Ideas for Russia in Alpha 3?

Turn 1, build 9, 2 Art or 8 Inf, 3 Art. IMHO, Russia needs lot’s of Inf and as many Art as possible the first two turns. You can build mostly Inf w/a few fast movers(i.e. Mech & Arm) out of Rus turn 3 or 4 if need be, depending on what the Germans do. Build your Inf in Nov and Sukr rounds 1 and 2. Build your Art in Rus and move forward to the front lines, rounds 1 and 2. Bel and Bry are the two key territories to put your units in as much as possible. Usually on Round 1, Germany will have taken Yugo w/a bunch of 9 Inf, 2 Art & 3 Arm. Usually on Round 2, those units will go into Rom or Hun. Combined w/the 4 Inf from Bul(1 German Inf to activate Bul on Turn 1, plus the 4 Bul Inf), you have 5 additional German Inf to move into Rom. That’s a whole lot of German units to attack Russia down south, moving towards Sukr. Usually Germany will try a two pronged attack. Down south and then up north through either Epl or Bal. By staging in Bry and Bel, you can either divide your forces up into a southern and northern defense. If the Germans just go one direction(i.e. south or north) then having your units in Bry and Bel allows you to also put your forces to stop that one direction attack. It will take the German player two rounds to get into Nukr or Sukr(i.e. southern attack) or Bal or Bel(i.e. northern attack). By that time, it will be Round 3 or most likely Round 4. Most Barbarossa’s don’t start until G3. By that time you should have a considerable counter attack force to pummel the Germans. Make sure to put your BB in SZ114 to counter a G2 or G3 seaborne invasion of Bal, Vyb or Nov. Watch any German navy in SZ112 w/German Trans from moving to SZ127 and invading Kar, Arch or Nen. Most Germany players in Alpha 2 will have a first turn purchase of 1 AC, 2 Trans, leaving Germany w/3 Trans. If you’re playing Alpha 3, it appears most German players will buy 1 AC, 1 SS & 1 DD Round 1. This is b/cuz it appears SeaLion is more difficult in Alpha 3 vs. Alpha 2 w/the 5 AA guns in the UK. I’ve seen this a lot from other Russian players, which I feel is a mistake. Always leave at least 1 Inf behind in territories. This forces the German player to usually bring in at least 2 ground units to take the territory. Better to fight at a 2, then attack back at a 1. Yes, most likely you won’t get a hit(i.e. 33.3% chance) but like I said, it prevents just a move in by 1 German Inf. In the Far East, start moving your Inf back immediately. Leave 1 Inf behind in each of Amu, Sib and Sfe. Move the rest of your Inf from Bury, Sak and Amu towards the backside of China and Russia. This will help against the Japanese from moving into Russia, after they blast the Chinese. It will also help in Russia if Germany makes it that far. Most Russian players, IMHO don’t marshal their forces correctly, which leads to the German player(if he’s good) to take advantage of these mistakes. Hope this helps…

Is this an online game through the forum or an in person game? Either way, if you need help, let me know. Russia is my favorite country to play, so I’m happy to help where I can…  :-D

Also, if you have access to the web or have an iPhone or Droid, download this odds calculator. It will help tremendously in making decisions. It has the Alpha 2 and Alpha 3 rules built into it. It’s a steal and a must, IMHO for any A&A player. And it’s only $3.99… It also has A&A Anniversary and other scenario’s built in as well…

well russian play is not terribly tricky but…
heres some basics

russia (like all the allies) must base its actions on axis movements

if you expect a full on barbarossa, inf will be ur main buy for most of the game, but i’d sprinkle in an art or tank or both most turns.  also, on R1, stage the mech and tank in stalingrad at Kazahkstan.  on UK1 make sure ur ally activates east persia so that as soon as ur at war, the ruskies can activate persia, get the guys and sack iraq for extra cash.  whether or not you send any remaining mechanized units toward ethiopia/italian somaliland is up to you, but those extra bucks keep russian income near 30ish until the germans are AT moscow. Â

on the eastern front, fall back from leningrad as you will not be able to defend it.  instead defend the territories south of the pripet marshes.  keep the germans out of the ukraine area as long as you can, but try not to lose many units doing it.  also, if the italians are can opening on the eastern front, DON’T BLOCK BLITZES.  basically ever.

now sealion is a different story, if you read a sealion (which prolly won’t happen but…) build mechanized units in leningrad and ukraine and stage ur forces for a massive strike on romania.  ur goal will be to stack there as long as possible and maybe get a few dudes into the balkans (mainly albania) if possible.  you will have to switch back to heavy inf buys once the germans kick you out of europe tho

basically in any situation, you don’t wanna lose units with russia, those units are needed to make moscow a fortress.  also, march the eastern inf in siberia and such ALL the way back ASAP.  you’ll need them.

