Whenever I’ve been involved in a game where the UK let Italy off the hook round 1 the end result has been an Italy earning 40+ by turn 5 or 6. It’s a losing proposition as far as I can tell.
The point is that you can crash Italy without crashing their fleet. Having a big presence in the medi starting from turn1. An airport in Gib ensures your starting med fleet will be enough.
It’s worth pointing out that the bomber buy doesn’t require that you use them to bomb, or sea lion, or an exact play by play, it just gives you the option. In my experience people often like to use them out of the W. Germany AB to hit med ships, but it does leave the battle of Britain option open if UK makes a mistake.
Another somewhat similar buy, instead of 2 bombers and a sub, you can get…
1 bomber 1 fighter 1 destroyer.
The play is almost exactly the same as the one with the 2 bomber buy. Place both air in W. Germany and the ship in 112. This doesn’t give you quite the same reach with your air, but the destroyer can neutralize the all subs purchase by UK at London, and it gives some cover to the cruiser in case the strafe in 111 fails. The destroyer also allows you to sub hunt in the Baltic if desired. The fighter can still reach Taranto on G2, can scramble in 112, and improves a Tac to hit at 4 if clearing the med. With 3 bombers you still have strong bombing options with your Luftwaffe, now at 50/50 survival on London with a decent shot to knock the factory if you wanted to go that route. Also Germany is often a bit short on fighters in the second round, so an extra Bf 109 can be nice to have at the ready.
An additional fighter in W. Germany still gets an extra pip on the Taranto counter attack (by boosting a Tac to hit at 4 when paired) so in that respect it is almost as good as a second bomber. It’s reach is more limited, but it can defend at 4 when it lands, and can scramble. It might allow an additional fighter onto Holland on G1, to protect the Tac which must land there. Fighters from Holland can still reach the Italian coastline and land in S. Italy, so that fighter can still work med coverage. Of course without a 4th bomber the sz 92 stack becomes harder to deal with, but hey, at least then you dont have to tango at Taranto, and you can still bomb UK or set up on Russia with all 3 Bombers, and your fighters.
:-D
ps. I suppose its also worth pointing out that you could still buy a strategic bomber and carrier deck and pocket the 2 left over for next time :-D
Sure the carrier ties you down a bit, but it also saves the Bismark, and even if you never buy another ship, you can still sail into the Baltic out of harms way and just keep it for projection on Norway or Novgorod. 16 ipcs invested up front to hold onto to the battleship and protect the Kriegsmarine from Allied air assault. The bomber still gets you the range on Taranto, though in this case you are down 1 fighter on the counter attack, perhaps more if the German tac doesn’t survive the assault on sz 110. Still its not a bad investment, and can be paired with a bomber on the G1 buy.
All the other bomber buys I can think of would just be a variation on 1 bomber with 18 left over to spend on some ground.
But almost all bomber buys that bring the Luftwaffe up to 3 bombers or more seem pretty potent to me. The unit is a wrecking machine, and the Luftwaffe is deadly out of the AB in West Germany.
I think the decision when to use your bombers in a raid, whether against UK or Russia, is always going to come down to what your gut tells you in the moment. Its nice to have the 3rd bomber though, right out the gate, just to keep that option going.
Bomber buys, how do you like to set them up? And what as Allies do you do to counter them?
So it seems many ppl like to make some kind of Sea Lion threat G1 just to keep the UK honest. I like the 2 bmers buy G1, and will give that a shot over a carrier. A carrier purchase has its advantages as pointed out, but the down side is that it also ties up a couple ftrs. A couple more bmrs will boost the Luftwaffe in both range and strength, plus the UK will need to rethink its opening moves. What happens next depends on how the allies (UK) respond, and I think that even if Sea Lion isn’t in your axis wheel house you need to make good on your threat if they ignore the warning signs on occasion (you don’t want to become too predictable regardless of what side you’re playing IMO).
Just wondering when Germany buys start bmrs early, has anyone took a couple over to the Pacific side mid game (round 7ish?). Japan having a can-opener could really put some presser on the Pac allies.
I agree, if you play with the same group of people regularly, it can sometimes be worth doing a G2 sea lion set up, just to keep your opponents on their toes. Or similarly you can do a G2 Barbarossa invasion. Even if the play isn’t always optimal, it prevents the enemy from ever being able to totally pin down your strategic habits. So maybe sometimes you buy a carrier, or sometimes you buy some armor or mech to hammer the east, just to keep them on edge at all times, and never quite sure what play you’ll adopt.
