With all due respect, the one thing that you will not control is the Med, unless you are not sending forces to combat Japan. Killing allied boats is an activity at which German bombers excel….
72 infantry move very, VERY slowly. Building too many German infantry is the reason why my Axis strategy was lacking at the beginning of this season. If played correctly, the Germans start with enough ground units (plus some additional mech purchases as I stated above) to take and hold Bryansk pretty quickly. Mech reinforcements from Novo hit the next turn, as well as units from the Ukraine – so, once each of those is held, purchase max fast land units there plus a few more to place in Germany. You need the fast units to threaten Egypt with speed (the slow units die in Russia).
It’s not all bombers… it’s just generally 3-4 per turn, depending on the circumstance.
(a note about the Med: if you go for Taranto, Germany counters with the house – this is usually a better deal than scrambling)
Ironically, in the game that bmnielsen and I played, I was experimenting with a bid strategy where I gave all the extra units to the Russia front (I think there were 4 in total). He still blasted through…
@captain:
I think for the UK to prevent a later game Sea Lion they would have to purchase an AA gun each turn, until they have at least ten, and an infantry for each German bomber purchased.
Egypt is much tougher to defend though. Even with an IC and an effective transport schuck from SA you only get six units a turn there. The US can fly fighters to Egypt/UK via an airbase in Gib but that doesn’t help them win the game. Once Russia falls the tanks/mechs start moving to the Mideast and allies can’t get enough units there in time.
A naval base in Brazil might be on option. That may help the US move ground units around Africa…because they’re not going to be able to move through the med.
Just some thoughts…there has to be some way for the allies to win against this strategy.
There doesn’t have to be a way for the allies to defend the strategy, there may be a way, but there doesn’t have to be. The reason the bomber strategy is so effective is because the Germans have interior lines and most Allied reinforcement (US) has to come by ship. The bombers prevent reinforcement unless you build a gigantic fleet which means you wasted most of your money just to land a few ground troops that those bombers can vaporize instead. That’s the other point the bombers can attack everywhere but they only have to attack one place and the Allies can’t build 10 fighters for every place they need to defend. I doubt KJF works either because Japan starts the game very strong and should be able to hold out long enough for Germany to win the game, even if they collapse in turn 8,9,10 Germany usually has all the VCs it needs besides Egypt and London and has a giant stack of bombers that can hit either one. Dropping the price of strat bombers has caused this problem, I would like to try a few strategies against it but I honestly doubt they will work. I think either the price of bombers should be raised or strat bombers should be prohibited from naval combat.
I understand that, Dizzknee.
Allies won’t control the med either, ofc. They just kill all what’s left of Italian ships with their own air as well. Before they are needed in Moscow, RAF is active in the med, making sure no Axis ships are built there.
Later on joined by submarines (which cannot be attacked by bombers), but that’s too much into details. The most important point I try to make is that the allies can -and should- deny the axis any 1 (single) transport ship in the med if they build a lot of bombers (3-4 per turn is a lot).
Air blitzing Egypt will be very disadvantagous for the axis if they loose almost all (if not all) of the German Luftwaffe to do so is my second important point.
So basically the threat on Egypt is non-existent if the axis have no ships left in the med, could be the third point…
I’m not saying that the allies can easily overcome the German bombers like this, but sharing my thoughts on how to -possibly- overcome it by pointing out the (obvious or not) weak spots.
Or perhaps bomber attacks versus ships should be reduced to 2 instead of 4.
@captain:
I think for the UK to prevent a later game Sea Lion they would have to purchase an AA gun each turn, until they have at least ten, and an infantry for each German bomber purchased.
Egypt is much tougher to defend though. Even with an IC and an effective transport schuck from SA you only get six units a turn there. The US can fly fighters to Egypt/UK via an airbase in Gib but that doesn’t help them win the game. Once Russia falls the tanks/mechs start moving to the Mideast and allies can’t get enough units there in time.
A naval base in Brazil might be on option. That may help the US move ground units around Africa…because they’re not going to be able to move through the med.
Just some thoughts…there has to be some way for the allies to win against this strategy.
