Playing my 2nd game tomorrow, I’m the Allies again… should learn from my first loss, but playing different opponent will present different obstacles.
When I play the Axis, I’m planning on leaving the German battleship and transport (bridges 1 infantry and 1 tank into Africa) and building an aircraft-carrier G1 (where 2 German fighters can land) to support a G2 attack on Egypt.
It’s a nice play. If you buy a med carrier you can clear the UK destroyer in 17 with a fighter, since it will have a place to land. Stacking Libya makes holding Egypt a risky proposition for UK. I find when I do this with G that UK usually withdraws leaving just a blocker inf behind in Egypt. If the med gets too hot from UK or US Air you can always bounce through the canal to the Indian Ocean and link up with Japan for safety, until Axis are ready to re-enter the Med in force. Have fun man, let us know how it goes!
I concur.I always buy a Carrier for the Med, YG.
I never do Egypt on one. I wait for G2 or G3.
Just real quick to PP error 3. If Germany puts their battleship in sz 17 to take Egypt, one possible response is to take the UK bomber and sink the German battleship and transport from the air …. 1 fighter + 1 bomber vs 1 battleship is 60% odds to the attacker. There is a 20% chance of a draw, but only 20% chance for the defender to actually win. That means only a 1/5 chance that the German battleship prevails. Considering the strategic advantage of locking down the med on UK1, this is a strong trade for Allies. The bomber can land in Transjordan.
Thanks BE. Not thought of this move. Playing solo tends to present repeats of previous tactics unless you get such helpful contributions.
Use the remaining Indian ocean fleet to hit 61 and kill the second Japanese transport. Sinking the German med fleet makes India somewhat less critical to the Allied warplan, as it allows you to hold Africa and push across the Med.
Ditto!
What’s more, if Germany fails to destroy the UK fighter in Egypt and take the Canal, then their African ambitions are royally screwed. This comes down to the first round of combat, meaning that G has to put a lot on the line. If UK is able to bring a second fighter or naval fodder unit into their counter attack against the German battleship, their odds of success shoot back up into the 90%+ range.
As for the odds numbers you posted, those odds are a bit off. If Germany brings the bomber (and they must for an attack on Egypt to work!) that is…
Germany: 2 inf 2 tanks and 1 bomber vs UK: 1 inf 1 art 1 tank 1 fighter.
a little over 70% odds to the German attacker.A Russian fighter in Egypt drops these odds down to about 30% for the German attacker.
It’s possible you were including the battleship bombardment in the calc, but the UK destroyer in sz 17 negates this. So Egypt is a very long shot for Germany if the Russians send fighter support. And even if the Russians don’t, there are still a viable way for UK to punish Axis for a G1 hit on Egypt, namely by killing their Med Battleship.
Yes - dug out my notes and I must have mis-entered the numbers. However G also commits 1 fig, so odds are 65% with the G bomber and the R fig also in play. So G has a good-ish chance of success.
The Russian hit on sz5 is high risk. I would be careful getting too used to that move, as it can burn you really hard when it fails.
I am thinking R either 2 figs on SZ5 or 1 fig to Egypt. 2 figs on SZ5 is 90% - or am I misunderstanding you?
One other quick point about leaving 1 infantry behind. I would caution against this on R1, in any territory that could be cleared by German coastal bombardment. You’re better off pulling back and saving that 3 ipcs TUV in infantry for counter attacks on R2, rather than leaving them behind for a weak defense. They will get just smoked on G1, especially if left in Karelia. The Karelia factory already blocks German tanks, so inf isn’t necessary here.
Thanks for the guidance BE. As always! :-D
@Young:
Playing my 2nd game tomorrow, I’m the Allies again… should learn from my first loss, but playing different opponent will present different obstacles.
When I play the Axis, I’m planning on leaving the German battleship and transport (bridges 1 infantry and 1 tank into Africa) and building an aircraft-carrier G1 (where 2 German fighters can land) to support a G2 attack on Egypt. Â
Would really like to hear what happens YG. :-)
In all my 3 solo games I have left the G b/ship & t/port in SZ 17 for that reason, but have not yet failed with capturing Egypt G1 - as I keep preferring to use the R figs on the Baltic. Another solo player rut!
It’s a nice play. If you buy a med carrier you can clear the UK destroyer in 17 with a fighter, since it will have a place to land. Stacking Libya makes holding Egypt a risky proposition for UK. I find when I do this with G that UK usually withdraws leaving just a blocker inf behind in Egypt. If the med gets too hot from UK or US Air you can always bounce through the canal to the Indian Ocean and link up with Japan for safety, until Axis are ready to re-enter the Med in force. Have fun man, let us know how it goes!
