Heavy Bombers

[SFC_Case]

The World at War expansion packs reads that a player can only stockpile two heavy bombers, but they can be rebuilt. we argued for two hours last night on wether this means you can only have two heavy bombers or can only build two heavey bombers a turn. As a defender and attacker utilizing heavy bombers i believe the rules mean a player can only have two heavy bombers in play at one time. My roommate believes it means you can have as many bombers as you want but only buy two each round. considering he was Russia and Britain was bombing germany every turn for an average of twenty dollars a turn, (it was ugly, UK had two heavy bombers, and rockets, as well as four normal bombers. Germany had an AA gun in germany but had moved the rest to cover the russian front) it seems normal that when UK announced he was buying two more heavy bombers Russia that it was great. Japan, US, and Germany all said the rule only allowed two heavy bombers period. We comprimised and rewrote the rule to say you can only purchase or arm two heavy bombers a turn, but you could hold their attacks and eventually attack with more than two heavy bombers. this is what the UK did and when they invaded germany softened up the ground troops by hitting them with twelve heavy bombers of which ten made it through.

My question is does anybody else have the problem and are there sites that have rule errata that anybody knows about. We have decided as group to get a consensus of the the members at AA.org to determine the future of heavy bombers. Please respond.

[UKcommander]

I don’t know because I have never played the World at War expansions. However, once one of my more daring friends ( :D ) had heavy bombers and he built as many as he wanted. He won the game like that :D. Sorry I couldn’t be of more help :(.

[Guest]

I believe in World at War its only two at a time. However, a general problem I have with World at War rules is they are very vague. It says Russia can invade and thus conquer any Allied territory without being at war with Britian as long as it isn’t SAfr,India,Austrailia,Canada etc. However, does that mean they can do the same with US territories? And though it says Allied(Britain and the US) cannot occupy the same territory with Russian units can Allied forces hold a Russian territory that is unoccupied by Russian forces. My normal World at War strategy was to get the Uk into Scandavia and ultimately hold Karelia without any Russians there so Russia could concentrate all of its attention to the South in the Ukr and Cauc region. IMO 2 HBs aren’t worth the investment of developing them especially because once gained any nation can have them for 10ipcs. In the games I played with these rules Industrial tech was a biggie, and once one of the Allies got it Russia would spend 10ipcs to get it and build inf for 1ipcs each. Even if Germany spends the 10ipcs as well it doesn’t make up for this Russian advantage. Russia could have as few as 20ipcs yet build as many guys as Germany with 40ipcs.

[SFC_Case]

Industrial tecj is big one i will admit. 1 IPC inf for russia is incredibly dangerous, but only one other tech interferes with a player’s IPC and that is rockets. Even the total war economy adds only 12 ipc per turn. Heavy bombers are too much of a balance shifter for them to be unlimited. It would be like deploying four fully loaded carriers and a battleship. At that point your navy would rule the seas unless a few unlucky dice roll end up sinking your fleet for you. However it was decided last night after Russia physucally threw Germany into a snow bank, that at least as far as our house was concerned, only two heavy bombers may be armed a turned regardless how many you have. However waiting two or three turns to use four or six in one shot was allowed. this evened the game out a bit until 'Murika, yours truly, rearmed heavy bombers for six turns and then wiped Japan off the map with them. I not only wiped out Japan’s bank but also destroyed his fleet and invaded from Alaska and Manchuria. Pow Pow. I would still appreciate any comments about the use of heavy bombers however.

About the russian thing. our impression was that Russia never liberates it only conquers, also it never lets any other units into territory it controls or has troops in, except with permission from the russian player. unfortunately our regular Russian player fancies himself a new stalin and denies us access to any russian territories about 50% of the time so when he does and asks to land a bomber in Britian or a fighter on my carrier of course we have to let him or he just seals his borders and nobody passes in or out and on occasion he has actually invaded into north america because i sacrificed three russian armor moving through an asain territory america controlled whe japan attacked it. the territory fell that turn but because i used his armor to take the first attack roll instead of my fighter he felt justified in declaring war on america.

[Guest]

First off five or seven player games are a terrible barometer for gauging the effectiveness of strategies. In order to determine what works or doesn’t you must play 1 on 1 with someone as good or better than yourself. Additionally, the W@W rules state the Russians cannot occupy the same spaces as Allied forces but also cannot enter a territory they occupy in order to expeditite their removal. When Russia does enter an Allied occupied territory battle results. When the Allies enter a territory with Russian forces they are removed and the Russians gain 1ipc per unit I believe.

You really didn’t answer my claim that Britain pooling their forces in the Russian Northern territories is an effective way to keep Germany slowed down or out of Russia entirely. The reason why HB’s ought to be unlimited is because tech often represents a last ditch effort to win. Therefore I rarely tech because as the Allies I rarely have to since W@W is very unbalanced against the Axis. In the games my group played we eliminated the 10ipc tech trading meaning if you wanted it you had to develop it, and because of this it was easier to have HB’s be unlimited. As I said before my typical Allied strategy was to have Russia and Britian do the fighting with America giving lend lease and teching. Eventually, I’ll get IT and then its fairly simply for Russia to win.

[SFC_Case]

This is fine and well in theory and if you are playing one on one. there you have the opportunity to have your forces working with only one goal in mind, your goal. they cohesion well and support each other logically but in a multi-player game situations arise that require a quick change in plans. I have seen games where the British player sends his forces into Karellia only to the Russians write it off as lost because Japan is marching into moscow from the backdoor. i have also seen the UK and US player losing territory right and left to the axis only to have russian armor and infantry retake the territory.