There doesn’t have to be a way for the allies to defend the strategy, there may be a way, but there doesn’t have to be.� The reason the bomber strategy is so effective is because the Germans have interior lines and most Allied reinforcement (US) has to come by ship.� The bombers prevent reinforcement unless you build a gigantic fleet which means you wasted most of your money just to land a few ground troops that those bombers can vaporize instead.� That’s the other point the bombers can attack everywhere but they only have to attack one place and the Allies can’t build 10 fighters for every place they need to defend.� I doubt KJF works either because Japan starts the game very strong and should be able to hold out long enough for Germany to win the game, even if they collapse in turn 8,9,10 Germany usually has all the VCs it needs besides Egypt and London and has a giant stack of bombers that can hit either one.� Dropping the price of strat bombers has caused this problem, I would like to try a few strategies against it but I honestly doubt they will work.� I think either the price of bombers should be raised or strat bombers should be prohibited from naval combat.
or you could do something with unescorted bombers attacking at lower values which would be much more realistic, I cringe every time I send a stack of unescorted bombers against a factory because in reality any fighter cover would make mincemeat of unescorted bombers (unless its a night raid).
Wow I was just thinking that as well…like how unreal is it for unescorted bombers to go after fully loaded carriers.
or you could do something with unescorted bombers attacking at lower values which would be much more realistic, I cringe every time I send a stack of unescorted bombers against a factory because in reality any fighter cover would make mincemeat of unescorted bombers (unless its a night raid).
I’m not if favor of changing the rules, but I do feel some of the rules favor this strategy.
Like the delayed entry and reduced income for the US…by the time the US can get to Gib, Germany could already have enough bombers to take out their fleet.
Or that you’re only allowed to scramble three fighters from an airbase…a big stack of fighters doesn’t help much if you can only use three of them to defend against a bomber stack.
They change the “rules” every time we turn around. They change how much units cost all the time why is the latest iteration sacred? If you can win the game most of the time just by building 1 unit then that unit is too powerful and it should be made more expensive or less powerful in values. There has been a continual struggle over decades to keep A&A games balanced and to act like one unit value or one specific rule is unchangeable is silly. The fact is the bomber strategy makes a mockery of the game and I won’t use it even if it works, I would prefer that a strategy to neutralize it would emerge (short of bids going into the 30s) but if it doesn’t the game needs to be adjusted for the enjoyment of those who play. No one wants to play a game where one and only strategy dominates.
They change the “rules” every time we turn around. They change how much units cost all the time why is the latest iteration sacred? If you can win the game most of the time just by building 1 unit then that unit is too powerful and it should be made more expensive or less powerful in values. There has been a continual struggle over decades to keep A&A games balanced and to act like one unit value or one specific rule is unchangeable is silly. The fact is the bomber strategy makes a mockery of the game and I won’t use it even if it works, I would prefer that a strategy to neutralize it would emerge (short of bids going into the 30s) but if it doesn’t the game needs to be adjusted for the enjoyment of those who play. No one wants to play a game where one and only strategy dominates.
I haven’t played against this yet, but it seems like the strategy is its own weakness. Since strat bombers are by nature expensive units, kill them at every opportunity and kill ground troops when you can’t. Build up your own bombers and hit those Axis bombers on the ground where they defend at one. To get to where you can kill them, deprive them of landing spaces so that your fleet is safe. Use the turn order to your advantage to 1 punch with the US and then two punch with the UK.
Marsh
“They change the “rules” every time we turn around.”
Really? mmm…I wasn’t aware of any rule changes to G40 since 2ed came out some years ago…please excuse my ignorance.
Would you know where I could look up these changes so I could learn the new rules?
This is not a new topic for G40…it had a quite active thread years ago.
pointless to argue with people who are going to be intentionally dumb. If you’d like to argue there’s a good counter to the bombers - fine but bring something that shows you’ve played the game and not Marsh’s build bombers garbage. If you want to argue that the game is wonderful and who cares if the Allies have to bid +40 fine but say so don’t act like we’re building lights at Wrigley.
