Alpha+.2 - How to stop a G3 Sealion?

@kilroynothere:

Now have played one game with the new setup. Overall, very impressed. The new scrambling rules certainly dramatically help Germany with a G3 Sealion. Depending on how the initial sea battles go, it is VERY difficult (or so it seems) to prevent a successful G3 Sealion. Has anyone played through this and seen the same thing?  Has anyone come up with any wonderful strategies to deter/prevent from an Allies perspective?

There’s probably no way to completely 100% guarantee that a dedicated G3 sealion can be stopped.  The only thing the allies can do is make it as costly as possible.  The UK needs to build all infantry from the start (sheer numbers), pull all planes back to the UK (at the expense of establishing a Mediterranean threat), transport whatever it can back to the home islands (if transports are still floating after G1), and try to setup a large enough naval block that the initial naval attack will require Germany to commit some air units to discourage the UK from scrambling and stopping the amphib assault before boots hit the beach.  Even then, a dedicated sealion can still work.  But at what cost?  Usually, if  Sealion is too costly, Russia will be able to advance and Germany will not have the units in position to force her back.

Also, current rules allow a naval base on Greenland, with a US fleet floating there, waiting to liberate the UK (in one move).

You can land in Scotland, but you can’t liberate the U.K. in one move from Greenland.

Might aswell spend 14 IPC’s on another transport with 1 inf 1 art, and move in from Canada, than spend 15 on a NB in greenland that is useless.

@Gargantua:

You can land in Scotland, but you can’t liberate the U.K. in one move from Greenland.

Might aswell spend 14 IPC’s on another transport with 1 inf 1 art, and move in from Canada, than spend 15 on a NB in greenland that is useless.

Prior to the UK falling I thought Sz 106 was off limits.

@Gargantua:

You can land in Scotland, but you can’t liberate the U.K. in one move from Greenland.

Might aswell spend 14 IPC’s on another transport with 1 inf 1 art, and move in from Canada, than spend 15 on a NB in greenland that is useless.

Shore 'nuf, didn’t double check the map.

I was going off an K.hund response to a question regarding movement to Greenland and possibility of a naval base, which will be rewritten to allow SZ 121.  But you’re right, pretty much useless.@Idi:

@Gargantua:

You can land in Scotland, but you can’t liberate the U.K. in one move from Greenland.

Might aswell spend 14 IPC’s on another transport with 1 inf 1 art, and move in from Canada, than spend 15 on a NB in greenland that is useless.

Prior to the UK falling I thought Sz 106 was off limits.

Indeed it is, at the end of the move phases, although movement through to 106,116 might be allowed to reach greenland (as a US territory)

Personally, I think Sealion is a waste of time.  You will not keep it past turn 4.  The US has too many resources for you to keep it.  Plus, if you put that much into Sealion, USSR will definitely come right into your back door.

In short, Sealion works but not a smart move to do.

UK makes so little money and no real bonuses that they are almost useless on the European board.  Most of the UK moves are in Africa until the US arrives.  By bombers if your opponent is planning Sealion.  Fly them away to Canada.  Once the US takes London back fly them back and bomb the hell out of Germany as the US lands troops.

@13thguardsriflediv:

The irritating bit about Alpha 2 seems to be that Germany doesn’t have to compromise between Sea Lion on G3 and Barbarossa maybe even a turn later. It can now do either without significantly making the other more difficult. I did a couple of test runs and Germany now basically beats both UK and Russia 2 out of 3 times which I deem excessive.

Another unprovable assertion. Go ahead and try that against the members here. You won’t get far.

@kcdzim:

@kilroynothere:

Now have played one game with the new setup. Overall, very impressed. The new scrambling rules certainly dramatically help Germany with a G3 Sealion. Depending on how the initial sea battles go, it is VERY difficult (or so it seems) to prevent a successful G3 Sealion. Has anyone played through this and seen the same thing?  Has anyone come up with any wonderful strategies to deter/prevent from an Allies perspective?

There’s probably no way to completely 100% guarantee that a dedicated G3 sealion can be stopped.  The only thing the allies can do is make it as costly as possible.  The UK needs to build all infantry from the start (sheer numbers), pull all planes back to the UK (at the expense of establishing a Mediterranean threat), transport whatever it can back to the home islands (if transports are still floating after G1), and try to setup a large enough naval block that the initial naval attack will require Germany to commit some air units to discourage the UK from scrambling and stopping the amphib assault before boots hit the beach.  Even then, a dedicated sealion can still work.  But at what cost?  Usually, if  Sealion is too costly, Russia will be able to advance and Germany will not have the units in position to force her back.

I can’t say any better than Kcdzim on that matter.

If your main goal for UK is to do the maximum to prevent Sealion, you can try this :

–You scramble with your 2 fighters on G1 only if you have very good odds for not losing ANY plane (in doubt, don’t scramble)

–on UK 1 ,  NCM  : 1 fighter from Scotland to UK, 1 Destroyer from SZ98 to SZ94, 1 Tac Bomber from SZ98 to Gibraltar, 1 fighter from Malta to Gibraltar, and Gibraltar fighter to UK. Depending on the fact that a germain sub might still be there to suck 2 of your precious IPC, you will NCM the SZ98 transport(loaded of course) and/or the India transport to Greece and/or persia (taking both might be necessary). This will allow you to have enough IPC to buy 10 inf on UK2. the rest of the SZ98 fleet will NCM to SZ 80 i guess…
Now, the most important NCM of all : you will usually have at least one warship still alive somewhere in the atlantic after G1 (never seen a game where ALL UK boats are sunk on G1 yet) . So you NCM that boat on SZ 104.
Now, there is no way for the Axis to prevent your 2 planes in Gibraltar from reaching UK on UK2.