KillOFzee, if Germany super stacks in E Poland in the initial attack I don’t see how you can hit & run as Russia, even w/art purchases early on. You’ll play right into his hands losing your inf stack early. Plus Italy could be leading the way on It2. We see that quite often now. Italy invades E Poland It2, the Germans NCM in G3 (maybe bring in some air) so they still get the wheat NO. It seems a little gamey, but so does Russia taking Persia to attack Iraq for NO bonus etc…

I’ve done hit & runs w/Russia that got my a** kicked, maybe I’m a little gun shy?

A lot of people encourage offensive purchases early while you lie in wait for the German advance.

I beg to differ and play for the long game with Russia by purchasing max infantry every round until the round AFTER Germany advances on Russia.

So if G2 is the DOW, then you stop buying Inf after R3.
If G3 is the DOW, you stop buying Inf on R4.

After your last Inf Purchase, its full Armor purchases.

Strategically withdraw one step ahead of a German Blitz and/or German Infantry stacks supported by Aircraft.

Funnel Germany North into Leningrad, utilizing Bryansk as your staging point to keep the Germans going North and belaying a German advance into the Minors in Ukraine and Stalingrad.  The South is where the Russian cash comes from and you also have two IC’s there that can 2 move Armor/Mech into Moscow if Germany decides to SBR Moscow.

Your goal is 50+ Infantry under Russian control with a half dozen to ten Armor by the time Germany takes Leningrad.

Germany is going to need more units than it can mobilize in 6 turns to successfully sack Moscow with 50+ Infantry which should buy you 3ish rounds of fodder before Germany’s Armor starts to dip into your 50% to hit die rolls.  Germany is planning on having only 2 rounds of fodder before you start dipping into its Armor - so you accomplish two things with this:  First, you make it VERY expensive for Germany to go after Moscow.  Second, you delay Germany if they wish to attack with better odds.  Both of these are good things for the Allies.

The most important thing, from this turtle move is that you don’t counter-attack and expose units in the north to a Germany Counter-counter attack.  Trading 1 space thats worth 1 IPC and sacrificing 9+ IPC in units is not a good economic move.

germany buys naval, you get mech for nov and ukraine. move all available units in range of eastern poland. if he buys more naval you stack EP.

Indeed  it is…

I think the 5th AA people talk about is the one that starts in Scotland.

Correct. 4 in the UK. One in Scotland. Go to the Larry Harris website for the Alpha 3 setup charts.

I have played vs people online with TripleA and my last game(the first one with the new setup) Germany has more stuff. In fact I ended up with Germany(I like playing Allied nations if possible, and the USA if its my pick first) and first turn I took All of France but Southern France which I left for Italy(the Axis players exchanged e-mails and made a game plan, not sure if the allied players did the same). I also took one of the allied leaning neutrals. Then I made slow moves to regroup my forces into groups that I wanted. I faked sea lion by buying some transports turn 1 and sinking the Uk fleet.  Italy screwed up badly due to bad dice rolling and left almost the entire UK med fleet intact(which closed the Africa option pretty much). Turn 3 I attacked Russia easily pushing their front lines back. I should note that I do almost all armor buys with Germany. Germany can build a ton of armor over 3 turns and if they can keep their fighters they can do a lot of damage with that combo.