Absolutely no reason to ridicule Marshmallow’s contribution to the discussion, rpg.
In general, I’d like for this to be a pleasant place for anyone to share whatever thoughts and experiences they have. You can disagree with people, but please don’t be rude about it.
@captain:
I’m not if favor of changing the rules, but I do feel some of the rules favor this strategy.
Like the delayed entry and reduced income for the US…by the time the US can get to Gib, Germany could already have enough bombers to take out their fleet.Or that you’re only allowed to scramble three fighters from an airbase…a big stack of fighters doesn’t help much if you can only use three of them to defend against a bomber stack.
They change the “rules” every time we turn around. They change how much units cost all the time why is the latest iteration sacred? If you can win the game most of the time just by building 1 unit then that unit is too powerful and it should be made more expensive or less powerful in values. There has been a continual struggle over decades to keep A&A games balanced and to act like one unit value or one specific rule is unchangeable is silly. The fact is the bomber strategy makes a mockery of the game and I won’t use it even if it works, I would prefer that a strategy to neutralize it would emerge (short of bids going into the 30s) but if it doesn’t the game needs to be adjusted for the enjoyment of those who play. No one wants to play a game where one and only strategy dominates.
Talking about opening the OOBox:
You can increase the cost. (The simplest but not very creative.)
Or develop the other units to be a good response to the overwhelming mobility and projection of power of Strategic Bombers stack.
You can add some countermeasures to one neglect unit, such as giving Cruiser an AAA capacity.
Or a combined arms bonus which gives same AAA capacity as OOB land AAA, to two or three warships paired 1:1:1, such as Cruiser, Battleship and Aircraft Carrier.
You can increase the combat value of Fighters specifically against planes.
(The simplest is a “1” on any roll hit directly enemy’s planes.
But there is more interesting ways, inspired by 1914 Fighter.)
or you could do something with unescorted bombers attacking at lower values which would be much more realistic, I cringe every time I send a stack of unescorted bombers against a factory because in reality any fighter cover would make mincemeat of unescorted bombers (unless its a night raid).
For this specific point, you can modify Strategic Bombing Raids escort and intercept values of Fighter:
Gives escorting Fg: Attack 2 and intercepting Fg: Defense 2.
(The actual OOB G40 SBR rules are very much against the defender which can only use the Fgs from the IC’s territory.
For his part, attacker can bring as much StBs, TcBs and Fgs within range.
Also, Fg having the same defense D1 value as the Bomber attack factor A1 gives an important advantage toward attacking Bombers and is quite unhistorical.)
Allows up to three Fighters only on an operational Air Base to scramble in an adjacent territory (not just SZ) which have an Industrial Complex/Naval Base/Air Base under SBR/TBR to be able to act as interceptors.
You can increase the combat value of AAA unit.
Allows each AAA to make up to 1 roll per plane per combat round (instead of 3 initial rolls and no more after), let it works the same as other units but only against planes.
You can even make more powerful this neglect 5 IPCs unit:
Up to three pre-emptive rolls @1 against up to 3 planes, whichever the lesser, and 1 regular roll @1 against up to 1 plane, whichever the lesser, for the other rounds.
You can lower the price of AAA unit to 4 IPCs or even 3 IPCs, so it becomes easier to provide an Anti-Aircraft cover against StBs umbrellas attack.
You can also allows 1 or 2 Fighters or Tactical Bombers (with enough additional move points) to land in a just conquered territory to protect the remaining ground units, which are usually weaker and more vulnerable to large stack of Bombers.
Naval units can do it by bringing a few Carriers in a SZ, you can at least allows that land territory being able to receive a similar number of planes as if you bring in a single carrier unit.
Allows up to one Fighter only per Aircraft Carrier (max 3 Fgs) to scramble from an adjacent SZ into a territory which have an Industrial Complex/Naval Base/Air Base under SBR/TBR to be able to act as interceptors.
About this specific issue:
@captain:
Or that you’re only allowed to scramble three fighters from an airbase…a big stack of fighters doesn’t help much if you can only use three of them to defend against a bomber stack.
