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You do get diced once in a while, but it is not necessarily game over G1 if sz2 or Égypt fails.

Germany can really be a tough nut to crack, and even if the German players dream of Africa and Moscow takes a serious blow on G1, he can really dig in and make it very difficult for the allies to get a foot in in Europe.

A chunk of armor in E. Europe, stacks of inf in western and Germany and an airforce threatening to take a shot at that essential transfer fleet can take a long time to crack.

When I feel I am behind, I often take more risks than usual - going for that 50% UK Navy battle, or making risky strafing attacks on an exposed USSR stack.

You can also try to advance faster with Japan - maybe try to take India J1 or by doing the risky pacific double move hitting both sz52 and the US battleship+transporter at the western us shore on J1.

@Bunnies:

I wonder whatever happened to this game.

Re:

So what makes you say it’s completely over?

If you’re trying to go KGF, and Germany controls/contests Africa on the fifth turn, and you’re asking for advice, it’s probably an uphill battle.  You would only be asking for advice if you were unsure that you could protect Moscow / crack Berlin, and with Germany fueled by African IPCs, and without a veteran’s perspective on how to run a tight logistic game with the Allies, I would guess probable loss for the Allies.  All the Axis need to do is pump out a bunch of tanks and run a bit of interference with Germany’s airforce, which as you mentioned was quite strong.

It sounds like Japan is screwing around (no industrial complexes by turn five), which means you may have a chance, but again, I lack context.

If US was building some Pacific fleet, and Japan went infantry with very light naval/air support (pumping IPCs into 1 destroyer, then subs and/or fighters to match the US threat) then the Allies really are in  trouble, because then probably Japan has some idea of what it’s doing.

If Japan was unopposed in the Pacific and built battleships and carriers, though, the Allies are probably going to win because Japan can’t just lay back and make Germany do all the work.  Same if Japan used its transports to screw with Alaska/Hawaii/Australia/etc. instead of establishing a fast hard unit core in Asia/India to help support Germany’s push against Caucasus.  You might see Japan doing both (i.e. hitting island targets plus hitting Asia/Africa) with five transports, but four transports on turn five with no industrial complexes built means SOMETHING weird is going on - like I said, either Japan was prepared to meet some unusual threat, or Japan was screwing around.

Yeah - what happened in the game?
I agree with Bunnies analysis - against a decent axis player, this game is probably over. But against novice players anything is possible, they may perform unfeasible or uncoordinated moves. In that case it is all about putting yourself in the position to exploit this. By this I mean armor for Russia, establish atlantic navy to threaten Germany, Western Europe and Eastern Europe.

@LMD:

Every game has gone to the Axis (about 14 games now), and every one has been a KGF strategy.

Do not play KGF.

We routinely go with the Norwegian Gambit (preserving the UK battleship) and have never failed.  Yes, we lose the R fighter on Germany R1, but one Russian fighter does not make the difference.

Do not play the Gambit. Maybe the Russian fighter combined with the lack of the BB as a target is more important than you account for.

This advice isn’t global, of course KGF and Norwegian Gambit are viable strategic and tactical options.

But if it doesn’t work for you, try something else.

R1 Attack on WRus and UKR. Move 6 INF into Bur, 2 INF to Yakut.

US1 build an AC, DD for Western US, placing Hawaii ftr and WUS ftr on the AC. Move Bomber to Alaska. This way you threaten SZ 60 with the fighters, SZ 61 with the bomber. If J2 doesn’t go for Bur, you can reinforce Bur with 2 fighters on US2 and maybe sink undefended transports in SZ61, landing in Bur.
Then go for the Solomons. Try to build to 2-3 transports (moving ground troups to the Solomons. ) and a few planes every now and then for the Pacific (over time, not necessarily in one round). Have a surprise tranny take an island or 2. Threaten Borneo, Phillipines and East Indies all in one go from the Solomons.
Use the US sub and the UK sub roam the islands, threatening transports and ACs.

The main goal is to threaten Japan and lure Japan into spending scarce money on expensive navy. If Japan ignores your moves, be more aggressive. Phillipines is a victory point, so are Shanghai and India.

I am not saying that this is a very great strategy. But it forces many decisions onto the Japanese player.

And if you have problems in the Atlantic, try building the AC, 2xDD on UK1 in SZ2, then be aware you might land the US ftr on the carrier on turn 1.

@Bunnies:

@12doze12:

Germany? With Germany I mostly build tanks and some fighters. I try to flank SU and go for sea lion and send some infantry to Africa

and with Japan?  Fighters and transports mostly but also some other navy units. I try to take SU and UK closest territories and at the same time I try to take some of the US islands and go for Australia.

