First timer vs 15 year vet

Welcome to the forum!  :-)

Here are a few thoughts…… not going into great detail, but a few things for your consideration. And I’m not going to write about general tactics and strategy because, well, others have already done that extensively and better than I could.

R1 - I bought 6 inf 1 tank, attacked Eastern Europe and West Russia, taking only West Russia.

• I then moved inf from all Russian territories to reinforce Caucasus and West Russia, and I THINK I moved whatever was in Archangel to Karelia. I also moved my sub in SZ4 to SZ6. On the eastern Russian front I moved my units in Yakut and SFE into Buryatia.
• For placement, I placed 4 inf in Caucasus, and the rest (2 inf 1 tank) in Russia.
• So at the end, Karelia had a tank and 2 inf, Caucasus had a few tanks, 6-7 inf, a ftr, and art, and West Russia had tanks and inf. Russia had 1 tank and 2 inf.

That’s a decent purchase on R1, and taking West Russia is standard. I don’t much like the attack on Eastern Europe though: even if it succeeds it’s very easy for Germany to recapture it. If you want to capture another territory, any of the other three options are better.
Your sub would be better placed in SZ2 to reinforce the UK fleet against a German attack.
In the east, I’m not a big fan of stacking Buryatia but opinions differ on that.

G1 - He bought 4 tanks, some inf, and I honestly forget what else. But he used all of his IPC. He attacked Caucasus with a bunch of tanks, inf and a fighter. He attacked Karelia with a tank, 2 inf and a 2 fighters (I think). He took Karelia but lost in Caucasus.

• He also anihilated my sub in SZ6 with his fleet.
• He moved his Algeria units into Libya, reinforced Karelia a bit, and left a small force in Belerussa, and one tank in Eastern Europe.
• For placement, he split it pretty evenly between Germany/Southern Europe

He shouldn’t have attacked Caucasus - with everything you put there it was way too strong.
Killing your sub with his fleet makes sense because the German Baltic fleet isn’t all that useful in A&A 1942.
Instead of moving into Lybia, he should have attacked Anglo-Egypt with the Lybian forces and an amphibious landing from Southern Europe.
As for placement - I’d prefer to put most or all units in Germany, and maybe a bit in SE only to target Africa, but well, he allowed you to sink his transport for free……

UK1 - I bought 2 bombers, and saved the rest of my IPC

• Combat consisted of me doing a SBR on Germany, using my sub near Australia to attack a lone Japanese sub (in SZ45 I think?), and using my fighter on my AC in SZ35 to destroy the lone Japanese transport in SZ59. I also destroyed a lone German transport in SZ14 (I forget how/why it was alone… but it was, and I sunk it).
• I moved my transport I THOUGHT to SZ10, but I’m looking at a PDF of the map and if it starts in SZ2, it cant make it that far… so maybe its in SZ9 (I’m at work so I cant check the board right now). Regardless, I was moving it to SZ10 to help the US ferry units to Africa. I moved Persia’s units into India, and I moved any close units towards Anglo-Egypt Sudan.

As the UK, you need to buy boats, and guard the boats that you already have. Since you left your battleship in SZ2 and didn’t attack the German fleet in SZ6, Germany gets a great opportunity to sink the battleship next round. The battleship should have been moved away and/or reinforced with, say, and AC for the UK fighters to land on, and a destroyer. Or you could have used it to attack Germany’s SZ6 fleet depending on how much of it survived the round one combat and on where Germany put its air force.
I suppose the German transport was alone because he used his battleship to attack either SZ13 or SZ15. He should have brought the transport along to keep it with the battleship.

J1 - He bought a transport, some inf/tanks, and I think a destroyer or cruiser.

• He took China, and tried to take Buryatia but failed. He took an AC, dest, cruiser, 1 ftr, and a transport with 1 inf 1 tank to SZ52 and destroyed the US fleet there. I’m assuming he’ll take Hawaii next turn.
• At the end of his turn most of his fleet was in SZ52, French-Indo China had 1 bomber in it, China had 5 inf, and Manchuria had I think 2-3 inf.

Buryatia was probably too strong so I suppose he shouldn’t have attacked it right away, but basically life gets easier for Japan if Russia stacks it because normally, Japan’s big problem is that it needs to cover a lot of distance to even get to fight the Russians.
Attacking the US fleet is normal, but Hawaii itself is typically not worth taking for Japan, it’s too costly with the 2 US inf there.
He shouldn’t have left a lone bomber in French Indo-China - bombers are poor defenders so you would kill it on UK2.

