The Japan Playbook

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=30167.0  Check out my Germany playbook as well!

This is a three part series. The first part is for the Japan 1 DOW on western allies.  The second part to the series is for Japan players who like to setup and start war round 2. The third part of the series is for when russians are gutsy and have stacked up amur round 1 in hopes of delaying you from your quest for glory. Feel free to comment with your suggestions below.

Do keep in mind this is a J1 DOW opener.

Also you can just look at the screenshot at the end to figure out what I did instead of reading each movement. You will notice the major pitfall to kicking off war round 1 right away, a possible Yunnan stack of british and chinese round 1, but on Japan 2 you get have plenty of guys on kwangsi so he holds it for one round only.

Most games won before round 10; are won in the pacific by Japan. You want to progress quickly as each round goes by, but you also need to be smart about things. Surprisingly some of the more conservative players do DOW with Japan as Japan can quickly make 60-70 ipc a turn.

purchase: 3 transports, 1 infantry.

COMBAT MOVES

1. 2 inf siam-> french indo china
2. 1 fighter 1 tactical sz 33->philippines
3. 1 inf 1 tank japan->transport -> philippines
4. 1 inf okinawa + 1 art manchuria -> transport -> philippines
5. formosa fighter -> 37
6. 2 bombers -> 37
7. sz20 cruiser-> 37
   8 ) 3 inf 1 art -> yunnan
8. 1 fighter 1 tactical kiangsu -> yunnan
9. kiangsi -> sz 20 transport -> borneo
10. kiangsi 1 inf 1 art -> kwangtung
11. 1 inf kiangsi -> hunnan
12. 2 fighter 2 tactical manchuria -> hunnan
13. 1 okinawa fighter -> kwangtung
14. 1 korea fighter -> sz 35
15. 1 tactical fighter sz 6 -> 35
16. 1 tactical fighter 2 fighters sz 6-> kwangtung
17. 1 carrier 1 sub 1 cruiser 1 bship 1 destroyer sz 6-> 35
18. 2 inf 1 art jehol-> chahar
19. 3 inf 1 art shangtung -> anhwe
20. 1 mech inf manchuria -> chahar
21. japan 1 tactical fighters-> kwangtung
22. bship cruiser sub sz 6 -> sz 35
23. dd sz 19 -> sz 35
    ~NONCOMBAT
    6 Inf 1 aa gun manchuria -> jehol
    4 inf korea-> manchuria
    1 carrier 1 destroyer sz 33-> 43
    1 fighter sz 37-> 43
    2 bombers sz 37-> kwangsi (all china air land there)
    1 carrier sz 6-> 36
    sz 19 bship -> sz 36
    sz 19 sub -> sz 35 (or sz 36 if you didn’t kill the battleship for some reason)
    3 inf 1 art kiangsu -> kiangsi

at this point you are just landing your air units on carriers. keep 2 destroyer in sz 6 to guard your transports, along with 3 fighters in japan to scramble against an attack from the americans, use kamikaze rolls if he sends dd and cruiser in (don’t screw around, roll 2 for dd and 3 for cruiser save 1 kamikaze to prevent bombardments later on)

1 fighter 1 tactical philippines-> 35
1 fighter 35-> 43
1 tactical fighter 35-> 36
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hunnan kwangtung and yunnin air units land kwangsi.

DISCLAIMER: THIS IS A CONSERVATIVE BASELINE.
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PROS:
1)+10 IPC, which is what you make for not being at war so you are neutral on Japan income.
2) you started taking islands and british territories -7 for UK pacific
3) you picked up some nice kills no counter attacks except from  china on yunnan.
4) all naval is safe. the allies can only block you from taking sumatra in which case you would take malaya.
5) Good kills. bship (cost you only a cruiser), sub dd (tilts bship repairs J2), the rest can be dicey.

Cons:
USA at war and will collect NOs (but he is -2 from philippines and will not collect that NO
anzac +5 because malaya
yunnan is sometimes stacked up and uk pacific attacked your 2 infantry on FIC. this is okay, I prefer not to throw all my air at these guys, simple because I want them for calcutta, but delaying calcutta so you don’t have to deal with those units is not too bad either.

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If you are playing low luck games, I highly recommend doing J1 war, because all the risk is gone.

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Overall analysis. USA at war, picks up his NOs for +20. Down sub and dd and philippines for -16, the fighter we’ll put at -3 assuming he gets two hits with it, for -19 usa.

You tend to break even compared to doing nothing. except UK is -7 and you are already taking islands.

