You are right little boots the game is horribly unbalanced in the axis favour. It is so unbalanced you were able to notice it after only your first play. Th#e more you play it the more you realize how unbalanced it is.