Does Japan need to be house ruled to weaken them?

@Mr.Biggg:

@Mr.Biggg:

Ah ok. So this is in case you kill the battleship on R2 and Germany builds say, a cruiser and a transport. or combo with UK bomber and go after German Battleship (suddenly liking this idea, then no need for Russian sub, course then you give Germany two rounds to drop)?

Was actually just thinking, ever hit the Med on UK1. It’s risky but its 60-20-20 with 1 bomber+1 Ftr. Course then you are probably hitting Egypt with 3inf 1 cruiser, which may prove tricky.

If you miss G gets a free hand in Africa. Using the Russians to kill that fleet takes away their planes against the Germans.

I usually also land the US on Algeria on US1, even though the transports will be destroyed on G2. Usually, the sooner you start retaking Africa from the Germans the better.

This is the state of the game, just before J1 (I’m playing Allies, I opponent has retired to think it over):

I’m enacting Operation Iron Horde (detailed under “Russian moves to start the game”).  He faces: India (2 Russian fighters, 1 Russian tank, 2 UK inf, AA and IC); China (2 US inf, 1 US fighter, 1 UK fighter); Borneo (1 UK inf); New Guinea (2 UK inf); Buryatia (6 Russian inf), Sinkiang (2 Russian tanks, 2 US inf); SZ45 (UK sub, JP sub); SZ15 (2 UK cruisers, UK carrier); Egypt (1 German tank).

Would you still make your standard J1 move?

I’m pretty sure you aren’t following the rules correctly if that’s your position.  For one thing, the ac couldn’t come through the Suez Canal if Germany controls Egypt at the end of G2.

Anyway that’s a very lucky start for Allies.  New Guinea and Borneo for instance are pretty dicey–34% of the time you will lose in those battles.  Certainly there’s no ideal Japan response–it’s probably best to play fairly conservative.  Attack Pearl, attack Borneo, and attack China very hard–7 inf + 4-5 figs.

Good point on the Suez.  :-o I never had the cruiser survive G1 (high spirits I suppose), we’ll have to resolve that before we continue…
Glad you pointed that out before we had some sort of butterfly effect.  Thanks.

So… We decided that I could do only moves, no attacking with the fleet that… sneaked through Suez… in the dead of night?..
UK Indian Ocean fleet stayed put Med cruiser went to the other side of Gib.

My opponent bought: IC, transport, destroyer; attacked India with literally everything he could (4 fighters, 1 bomber, 2 inf); I got one with AA.  He pulled back to FIC with 1 bomber and 1 inf (fighter to carrier of Kwangtung). leaving me both Russian fighters and the tank (weird dice there).  He killed both UK transports with East Indian battleship and cruiser.  Pearl-lite: Battleship, sub, 2 fighters (BB lived). He turtled in Kwang adding 2 inf from Japan and 2 from Manchuria (East Indian carrier (with fighter) protects transport off China; Central Pacific carrier and new destroyer protect new transport off Japan.

Must go to work now.  More to come…

Yes, Japan’s setup needs to be changed in order to weaken them. Germany’s setup should be weakened OR the allie’s setup be strengthened.

@Nomarclegs:  I’m not going to dig through another thread to look for “Iron Horde”.  You want comments, give good details.  Like my saying Japan should use the “Voltron” strategy probably isn’t going to help you understand what I’m talking about.  (Clearly you could ALSO use “Macross” or “Robotech”.)

@nutbar:  You’re claiming Japan should be weakened, and that Germany should be weakened or Allies strengthened.  Please provide specific reasoning if you can.  Otherwise, the discussion devolves quickly into one side claiming apples are better, and another side claiming oranges are better.  Of course, maybe that’s what you want, a show of hands.  For my part, I preferred apples a couple years ago, but I like oranges a lot more these days.  Tomatoes are also very nice for chicken dishes, or for throwing at angry young gophers.  Perhaps the gophers are angry because I’m throwing tomatoes at them, but I digress.

@Biggg:  Claiming it’s a Moscow vs Berlin race is, I think, correct.  Particularly given Japan’s large starting navy and air force, with US having little to match, plus difficulty for UK and Russia in getting reinforcements to that area, plus the difficulty of 1) UK maintaining control of Africa, and 2) of UK threatening a West Europe invasion without US support (threatening West Europe forces Germany to either add a lot of units to Western Europe to defend, removing units from attack on Russia, or has Germany abandon West Europe, giving Allies a much easier time moving fleet in the Atlantic.  (For example, German bombers on Western Europe threaten a lot of the African coast, can hit points in Africa, can hit any number of territories in Russia, threaten all sea zones around London, and threaten any US transports maintaining a East Canada-London transport chain (forcing Allies to build additional escorts for such transports).

BUT I’d say that’s just the nature of the game.  If you want a different experience, try looking for something like Pact of Steel (it’s a version of Axis and Allies on the TripleA platform).  There, Australia and Union of South Africa are worth 3 IPC, and China and Italy are added as powers, changing the game dynamic to the point that Kill Japan First strategies are (in my opinion) feasible.  You could try house rules too, but strengthen Germany to compensate.

The axis do not need to be weakened. I find the opposite is true. They still need a bid. I do wish there was some way to get some more Pacific action going but we play KGF all the time now.

@Col.Stauffenberg:

I do wish there was some way to get some more Pacific action going but we play KGF all the time now.

Why not move the E US fleet to the coast of L.A. (as a house rule)? That’ll change your game and probably get the Pacific going.

@Bunnies:

BUT I’d say that’s just the nature of the game.  If you want a different experience, try looking for something like Pact of Steel (it’s a version of Axis and Allies on the TripleA platform).  There, Australia and Union of South Africa are worth 3 IPC, and China and Italy are added as powers, changing the game dynamic to the point that Kill Japan First strategies are (in my opinion) feasible.  You could try house rules too, but strengthen Germany to compensate.

I’ve played Pact of Steel quite a bit before Spring 1942 came out. It is a nice game but Axis has the advantage if German/Italy go straight to Russia through Ukraine - it is very hard for the Allies to defeat such a strat and going Pacific with the US would make it even worse.

My buddies and I played two games one Saturday a while ago. Everybody played the same power for both games. Allies won the first, and axis won the second. A&A Spring 1942 is very balanced.

@coorran:

@Col.Stauffenberg:

I do wish there was some way to get some more Pacific action going but we play KGF all the time now.

Why not move the E US fleet to the coast of L.A. (as a house rule)? That’ll change your game and probably get the Pacific going.

You mean switch the fleets or put everything over there?

We play with house rules, but those seem a little extreme. We try not to move pieces but we’ve found switching the tank in Africa with Art in Algeria and movie the german FIG in Ukraine to Southern has helped. All the games we’ve played since doing that have been very close.

i think that would just take away options for japan– no more ‘pearl harbor lite’.  new units in SZ52 will just immediately die to japan again anyway.

@ragnarok628:

i think that would just take away options for japan– no more ‘pearl harbor lite’.  new units in SZ52 will just immediately die to japan again anyway.

Really? With 20 IPC, he could place AC+ 1 sub. Add to that the submerged sub already in SZ52+ W US BB + 1-2 FTR, that’s no small fleet to sink!