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Sometimes if the Allies are silly. On J2 you can setup to take India J3.

airbase 2x minor factory 1 infantry or 1 airbase, 1 naval base, 1 minor factory (this means you are doing J3 calcutta. SHAN STATE or Yunnan hold is a must (this is where your air lands so you would have to kill everything around it). If USA is at Midway -1 MINOR FACTORY + 4 inf.  Kamikaze to prevent bombardments. Also you need all naval units cleared that could block your attack (position a fleet at Java or malaya and/or burma to prevent blockers if necessary). Put all available units in range of India in range. placement. airbase needs to go to french indo china or kwangsi.
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Your ultimate objective is for the capital of India, usually J4-7 you get it. Avoid losing transports whenever possible. On round 2 you should grab 3 of any combination of malaya, sumatra, java, celebes.
_Also remember that J1 war only works if amur is empty or has under 5 inf. Also if Russia is sending his mech at you and buying lots of mech… it is not a great idea to J1 dow.

How to deal with the Russians. deal with it either after calcutta (as per FIC minor FIC facto), or when it gets to manchuria, or hold manchuria and drop a minor on it to wall it off (you can invade siberia later if you need to.

The J3 buy is the hardest._
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Last suggestion. You don’t have to rush calcutta at all, you can do it j4-6 anytime you feel like depending on what the allies throw at you. Sometimes I go back to Japan and reload all my transports if the allies are being really stubborn about it.

Some people try to convoy japan, but from sz 36, with a naval base, you can hit him hard.

Also it is hard to say what you should buy / do J2 and onward, because it depends on what the allies are doing. Sometimes you get to choose between many attacks, none as the allies are full retreat, or one or two attacks, so it all depends.

**Also some anzac players like to put 3 fighters and 2 inf on java, go kill that, naval base FIC. with 6 inf 1 armor you can usually hold western australia and then blam fly your air on it the round after and move the naval up so you can take new south wales without being blocked from attack it. If you get an easy opportunity, just take it. when you have australia, usa has to really go out of his way to liberate it.

Otherwise just ignore it for the first round, you have other battles to do.**
Edits done 2013, 2014, and 2016
Last edit I will ever do 7/21/2017 for below

Okay, years have passed and I have only been doing J1 (because every time i think about doing a J2 I say F it and J1 dow and no one ever has a stack in amur for me to attack to give me a reason to j3 DOW). I have made some adjustments over this time. J1 is my preference and I do the same thing every game. Best counter I seen to the Sino Russia thing is USA with the bomber spam during usa 1 and 2 then flys 9 bombers to scotland and then into Russia (the 7 movement is real), super effective counter and 9 bombers on Russia is actually really solid cannon fodder, can really shut down a G5-G7 takedown of Moscow. This is what I do against Japan ignoring the pacific and going after Russia, it is the only way USA can get units into Russia in time to defend it and have a meaningful impact quickly.

You can defend Japan with 1 sub (can be another dd instead) 1 dd 1 cruiser 2 fighters. Use all 3 kamis on dd and 3 kamis on cruiser (usa has 2% to win if you hit both, 9-10% with 1 hit and 36% all miss). I prefer to defend with 3 fighters except when I lost a cruiser and fighter in sz 37 (so i fly the 3rd fighter down to defend my carrier).

I usually attack sz 62 with 1 destroyer (chance to hit the lotto and sink the transport and dd, sometimes you just end up tossing a destroyer away or trading destroyers).

So what changed? I move only 1 inf to kiangsi (sometimes 1 inf 1 arty if phil lost 3 units, usually lose 2 guys so you need the extra inf to pick up for malaya or whatever). No fleet in 36 (it all goes sz 35). Picture in next post.

J1DOW.tsvg

This is outdated. Needs to be updated.

Here is the general framework for how to setup for J2 DOW, this is a picture of the end of J1. There is a bit of controvesy over transport placement/moves. Generally speaking I like to setup so that I can grab malaya, borneo, phil, and java… if they want to block me, that is just a series of freebie kill. You can put the japan transport on caroline or off of kwangsi, it is really up to you.

How you do J2 really depends on your playstyle, but this opener allows you to go in many directions for J2. This is more of a crush calcutta setup with options to do other stuff.

some people don’t put anything in carolines on J1. generally speaking I don’t like air units on caroline, but I like the xport there so I put a bare minimum naval… the problem with max naval to carolines is A) you get blocked, but still have to move west to guard xports so you probably won’t exchange with usa and keep carriers in carolines to land or B) anything you attack, can get counter attacked.  Still it is a viable option. It does make attacking burma risky business because some air units are away, so it does telegraph that you probably won’t rush calcutta.

you can always try a surprise anzac. If you take western austrialia and there is no counter attack, next turn all of japan’s air goes there and wam bam you in business to take new south wales over… this is the nice thing about caroline transport. Keeps your opponent guessing.

