@rulebook_reviewer https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/31377/axis-victories-what-s-the-magic-trick
It’s already been discussed.
Are bombers broken? : Axis bombers lead to allied dismay.
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AA guns discussed in length (then in length again) here http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=28725.0
My thought: AA guns are OK within their roles, are are worth more than their worth in IPCs only when knowing that you’ll be attacked by 3x or more planes per AA gun you own.
Pretty epic thread. So many fantastic ideas concerning the AA gun. It does need some tweaking, too many arguments not too. For now thought I am fixated on tryin to find a counter within the current ruleset.
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I kind of like the new style of AA guns. I like that they have a limit of only 3 shots or number of planes if that is less. I didn’t like the idea that a single AA gun could fire at all your planes no matter how many you sent over. Also, I disagree that it is pointless to stack up AA guns, especially because of this limit and the growing stack of bombers that one will use in this new strategy.
Say London only has 1 AA gun and Germany sends over 15 bombers. UK only gets to shoot at 3 of those bombers leaving 12 unworried. However, if UK stacks up 5 AA guns and Germany attacks with 15 bombers, all of those bombers will get a shot at them.
Interesting ideas with the Italian units in Russia. I have heard of strategies with the Italians can opening in Russia for the Germans, but never understood just how they could do that with so little available. I guess if you send everything that Italy has and just leave whatever troops are left in Africa to suffer the mercy of the British, then maybe you could do some good in Russia. One thing that probably leads to my confusion is when we play, usually whomever plays Russia tends to stack pretty heavy along the border. While Germany can usually defeat the Russian defenses when they decide to attack, Italy usually doesn’t have enough men and equipment available to even take on one of Russia’s border territories, much less drive toward Moscow.
You mentioned earlier about a stack of German bombers deployed in Asia to help the Japanese. Do you consider, as Germany, those bombers to be pretty much sacrificed? For example, say Japan has a few tanks and mechs in Yunnan. India is lightly defended but they have a stack of 10 infantry in Burma. Now suppose Germany has sent over 8 or 9 bombers. On Germany’s turn, those bombers could blast that stack of men in Burma and totally clear it. Then on Japan’s turn, their tanks and mechs simply blitz through Burma and take India.
That would be a great help to Japan obviously. However, in attacking those 10 infantry with 8 or 9 bombers, if the UK gets some lucky rolls, you could lose as many as 6 or 7 of those bombers. Would that be a good sacrifice for Germany? -
Your not going to build up AAA against a good player without paying for it severely
AAA needs lower cost or more shots or go back to classic
Right now it’s plain dumb to build AAA over other units -
I kind of like the new style of AA guns. I like that they have a limit of only 3 shots or number of planes if that is less. I didn’t like the idea that a single AA gun could fire at all your planes no matter how many you sent over. Also, I disagree that it is pointless to stack up AA guns, especially because of this limit and the growing stack of bombers that one will use in this new strategy.
Say London only has 1 AA gun and Germany sends over 15 bombers. UK only gets to shoot at 3 of those bombers leaving 12 unworried. However, if UK stacks up 5 AA guns and Germany attacks with 15 bombers, all of those bombers will get a shot at them.
Interesting ideas with the Italian units in Russia. I have heard of strategies with the Italians can opening in Russia for the Germans, but never understood just how they could do that with so little available. I guess if you send everything that Italy has and just leave whatever troops are left in Africa to suffer the mercy of the British, then maybe you could do some good in Russia. One thing that probably leads to my confusion is when we play, usually whomever plays Russia tends to stack pretty heavy along the border. While Germany can usually defeat the Russian defenses when they decide to attack, Italy usually doesn’t have enough men and equipment available to even take on one of Russia’s border territories, much less drive toward Moscow.
You mentioned earlier about a stack of German bombers deployed in Asia to help the Japanese. Do you consider, as Germany, those bombers to be pretty much sacrificed? For example, say Japan has a few tanks and mechs in Yunnan. India is lightly defended but they have a stack of 10 infantry in Burma. Now suppose Germany has sent over 8 or 9 bombers. On Germany’s turn, those bombers could blast that stack of men in Burma and totally clear it. Then on Japan’s turn, their tanks and mechs simply blitz through Burma and take India.