I don’t really care if there are unlimited heavy bombers, but in my case i have rarely been on the recieving end of said bombers. I do believe however that there should some restriction on how many are brought to bear at any one time. Because i know from watching others, there is no enjoyment to the game if you can’t do anything but plop an inf down on your capitol and wait for the enivitable while your opponent cleans up the rest of the board. and isn’t the point of the game to have fun? Just like in rpgs and other strategy games if a rule seems to be broken one way or another, fix it. Who’s going to care?

The british in karellia is a good idea but very rarely have i seen it played out, instead most of my experence as the british is mostly in holding india and retaking africa. But in this i may be wrong, but holding somebody elses territory while your own falls seems to be shooting yourself in the foot. a better way to defend karellia is maybe have the US player build fighter in the eastern US and send them into karellia as defenders. That allows the british to concentrate on africa and asia.

[Guest]

The problem with using 5 player games as the basis for your arguments is they too often assume weak play. If even one of the Allied players is not very good then it ruins the game. However, if you were to play myself and my friends, you and yours would find it impossible to win with the rules as is because we would work together, and the scenarios you describe with Russia wouldn’t happen. Don’t use inferior play to make assumptions that shouldn’t be made. In fact when we played I usually played Russia and took over as many neutrals as I could while scooping up the undefendable islands in the Pacific like Philly, Borneo, EI, etc. This may hurt the western Allies slightly but it serves the greater good. Further, when Russia is attacked the US always gave all it’s income to Russia for lend lease. If it all got through and Russia picked up a good number of British/American/French territories they could build around 40inf on their first turn at war. Good luck dealing with that!

As for actual strategy it is a good idea for the Brits to concentrate on Scandanavia. Africa only constitutes 9ipcs of their income, Asia 8, Oceania 5. Losing all three would hurt to be sure, but in reality I will trade 1 or 2 regions in order to hold just one. Often this results in Britain pulling out of Asia in order to hold Africa. At the same time if the Brits take Norway, Finland, Sweden, Ireland and Iceland they pick up 8ipcs to make up for the loss of Asia. If Germany concentrates on Africa they will never be able to take Russia and will lose the game. In actuality I’ve never seen the Japs attack the West prior to turn 3 so that gives the Brits time to garrison forces in Scandanavia prior to the Jap attack, and if Russia takes Burma and Sink it could easily be turn 4-5 before Japan takes India. Also, the effect of such moves must be considered and often I found that when the Brits did this it almost always forced the Germans to attack Russia before Germany was really ready to do knowing that if they waited the Russians and Brits would be too well entrenched to ever dig them out.

All in all playing Russia aggressively in Sink and Tsinghai and Britain aggressively in Scandavia/Iberia almost always forced the Germans into war with Russia by turn 3 and Japan into war with the US by turn3 which was way too early for their attacks to be successful, and ultimately they lost.

[Erwin Rommel]

When I play Japan, I always attack Hawaii on first turn. I haven’t lost yet, either. Then, second turn you can move up to Western US which means the US can’t put ships in the pacific since it is an enemy occupied territory.

[SFC_Case]

While it is quite true that you cannot deploy into enemy held sea zones there is nothing stoping the US from sinking your fleet with bombers and fighters. Don’t forget the eastern US either. And if the UK has the resources and the factory then a British fleet sitting in India would assure that Japan keeps it’s fleet where it belongs, in the Japanese waters. I too tried to hold the western US waters when playing Japan and found the my fleet was overextended a better place to park your fleet is midway, that way you get a chance to attack to the US fleetas well as quickly respond to any incursion intot he home waters.

[Guest]

Unless you go after the island territories you will never have enough Ipcs to take on Russia when turn 6 rolls around. Also, China can become a real problem, but even more so if the Russians get heavy into China. If you overplayed Japan against the US turn1 then I would definately have Russia take Tsinghai, and maybe Russia could even get into SChina as well.

[Erwin Rommel]

Well, what I try to do is destroy the Western US before turn 6. The last game I played I got 3 Battleships, 2 Carriers, 1 destroyer, and 3 fighters in Western US. Then I can leave them there and build some transports to take it over. While I’m waiting I can do some stuff in mainland Asia, including China and Russia if it’s turn 6.

[SFC_Case]

this is my open attack phase with japan. 1. Sink the american fleet as much of it as you can anways, i can usually bring three fighters, a bomber, a sub a carrier and two battleships. this pretty much destroys the american fleet in hawaii and if you are playing by the combined american fleet ruling then it is possible to destroy the entire US navy. Do not use the transports in the attack as japan needs them later. 2. Invade alaska. Use two inf from the japanese home island to hit alaska. this puts the US and UK on the defensive and starts them siphoning off to protect their assests in nor America. 3. hit india and into chinese territory. again take as many ipcs a turn as possible.

reinforce where necessary during non-combat. DO NOT reinforce alaska. you will not be able to hold it and allow america to build the factory there and save yourself the money.

my first turn by for japan is a factory and a transport. the factory goes into the phillipines and the transport into japan. the trick to this campaign is to build a transport and as many inf as possible every turn and keep them moving onto the mainland.

this is how i beat the american in three straight games by not allowing them access to the factory i am using to resupply my mainland asian forces they cannot take it and use it against me.

[Guest]

Yes but if I play Russia aggressively they will end up with much of China. Additionally, as someone here pointed out the British can keep their navy in the IndianSz and thus keep the Jap navy at home. With the Americans I tend to go hard after Economic conquest, and this is because I can pick up a lot of free infantry that way. However, I will also send all of the navy into the Pacific to defend against the Japs and possibly even withdrawing from the Phillipines as well. If I combine this with a purchased carrier and give them 6 ftrs this navy can be really tough to beat, and Japan is not likely to attack it until turn 4-5 giving the Allies plenty of time to prepare for the war, or they may be forced into war by turn2. In my experience the sooner Russia and America are at war the better the Allies chances to win are.