Also Japan starting attacked Russia turn 2 and that helped. With the amount of fighters they have they easily blow past the 18 inf stack of death. And they they were able to tank blitz pretty easily through Russia with part of their forces. The extra income they got from it allowed them to build more fighters and more fleet to keep the USA busy. Russia started to crumble they got pushed back each turn. By turn 9 all of Russia had been taken. The UK got there too late to make a difference. And the USA was never able to get enough forces gathered to bring an invasion fleet over to Europe, not in time to make a difference anyway. Each time they tried they lost ground to Japan in the other ocean. They did manage some landings later in the game(it lasted 12 turns before the Axis could grab enough victory city’s with both Germany and Japan grabbing the needed amount on the same turn), however they never got enough of a foothold to make a difference. I kept taking back the lost areas with my German forces. The UK could do nothing once I took their fleet out because every time they tried to make a new fleet I sunk it with my rebuilt fleet + fighters/tac bombers/bombers.  By the time the USA brought enough that I couldn’t sink it it was already too late. India was on the verge of falling and it fell turn 11 to Japan. It would have fallen the turn before but the UK player made a desperate counter attack on both the German and Japan forces closing in and managed to save themselves for a turn.  Both Germany and Japan had over 100 income each turn before the game ended. I had enough as Germany to build throw away delaying fleets each turn to keep the USA for doing a major navel action in Europe.

I will say this though. It didn’t help that the allies for some reason decided it would be a good idea to attack the  neutrals(they thought Spain would be an easier route into Europe then France) but that allowed the Axis to grab tons of free troops and provided us a quick route(through Turkey) into the middle east.

The point is if Russia can’t hold back the tide long enough they are in trouble. Unless the German player waits past turn 4 to attack(no reason to allow Russia to keep building by doing that though) then they can attack first. But the game is decided on the first big battles if Russia decides to put all if its stuff on the front lines. If not and they try to attack tanks plus support with guys, good luck with that. They tried that a couple of times and it worked once but it cost them the army they had been building to defend Moscow.

My advice for Russia. Build armor as much armor as you can get away with. I wouldn’t pull the 18 guys back but I would not group them all together were Japan can wipe them out in a single round with their fighters.  Spread them out and force Japan to go place by place to take it. No free blitzing. Russia is down to praying that Germany loses its fighters or that the UK isn’t income screwed in Europe, or that America can get over there to help out quick enough. One thing the allies didn’t do is send massive amounts of fighters into Russia. That would have delayed things I think. But once Germany gets rolling income wise its very very hard to stop if Germany makes the proper builds and luck doesn’t go totally against them.

Redhunter: Russia was played very poorly. The key to Russia is strategic retreat. Just like historically you must trade space for time. Time to build you infantry stakes higher. Time for the Western Allies to open another front. Buying time and delaying the fall of Moscow is Russia’s goal. As Russia you must be very careful not to engage in any major conflict until much later in the game. Obviously if Germany goes Sea Lion you want to put pressure on them and make them pay the consequences for it. But if the German gaze is locked on Moscow rather than London you must defend hard. Only retreat when you have to, but do not make pointless stands at Leningrad or the Ukrane. Moscow is whats important. If you can stop their attack in the south Even if that means that they push North with little resistance. The south has 2 factories plus the majority of your IPC’s. But if the Germans send everything they have S. it is only a matter of time before they gather enough forces to push you back.

This is a Russian Strategy page I wrote the other day (haven’t revised it any yet)

Hallo привет こんにちは Hello 你好 Ciao this is an article for Russian Strategy on the 1940 global board.
Just to say one thing real quick before we begin is that this is my first time trying to write something like this so please forgive errors in format.

OK now to take Russia’s first turn you must react to how Germany took theirs. As I see it you have two options depending what Germany did, if they attacked you first turn then you must act quickly to bolster your defenses and buy 3 inf in Novgorod and Ukraine and Russia, but you must also slowly building offensive units so build a tank and an arty in Volgograd.
If Germany did not attack you then you must build offensive units to prepare a counter attack when Germany does attack. Build a bomber in Russia, 3 inf in Novgorod, 1 arty in Ukraine, and 2 tanks in Volgograd.