I’d say I buy a carrier maybe one game out every four, just to be unpredictable. Though the goal here is almost always simply to keep a fleet alive in the Baltic and use it against the Russians, rather than pressuring the UK. Adopting this posture, you get a little more power projected out of W. Germany, onto places like Norway, Baltic, Novgorod etc, and you force the UK to at least play safe. You figure, in order to keep your Baltic fleet safe and effective, you are looking at a total investment of around 30-40 ipcs on the water. This usually means 1 carrier, 1 destroyer (to protect the CV from subs) and then 1 or 2 more transports, just to keep the amphibious pressure on with your fleet. Basically you need a few transports, just to project enough force to justify the initial naval investment. If you do a move like this every once in a while, it prevents the Allies from reading you as player.
But I buy a bomber almost every game, like 9 times out of 10 now. Usually a bomber in combination with some other units, or a double bomber sometimes if I feel agressive, but a bomber either way, I keep coming back to it. Its just really hard not to exploit that combat movement advantage on G2. The big purchase comes on G2 anyway, as everyone knows, once you have the french purse. Its fairly easy to reserve your ground purchase until G2, and spend G1 focusing on units that keep the Allies guessing. “Where are they going to go? What are they going to do?” The bomber at 7 means they can go all over the place and do all sorts of things, so I feel like it is a strong buy from the perspective of obfuscation and misdirection and not quite revealing your full war plan until the G2 purchase is placed.
The only other buy I sometimes like to throw into the mix, is just the full slam on Russia, you know something that puts the Soviets on notice, like an all artillery or mech purchase. But its nice to have the 3rd bomber to coordinate with these too. So I just see the bomber as the standard.
The bomber can do about half a dozen things, whereas a carrier plus total naval build ties you down. I think the Luftwaffe wins out over the Kriegsmarine on average for me, even if you still want to drop the Graf Zeppelin, its possible to do that in later rounds. But a bomber can bomb in addition to whatever else it might do, it has that sneaky option to slam allied production on a gamble if the player so desires. When the force is strong with you, anyway, and you want to roll the dice. Which is something you don’t get for investing at sea or on the ground.
There is that old game play strategy that the player who manages to get the edge in the air early on, is the player who usually comes out on top, and bombers are the backbone of the air force, since they have the reach.
Airforce shifting is at the heart of the game. If you let the Allies shift all their air uncontested, and ever manage to shift your Axis air in response, you end up losing. In the older games the trick was generally to shift Japanese air to Europe as quickly as possible, in G40 perhaps the reverse is the case, and its Germany that needs to get to the middle of the board early on. Either way a bomber is the only unit that can get from W. Germany 7 spaces out, that you can buy in the first round.
I think its a winner :-D
This thread highlights exactly why bombers are OP. lol. Sigh. I hope the next axis and allies has bombers at 14…
I’d say bombing London (or Moscow for that matter) has best chance of achieving anything useful if it is already certain that the chance of capturing London/Moscow early is already gone. Or if Germany simply is not planning on an (early) assault of one of the two Capitals. By plotting to win economically for example, avoiding an assault on any capital completely.
If Germany wants to capture London or Moscow early (say, anytime before G11), loosing even 1 bomber during a raid causes a backfire that nullifies the damage dealt with the raid.
Of course, if you can max out the IC in London without loosing a single bomber to AAA-fire, then your odds of taking it the turn after improve but it is gambling with victory.
As far as Egypt goes, with the UK I find it easier to defend it against additional German air than against a German/Italian transport ‘shuck’ if Germany and Italy have a fleet in the med to protect their transports. So, yes, a med fleet is tied down to action in the med alone (if Gibraltar is not captured!), but the threat projection of a fleet is far greater. If the goal is to capture Egypt, a moderate fleet is your best buy.
It all depends on the situation. If you can get away with bombing Russia you might be able to take the capital before the Siberians arrive. If the Siberians stayed in the far east then you could go with the slow style of building IC’s on the front to out produce Russia. When you’re playing the axis time is always against you and sometimes you have to rely on luck to speed up the process.
Consolidating the Navy at 92 though is risky unless you buy an AB round 1 though. If Germany buys 2 bombers they can hit SZ92 with 4 bombers, 1 tactical and 1 fighter from S. Italy even if Algeria is stacked.
Usually, the AB is worth it since you are bringing back air from the med.
I personally like at least 3 subs for G round 1 so that I can strafe 111 and keep my bb while taking out UK’s turn 2.