It’s probably a bit more than that.  You might be opening yourself up to brutal counterattacks.

Let’s say that you send 4 tanks to attack 3 infantry for control of a 3 IPC territory.  You kill all the infantry in one shot, and lose 2 tanks.  Sounds great, doesn’t it?  You killed 9 IPC of units (+9), gained 3 IPC from the territory, and lost 10 IPC (1 tank) in exchange.  So you went +2. (+9, +3, -10)

But suppose Russia counters with 2 infantry 1 artillery 1 fighter.  There’s a good chance you lose 2 tanks (+10 IPC to Russia), while Russia loses about 2 infantry in exchange (-6 IPC).  So there Russia went +7 (with the +3 for the territory).

Maintaining such a rate of exchange will quickly bleed Germany dry.  Sure, your attacks go plus, but if Russia’s attacks consistently have even bigger pluses, that’s bad news.

In other words - watch those expensive German tanks.  If you’re throwing them away, that’s an easy way to lose quickly.

Another comment - if Russia’s building all infantry early, you probably won’t have the power to push early with tanks unless Russia carried out a two-territory attack with lousy dice, or tried a risky triple attack.  Try a G1/G2 infantry heavy build, and switching to more tanks later, and completely cutting out the air buys.  (If you buy air, you can try to contest control of the Atlantic, but a total ground buy strategy works decently too, and is something you should probably try at least once or twice to see the differences in play).

Japan shouldn’t be buying fighters.  Assuming UK killed the Japanese fighter at Kwangtung and moved its sub at Australia to range of French Indochina’s sea zone, your J1 buy should probably be something like 1 destroyer 3 transports.  You start with 2 infantry on Phillipines, 1 on Okinawa, 1 on Wake, and 6 assorted ground on Japan (Tokyo).  You’ll pull two of those units off on J1, leaving 8 units on Japan and the surrounding islands, so a 3 transport build leaves you starting J2 with 4 transports and 8 transportable ground units.  At the end of J2, you will want Japanese transports at French Indochina in most cases; one of those can take units from East Indies (island) to French Indochina on J3, so you will want to build at least 6 ground on J2.  So on J3, you will have 6 ground on Tokyo, and 2 on East Indies; with 4 transports, you can move them all into Asia.  Slight variations include additional transport buy(s) on J2 for early attacks on Africa and Australia/New Zealand (for the last, using infantry from Solomon Islands, Caroline Islands, and New Guinea as applicable.

If you’re buying that much ground, then air’s pretty much out of the equation.

If US tries to build a big Pacific fleet, build a few subs (not fighters).  Subs are WAY cheaper than fighters, and hit very hard.  Japan starts with two battleships, two carriers, six fighters, and a bomber.  US should probably only have a battleship and transport in the Pacific at the end of J1 (and a US destroyer at Mexico).

By the way, try to take China with Japan.  The US fighter makes the US infantry a major threat.  Without the US infantry, Japan’s pretty much neutered.

You can try installing TripleA; look for Bunnies_P_Wrath; I’ll try to take you through a game.

Thank you soo much, this really helped me, I’m goign to play with him this weekend and with this information I’m really exicted.

Thanks men !!!

No. Your one movement is the loading onto the transport. Any land unit on a transport can be loaded and offloaded on a single turn but it takes up all their movement.

@lasttactics:

So couple questions.
1. Do you need to have a transport unloading onto a coast for an amphibious assault to take place?

Yes!
@lasttactics:

Can it just be one battleship on the coast and maybe some land units already on an adjacent territory moving towards the coast?

No!
@lasttactics:

2. Assuming no enemy sea units are in the way and its purely a land fight, does each battleship get one shot only for the entire coast battle?

No. The number of ships that can make bombardment attacks is limited to one ship per land unit being offloaded from the transports
in that coastal territory. And it is only one shot (per ship allowed) for the entire amphibious assault.

@lasttactics:

Can the battleship be hit by the enemy land units?

No!
@lasttactics:

3. Completely unrelated to amphibious assaults, but if there is an enemy territory with no units in it, am I only allowed to capture it during my combat phase, or can I capture it during my noncombat phase?

Combat phase only!
HTH :-)

thanks for your help.

@Lithiume3:

Thanks how the bomber rule for the factory

First, if the territory with the factory has an aa gun, it fires one die at each bomber. Roll one die per bomber and if it’s a one, then the bomber is shot down and can’t attack. Then roll one die for each surviving bomber. Add up the rolls and their sum is the amount of damage to the factory. A factory can’t be damaged more than two time’s its territory’s production value.