Russian eastern infantry

I always play depending on what the Japanese do, are they putting large numbers of units in Manchuria and Korea?, are they about to knock China out and have a big force on the Russian border? If Japan makes these moves I say build up using mech from Moscow and maybe a couple of tanks (if you can spare them) and either attack if you think it will give the Allies a big advantage and hurt japan bad or just dig in and wait for the attack. If Japan does not put any big numbers facing Russia then I like to send units west gradully. yes it takes time but I have had games where I was able to save Moscow using those troops so it can work out much like it did historically.

@SubmersedElk:

Last game I played the Axis player basically ignored China entirely other than to move troops through to attack India. I had a great Chinese stack plus the Russian stack eating up all the Chinese territories, but sadly it did me no good as he ruthlessly exploited the fact that his airbase/factory setup in FIC could not be attacked by Chinese troops, and moved on to conquer India and then Egypt. It was undescribably lame, but those are the game rules so I can’t blame him for playing by them.

What do you do with 40+ Chinese units that have already conquered every territory they can move into?

Am I missing something? You can move them in to Burma and block the troops coming from FIC from a land route to Calcutta. As Mm of War has pointed out.

I’m guessing in this game your Chinese units were caught out of position and couldn’t reach Burma in time to save Calcutta. A learning experience, I imagine.

Yes, but if you attacked, you’d be too far away to squash those dirty republicans/communists when they betrayed you and your fragile alliance!

We have a house rule that will occasionally go into effect. When China controls ALL Chinese territories, including the ones that start under Japanese control so China should be making 23 IPCs per round, Chinese forces are allowed to enter ANY other territory on the Pacific map.
So, say Japan puts a factory on Korea and starts sending tanks/mechs up through northern Russia. China could send troops through Mongolia and block Japan. Or, if they get enough built up on Manchuria, China could even attack Korea and destroy Japan’s IC. Then they could help liberate the far eastern Soviet territories and unlock some extra money for Moscow.
Also, say Japan makes a successful landing in India. China could build up in Burma and liberate Calcutta. I have always thought it ridiculous for China to have a huge stack of guys sitting on Burma but they can’t enter India.
If the Axis take ANY Chinese territory, this ability stops until all Chinese territories are back under Chinese control again. Any Chinese forces currently outside of China’s borders must either stay put or work their way back to Chinese territory.
We kept it restricted to the Pacific map to prevent a large stack of Chinese infantry sitting in Moscow or even more ludicrous, marching into Berlin.
As for Chinese infantry getting on Allied transports, we didn’t really cover that because it hasn’t come up. This has only occurred in a couple of our games so far. When it has, Japan was pretty much toast anyway.
Still, kind of an interesting idea. Could be helpful if Japan were to totally ignore China and try building on FIC to go after India or building on Korea to attack Russia. In this scenario, Chinese forces could attack Japan in FIC and/or Korea. I know that these are somewhat unlikely scenarios.
I thought about loosening the restrictions for China, like perhaps Chinese control of Shanghai and Manchuria and the Burma Road is open would allow them to go beyond their borders.

Any other ideas?

My idea is that your post is interesting, but it is in the wrong forum.

The most important thing about the Siberian army is: They are NOT attacking Japan but DEFENDING the Russian eastern territories.

And this function is quite crucial. the 8-10 IPC swing by giving 4-5 of those territories to Japan heavily influences the game.
In addition the Russians of course do threaten to take Manchuria and Amur (and maybe more)

I personally think it is a bad idea to send more then 6 guys home and I also think its bad to send less then 4 home, as the returner are not only important to fight the Germans but to protect the Chinese army against Japan.

If Japan is played properly, sending all Russians home will result in Japan reaching the critical mass to become unstoppable earlier or later.

@SubmersedElk:

I’ve been seeing a lot of “move the eastern Russian infantry to Moscow” recommendations, but many times when I see someone do that they end up being used to fend off Japan on Russia’s backside instead of reinforcing Moscow against Germany.

Some consider stacking Amur on R1 but that just seems to invite Japan to wipe them out conveniently.

What I’ve been doing recently is stacking them on Bury in R1 then moving them to Amur in R2 when Japan moves south and can no longer conveniently kill them off (or later, if Japan can counter). I do this in conjunction with a R1 DOW on Japan and moving some mobile units to southwest China to help in the contest for Yunnan. This pins a dozen Japanese units in defense of Manchuria/Korea which appears to make a world of difference in the sustainability of UKPac/China/ANZAC in the south.

US keeps enough fleet at Hawaii to keep the Japanese navy from moving too much navy towards India. Heavy inf/art buys by Russia and mid-round fighter support from UK and ANZAC keep Moscow from falling in this scenario.

