Good post from Jenn - I agree with her on this
I have never lost as Allies when G attempts Sea Lion
We are getting to the point where we invite a Sea Lion attempt
If you don’t pressure Russia, Russia will kick your butt. Especially now with the 3 IPC NO per territory, which was another change as of Alpha2/3 somewhere in there.
Jenn is right, there was an overreaction to complaints that Sea lion was too easy, and now it’s rarely rewarding, which leads to more 1-dimensional Axis strats
Dog pile Russia. If the Allies don’t lose, they win. If the Allies don’t lose Russia, they will almost always win. There are exceptions, of course.
To answer the question of the thread “Sea Lion worth it?” I would say, yes, when UK has a lot of money to plunder and you can take it fairly cheaply (without losing your entire fleet to Allied strike after taking) and/or you can take it and hold it at least for awhile.
I would not attempt Sea Lion with less than about 80-90% odds and also a very high chance of losing only a couple of aircraft. If you’re looking at a 60% chance of taking London with 1 tank and losing most or all of the Luftwaffe - no way.
You don’t win G40 2nd edition just because you successfully took London.
Again, I have never lost after losing London. It’s best to go full bore after Russia, because Moscow is the biggest threat to the Axis win.
Like I said, I agree with Jenn on this.
Show me a game where the Axis win after taking London first (in the first 5 or so rounds) and I will show you an Allied player who didn’t do his job, or got horribly diced, or both. A good Russian player will be licking his chops when he sees the Germans attack London, and should absolutely mop up (assuming London is reasonably defended and G loses most ground units and several air craft, which they almost always will)
New rules that make Sea Lion less rewarding since OOB, Alpha1 version -
Russia AND USA immediately enter the war if London falls
No more NO for London for Germany
AAs can be taken as casualties and UK gets 5
Transport in 113 moved out of range to 114
UK can scramble 3 aircraft from Scotland and UK (for those who don’t remember, weren’t aware, you could not scramble from the UK or Scotland at all, OOB)
Russia gets 3 IPC NO for every single original Axis, pro-Axis Europe/Africa territory (this is a pretty serious deterrent)
And there are probably more