Tank purchases still DEAD

:-)

I buy lots of tanks, it’s Cruisers that never get purchased in our games.

There are enough cruisers at game start that they see a lot of action, though.

Also, if you play with tech, cruisers get a deep discount on shipyards

Tanks pay for themselves by occupying more land faster and blitzing. Never buying tank with axis = certain defeat.

@ErwinRommel:

Tanks play for themselves by occupying more land faster and blitzing. Never buying tank with axis = certain defeat.

Yeah, I am always surprised I don’t see more early Tank buys with Japan.  Get yourself quickly to the far end of China so the SBR of Moscow can begin, but nobody ever does.  Maybe too many Axis players just assume that the two halves of the board can’t really support each other and overlook it.  Especially in games where the Japanese player was willing to take air losses in order to clean out Chinese Infantry behind the lines, you might expect a Blitz follow-up on the next turn, but there never is one.

As germany u really dont need more than 10-15 tanks,  at that point its more efficient to buy mobile with a strong arty stack.  Japan needs some tanks, but fodder is a lot more useful since u have 21 flying tanks as punch.

Japan needs tanks if it hopes to threaten Moscow in any meaningful way and to quickly reduce Russia’s income and increase its own. Even if Japan ignores Russia tanks offer the highest defensive value to defend against a counterattack, which is especially important for taking and holding the Burma road from China and the UK Pac. The “flying tanks” can’t land or defend the territories that they help capture.

Tanks purchases still USEFULL :)

you tend to hold territories better when you bleed the enemy down quickly.  Tanks are not very cost efficient when one can use inf and air to kill them.  Yes they defend well, but are be killed very easily.  You never really need to defend any territory since your aim is to bleed the enemy down.  For china, u can have a very efficient stack move closer and closer, and eventually, the air and your stack wipes them out.  If they try to counter, they will not likely have good counter attacking odds, and u cause him to divide/lose some units that he really can’t replace as well as you.  Same case with India.  Your india kill is all about the amount of fodder u can throw at it since your planes can very easily get in range.  I very rarely buy 3 tanks a turn out of mainland factories as Japan anymore since I cant have nearly the same effect, buy spending 12 instead of 18 for 3 mechs.

@ghr2:

you tend to hold territories better when you bleed the enemy down quickly.  Tanks are not very cost efficient when one can use inf and air to kill them.  Yes they defend well, but are be killed very easily.  You never really need to defend any territory since your aim is to bleed the enemy down.  For china, u can have a very efficient stack move closer and closer, and eventually, the air and your stack wipes them out.  If they try to counter, they will not likely have good counter attacking odds, and u cause him to divide/lose some units that he really can’t replace as well as you.  Same case with India.  Your india kill is all about the amount of fodder u can throw at it since your planes can very easily get in range.  I very rarely buy 3 tanks a turn out of mainland factories as Japan anymore since I cant have nearly the same effect, buy spending 12 instead of 18 for 3 mechs.

You don’t need that many and probably not even 3 every turn.  Just enough to quickly get to NW China to open the landing grounds for SBR, or to blitz behind the Russian Siberian stack into all the empty territories they have.  Very easy to do if you simply allow Russia to acquire Mongolia via treaty; Tanks will wreak havoc on their ability to guard the Siberian front.

Egg, if you can spare Japanese bombers to go to NW China to SBR Russia, America and the allies aren’t doing their job right

If there’s any unit I would say is “dead” it’d be the cruiser. At least tanks have increased movement to justify a higher cost.

Every unit has its niche and is worthy of purchase in certain situations, even if not very common.

The worth of cruisers and their cost of 12 has been discussed ad naseum in various threads

I’ll have to take a look at those threads. The tank adds more to the game strategically than a unit like the cruiser or tac bomber. Tanks are the cheapest 3 on offense or defense and the 2 movement force your opponent to defend more territories, spreading his forces. Divide and conquer.

@Gamerman01:

Egg, if you can spare Japanese bombers to go to NW China to SBR Russia, America and the allies aren’t doing their job right

Shrug… the Japanese have 20+ planes.  The Bombers can be spared, especially when you are speeding up victory on the Europe map.  I won’t go as far as to say they should always be replaced if shot down by AA, but they can certainly be sent.

Yeah, it seems like a pretty good strategy actually.  With the +2 for damage.

Can’t believe Larry jumped right over +1.
I mean, this is the guy that nerfed heavy bombers all the way down to best of 2 dice  :x

@Lieutenant:

I’ll have to take a look at those threads. The tank adds more to the game strategically than a unit like the cruiser or tac bomber. Tanks are the cheapest 3 on offense or defense and the 2 movement force your opponent to defend more territories, spreading his forces. Divide and conquer.

I agree with you

If they cost 5, they would be too cheap and who would buy mech?

@ Lieutenant -
In Classic they cost 5 and defended on a 2.  I think the stats and cost were about right in that game.  And it was fun to attack tanks that were on defense - made for nice back and forth action.

When the defense got upped to 3 and the cost stayed at 5 (Revised and AA50) they were too cheap.

You know what purchases are really dead?

AA guns.  5 IPC’s is too expensive.  Believe it or not, Larry had the price at 6 when he changed it so they could be taken as casualties and only fired at 3 planes, but I talked him down to 5.

It’s still too high.  I’m not even sure they would be reasonable at 4.

THREE seems about right!  What do you think?

I don’t think I’ve ever bought an AA gun.  In any game. Ever.  Ok, I suppose in the Original I did once in a while when I built a US factory in Norway or something.

If the AA guns were mobile and could fight like the German 88’s, then maybe…