@wittmann:
I concur.I always buy a Carrier for the Med, YG.
I never do Egypt on one. I wait for G2 or G3.
The UK destroyer in SZ 17 and Egypt have always gone in G1 with me.
I was actually thinking about a G carrier in the Baltic, plus a t/port, as a means of forcing the UK to use scarce IPCs on a home force.
I have probably done as much as I can to learn this game solo. Too many unchallenged ruts and false conclusions. The BoB will show me! And really looking forward to meeting wittman.
Again - my thanks to everyone for their help. :-D
It’s possible there is some confusion with the Bulgarian Fighter’s movement. Unfortunately Bulgaria does not border sz 15 (the European part of Turkey is in the way) which means that there is in fact no German fighter that can attack Egypt on G1. The fighters in Bulgaria and Ukraine are both 4 moves away. Alas!
It’s 3 moves for the Bulgaria fighter to attack into sz17 and kill the British destroyer from the air, but it can only do this if a carrier is purchased, so the Fighter could potentially land in sz15 (on the carrier deck). Same deal with the Ukraine fighter, though that fighter could be killed on R1, if the Russians are out for blood, so you can’t really count on it for G1 plans.
If testing solo, you might enjoy playing TripleA. You can face off against the HardAI, which is not as competent as a human opponent, but still pretty decent, and can be helpful for showing certain things like territory connections where the physical map is sometimes poorly drawn. The Bulgaria situation being a good example :)
As for the sz 5 Baltic hit by Russian air, the odds are strong 90% to win, but there is also a fairly strong likelihood that one Russian fighter will die in the process. Average units left for the attacker is somewhere around 1.5, but the .5 doesn’t do you any good, since there is no such thing as half a fighter unit in A&A. And even if the second fighter does live, it has to land in Karelia, where it is certain to die on G1 ;)
So its a question of whether you think the Russians can manage the Eastern front on R2 with only one fighter, or if the TUV trade is really worth it for your warplan as Allies long term. The risk is not in the battle per se, but in the aftermath on R2 or R3, where being down a fighter in the territory trading game can make things a lot more challenging for the Russians.
It’s possible there is some confusion with the Bulgarian Fighter’s movement. Unfortunately Bulgaria does not border sz 15 (the European part of Turkey is in the way) which means that there is in fact no German fighter that can attack Egypt on G1. The fighters in Bulgaria and Ukraine are both 4 moves away. Alas!
Sorry BE but I don’t understand. Rom/Bulg has a clear border with European Turkey, allowing it to reach Egypt via SZ17 in 3 moves, then land in Libya. Or am I losing my marbles? :-o
Or does a move from European into Asiatic Turkey constitute an additional move? :x
If testing solo, you might enjoy playing TripleA. You can face off against the HardAI, which is not as competent as a human opponent, but still pretty decent …
wittman has suggested the same thing and I plan to take a look when I get back from a holiday that starts on Tuesday.
As for the sz 5 Baltic hit by Russian air, the odds are strong 90% to win, but there is also a fairly strong likelihood that one Russian fighter will die in the process.
Very true. And R fighters are good for minimal infantry being committed to buffer zones, which has been a strong feature of my rookie R play. Will think about this. :|
Thanks yet again BE. :-)
Sadly the marbles are lost. :-D
1942.2 is like Revised, Neutral territories are impassible. Neutral spaces are effectively out of play on this board, so aircraft can’t fly over them. Turkey is like this, same deal with the Sahara and Mongolia et al, basically dead tiles that exist purely as movement boundaries/obstacles. The Global 1940 games have rules that try to bring True Neutrals into play (Classic also had a mechanism for this where you could pay to occupy neutrals) but 1942.2, Spring 1942, and the Revised game on which they were based, all used the impassible neutrals model. The 1941 starter board used this model as well.
In this case G’s Bulgarian fighter would have to first enter sz 16 (or Southern Europe), then sz 15, then sz 17, using up its 3 movement points, with only one possible place to land: a new carrier purchased in sz 15.
Sadly the marbles are lost. � :-D
Darn it! I had thought you could fly over neutral territories. :roll:
The rules clearly say otherwise so where on earth did that misunderstanding come from!
It also makes the game more interesting though ….
Now that I understand the rules properly (well some of them anyway :lol:) I can see a whole new set of options for the UK, in Egypt, India & possibly the Med, perhaps including SZ37. wittman’s G carrier in the Med is also making a whole lot more sense. And my use of R fighters looks set to change. I will just have to be sad enough to play one more solo game to test these out I guess.
I can not think of any previous game I have ever had which would have interested me enough to be as sad as that! :-D