I don’t usually J3 india, but if I am in the mood for it, I’ll do it. Takes a bit of luck and a naval base (air base as well if it allows all your fighters to make it or additional planes).
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air units on the carrier off kwangsi is not so bad if you know your opponent is going to put 2 infantry and 3 fighters on java (and he doesn’t block you from attacking it).

To be honest they usually block it with uk and/or USA.

Sino Russian opener. This is for players that like waiting till japan 3 to DOW on western allies, because if you are going to wait to dow on western allies until j3, you may as well clear out china and russia while you wait.

In order for this to work the way you expect it to work russia must leave 4 or more infantry on amur.

if you are dead set on doing sino russian strategy with an empty amur, I suggest all boats drop on amur to defend against 20 inf attacking.

purchase 2 transport 3 mechanized infantry

Combat moves

load 1 inf off okinawa, grab a tank off japan-> soviet far east
load 1 inf off iwo jima, take an artillery off japan -> unload on amur
all manchuria and korea ground forces -> amur
The amount of air you send at amur varies depending on how many ruskies are there. 3 fighter 3 tactical is fine for under 6 infantry stacks, for bigger stacks add more air as you feel necessary.

3 inf 1 art 2 bomber, 1 fighter 1 tactical -> yunnan (usual attack)
2 or 3 inf 1 art, 2 fighter 2 tactical -> hunan (usual attack, some like to hold back an infantry just in case so they know they can take back yunnan and keep china from making artillery).
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non combat

1 transport 1 dd 1 sub 1 carrier 1 tactical 1 fighter-> paulau island (this may seem like a shock, but it is your insurance that uk pac and anzac don’t declare war on you, since this enables you to take islands as all your ground forces are being used at the moment).

keep 1 bship 1 cruiser at japan all other naval goes down to kwangsi (this prevents uk pac from trying to bombard your air untis and attacking with 2 fighter 1 bomber… which is funny as hell).

surviving air units can land in jehol and be in range of hitting chinese forces as well as forcing ruskies to move back.

J2 if for some miracle you lost amur to a strait infantry attack from russia… then you can counter attack it and setup to declare war on j3.

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How you setup on j2 (or sometimes you may wish to go to war with the western allies on j2, that is why the transport is at paulau so you can nab borneo or something), really depends on what the allies do from there.

typically you paulau transport to carolines. sz 5 goes to sz 19 and picks up 4 men from japan and drops it into manchuria or something. the japan transports move to kwangsi and drop 4 guys. you buy more transports and men to fill the boats or throw down minor complexes. I like having 2 transport purchase at least (get men to kwangtung or philippines). typically sz 19 is safe for awhile so you can buy 4 infantry and expect to be able to pick up 4 guys from japan during japan 3 and drop them into jehol or something.

disclaimer: On J1 the exact amount of air you keep in range of the russian stack in jehol and the amount of air units you keep at kwangsi in range of southern china… really depends on your preference. The picture shows what it looks like when russia leaves a small 4 inf stack on amur, his odds of killing amur with 17 inf is 33%~ I typically only do the sino russian strategy when russia leaves 4 infantry because then I get to take soviet far east then blitz left no problem so it is pretty sweet to start workin the income up

Oh yeah you don’t need to bring the xports up top if russia stacked 10+ units on amur, you just kill it and do the usual J2 DOW

you asked me this on another thread.

This is also one of three openers, which is what I said earlier. Since russia can do something like putting 18 inf on amur off the bat which can attack 4 koreans if ignored… i have to have a seperate opener for that. Also have to have an opener for QQ germany players who want me to wait.

aa50, revised, and classic has standardized moves, why can’t global?

J1 war is not fool proof at all. yunnan stack can be troubling, but it willl have to get out of the way or go to burma. after your boats drop on kwangsi and kwangtung guys move up. also anhwe goes to hunnan with the mech inf following. meanwhile free pickings up top.

Also keep in mind, shan state cannot be hit by china.  French indo china moving up to shan state in the event of a yunnan hold is always good… you can have 10 units there for J4.

the only thing that would keep you from owning yunnan with all your air would be british help… 14 inf vs 8 fighter 8 tactical  2 bomber (also 2 inf from french indo china if uk did not hit it with his air)… China is done after that, but you lost 5-7 air units usually, which is on par with what you killed. If the air goes to yunnan, you can eye out burma, hit it with your air if it is only say 3 aa guns and 7 inf… he’ll lose his capital soon enough.

once your transports showup, you threaten burma, india, and yunnan. something got to give.

