All the Russian openings: For Begginers

What you say correspond s to my experience

Ps. Couple thoughts on the Polar Express concept as an endgame play rather than an opener…

A version of this strat can be made to work in the final rounds, provided that Japan is no longer needed at the center, and has sufficiently outpaced the Americans on income. It’s also helpful if the Allied player is a good sport, or just wants to play out a few more rounds before calling it a night.  :-D

An example might be, if Germany is poised to take Moscow alone, such that Japan has a free hand to redirect early against North America, instead of Africa. Or if it seems like the Allies might be able to trade Moscow for Berlin in the same round, and Japan wants to keep going.

It requires that you have a large number ground units at the ready preferably in Yakut and Munchuria. The basic idea is to spam transports at the last minute before the planned invasion. So say you have 5 or 6 transports with 12 or more units ready to transport out of sz 60 to Alaska, and several more ground units in Yakut or Manchuria, that can move to Bury at the same time so that they can be shucked the following round. Then you spam 5 more transports to set up the double shuck, from Japan and Manchuria to Buryatia with one transport group, and from Buryatia  to Alaska with the other transport group.

To pull this off, you have to be able to match US production a full round ahead of their ability to equal your forces from their production centers, and this with already existing Japanese units, which is why you need the Yakut stack at the ready. If you can rapidly amass a large stack of ground in Alaska by using existing Japanese units, it may be possible to walk them to Western Canada without fear of a crushing counter attack from the US, and then you can use your transports to threaten W. US on amphibious, while you attempt to can open Central or Eastern Canada with German bombers for a blitz on DC. Although not a particularly likely deep endgame, it can sometimes be a more direct route to the ultimate Axis smackdown, than taking London.

Again, I don’t think its something that you can really plan for from the outset, but more of a redirect at the last possible second, where you make as if to threaten Moscow from Yakut, but then rapidly double back for the Alaskan crossing. It’s also pretty simple for the US to cover against this play, if they see it coming, so you really have to catch them with their guard down.

I think there are only two times I’ve seen it work. Once was in a KGF game, where the Russian player made a strategic withdrawal from Moscow in an attempt to triple team G. And another game where Germany got lucky on their tank drive and smoked Moscow earlier than anyone expected. In both instances the Allies were playing a masochist’s game, fighting on rather than conceding haha

My friend and I were discussing Argothair’s strategy. He says that if he could easily counter a giant W. Russia stack by attacking Karelia and Caucasus at the same time. Especially Caucasus, attacking with everything in range. Would a good counter-strategy be the Russian Ukraine opener? I’m talking about attacking Ukraine, but not taking it on the first turn.

There usually is a fairly safe spot to land the bomber.

Assuming the US gets one hit and you lose your 4 move ftr you can end up with a sub/cru left there, and the cru blocks some moves, but even if US wants to go after your bomber that exposes their battleship.  It’s not usually a trade they’ll want to make that early, especially if they were planning on bringing the BB to the Atlantic to help with a KGF.  The surviving cru also becomes the “easier” 12 ipc target to hit with potentially less risk of a counter depending on where the J ACs are.

I’ll typically plan on landing my surviving J ftr with the bom so I have the freedom to move my two carriers where ever I want, then I gauge the results of Pearl and figure out if I really need the ftr with the bomber or do I need it elsewhere.

@empulliam:

New on the forum, just curious as to what you all think about an opening move I use with UK pretty often. On the first turn, build a factory in India. I consider the UK pacific fleet pretty much useless against Japan, I say let US deal with it since they have the money, so i abandon it in favor of a land based strategy. I’ve seen people try building a factory in India where they move the one inf over from persia and pull the plane in from the carrier and try and defend it. The problem with that strategy is that if Japan wants India bad enough on the first turn, the math says they can take it. (They will lose some fighters, but having a factory on the mainland seems like a worthwhile trade). Here are my moves (only on the Pacific side) for turn one.

1. send the carrier in India to get the unprotected transport by Kwangtung.
2. Send the Australian sub to get the Japanese sub
3. Put 2 inf from Australia onto a transport and attack New Guinea (Not a huge part of the plan, but technically the math is in my favor)
4. Move inf from Persia into India
5. (here’s where things get dicey) send everything in India, plus the fighter from the carrier, into southeast Asia. Unless the Japan player catches on to what I’m doing, the first two units he allows to be killed will be the infantry there. I don’t really care so much about getting the plane, so unless i’m doing really well I just retreat after I destroy the ground units. This way, Japan has no ground units in range to capture the factory, and next turn I can reinforce it with 3 tanks, and from there just send ground units up the coast until Japan is kicked out of mainland Asia. Then I would use the factory to reinforce Russia from the East.

On the 1st Edition of 1942 this is almost suicidal because the Japanese player should focus everything on preparing to attack India from J2 onwards and he’ll be able to do so unless you commit the Soviets to defend the IC. Which is almost suicidal as well because Germany should also be pushing hard into Russia and it will usually mean that the Soviets will lose Caucasus.
You’re also leaving Africa to Germany if you follow this.

That’s how I always beat Germany, getting grunts on the the ground secure karelia acouple turns have to get immediate navy to bring grunts to karelia then u can defend with tons of grunts,  fighters are money " because they defend at 4 …. with Uk, Usa, n Russia all them 4 's add up big time when the big rolls go down …then you have good attack capability don’t waste your tanks…good luck on your 2’s…(rolling defends).

@Mallery29:

The only way I see this fully working is if Ukraine holds on (for the additional tank from the south and possibly the FTR from Ukraine).  My defense buy in a KGF was usually the Bomber/SS/5inf/2art, but by securing Iceland/Gibraltar/Karelia/WRus on G1, I wouldn’t even need the Bomber, and could buy 4 more inf (or 3 art).

I’d rather only get the bomber (since you can use it also on land, unlike the sub) for the initial buy, regardless of KGF or KJF.

I re-looked at the numbers and see that UK would be safe from a India crush if UK1 was 3FTRs and was able to stack every possible unit.  So J2 India wouldn’t happen for sure, but if Japan had bought 2-3 Transports on J1, they can load up Burma faster than what India can buy, so it would only be a matter of time (3 rounds?) before Japan would have the safe upper hand.

That’s why you need the US fleet to try to draw some of the Japanese fleet away from India… but definitely by all means prevent a J2 capture. Otherwise those Japanese tanks start rolling on turn 4…

@Mallery29:

Fine, I agree with Hobbes…you’re a noob.

Lol, I think it’s really clear who reacts aggressivly here, with basically no good arguments. I don’t have anything against you, I just simply point out huge weaknesses in your strategy while you resort to calling others names.