@theskeindhu For the Pacific, what I like to do it bait out elements of the IJN by sending loaded transports at Borneo/DEI/Philippines on suicide missions. The TTs are going to die in all likelihood, but if the opponent overextends you can punish them for it, and if they lack TTs they won’t get the islands back right away, which gives you some healthy income/slows Japan down for a few turns. Even if they have TTs, you can usually sink them with your Carrier FTRs + 1-2 SUBs. This forces them to buy a few more TTs/spend effort cleaning up your SUBs, which distracts them from India/Moscow. Every small distraction helps. 1-2 INF can swing a battle’s odds dramatically in the favor of one side over the other.
All the Russian openings: For Begginers
-
@Fuhrer when you say “pumping 2 fighters into India” do you mean he is flying 2 fighters to India from UK, or that he is actually purchasing fighters in India? If the later is the case, that is rather poor purchasing on your opponent’s part, and you should exploit it. This means he will have very low fodder hitpoints at India.
If you’re running into problems pressuring India with Japan, this usually means you aren’t purchasing enough transports.
If your Japanese fleet is being regularly destroyed, that means either you’re not supporting it with sufficient carrier defense, or you’re trying to move it too far from home too quickly.
Operating out of sz 61 or sz62/60 is much safer than trying to do so out of sz 36, especially if UK is concentrating their air-power in India (and if they have ships surviving after a successful sz 37 attack, to help make that air-power more effective.) If you’re second carrier is destroyed, you should replace it immediately.
If your transport in sz 61 survives UK1, you are still in a strong position to crush India, but you have to back it up. Often times the Japanese player will stop short of purchasing enough transports to be effective. This is a minimum of 4 transports so you can transport the max production (8 ground) off Japan each round. But even this is on the low end. It’s better to have 5 or even 6 transports as the Japanese.
This allows you to push units first into Buryatia, to feint like you’re going to drive against Russia along the northern route, only to pick up some of those units the following round (with the purchase of additional transport capacity) and then swing south to pressure India.
Don’t be overly distracted by East Indies, Although it certainly sucks to lose this income to UK, its worse to let it deter your advance on India, while you get stuck out of position trying to recoup your loses in sz 37. If you keep pushing ground units into Yunnan via sz 61, this will allow you to threaten both India, and East Indies the following round, without putting your fleet at risk from India based fighters in the process. Even if Japan loses 2 of their starting fighters in sz 37, they still have 4 fighters and the bomber left, which is a lot of attack power, when combined with sufficient transport capacity.
I’d say your friend is on the right track that he needs fighters for India defense, but he should really be transiting them over from W. Russia or Archangel to India, rather than building them in India, both to cover Moscow and to give India sufficient hitpoints to face down a Japanese Burma push.
As for the 1 destroyer a round built at UK, you should be destroying these with German aircraft as soon as they hit the water. You can trade at advantage vs a single UK destroyer with 2 German fighters pretty easily. The DD only has a 1 in 3 chance to shoot you down, which means more often than not you can crush that enemy TUV at no loss to yourself. Better to sink a destroyer when its by itself, than waiting for it to stack up in a larger group.
-
I’m not a threat… that’s why I’m playing because I want to learn. Take a look at craykirk vs cow in the tournaments. I might have gone 2 inf 1 art 1 bmb and most everything else in West Russia. We both lost the ground forces however since have of the attacking force was air, it totally decimated Russia. The first round went poorly for Russia and well for Germany (which seems to be pretty typical for how I remember my dice luck).
I have attached the save game. I probably should move this to a different whiny thread… :-o
-
Isn’t it a bit unfair to ask advice on your current game? I see you’ve played on from G1, so maybe the advice no longer applies though.