~ rules reference prior edit april 11 2012, new edit below
Page 12, Europe rulebook, in the Declaring War box:
“During your Combat Move phase in which you entered into a state of war, your transports that are already in sea zones that have just become hostile may be loaded in those sea zones (but not in other hostile sea zones). In effect, transports may be loaded in their initial sea zones for amphibious assaults before war is declared, while the sea zone is still friendly.”

So if you do decide to delay going to war you need not worry too much about anzac ships stopping you from loading and offloading, uk ships you should worry (they dow on anzac turn and you screwed!)

Well usa has to pick a side. He could get brazil round 1 on euro side… but what else is he going to do? he has a cruiser not a destroyer…

he collects USA 1, places his +23 or whatever USA 2. How many rounds will that take to impact me?

Hawaii is not an issue either. he has a 4 man drop only… with 2 air and a bomber… that is not taking over japan… kamikaze blocks bombardments. Plus I like him in hawaii or midway. keeps him away from my naval. He can convoy disrupt japan while japan takes out calcutta or south whales.

after all… it is so easy for japan to skip india and get anzac, even if I hold australia for only a little bit, the loss I incur would be fairly minimal much less than calcutta by far. I can get 8 on it. more than enough air units. There is a naval base there too so I can blast off back to java and place 3 inf on it a turn.

Like I said, J1 war is for people who don’t screw around and get right to it. It is not for everybody. It is for people who want to play sooner than later.

Plus it is all about calcutta, it is a gambit, you give china access to the burma road possibly in exchange for the full might of japan on india. J4 / J5 is where the takedown occurs.

If you notice, Japan cut UK PAC off by 7 ipc right off the bat, malaya is sure to be next and whatever little island he takes with his transport goes as well.  He’ll only make 5 inf round 1, 3 inf round 2, 3 inf round 3. you got 6 transports. you can get 12 guys on it… plus all your air. for him to stop you, he’d need to A) block your transports B) have enough in burma to kill shan state when you move in so your air can’t reach india while having enough to defend india from a direct drop on his capital with 6 air units landing on carrier and 2 bombers (plus the bombers you buy off your minor).

uk needs to be buying mech inf round 1 and 2. so he doesn’t have to keep so many in burma and have the chinese protect burma.

plus you can sneak around to szechwan and have that for a landing zone. Or if italy helps you out with eastern persia… WOO SURPRISE! :D

There is obviously a ton of variables that go into this.

in all honesty, minors on malaya french indochina and kwangtung, pretty much contain UK pac and you can sneak around to szechwan to shutdown the burma road. Those extreme defense players can go huddle up in burma/india all game.

In one game held western australia for a round, moved all my air to it, moved my transports to java. killed all the potential blockers in the area, placed naval base on java… then blasted off to new south wales.  that was a great game. I had australia, dutch islands. middle china (north was lost), south east asia, philippines and obviously japan was easy to hold.

I pretty much guarded the islands till the end. that was funny. I started to lose them, but we ended up winning on Europe side, because usa went overboard on pacific - I mean he had no choice at that point. That was a fun, everyone freaked out when I took anzac.

I did answer. Ignore the russian inf stack up top. Hawaii does nothing, out of range of your naval, j4 I buy fighters. J5 10 inf on japan if USA insists.

USA at war round 1 instead of round 2 is little difference. He has to replace the sub and dd he lost in pacific along with that fighter.

USA can’t take over africa with his 1 transport and 1 cruiser… come on now.

The only attack USA has on round 1 is brazil… and technically that is non combat movement.

USA collects his 73 round1, buys and places round2, moves it out round 3, then has to move it out again to be in position…

Even then we are only talking about +23 worth of stuff, which is probably 3 dds (techically he already lost this on J1 but now gets an option to replace or to get something else)
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I always DOW J2, because there is no reason to delay.  and you are only speaking of +23 bucks. He did spend stuff in the atlantic, but once I took calcutta he had to go all pacific, because I was mobilizing to take hawaii.

Try to keep things in perspective please. You blow everything out of proportion.

Yes this is gambit, but it is not much of a gambit reallly.

I always DOW J2. Why would anyone wait till J3? … afterall J2 you can get 4 islands… that’s 15 bucks right there…

I did address this issue. It’s called minor complexes making inf and just containing UK pacific to 7 ipc a round.