Allows the building of one additional Air Base in any given territory, maximum: 2 per territories.
That way, up to 6 Fgs or TcBs can be scramble into one SZ.
However, it means that the first 4 damage points are for making both ABs non-operational, but it can rise to 12 damage points, since each AB worth 6 damage points.
Allows defenseless transports stack under Airplanes attack only, a single regular defense AA roll @1/per plane per transport, whichever the lesser. Once done, all transports are destroyed, even if all planes were destroyed too.
Thanks for this thread topic.
It provides an opportunity to summarize a lot of other HR discussed in the Forum.
(Without it, I’d never try to put in a single post every HR related to StBs somehow.) :-)
We tried this strategy of massive bomber buys by the Axis a while back. It was after reading someone’s post of the strategy and called it “Darkened Skies”.
We didn’t just have Germany buying a lot of bombers, but Japan did it as well. Not ALL bomber buys, but definitely a lot more than usual, with a few land units to supplement the starting land forces and in Japan’s case, an occasional extra transport.
It was kind of an experiment game because we just wanted to see what would happen. The Axis won it and our Allied players couldn’t quite figure out a way to contest the strategy. There just seemed to be no way around the Axis bombers. If an Allied fleet got too close to Europe or Japan, they got pasted. And, as mentioned before, it was much easier for the Axis to replace the bombers than it was for the Allies to replace their navies.
Also, Germany SBRd poor Russia into the stone age. Our Russia player thought with Germany buying mostly bombers they would be weak on land forces so they wanted to get aggressive. They bought mostly offensive units for the first 3 rounds and stationed most of their forces at the borders with Germany. On round 4 Russia attacked and destroyed all the German border units, but at some cost. Then Germany sent some reserve units in under an umbrella of bombers and wiped out the Russian offensive. By the time Germany got to Moscow, Russia had very little in defense because of all the factory bombings and losing most of their army in the initial attacks and counter attacks.
Germany also had enough bombers to keep SBRing UK. With the UK spending most of it’s money fixing bomb damage, this made things much easier for the Italians to contest the UK in the Med and Africa.
Japan did the same thing against China and India. A stack of men with an umbrella of bombers tend to wipe out anything it seems.
Even when the US entered the war, they didn’t accomplish much because they couldn’t figure out where to send their fleet. They had already lost one large fleet thanks to Japan and one smaller one trying to approach Europe. So they built a new large fleet, carriers, warships and lots of transports with men and tanks, but with the German and Japanese bomber threats, they were afraid to get too close to Axis air bases.
I’m sure there is a flaw to this strategy and there must be some way to beat it, we just couldn’t figure it out.
Absolutely no reason to ridicule Marshmallow’s contribution to the discussion, rpg.
In general, I’d like for this to be a pleasant place for anyone to share whatever thoughts and experiences they have. You can disagree with people, but please don’t be rude about it.
other than that it deserved ridicule, go start a drum circle on another thread.
Absolutely no reason to ridicule Marshmallow’s contribution to the discussion, rpg.
In general, I’d like for this to be a pleasant place for anyone to share whatever thoughts and experiences they have. You can disagree with people, but please don’t be rude about it.
other than that it deserved ridicule, go start a drum circle on another thread.
Come on…
Marsh. of War is new on the forum.
Give him a welcome, not a cold shoulder.
He may be ironic or simply giving his spontaneous 2 cents.
Instead of turning him ridiculous, just show him, at least why one of his point is clearly wrong.
That way, he can improve his strategic and tactical understanding of the game.
It’s kind of a digression, but I think I’d be annoyed if the price was returned to 15. I mean it should have been fairly obvious when AA50 came out and dropped them from 15 to 12 ipcs, that people would go bomber crazy. The unit used to be overpowered mainly because of the heavies tech, it probably never needed the drop from 15. That said, now that we’re all used to cheap bombers I’d think it would be hard to go back. I admit I almost never buy tactical bombers, when a strat B seems to work just as well in most situations. It’s clearly overpowered, but I think I’d be more amenable to an ability change at this point than just a straight reversion to the old unit stats.
