Hi
Scenarios I talk about: 1940 2nd Edition, Oztea 1941, Oztea 1942 (both based on Global 1940 Board)
In my experience losing a big battle, due to veeeery bad luck of some major mistake made - like not seeing that Allies could send a bunch of flyers into a seabattle also - marks pretty much the beginning for the downward spiral for Germany and/or Japan.
E.g. a loss like a full round of income in fleet, with no real losses for Allies.
Would you agree that after that one scenario usually crumbles slowly? (it seemed like that to me) And either the other scenario outperformes the allies by far, or you can surrender early?
Depends on how the other fronts are going, what survived in that battle, the income the Axis are receiving, etc.
If basically all your attacks went bad, to me you might as well forfeit. We had a game like that a few months ago. My opponent didn’t do anything wrong, he just rolled really bad and I got almost all my hits. After 5 rounds it wasn’t looking good for axis at all. But it depends on what went wrong and what didn’t. A lost attack on british fleet doesn’t mean the game is lost. But an all round bad 1st round for axis…its hard to win imo
it depends on the attacks, if the german does 5 X 80% attacks, and forfeit after losing one of them, then that is the last time I play against this player.
I prefer to play low luck, it will prevent this from happening.
If my opponent does a mistake like fogetting the scramble, i will point it out to him, that way the game can continue, I wanna win by better strategic and tactical play, not by silly misstakes
I think it hurts the Axis really badly if they have a bad first turn and can make it very hard to win against good Allied play. When me and my friend play we play in person and some times the dice do crazy things. If too much of this happens on turn one we normally allow the other person a redo or two because we dont’ want the game to be decided on getting bad luck on your first turn doing standard openers.
We had a game where Germany failed to take Paris on G1 - I think it was a combination of not sending enough units and some bad rolls. The UK sent planes to Paris so Italy also failed to take it. Then France bought some defensive units and Germany failed AGAIN! This time I think Germany simply didn’t have enough to attack Paris with because they assumed that they would take Paris G1 and sent too much other stuff to line the Russian border where it was out of range to attack Paris. However, Germany did enough damage that I think Paris was left with 1 fighter defending so Italy took Paris on I2.
The original plan for the Axis in that game was a sneak attack on Eastern USA by Germany and Western USA by Japan with Italy helping to clear any naval blockers for Germany. Well, the whole thing became a fiasco. While Germany was successful at sinking the Royal Navy and taking Gibraltar for it’s naval base and Italy did clear a path to the Eastern US with what was left of their navy, with Germany not taking France and plundering their treasury, they didn’t have enough money to buy enough transports and equipment for the invasion and the US managed to hold out. Japan did manage to invade Western Canada and even took the Western US, but with the US having two major ICs pumping out units, Japan couldn’t hold on to it.
In the mean time, India, ANZAC and China all grew stronger and Japan steadily lost ground in Asia. Russia steamrolled over the weak German defenses on the Eastern border and the UK quickly confined poor Italy to Europe. Berlin actually fell before Rome in that game.
did this tactic ever work for you - attacking both eastern and western US?
it depends on the attacks, if the german does 5 X 80% attacks, and forfeit after losing one of them, then that is the last time I play against this player.
I prefer to play low luck, it will prevent this from happening.
If my opponent does a mistake like fogetting the scramble, i will point it out to him, that way the game can continue, I wanna win by better strategic and tactical play, not by silly misstakes
I agree with you on your points. One other factor is the ability of the other player. If its just bad luck? Hey, it’s going to happen. That’s why we roll the dice. For me I like the challenge of seeing if I can over come the bad start. If you play into the later rounds I find the dice always even out. Thats why its called the “law of averages” not the “theory of averages”.
did this tactic ever work for you - attacking both eastern and western US?
Yes, one time so far. That Axis fiasco game was the first time we tried it. It went so horribly wrong that our Allied players didn’t think we would try it again. A couple of games later, we did try it again and it went beautifully. The US player was building heavy in the Pacific and staging all the way down by Queensland with the idea of taking back the Philippines and perhaps wrecking Japan’s DEI NO. Japan even bought a naval base on Hainan to feign an India crush and was staging most of it’s navy there.