My question is: why not keep those INF in the east to pressure Japan every game? Why do the long march east and take them out of the game for five, six rounds of play when they could be useful all that time - especially early on when Allies need every counter threat they can muster?

March the Russians back to Moscow and fill the void with US ground units / aircraft.

The US is better equipped to flood that side of Russia with real offensive units while Japan is busy in the South Pacific and India.

It creates the same effect for Japan to deal with while the Russians benefit from those units racing home before the Germans attack Moscow.

If Japan is loathe to open its northern border to the Mongolian hoards because it has nothing in the north to address them, stage the US units in Amur and harass both Korea and Manchuria.

If China knows the US is going with this strategy, a great boon to the US and a giant thorn for Japan will be China eventually giving up trying to reclaim the Burma Road and saving the IPC to dump 6-10 units in Northern China once the US opens up Manchuria.

Anything less than Japanese IC’s on both Korea and Kiangsu probably means Japan faces losing the northern coastal provinces and much of northern China until India has been settled and potentially long after it depending on how costly it was to get in the first place.

It also means Japan has to decide if trying to take ANZAC with any remaining forces is plausible or if it has to return to the Sea of Japan to try to break the US siege, get reinforcements and decide if Hawaii is viable at this point.

Fastest sailing from India’s fall to the Sea of Japan is three turns.  As I’ve seen India typically fall on J4, that means the earliest you can expect the remnants of the starting IJN back is probably J7.  Thats a lot of time for the US if it was a J1 DOW.

If Hawaii is not viable, the US just bought ANZAC multiple turns to continue building and maybe even steal a DEI or two depending on what Japan decides is the best choice of multiple bad ones.

Of course, this is a 100% KJF strategy for the US - completely ignoring Europe on the assumption that Russia plays turtle and the UK funnels all possible resources into FTR to deter / delay the eventual German attack on Moscow.

There comes a point where the Russians are prime for a counter attack, out of Moscow and you should play cat and mouse as the US with the IJN until you see the outcome of that battle.

I used the Soviet Eastern Forces to great effect to tie up large amounts of Japanese units. I still owned ten original infantry at the end of the game.

The Germans tore a hole in my Southern flank in the Ukrainian front, ending my game.

@Nippon-koku:

I’m with you 100% and often argue that very point on the board.  I like Buryatia R1, Amur R2, and if the opportunity is there I like to attack Manchuria or Korea R3.  I believe the upside to this is greater than walking back to Moscow

I agree with that plan of action.

As we have all seen Russian Far East troops are good in both theaters. SO! Split them up! It is the best way. (Just an example as I am no way recommending this) keep 6 infantry in Amur/Buryatia 6 infantry and 2 AA in China(from west) and. 6 infantry going to Moscow. Strategies like this are the best.

As I’ve been working on my Allied strategery (yes, spelled intentionally) in the Pacific - I’ve found that those Russian INF are a great stack to land US Bombers on once Germany DOW on Russia.  The lost NO of no Allied units doesn’t really cost Moscow all that much by the time Germany is in position to attack Moscow.

I’ve played the standard J1 DOW KIF with Japan that is successful 99% of the time for me and I’ve found the defensiveness of those Russian INF invaluable to the US sending a large stack of SB.

In my two (so far) run throughs I’ve been able to take Tokyo with the US the same round that Calcutta falls.  This includes 11+ INF and 4+ FTR on Tokyo.  The Russian stack makes those SB untouchable for Japan and have become a lynchpin strategy for the US to claim Korea and Tokyo.

I usually send the Far East back to Moscow but without any punching power or delaying the German advance, they don’t normally mean much with Germany when it has a stack of 8-10 ARM and its Black Sky Air Force to shut down any hope of reclaiming Moscow by those units.

I’m starting to lean towards keeping those Russian INF in the East as I develop the US KJF strategery.

In general:
I think it’s not a good idea to send all 18 guys home from the beginning.
If Japan is played smartly this will often make them unstoppable at a certain point of time.

So I at least keep 12 guys east. Keep one thing in mind: Those guys to no just threaten to take Korea or to walk into China, they also protect 4-5 IPCs Japan could otherwise take easily. So especially on a high level, where games can switch into the “eco mode” (Axis rather try to get the economic edge than forcing VC conditions) those 4-5 Siberian IPC can make the difference.

So if Russia moves those 18 guys home, the Allies need a plan to keep Japan under control. And I think if Axis want to get Japan down then at least 12 +2 AA should support it. When I played Axis I have seen US playing almost 100% against Japan from round 2 but moved the 18 guys home –> Japan was able to deal with the pressure as Japan could easily invade those territories and stayed economically healthy.

I take this idea further and use my bid to add 3 artilleries to the Russian stack.

It makes it a serious offensive force and a harder defensive force to deal with.

It allows US to project more power in the Atlantic because it shows Japan down.