The movement, If Germany attacks first turn you must take back Baltic states with your air force and as many ground units while still protecting Leningrad. This is to get the only buffer between Germany and Leningrad back in the begging when its easier. Should the German player put most of his attacking units in Baltic states and Eastern Poland is easier to take back then attack eastern Poland. This will do sort of the same thing it will split the German line and your units will get crushed next turn but it will force the German player to halt the push into Russia and go back to take Eastern Poland and make his lines safe again giving you another turn to get ready and build up. On the noncombat move do not move the units out of Vyborg, Karelia, Archangel, or Ukraine they are for defense. Do move the units from Volgograd and Caucasus to Rostov, move the units in Russia to Novgorod (except the air units move them to Rostov), move as many of the inf from the east as you see fit because japan won’t always attack but you will need to make that call, and try to keep two inf on ever front line territory against Germany.
If Germany didn’t attack then have two inf in Vyborg, Karelia, Baltic states, Eastern Poland, and Bessarabia anything else will be a waste because it will all get crushed in the German Blitzkrieg, move the inf from Russia to Novgorod and the other stuff(except AA) to Ukraine, keep at least 1 inf in every territory west of Russia, move everything in the Caucasus and Volgograd to Ukraine. Do the same thing for the east as if Germany did attack.

If all goes well continue to build Offensive units like tanks and arty in Volgograd and Ukraine, and inf in Novgorod and Russia also  build a tank at your choice to give a punch to your defenses. Every turn try to attack a German territory (if any are not crazy) to keep the Germans on their tows. Don’t let them get comfortable and don’t let them put you in a bad position. If you don’t have bad luck and japan doesn’t attack you sit back with this plan until D-Day. Also if Germany take any territory with a Industial Complex your bomber will be good for a turn and burn tactic so the Germans can’t use it against you.
(one other thing you can do if you can see that its not going well enough for you to attempt the above go defense and lead Germany on an easy trail to Russia, when the times right and they have moved towards Russia without taking Leningrad or Stalingrad you spring the BEAR Trap and crush the units in the pocket.)

The point of these purchases and moves is to build a defense in Leningrad and build an attack force in Stalingrad/Ukraine. In most if not all games I have played, watched, and read, Germany tends to go north first swoop down on Moscow with the south bringing up the rear. They do this by devoting as many units as possible to crush Leningrad quickly then move to Moscow and Stalingrad, but if you can move quick enough with the necessary units you can disrupt that and bring their attention to the whole front making  it hard for Germany to attack Leningrad in a mass strike because you have forced them to go south with more units. A second plus to moving south is that if you can move into Romania you could get Yugoslavia if Germany or Italy didn’t but even if they did you are forcing Germany to build mostly tanks and send them south away from Leningrad and not building as planes or ships or whatever to attack the UK with. It is a huge distraction for Germany and it puts them on your terms. Russia’s survival depends on slowing the German Blitzkrieg.

@Ghost One the German player you describe sounds pretty weak and pretty worthless if he allows Russian units into German areas, considering that Russia can’t attack first even if Germany does do Sea Lion(which they won’t in Alpha 3). If Germany allows Russia enough turns to where they can attack first then you can call the game already because Russia won’t fall in time to stop the USA from blitzing Europe.  The axis doesn’t have time to sit around and build up.

@RedHunter:

@Ghost One the German player you describe sounds pretty weak and pretty worthless if he allows Russian units into German areas, considering that Russia can’t attack first even if Germany does do Sea Lion(which they won’t in Alpha 3). If Germany allows Russia enough turns to where they can attack first then you can call the game already because Russia won’t fall in time to stop the USA from blitzing Europe.  The axis doesn’t have time to sit around and build up.

Firstly the person who almost always plays Germany at our games always attacks Russia first turn and no matter who plays Russia Germany always takes Moscow. the German player at our games has Never allowed a Russian unit any where near Germany. (Russia getting that far into Germany is just a long term goal of the strategy that in all honesty is only possible with the allies in the west taking German reinforcements away from the east). The German player I described is only a stand in of what Germany might do first turn and what Russia should do to react.

Second I never said Russia should attack first because I now they can’t attack until Turn 4 and no German player will let it go that long. I said Russia should prepare a counter attack to the initial German attack on turn two if the Germans don’t attack turn one, Because the strategic retreat strategy for Russia never buys enough time for the allies to land because Russia will fall around turn 6 or 7 and the real Normandy invasion didn’t happen until turn 8 which is when it usually happens in the game.

If you start retreating the first turn that Germany attacks then you have already lost Russia because if you allow the Germans to choose where the fighting will be then you make it easy for them to push farther and farther into Russia because they feel safe a Russian attack will never threaten their lines which allows Germany to consolidate huge amounts of troops in one area to crush even the largest Russian defense.