-
The game is over very soon. I just want to understand how Russia is supposed to open a game without getting stomped. I’m just playing to get some experience and so far, that is exactly what it has been… An experience. :-D
The TripleA AI nor any of my friends that play every have done anything like this. In fact, my friends have decided that the game is basically unplayable as the Allies much like the first game was for the Axis. I didn’t even consider that stacking West Russia basically forces Germany to hit it. I refuse to admit I threw away $120 on a copy for me and a friend…
-
Use my scientifically proven setup of 1942 2nd edition.
If you cant get someone to use additional unit setup… you got to bid… you need 16-24 ipcs for the allies…
-
If both players are on an equal footing a bomber bid to Russia can be fun, but going up against someone like Cow who digs Axis and has a good grasp of the blitz, I think more hitpoints on the bid would have been advisable.
It’s very hard to back the Germans off W. Russia if you leave both Belo and Ukraine alive. The Baltic states opening I described in this thread calls for 1 inf 1 art and 1 fighter and was noted as a gambit, meaning you’re just trying to trip the other guy up on an equal trade, or a trade at advantage, counting on luck. This allows you to send an additional hitpoint into the W. Russia fight. But even then it can be tight. Your fighter landing choices may have helped sealed the deal psychologically for the Germans, since they were flown out of range of the north.
I think the best use for the bomber is in an attack on Ukraine, so you can hold Caucasus instead of having to trade it ;)
-
Yeah I just went with the easy win strategy. bomber + 9 guys, next round bring the heat with some armor, round after that start defending against europe drops.
I am still torn as to getting bomber + inf/arty or armor + inf/arty round 1. I like armor so I can hold karelia round 2 even if russia buys some too.
-
First time for everything, I wanted to give it a try since none of the games I’ve played with my friends have gone more than 3 rounds before the Allies surrender. This doesn’t give a lot of time for developing any sort of strategy for the Allies. My attacks on Ukraine have historically had very poor outcomes. I still don’t really understand how it is to my advantage to throw a round of dice at a group of units which is stronger defensively than than I am offensively in the hopes that I will get good dice and they will get bad? How does it help me to throw away units?
I’ll look for Cow’s setup and see if I can convince anyone to give the game a 2nd look. I play the TripleA AI occasionally however it just isn’t very talkative and doesn’t seem interested in having a beer or two during the game. :wink:
Thanks for the patience…
-
Yeah the allies do not get to have fun in this map. Russia cant deadzone karelia for long, G2 it is an easy hold. Especially if germany bought 4 armor on round 1. 12 inf aa gun and 14-15 armor, wam bam russia got nothin on that.
Meanwhile the allies do not have any attacks. USA and UK do not get rolling at all, in either theater. USA starts out losing HARD in the pacific half and has to do LOTS of build up in order to get something going in the Atlantic half. So what are you supposed to do? Just roll over and die? Seems that is what the developers had in mind.
That is why it takes such a huge bid.
-
craykirk: Just so I understand the opening correctly, was Germany hitting the W. Russia stack with everything possible, ie: 6inf, 1 art, 3 Tanks (I understood you killed the baltic tanks in R1?), 4 planes and 1 bomber?
If so that is a really cutsy move by Germany =) Its the kind of move I would hope Germany would do against me in a game without a bid as it is one of the few things that could result in such a huge catastrof that could lead to an allied victory. -
Yeah I went nuts. #YOLOSWAG
The allies look depressing now. I never play the allies below 18 for a reason.
-
@Cow:
Yeah the allies do not get to have fun in this map. Â Russia cant deadzone karelia for long, G2 it is an easy hold. Especially if germany bought 4 armor on round 1. Â 12 inf aa gun and 14-15 armor, wam bam russia got nothin on that.
That is incorrect.
A “typical” R1 buy is 4 inf, 3 rt. So on R2, you are looking at
1-2 inf Belo (since it doesn’t seem like Ger is bleeding any off and is gunning straight for Kar.
7 to start in Wrus
2 inf ArchNow your rd 1 buy of 4 inf, 3 rt + 1 inf Kaz, 1 novo brings your rd 2 numbers up to:
15-16 inf, 6 rt, 4 arm. Now here’s the difference, Russia gets to see the G1 buy of 4 arm and can counter on its Rd 2 buy with 3 or 4 armor of its own. We will go 3.
