Super Stack or Stupid Stack?

That’s when you really need an atomic bomb in this game.  :-)

All it does is delay what is coming. Which could give time for the USA to ride in and save the day. But it also gives Germany a ton of extra income if everything but Moscow has fallen.

@Gargantua:

Ok, what the hell is with all the players that - for example - make super-stacks in Russia, at the cost of their ENTIRE territory.

Is there some magical concept I’m un-aware of, that leads people to thinking this is a good idea?

In several play boardgames sections, and in some F2F games I’ve played, I’ve seen this same method used a number of times.

A russian stack of 70+ units, gets surronded in the capital on all sides, by 1 infantry.  And no Counter-offensives are launched.

Instead of front-lining and micro fighting the germans across the entire eastern front, the STUPA-STACK is used instead.

When are people going to realize, that unless your STUPA-STACK is so large, your opponent can’t beat it AT ALL, that it’s a bad idea in general.

A series of smaller battles, who’s odds you can control is always better than one massive battle which you’re going to lose most of the time.

I’m a firm believer that there’s a time and place for everything in Axis and Allies, (There really is).

But…

DON’T BE A STUPA-STACKER

Well - it’s pretty much a matter of cost/effective and a time perspective.
Does it cost you more or less than counter attacking/breaking out - and how much time does it buy you.

well germany has more air units so doing small skirmishes comes out at a disadvantage normally.  Also depends on germany… if he has two seperate stacks one north and one south, I may be tempted to hold ukraine with a mid stack or super stack bryasnk.

There just isn’t an incentive to trade units from the russian perspective. Russia is fairly limited, maybe if it had a bomber it would do more attacks.

As of right now, most players don’t like gambling with russia… unless germany does a sea lion, like massive naval buy, then yeah sure gamble with russia and be aggressive.  Other than that… nope, not going to bother.

plus you can’t have a mid stack up north where you get isolated so your only real option is bryansk and attack back from there, that is it. sometimes you can if italy is not in the picture and/or germany has limited mech units.

Lots of players screw it and spam infantry to hold up. Russia just doesn’t have the income to compete with germany and usa is far plus he has to deal with japan… then you got uk who has to shutdown italy first.

it is good to fight back to keep the bombers away from russia, but sometimes you just can’t no matter what you buy or do. So most people just screw it, spam inf, don’t care.

Stopping production from minors when possible is very wise, you have to counter attack that when you can.

Counterattacking can allow USSR to neutralize Germany’s advantage in air units.  If you can stop the Italians from taking a territory like Belarus or North Ukraine with a modest infantry stack, then when the Germans take it they will not be able to land air units there, and be vulnerable to counterattack.  If you have enough artillery, the mere threat of your counterattack might make them pause, thus buying yourself another turn of survival.

I have found it hard for Russia to hold out vs Germany if the German player makes smart buys and manages their battles well(and the dice don’t screw you of course), because if you go by G3 you have a huge edge vs Russia. If Japan attacks from the other coast and Italy can come up from the middle east then Russia is screwed. Because they have to decide if they want to run those inf back and just give ground to Japan(at which point the player in Japan builds a factory and starts spamming tanks) or if they want to fight a losing battle vs Japan(because Japan has so many planes that early game really have nothing better to do), so its rough on the Russian player.  Unless the UK fleet is intact and they can drop guys all over the place in Germany so that Germany has to defend everywhere which weakens their attack. It takes the USA at least 5 rounds to even begin to be able to hurt Europe(assuming that Japan does the smart thing and doesn’t bring them into the war early), and really 6-7 rounds to hurt Europe in such numbers that Germany has to guard that flank. By that point Moscow has either fallen or is so close to it that the USA/UK is too late. I have seen both Japan and Germany take Moscow in different games. But Russia is the poor redheaded step child in this game, everyone beats on them.

So if Russia wants to turtle to buy the USA/UK an extra round or two then so be it. That seems to be their only real option unless the dice are horrible for Germany or you get a stupid German player who doesn’t make Russia his main focus.

