The Japan Playbook

@Stough just remember when playing tripleA that ‘1 more turn’ is never 1 more turn…

@CWO:

@Caesar:

So I played a game where as I was USSR, US decided to bomb a Japanese transport and land it in USSR territory as well as asking me to leave infantry behind to defend the bomber if Japan goes after it.

Historically, there were a few cases of US B29s bombing Japan and then, due to battle damage, flying onward to land in the relatively near USSR rather than returning to their home bases.  The planes and their crews were interned by the Soviets because it was a violation of neutrality for the US to use the territory of the USSR as part of a military operation against Japan, given that the USSR and Japan were not at war with each other until August 1945.  The OOB Global rules don’t go into that level of detail, but they do say:

Due to its separate treaties with Germany and Japan, the Soviet Union is in a unique position in its relationship with the Axis powers. As a result, if the Soviet Union is at war with Axis powers on only one map, it is still under the restrictions of being a neutral power (see “Powers Not at War with One Another,” page 15) on the other map. In other words, a state of war with Japan lifts those restrictions from the Soviet Union on the Pacific map only, and a state of war with Germany and/or Italy lifts those restrictions on the Europe map only.

From my understanding of OOB Lend Lease, it states that it is broken by Axis movements or any allies in said original USSR territory which was broken for me even though said units were not being used against Germany or Italy.

Pretty much all Japan can do against a concerted effort - keep em distracted and hope Germany can win.

@Charles:

4.  If your planes have any movement points left, they must try to land elsewhere.  If the planes have used their full movements and their carriers have been damaged, the planes are destroyed.  Ouch!

That’s in the case USA attacks.

If USA was on the defensive side (Japan attacks USA fleet in sz6) the planes are allowed 1 step to find a safe landing space, not 4. That can be an Allied-controlled territory 1 step away or an undamaged carrier with room to spare 1 step away. In this particular case : Korea or Japan (if Allies control it) or a carrier in sz5/7/16/17/18/19.

So I just played my first ever game as Axis - to date everyone has been willing to give a 9-15 bid, but an opponent last night bid 8 so I let him have it. (He added a sub to the Med and pocketed the other 2 IPC).

He spent US IPC in Atlantic (perhaps in response to my standard G1 fleet buy) and pulled Pac ships back to western US and put initial UK focus on Italy.

I DOWed him J2 and the situation for Japan couldn’t have been better. At the end of J2 I had every IPC/objective-relevant island in the Pacific except Celebes already in hand; could hold Yunnan; was two full levels deep into China; was immediately threatening India (forcing ineffective turtle by UK Pac); and there was not a single opposing transport between western US and the horn of Africa. This was later followed up by two factories in Asia each of which pumped out 3 tanks/turn by turn 5 builds; and a full-on strat bombing of India facilities, effectively taking UK-Pac out of the game before UK4. By the time the US switched to all-Pac (turn 4 or so), he was so far behind he couldn’t advance past Hawaii (and only got that far because I was still prioritizing Asia for Japan’s air force). The tank/air force just needed to mass in order to smash the remnant of China and then UK Pac, and I could then spend 40+ IPC/turn on fleet with a pullback of a few fighters to counter the US buildup.

I did lose the game but only because I messed up the tactics on the German side, which was more a result of my inexperience with Axis than anything. But there I was, first time Axis player and let to its own devices I was able to leverage Japan to take them to the house. I made lots of mistakes too, so it’s not like I had to play it perfectly - I was basically imitating all the things that I had seen others do from the Allies’ perspective to see if my opponent had answers that I didn’t.

I know some people automatically assume that having those units from the Far East in Russia proper is the best course, but if Japan does its job right those units make it west of Mongolia just in time to be confronted by a mixed Japanese stack that can overwhelm them. I would argue that those units are compelled to mass in the east in order to give China/UK-Pac a chance to survive. Taking 10 Japanese land units out of the equation in those early rounds makes a huge difference. Also allowing Japan control of the Mongolia situation by allowing it to trigger the intervention at its leisure (when it has had the opportunity to move in 4 extra inf to clean up the new Russian units) and collecting the northern Russian territories by running tanks around empty space instead of having to knock out at least a picket every space for the whole march.

It’s because of this that I believe that a) Russia can’t abandon the east, they need to put those 18 units on Amur at some point to force Japanese units away from China/UK; and b) UK/ANZAC/US need to play an aggressive counter-game to force Japan to spend to defend its Pacific territories while eliminating as many land units on the ground as possible.  If you don’t, there are few good answers to a J2 where J1 is pounding China and staging naval units and transports in complete safety for a mass J2 attack followed by a J3 cleanup. Yes, you bring the USA into the war early, but they’re not really positioned to do much that early anyway. I prefer J2 to J1 because having that first turn to move in safety and stage units is a powerful asset and allows you to see Allied 1st turn buys which tip off your opponent’s strategy before you commit to your own strategy and maintains the option to delay further if there is advantage to be gained by it.

Thanks for the recap on the stages of the Alpha’s. I do like the newer rules I think compared to the OOB rules. Just gatta break the group on the next new game.

BH

Also, unless you declare war on the allies on turn 2 on your plan, india will block you anyway so he really wont need to turtle.  The idea is to trick the allies in that it is business as usual.  If japan got straight for india turn 2, then it becomes 100% clear that Japan is giving up the pac and so the US will start dumping in the atlantic while UK turtles egypt harder.

If there is a Burmese stack, I almost ALWAYS attack on Round 2 with the intention of taking India round 3 - because I can park my fleet south of Burma (transports loaded to bear) and not have to deal with any blocking by the allies.  21 Fighters vs 10 Infantry, 2 AA Guns (give or take) may sound like a “WTF” moment, but if it means India’s a cake walk, it’s worth losing the 4 or 5 aircraft to clear it.

If there is no Burmese stack, it really depends on what Russia and Australia are doing.  If I can clear out all the potential blockers, then I’ll probably try for India, if I cannot, then I’ll set up my attack on the DEI and Philippines instead.