Germany took France with little problem and killed the Royal Navy without losing too many planes. With the G1 and G2 naval purchases, they were thinking Sealion. Meanwhile, Italy did very well against the British and French in the Med, due largely to the Brits moving most of their navy over to try and protect India. So by I2, they had the Med cleared, most of their navy intact and had taken Gibraltar.
G3 the German navy shoots down to Gibraltar.
J3 Japan moves all their navy back to SZ 6.
With the US still NEUTRAL until it’s Round 3 collect income phase, it is still limited to 52 IPCs to spend at 3 Minor ICs. With the bulk of the US Navy staging off of Queensland and the US not officially in the war yet, they can not use the extra naval base movement so they can not get back to Hawaii, much less the West Coast of US. So, the US does what it can by moving all land and air units it can to Eastern US, plus a couple of destroyers to block the Japanese in SZ 16 and SZ 8. They also purchased 3 fighters to put in E US and tanks in Central and West US.
I3 – Italy clears the way for the German Navy to steam straight to SZ 101.
G4 – Germans hit the beaches in Eastern US. The US had some troops there and several fighters, but 11 transports of men and equipment was too much for them. Washington is in German hands now.
J4 – Japan sends everything to SZ 8 but must stop there to kill the destroyer blocker. Also, land units in the Aleutians just because they were there.
US4 – The US sends everything it has left in Central US and Western US to try and regain capital, but no such luck. The US forces are wiped out. The US masses what’s left of it’s navy off the West coast.
I4 – Italy actually captures Central US with 3 infantry and 1 artillery because there was nothing there to fight them.
G5 – Germany starts to spread out in North America taking Canadian territories from the British. With plundered US treasury and much higher income, Germany buys many tanks for use against the Russians. Russia has not attacked the Germans because border territories for Germany already stacked too heavy. Russia feels that while attacks may win, they wouldn’t be left with much. German fleet prepares to head home and get ready for real Sealion.
J5 – Japan now hits US West Coast. HUGE naval battle. Japan loses nearly half their navy wiping out the US fleet, then transports unload troops onto empty Western US.
US5 – the US fleet from Queensland finally arrives and throws itself at the remnants of the Japanese navy. The US fleet is wiped out and the Japanese fleet survives with 2 carriers and 2 battleships, all damaged.
Ever since that game, any of us that play the Allies are more cautious with US builds, especially if it looks like Germany is going to try for Sealion. The US no longer commits itself totally to the Pacific. There is always some units built on the Europe side, even if it’s just infantry.
Well the USA shouldn’t have sent the fleet down to Queensland before being in the war. I used to do that (in anticipation of Japanese attack) but it is better to stay in Hawaii, even if you have no fear of an attack on the USA by Germany/Japan.
IMO you should not consider too much what happened in that game because moving the USA fleet down to Queensland, sounds like, made the whole thing even possible, and that shouldn’t have been done.
I like the options that the US fleet in Queensland give you. However I could see how a smart player could just put a blocker between Hawaii and Queensland and wreak havoc before you even have time to do anything.
Well when you move down to Queensland and you’re not guaranteed that the USA will be at war on the next turn, you’re taking a risk and giving your opponent the option.
Yeah, I think you are right. Staging the US fleet off of Queensland does kind of play right into this strategy.
You see, taking the US fleet to Queensland actually did the US player very well in previous games where Japan did everything to NOT bring the US into war as long as possible. So basically the US had 3 rounds to build up and by round 4, they have a sizeable fleet down there along with transports and men. So it was easy for the US to take back the Philippines and either keep Japan from getting the DEI or take one or more of those islands back. Also, they end up either trapping the bulk of the Japanese fleet down south around the DEI or over toward India (if Japan was going after India) or up in SZ 6 where they end up doing no good in protecting Japanese possessions.
The bad part, as you guys have pointed out, is it assumes Japan will NOT go straight after the US. It works pretty good if Japan busies itself with China, India and perhaps ANZAC, although with a huge US fleet massing off of Queensland, I imagine Japan would want no part of ANZAC, but if Japan can pull off an attack directly against the US/North America, then it does leave the US fleet dangerously out of reach.
The US would usually not care if japan goes directly for north america since the US can drop a large load of units in west US and/or central. Japan losing the DEI is easily worth the allies losing alaska n western canada.