This will leave you with 21 or 22 infantry, one AAgun, 6 fighters and one Tac bomber at the end of UK2. Now, if Germany insists on Sealion, it will really be atrociously expensive.

I’m not saying this is a good strat for allies because Italy will soon be a monster, but it’s the best way to prevent Sealion i have found so far…

Well, as i said, it may not be a good strat for the allies, but when you do it, Germany will usually forget about Sealion…Only time i saw Germany insists on Sealion with that allied strat, they failed to take london on G3, but took it on G4. At this point, USA was able to take it back on the same turn, and Germany had about nothing left to stop the Russian and had an airfleet severely reduced. Italia was a monster, despite the fact that the little UK India fleet kept harassing them with bringing men to africa from India.
Axis had to resign this game because of their horrible position in Europe, while the Japan had a wonderful game in the pacific.

I’m doing some thinking where it may be best if the allies allow sealion to succeed.  I’m not just talking about giving up London but building just enough infantry so that germany still needs devote a large amount of resources for invasion. Why I think this may be better is because we can now keep Italy fairly week for 2 or 3 turns more. Than if the uk pulled out of Africa.  Then Russia has a 1000% better chance against a “weaker” Germany. I say weaker because of the they have lost a large majority of their forces used in sealion. There is my thoughts about this. I would say that we need to not worry about stopping sealion but what’s the most effecient and quick way to liberate England.

We played a simliar game, our German PLay was successful on a G5 Sea-Lion and Russia Captured Berlin on R5.  Russia took all the cash from Germany that Germany had taken from U.K…  We quit at that point as Russia could then drive tanks at Japan and Italy.

Question for sea lion?

OOB this works, but what about alpha 2, stage units in Scotland and take London turn 4 with Germany? Use 9 transports, for 36 land units. Have Italy build infantry turn 1 and 2, Mech turn 3 and 4, and reinforce Berlin with 10-15+ land units + Italian air units. You should capture London with enough to hold it. Transports enable you to secure Novgorod later. Russia will get maybe +9 ipcs a round, but that is too far from the front. Germany should be able to push them back.

I would only do this if I was planning on winning with the Pacific map. Europe just needs to bog down America or get them to split some money from Pacific. Without London, Germany and Italy can push Russia back unless the U.S. helps Russia.

The last thing America will want to do is Liberate UK, allow them to collect income and have Germany retake it. That means they will need to have large land forces able to take and hold London.

If I’m not mistaken, you can lose Berlin and Rome and still win with Japan.

Would this work? Or have you seen something similar?

I played a very slow game, by myself, replaying each turn by myself to prevent a successful Operation SeaLion and could not do it.  Germany builds a carrier, destroyer, sub round 1.  It can take out the battleship, destroyer in the englsih channel, the crusiers by norway, and the transport, destroyer by canda.

G1 England can build all land units, or I also tried a carrier for the plane from Scotland and Gibraltar.  You can have all 5 planes defend the navy that way.  I then built all land units with the rest of the UK money for turns 1 and 2.

Germany’s navy and air force still won against Britains and I was left with a tilted carrier, battleship and two tac’s and a bomber.  I calculated you only needed to build 7 transports this way on turn 2 and hit the UK with all its planes, 8 transports, and a couple bombards and it fell to Germany with about 5 tanks in England.

I move the Italian navy into the Atlantic on turn two.  This prevents the US from building all transports on turn 2 and makes them build naval warships.  Thus, the US cannot liberate the UK turn 3 becuase of the naval restrictions and strong navies of the two axis powers.  Then Germany gets to build 10 people per turn in England.  It took me until turn 6 to liberate hte UK because of this and I played as efficienty as possible.  And this was with spending NO MONEY in the Pacific.

Anyone who thinks that Sealion leaves Germany weak forgets that Germany gets a turn at 96 after the elimination of the UK.  At least that’s what i twas for me.  That’s everything the USSR built the first 3 turns, but Italy and Japan are going to deal the deathblows to the USSR while Germany handles the US and UK.

Since the Japanese player would no SeaLion cannot be stopped, I attacked the USSR turn 1 with Japan and flooded tanks in the back door.  I didn’t attack the US until turn 3 because I knew that the US was coming in then.  Japan gets so beast it’s ridiculous.  Italy gets all of it’s bonuses and it’s up to 36 turn 2, and into the 40s and climbing afterward.

Brettstar4,

Just to point out under the Alpha rules the Axis can never build 10 units in England. They can never have a major factory in a territory not under their original control.

This is a minor point however, as the Axis can build the units in Western Germany or Germany proper and transport them to London.

But such little minor points can be telling when defending a victory city.

Oh I didn’t know that.  That definitely would have helped the US liberate Engalnd a turn or two earlier.  I built so many warships with the US turn 1 that the Germany navy gave up on re-stocking Japan and retrated to the Baltic.  It wasn’t worth building a navy with Germany since you had the USSR coming into the war.  Germany just built 10 infantry a turn which stalled the US.  Only building 3 infantry or 3 tanks in the UK would not have stalled teh US as long, but would give Germany more money on the continent.

Where is the name of the post with the new rules posted, I only saw the new setup and turn order?

@brettstarr4:

Where is the name of the post with the new rules posted, I only saw the new setup and turn order?

Here : http://harrisgamedesign.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=4167