That would be a great help to Japan obviously. However, in attacking those 10 infantry with 8 or 9 bombers, if the UK gets some lucky rolls, you could lose as many as 6 or 7 of those bombers. Would that be a good sacrifice for Germany?They are not sacrificed as they can still hit Russia when needed, but they also provide a headache for the allies in the Pacific.
In my test game, I sent 3 bombers (I knew I could spare them as Moscow was falling Italy turn 4 or Germany turn 5) over to Asia, the reason: How many destroyers do the allies need to “block” Japan’s navy, if you have 3 “4’s” rolling against them?
4 Destroyers? or 5? I think 3 destroyers would not be a “good” block as they will hit 1 bomber round 1, the bombers will hit 2 of them, then second round they are “cleared”. If you use 4 and the destroyers only hit once, as long as the 3 bombers hit twice, it is 2 bombers vs 2 destroyers and mutual annihilation “clears” the sea zone for Japan. So 5 would be needed and even then if the bombers got “lucky” and hit 3 times round 1, you had better hit twice with those 5 destroyers….that’s a lot of destroyers to throw away “blocking”. What do they do if they must block 2 or 3 zones? I argue, They can’t!
This is helpful for 2 reasons:
- it can be used to attack India with Japan or the allied fleet after Germany clears the “blockers”
- If the allies leave 4-5 destroyers, you simply don’t attack with Germany, instead use Japanese air and navy to “1 shot” those 4-5 destroyers at a cost of 1 or 2 subs/dds. This forces trades against the allies favor and the bombers remain as “threat”…never used, but remain there to keep the allies “honest”
Note: for land battles, infantry and destroyers hit the same, so this holds true on land as well, to “block” japan’s blitzers, India or China need 4-5 infantry against 3 bombers to keep Japan at bay. (Since Russia goes between both axis players, they can still get by with 1 unit, but they seldom have navy in the pacific to block with so the devastation is still true in the sea).
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By the way, on my first test game, we just concluded round 5 (with the axis), that game will end turn 9 when the axis gather their 8th city on turn 8. After Anzac and France go, turn 5 will be over and I will post the solution. This was just the first test game, and others will behave differently so this game is not conclusive, but how many games end in a Europe VC win on turn 9?
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=31303.new#new
Please wait until the allies have finished round 5 before posting what you think I am going to do.
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I replied on the game thread, but realized you may not get it.
How can you say that so far in advance? Don’t you need Cairo and Stalingrad? Are you going Sealion? London be tough with the allied fleet there. Stalingrad may be a tough battle, but then again if its in danger he can just retreat the Russian stack to Cairo. How do you get to 8 VCs in three turns?
It looks as though Russia messed up early by stacking the Ukraine. You cannot hold the Ukraine, so stacking in Belarus and Western Ukraine is better early, with a fallback to Bryansk. Then at least the bulk of your army is in Moscow. You cannot hold Leningrad- you should retreat from there to preserve your army for later. Russia also did not go for Iraq… why not? This is not representative of strong Russian play.
Japan does not look very strong, not having any of the money islands, but I suppose you are just trying to win in Europe?
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I sent you a private message outlining the next 3 turns, let me know if you agree.
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Thanks.
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I put on a new tread in House Rule 3 posts in reply to the first one in this tread.
My last solution (and not the better one) � :| is to raise back the bomber price to the original 15 IPCs.
But, I think everyone like the 12 IPCs price which give more units on the board.
That’s why I prefer the solutions posted in the HR tread.P.S. I know many prefer to stay inside the OOB rules, but the rules around Bombers (cost+AB move), SBR+interception and AA (vs AAA) has change often during the A&A improvement and maybe JamesAleman have find a blind spot which need some cure.
Anyone an idea on this? Let’s explore it in the Houses Rules tread.