US1 - I bought 1 cruiser, 3 tanks, 5 inf, and didn’t attack anything.

• I moved 1 ftr to Hawaii, loaded up 2 transports IN sz10 with 3 inf 1 tank and moved them along with the cruiser and destroyer to SZ12 for my impending takeover of Africa.
• I placed the cruiser in SZ55, one inf/tank in WUS, and the rest in EUS.

No need to reinforce Hawaii imho.
I sure hope you checked the German navy and air force when moving to SZ12. You didn’t mention where they went, but if they can reach you with one bomber and one fighter then things can become costly, let alone if the German Atlantic sub is still around.

My strategy is to try and keep Germany on the defensive with Russia as much as possible. I don’t intend to push the line but I don’t want to just leave him free to build up units to roll Russia over. I plan to buy more tanks/inf with Russia next turn, maybe 4 tanks 2 inf or 3 tanks 3 inf. Should I buy fighters instead since mine were lost?

Russia generally should focus on inf and some tanks. Planes are too expensive.

The UK, with 3 bombers, will conduct constant SBR on Germany. I don’t know whether to continue building bombers to aid in more SBR, or build a navy, or land units and transports, or possibly an IC in India.

Navy, I’d say, and threaten Europe to help Russia. I’m not a big fan of SBR’s - they take a few turns to have any serious effect, and Russia may run out of time. The India IC is likely to be captured by Japan and used to that nation’s advantage.

USA I’m using to take over Africa. I built a cruiser in the Pacific to try and keep Japan a little more occupied there, but I don’t intend to spend many resources there. Next turn I may have USA buy an AC and fighters in Atlantic, along with another transport, or start buying bombers for attacking Europe.

Africa is a reasonable target for the US - alternatively, a standard approach you may want to consider is to use transports to shuttle troops to the UK and threaten D-day from there.

He’s obviously going after Hawaii with Japan. I put two USA fighters there just to give him a harder time of it. If he wants to keep his fleet in the Pacific trying to take over 1 IPC islands then that’s fine by me. I’m not entirely sure what he plans with Germany. He’s mentioned a few times that “Germany must play defensively”, but from all I’ve read on these forums, Germany should be aggressive to try and break Russia before it can get help from USA/UK. Maybe he’s just trying to sych me out, or perhaps he doesn’t know the game as well as he thinks he does?

Germany can’t count on Japan to defeat the Allies all by herself. Germany needs to put pressure on Russia while keeping the UK and US at bay. Aggressive play is a necessity for the Axis because they won’t be able to keep up with the Allies economically in the long run if they don’t capture enough land.

Germany must play defensivly on mainland Europe, BUUUTTT, it must start an African campaign as soon as possible.  Try to take out Egypt on the first turn and Africa will be wide open.  Try to use at least two tanks and keep them alive in the Egyptian battle and you can blitz away the next two turns.  America will probably than launch an invasion  of north africa, but you will still probably have at least one transport left in the med so you can ferry reinforcements.  By doing this, Germany will be getting more ICP’s from the U.K. and you will than be able to trade land with Russia and still have more ICP’s than Russia.  Russia will run out of gas and you will still probably have the upper advantage still.

Let me know how it turns out.  I’m interested to see how the strategy played out, unfortunately, I haven’t been able to use it like I wanted to.  I have played one game for the last three days and boy was it horrible luck.  Not only was I doing that one little mistake that you don’t notice until its the end of your turn and its too late, but I was rolling 5’s, 6’s, and other numbers that you didn’t want (like rolling 4’s when using tanks) all day long.  Seriously, I lost a defensive battle as the Russians when my little bro attacked from Manchuria with an infantry a tank and a fighter.  I lost all 6 of my Infantry for only his fighter and Infantry after he attacked three times.  Later on in the same game I sent 3 bombers and 2 fighters from Britain to attack his 8 tanks he had in Eastern Europe.  I know it was probably going to be a suicide move, but I was trying to relieve Russia.  Before anyone asks, my 2 fighters were going to land in Byelorussia.  End result after attacking 3 times, I lost all of my fighters for only 2 of his tanks.  Worst three days of my A&A 42 experience.