SO, Russia has a stack of 15 inf, 6 rt, 7 arm, 2 ftrs aimed at Kar.
That is deadzoned. Now it may not be a lot of margin for error, but it is possible. And that is with NO bid and only a 3 arm counter by Russia. Now of course I made some assumptions, but I also don’t think it is just easy to say Germany can put X units here and assume there isn’t a possible counter.
It works out about the same with an 8 inf R1 buy, only your countering force is 19 inf, 3 rt, 7 arm, 2 ftrs. You’re still projected to clear with maybe 2-4 units. I think it is about 60% for the Allies.
If G bought 5 armor rd 1 you will need 4 on Rus 2.
-
Japan flies air in from sz 34 with the starting bomber from japan and it is a done deal for the axis to hold.
You can deadzone Karelia for a few rounds, not for long if you have to buy armor, which is what Germany wants, easier to kill an armor than 2 inf. As Germany having caucasus dead zoned ruins the total # of units the allies can put on the map drastically. Allies already start the game without being able to put units on the map, they can make boats and oceans sure, it dont matter if you lose Russia because you had to buy tanks for so long.
Plus are you really going to attack that? like that is everything from you. Germany will be fine, Germany will be okay taking that loss.
~
you just reinforced why such a big bid is necessary. -
I agree. Germany will take Kar.
My focus as the Allies (Russia) is to try and delay it until G3. I think there is a huge difference from G2 to G3.At least in rd 3, UK/US have a something going in the Atlantic. By then you can have the BB/Cru and UK Cru (from Aus) off of Afr (token threat to Fra/Ita) and some trns floating around. Plus US AC rd 1 buy followed by US AC in rd 2. So that by rd 4 you can be up by sz 6 comfortably. Unless you are beelining Sz 3 with US from rd 1 on and going with a northern shuck.
That’s if you are going full on KGF. At least they can have something going.
It definitely feels bad or overwhelming seeing G camped out in Kar on G2 and it seems like the Allies are miles away in the Atlantic. So I try to project the threat to Kar and see if I can keep G out until rd 3.Cauc is never really an issue. Ger tends to go Bal, then Kar. So that leaves Ukr as an early deadzone so Cauc is safe for placement.
You also get a nice supply of UK troops to Cauc once they are forced to evacuate India. Hopefully you won’t have to flee until UK 4 or later, but even on UK 4, you’ll have 3 builds, 9 extra units plus your starting units and it is a decent force to head to Cauc. You should have the 2 US inf from Sze as well. They are good for 2 trades of Russian boarder territories.
It is definitely a challenge though. :-)
-
It is just not a huge deal for germany to be deadzoned in karelia if he gets caucasus out of it as well. income wise it is pretty good.
-
As if I couldn’t feel any worse about my play… :cry:
it’s been a real fustercluck. Great moves combined with poor dice mean Game Over Man, Game Over! Where is Bill Paxton when you need him? German defensive dice have been brutal…
It was 5 fighters and a bomber, AA missed and the first German attack was pretty hard. The Russian response was, as they say, meh… :-(
-
Also nothing stops the G4 holding it down at west russia, at that point you cannot hold both Caucasus and Russia. Allies have to give it up smooth even if they have india in the mix at caucasus.
The allies get rolled really hard. All the bunnies agree.
-
I feel for you man. It’s like you hopped into the ring with Eye of the Tiger playing over the loud speakers, ready to rock, but then got immediately cold clocked and Xenomorphed straight through the chest!
:-DIts kind of a bummer to get Cow stomped the first time out. He went Bovine belligerent on you!