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All interesting points but do you mind taking the SBR and AAA adjustments to another thread. I’d like to see in game responses to this strategy that are being considered.
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I don’t know why so many of you are exploring different house rules when I am pretty convinced that there is a way to beat this strategy, just not discovered yet. It’s not even proven to be even better than the regular axis strategies.
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All interesting points but do you mind taking the SBR and AAA adjustments to another thread. I’d like to see in game responses to this strategy that are being considered.
I didn’t want to derail this tread but point some weak aspects of the OOB in regard of this Bombers strategy.
I moved my posts according to your suggestion.
Let’s have two parallel treads on this interesting topic. Â :-)
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I don’t know why so many of you are exploring different house rules when I am pretty convinced that there is a way to beat this strategy, just not discovered yet. It’s not even proven to be even better than the regular axis strategies.
I don’t know if there is so many. Of course, it takes time to get a full-proof evidence on this matter.
But I find some good defense and justifications of this strategy: JamesAleman and Gargantua seem to me very good advocate.For now, it’s only a working hypothesis.
If anyone interesting on house rule adjustment can discuss it on the other tread. -
Raising bombers to 15ipc would wreck them entirely
Jamesaleman doesn’t seem to confident anymore in his game with allweneedislove lol
Just 1 game tho -
In theory, the limit of this strategy is that it put every eggs in the same basket.
On the long run, almost all of the offensive punch will rely on this massive flying hammer.
It cannot be everywhere and probably cannot be too much split up either.The general response must be a kind of duck and cover until the bombardment pass and there is not enough Infantry units to feed all the front lines. Then all your mass of ground troops can retake the almost barren ground.
Is that true? Isn’t it?
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@Baron:
In theory, the limit of this strategy is that it put every eggs in the same basket.
On the long run, almost all of the offensive punch will rely on this massive flying hammer.
It cannot be everywhere and probably cannot be too much split up either.The general response must be a kind of duck and cover until the bombardment pass and there is not enough Infantry units to feed all the front lines. Then all your mass of ground troops can retake the almost barren ground.
Is that true? Isn’t it?
Its a valid point, but not enough feet on the ground to make the difference for Russia, remember how fast this happens to Russia. Remember implied threat is the factor and if the hammer drops, then yes it makes a difference, but with Germany, the hammer drops every round. You can reach everywhere from Europe with bombers. Britain/Russia/Egypt. Take your pick.
Bombers gotta eat. And when they do, the eatin is good. You never trade down, only up. And you have enough to force the issue. Allweneedislove is an excellent example of implied threat. He vacated Moscow…as have I(repeatedly)…to fight again another day…and that is without the German bombers flyin to Moscow, that is from WGerm/Sita!!! The same bombers that are threatening your fleet in N.Atlantic/Med! The same bombers that are threatening Sea Lion/SBR London. The same bombers that threaten strafe of Egypt. If there was a queen gambit where you could end the game, then sacrificing one of these would be worth pushing the bombers slightly out of theatre for one turn, but still…it would be quite the gambit, and even then, when does Germany truly need to pull the trigger?
I used to think Germany was on a timetable to get the job done, but once Moscow falls…I am not sure the allies aren’t on the timetable now to threat of Sea Lion/Egypt/end of game.
JJ is actually proving his point fartin around in the Pacific.
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This strategy has been tested repeatedly by JJ and myself. We are bringing it to the community asking for help countering it. While the “test game” you are viewing with Allweneedislove looks lopsided, please note that every game mimics the test game now, why not? it is too easy with bombers and literally - no exceptions, so hopefully, you guys will help. I do admit a lack of credence within the community, but after playin JJ for 20+ years, I have learned a thing or 2.
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Thanks Auswanderersland for the details explanation.
It helps better understand this strategy. -
I would like to see how this strategy plays out. James and Auswanderersland, are either of you interested in starting another test game?
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Now I want to try this strategy. I should have tried it this weekend in a face to face game I had. The thing though, I play with relatively inexperienced player so I don’t even know if they would have realized the implied threat of more than a dozen bombers within range.
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