My review copy of Axis & Allies Europe 1940 has arrived

@SuperbattleshipYamato If germanany does’nt send enough units to 110 and 111,I would consider scrambling.Generally if the number of dice I get to throw is equal or more than my opponents,I will scramble.
Of course that does’nt happen often.

Magro,

You are correct about that Persian air distance, my mistake. I had been looking at the Caucasus routing not realizing that the Caspian Sea-Kazakhstan route cut off a space. That saves half a turn’s worth of UK income.

That last game I had hopped an Africa fighter over and shuffled a mech in, but didn’t do a fighter build in the Persia IC because of the miscount. I had tried “overworking” the German air and main thrust by pincering two infantry forces through Bessarabia and Baltic States, and a Brit landing in Norway under cover of the surviving half of the Home Fleet (SZ 106 transport had survived G1 but went to Britain because I wanted to force Germany to buy defensive forces.) However, I found I still had enough German air plus late arriving mech/tanks along with a portion of the spearhead infantry to handle these, take Western Ukraine, retake Norway, while still continuing the spearhead to Belarus next to the main Soviet stack with mech/tanks, etc. in Bryansk. And the Scandinavian infantry took Leningrad/Novgorod.

R3 counterattack odds were very poor for Russia and were going to leave a tank stack that would still have enough mech/tanks reaching it the next turn to be unstoppable. So the retreat to Moscow was made on R3.

On G4 I strat bombed Moscow’s IC with three bombers. I decided not to scramble the two Russian fighters for this as I needed their defense as badly as the IPC’s. I figured the ~50% chance of losing one of two fighters outweighed the lower chance of clipping a bomber at ~33%. The IC’s AAA missed and the bombers inflicted enough damage that I had to spend several infantry’s worth to repair for a final infantry build there on R4, which was mostly a waste as calcs showed it would not hold even with some UK help. But I stayed and was bludgeoned. German tanks reached the Caucasus on G6 and would have been unstoppable. US landing and Brit round 5 stacks/w UK fighters reinforcing in Normandy were crushed on the counterattack that turn. It would have been much better to do a fighting withdrawal toward Persia, maintaining a threat to keep German support forces in theater, rather than be unceremoniously swept away.

Regarding Italy in general terms: use the fleet to dominate the Mediteranean and put troops in Africa. This will mean you can take oil fields in Persia (national objective) + make the USSR nervous. Specifically: you can build infantry, artillery etc. in Italy each turn, and use the fleet to move them from SZ 97 to 99 the next turn. Taking Cairo and moving those troops south will also take points from the UK + take away their national objective. Your aim is to aid Germany as much as possible in taking over the world.

Regarding Germany in general terms: Take France on the 1st turn at all costs. Build around 10 troops every turn to send against USSR. This doesn’t mean you can just march up to Moscow but it will mean your forces will be balanced. Keep pushing the front every chance you get and take away every point you can. Bomb Moscow to smithereens using strategic bombers. Destroy every stack of infantry with as little troops as you can + as many airforce as you have. This will conserve your precious troops. Don’t spend money on factories. It’s tempting and it’s fun to test out , but I haven’t seen it work.

Generally: try not to land airplanes in territories without an airfield. It’s sometimes necessary, but it’s usually more beneficial to put them on an airfield.

On another topic: I see the major industrial complex on Paris hasn’t been downgraded. It should.

I usually figure half and hour to an hour per round as long as players have a concrete idea of what they want to accomplish and plan during other people’s turns.  So, the fastest game of Europe I have had so far was this last weekend, at 4.5 hours and 5 rounds.

I use OOB rules.
I bought this game in November and play one on one against my usual A&A opponent.
We’ve played seven games so far and the axis have won four…allies three. So we think it’s pretty balanced…the only thing we don’t like is the starting IPC’s for Italy. You can’t buy sh*t with that and they lose half of their starting fleet before it’s their turn.
But since the axis have won four out of seven it hasn’t really affected the overall outcome.

@Frontovik:

@special:

@Frontovik:

So US is down for 4 rounds. afterwards, what territory should be their main goal? i used to assault normandy or south-france, because of the IC’s. Also thought of aiming at italians, who can break through egypt now. But then russians are hard pressed.
perhaps they should land together with british in norway?

the turn sequence of Alpha 3 is ideal for attacking with USA and reinforcing with UK INFs and FIGs

edit: for me Africa is first priority (UK IPC’s + securing a front and Egypt, a VC), when that is settled i prefer to aim at Norway (NO bonus for Germany and a relatively safe spot to land, AND of course a place where USA can build an IC)

by the time africa is decently secured, russia has fallen…
(atleast alpha 2)

That can happen, but even so, as long as Axis don’t capture either Cairo or London they haven’t won.

Also i said first priority, not only priority ;)

Of course Allies need to be turning the tide by now on the other side of the map.

@gen-manstein Actually haven’t played with bid in solo games, so I hope that will be an advantage.

@Krieghund:

You guys are right, the USSR would simply not get the units.  However, the Soviets only have to control the territory during the Mobilize New Units phase, not for the entire turn.

Good point, kinda like the Burma Road (or any NO). Just decide if its worth the resources to take it back to get the free inf.