No time to chew the cud and ruminate. Alas, no chance to play around with the Red bomber.I don’t know that many other players would have taken that shot on you right out the gate in the slightly better than 50% range. I guess if it was a roulette wheel, and you bet on red, but he was the house. And anyways, always bet on black, or you might get sniped! hehe
;) -
It’s not big deal; if the first battle had gone better for russia, I think I would have played it differently. As it was, I gave away the British navy. i should have taken the same chance and who knows? It might have been different. dice are what dice are… I know through my backgammon plays that we all tend to concentrate on the bad rolls; which we all get more than our fair share of…
-
Reposted here for safekeeping:
My ongoing case for the Russian bomber, as a set-up change.
:-DIn 1942.2 if you’re going to actually purchase an Air unit with the Russians, it should definitely be a fighter rather than a bomber. I think the best time to do this is in the second round. That’s when Russian income will be at its highest for any point during the early game. But I would only do this if your opening attacks went well, and if the German opening counter attacks went rather poorly. If you collect 26-28 ipcs after your opening, that gives you enough for the third fighter, and still have 16-18 ipcs left over for 5-6 ground units. After which point you buy infantry/artillery for the rest of the game, and use your third fighter for optimal trading. But again I would only do that if Russia opens well, and I would only consider the fighter. From a purchasing perspective Russia benefits more from a fighter than a bomber. They don’t really need the reach of a bomber, since all the territories they can reasonably attack are close to home, and the fighter gives you a better attack/defense ratio for the cost. Given how important defense is for Russia its better to buy a unit with att 3 def 4 mov 4 for 10 ipcs, than att 4, def 1 move 6 for 12 ipcs.
This is the reason why I think its better to just give Russia a bomber!
Because I don’t think any serious player would ever buy one. An experienced player can use a starting Russian bomber in many interesting ways, but to suggest that an experienced player would actually purchase a new one is just wishful thinking.
A starting Red Airforce of 2 fighters and 1 bomber is less distorting in my view, than a starting airforce of 3 fighters (because of the way the Russian situation favors defense). An experienced Russian player may purchase a 3rd fighter at some point in the game, but I just don’t see them purchasing a bomber.
Both situations (2 fighters + 1 bomber, or 3 fighters) would be better than the OOB starting Red airforce of ONLY 2 fighters! But the 2 fighters + 1 bomber combo just feels better to me. It accomplishes several things at once, all of which enhance the confidence of the Soviet player. It gives them more opening attack power, the ability to reach farther with those attacks, and the ability to send a defensive pip to critical territories (like Egypt) after an attack. They can also use it for strategic bombing, if the Allies want to pursue such a game. It has flexibility to be used in either theater (either the Eastern Front with Germany, or against Japan in Asia.)
There are also several reasonable options for a starting location for the bomber, Moscow, Karelia, or my personal favorite, Caucasus!
That last gives Russia the most options for their bomber on R1, and it doesn’t currently house an air unit, so that creates a nice 3 way split. Fighter in Karelia, Fighter in Moscow, Bomber in Caucasus.
That would be my ideal, since it has a certain aesthetic appeal as well :-D
Think about it, what other unit could you place for Allies that gives you a dozen round 1 options? None of which are totally distorting or going to break a major TUV swing, but which can still provide a lot of gameplay interest for the Allies?
In the first round, A Russian bomber in Caucasus could, among other things:
Bomb Germany
Bomb Italy
Attack Ukraine
Attack Belo
Attack Baltic States
Attack sz 5
Attack sz 61
Land in Egypt for defense
Land in UK for defense
Land in Szech for defense
Land in Bury for defenseIf additional bid units are included beyond the bomber, you might be able to do other things as well.
Such as Attack Manchuria (sub par, but possible with an extra bid, or some additional starting units in the far east.)
And unlike most other units, the bomber is very likely to survive, and play-on in subsequent rounds. So it provides an ongoing benefit.It can even have a role to play if Moscow is captured, allowing Russia to bomb Berlin or Tokyo during the endgame!
I just think its the best all around option, if you want to make a set up change. I’m not saying it fixes the game, but I think it should be the starting point for the fix, the unit change around which you build the rest of the set up.
Thoughts?
Suggested Topics