As it stands though, in Global and 42.2 the bomber is tough to beat, so it’s not surprising to see so many strats adopting strategic bombers as the go to build.
In the past if one player magnified their air builds, the other player usually had a tough choice to make, they could follow suit, or do the opposite and go heavy on the ground. But the DoW delay in Global screws with this latter option big time at least for G, and the former option doesn’t do much good since G doesn’t need a navy anyway, so you can’t really punish them the same way they can punish you, even if you match them bomber for bomber. The DoW basically turns Germany into a power more like America, where they can build up bombers in relative safety (at least for a few rounds) so it’s much harder to punish them for making such a magnified build.
The main exploit with StratBs is their ability to nuke fleets over huge distances. Perhaps if they were less effective against warships, the unit wouldn’t be quite so deadly, but that gets into HR territory.
I know there are a lot of house rules that try to improve the intercept concept, but using it in normal combat. Or other ideas that try to capture the “altitude” concept. But I know that’s not really the subject of this thread.
The main exploit with StratBs is their ability to nuke fleets over huge distances. Perhaps if they were less effective against warships, the unit wouldn’t be quite so deadly, but that gets into HR territory.
I know there are a lot of house rules that try to improve the intercept concept, but using it in normal combat. Or other ideas that try to capture the “altitude” concept. But I know that’s not really the subject of this thread.
That’s what I have in mind when I suggested to introduce a naval AAA when Carrier, Battleship and Cruiser are 1:1:1.
So, each time you get these 3 units, you get, at least, up to three pre-emptive roll @1 against up to three planes.
This can somehow be a deterrent to launch all out Naval attack with StBs only.
Or, at least, it provides a way to do to something against such massive Bombers buying.
Here is an old thread of HR forum which I started on that topic on Bombers Strategy to suggest HR to fix things:
Are Bombers broken? HR adjustment explorations continuating the Global tread
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=31373.msg1151809#msg1151809
@captain:
This is not a new topic for G40…it had a quite active thread years ago.
Are bombers broken? : Axis bombers lead to allied dismay.
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=31284.0
Yeah I agree, and people have been bringing up the cost vs ability several times in this thread too. But it doesn’t really get the methuselah’s opening Q.
Honestly on all the latest boards, the advantage seems to go to the side that builds up their air the fastest and then dominates with it. If it was a game of rock paper scissors, Air pretty much always beats Naval. The fighter is overpowered as much as the bomber, but the cheap bomber at 12 just really highlights the disparity.
On previous boards my response to a first round save, no purchase by the enemy, was usually to do the same. And basically keep the guessing game going. But that’s a little trickier in Global because of the DoW situation. I think it might be wise as USA to save if Germany saves, or go nuts with Bombers if Germany goes nuts. I mean someone has to match them right? and you know it’s not going to be UK or Russia! Haha
ps. the Brazil idea might be worth exploring some more. It’s really too bad French West Africa has to be French. Because a naval base there would allow you to launch transports back and forth between 101 and 87 and be able to push on Africa in one go, without having to move so perilously close to the bomber threat. Getting a bunch of ground moving towards Cairo along a somewhat less circuitous path. Unfortunately sz91 can be put on blast by Axis bombers. 87 is at least of more a pain for Germany to swing their bombers around to threaten, since they’d have to buy more AB, or move their bombers into crappy positions. Plus its a faster push to on Cairo going Sub Saharan than N. African since its one less move. But the inability to place a naval base in 87, makes that sz much less desirable place to launch into, because getting back takes 2 rounds instead of just 1. With a Naval Base there, you could at least threaten S. France and Normandy, while you funnel ground to Egypt (something an NB in Brazil still doesn’t get you.)
French West Africa would have been a much more entertaining territory if it was under British control. Or if all French territory in Africa was made more like the dutch, controlled by the first power to claim it. I suppose one might allow the British or Americans to purchase bases on French territory? That might be kind of gimmicky. Short of that, doing it from a Brazil harbor you could at least launch transports continuously between 101 and 86, then set up the shuck from 87 to Brazil and back. Seems like an awful long way to go just to stay out of Bomber range. Alas