@Vance:

Counterattacking can allow USSR to neutralize Germany’s advantage in air units.  If you can stop the Italians from taking a territory like Belarus or North Ukraine with a modest infantry stack, then when the Germans take it they will not be able to land air units there, and be vulnerable to counterattack.  If you have enough artillery, the mere threat of your counterattack might make them pause, thus buying yourself another turn of survival.

Counter attack with what exactly? Russia doesn’t have enough stuff to even defend with.  Not if Germany goes by G3.

My point is that Russia has almost nothing left(other then units just bought) after G3/G4(depending on Russian troop placement) and if they did counter attack they would be throwing away units for no reason.

@RedHunter:

My point is that Russia has almost nothing left(other then units just bought) after G3/G4(depending on Russian troop placement) and if they did counter attack they would be throwing away units for no reason.

Build artillery.  Russian infantry/artillery may prevent the Germans from doing dumb land grabs, because you can counterattack with small forces to basically trade units without risking your air units to AA.  Attrition is to your advantage.  More likely your ability to do those little counterattacks deters them from grabbing territories they can’t hold so they can keep their force all together instead of getting nibbled down to nothing.  That’s good too.

If they don’t split their force into little land grabbers, you can also use the artillery to negate their “safety in numbers”.  At the right moment you can strafe the big lump of Germans and retreat back into new reinforcements.  For example suppose you attack Germans in Belarus (without their air cover because Germany took the territory; not the Italians).  Both sides lose infantry, but you retreat back to Bryansk and NCM the 10 infantry you built last turn from Moscow into Bryansk.  You also build new inf/art in Moscow.  Now Bryansk is too strong to attack because you have cannon fodder (and AA) and they don’t, and they can’t advance into Smolensk because they know they can be strafed a second time, and this time its even worse because you could retreat into Moscow and build more infantry.  At this point they may STOP to bring up reinforcements (i.e. expensive mechs).  So building something like 6 artillery instead of 8 infantry on round 1 has led to you now having a whole extra turn to build infantry, and your allies may need that time to help you by sending fighters etc.

Artillery is worthless with super stacks of german tanks with at a stack of 11 Inf and another stack of 10+ Mech plus artillery to support them.

Counter-attacking works well for the German player that splits their stacks.  It does not against the German Tank super stack because they will be fighting to advance regardless of what you put in their way.

It is all relative to how Germany approaches sacking Moscow.  60+ Infantry with 10-12 Armor and a few aircraft over it allows the Russians to start cutting past the first two waves of German fodder (Inf/Mech) and then start dipping into German Armor by round 3/4 of the big battle for Moscow.

Of course, Germany can just ignore the Russian stack and move around it to collect IPC, but if you buy US/UK another 2-3 rounds to get a solid foothold in Germany - even the extra IPC Germany collected just goes to the Allied Coffers in the end.

How can Russia win any small skirmish from an economical standpoint? The Germans will generally have three main stacks, supported heavily with infantry. What is the point of attacking the Germans if all you are going to do is trade infantry, especially if the Germans have mechanized units ready to reinforce?

I guess the overall question I’m asking is, if Russia kills 10 German infantry at the expense of 10 Russian infantry, is that a successful attack?

g5 bryansk every game. it don’t matter what you do.

@KillOFzee:

I guess the overall question I’m asking is, if Russia kills 10 German infantry at the expense of 10 Russian infantry, is that a successful attack?

To compare the value of Russian versus German infantry you have to consider the “replacement cost” of those units at the front.  A Russian infantry can be replaced by another $3 infantry built close by.  To replace a German infantry unit deep inside Russia is much more costly.  It requires either another infantry that was built maybe 4 turns ago, a mech that was built maybe 2 turns ago, or else an artillery or armor unit that is already at the front that will be taken as a casualty instead of an infantry unit in an upcoming battle.  As the number of German infantry near the front gets smaller and smaller they become more and more valuable tactically.  When Germany finally runs out of the infantry meat shield they have to start taking losses on heavy hitter units (artillery and armor) and then the spearhead loses its punch.  So unit for unit attrition works in Russia’s favor.

russia is screwed abandon all hope.