Plus if you are sending reinforcements from africa and russia… I am sure you are having trouble in say idk, maybe, Africa?

Your infantry move 1 space at a time. round 4 you are in korea or manchuria (actually if you are in manchuria you are super dead). Round 5 you are manchuria. round 6 jehol. round 5 is usually where I all inned calcutta or decided to contain. in which case round 6 or 7 I setup to deal with it.

yes you are bieng annoying up top, but are you gg’ing japan? nope.
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USA is not any stronger than it would be had I waited to J2 or J3 to go to war. The pitfall has to do with china and not USA contrary to your flawed logic.

You are not accounting for the naval japan kills, battleships tilt and repair, he lose dd and sub, he has to replace. it is not a +23 benefit. you -2 pinoy, you -14 naval. please do math. also fighter -3 there assume it get 2 hit.

he lose 19, 25 if you add 2 usa inf on pinoy. he get 23, where is the huge benefit for usa??? i do not see. l2 add and subtract. :X

Yes there is a pitfall with china, it has to do with the burma road. Yes there is another pitfall up top because of the russian inf. Does this have an impact? yes it does, but you are trying to take out a country to make up for it. That is the idea.

There is no pitfall with America. In fact USA should never be a determining factor for your decision to go to war or not, it is better for your income to climb sooner than later.

Again I do not see how USA at war round 1 or 2 or 3 matters much.

I generally do the J2 DOW every game, because I can nab 3 isles, while killing an yunnan stack / pushing on china. The biggest issue is china and uk merging on yunnan with a J1 DOW… it is troublesome.

USA gets 23 but lost 19 on the first round. so it is a moot point, I am tired of repeating myself. usa is not in range to threaten anything yet either. on USA1 he goes to hawaii and then his japan threat is still minimal. 2 air 1 bomber 4 guys… usa 2 and beyond, maybe he can buy all naval for pacific or europe, one side suffers more than the other (usa can already do this, just with 23 extra bucks for 1 round, woopy do).

Yes russia can reinforce india along with the african air etc… but that’s stuff not being used on the other half of the board, germany should be making quick gains considering russia is already short on firepower to forgo 3 air units to india.

Also you get 3 more islands on j2 so your income goes up as well.

You guys talk about this usa advantage, but I just don’t see it. He loses stuff round 1 and they kill nothing. So for usa the DOW is a moot point.

This is very interesting and if I ever did this I’d threaten sealion and then go hard on USSR. Maybe G1 Barb? If you can take UK or push on USSR G1 then US has a choice. Try to save UK/USSR and build in atlantic or try and contain Japan? That’s a tough balance right there to maintain. Too little of US in either theater will likely doom the allies.

I appreciate this. Give it a try :D . you can also send all available units to do pearl harbor and all transports on philippines and the rest of the naval there. do the same transport buy and take hawaii the round after (unless usa buys strait subs or something that would cause you to leave the area).

Problem with this is not having anything to defend the transports in spice islands… you end up killing lots of hawaii stuff with no counter, but end up losing transports to take all the islands. It is still fun, if anzac is buying sub/dd combos, after hawaii you can move down and then blast off with your transports and drop australia and merge with the naval down under.

It is really funny to take out anzac players, anzac is very limited and it is difficult to predict japan moves with it (if japan is unpredictable or if you have not faced that player before).

Yes, on the europe side of the board, I assume everyone does sea lion bluff by now, as the carrier and boats you buy ease the novgorod situation and get infantry / art into the fight sooner (instead of mech / tanks which is more costly)… Also you can follow through with a UK takeover if UK sends out all his air.

`to those italy skeptics.

As far as italy / africa goes. germany has a ton of air that can hit usa should he come into the medit sea also usa can’t enter the medit sea and supply UK with naval at the same time, he has to do one before the other. generally speaking Italy 1 you can save up Italy 2 you can get naval Italy 3 you drop alexandria and pwn egypt no problem.

You can usually race and take egy/transjordan and when usa enters you can stay tucked away . At this point you stop buying naval and get ground forces, your extra income pays for it.

USA, can go many directions, but he has to put income on both sides of the board so I would be careful of saying USA solves everything, because in actual game play usa cannot win everywhere. USA is not charlie sheen…

I think J2 DOW is standard play, because allies tend to grab dutch islands, and you have to take that cash away (or face even more infantry being placed in india and subs from anzac).

haha questioneer my standard j1 and j2 dow is similar to yours. I browsed some games real fast.

the allies seem so discombobulated around here though.