North American Axis Strategy - Kill US First - Legal Or Not?

Placing the Japanese fleet next to Hawaii puts them out of position until J4.  I would immediately do an unprovoked UK1 DoW.  You know that they will not be able to respond for the next couple of rounds anyway.  Yunnan should quickly return to Allied control and Japan will be hurting economically for the rest of the game.  The economies of India and ANZAC will be doing so well with control of the Money Islands for a few turns, plus the added objective incomes.

I almost fell for that fake Sea Lion plan once and I will never never allow that to succeed again.

I don’t feel any obligation to do the designer’s job. I also think that it’s fair that my opponents (who don’t read these boards or HGD) should be able to reference the rules of play using the documents provided. In my gaming circles, it is common for less experienced players to look through the rules to see if their strategy is legal. They don’t want to ask, because that gives away their plans.

If designers want us to play a certain way, it’s their job to reflect that in the rulebook or errata/FAQ. It’s not our job to guess their intentions and have a debate. Sometimes what a person says is more important that what they mean - especially with regards to a formal document.

Personally I would never assume the rules are meant the way you think they are meant. That would buffer would encompass almost half the Pacific Ocean. By your (generous) interpretation, Japan parking a transport in sea zone 7 would be an act of war! Really?

This would be ridiculously ahistoric, completely unnecessary from a balance perspective, and totally unsupported by the rulebook and FAQ.

@GeneralHandGrenade:

This is all a bunch of B.S.

Players exploiting this rule because of a grammatical error should hang their heads in shame. You know damn well what the intention of the rule is but you exploit it like a despicable lawyer getting his guilty client off on a technicality.

Maybe you are joking?

To compare my desire to play by written rules to a serious moral lapse, I guess you can’t really be serious.

Worth noting I intend to play by the rules when I am assigned the Allies too. This ought to shoot a big hole into the notion that I am somehow exploiting something.

your gut may want it to say “within two territory’s REACH” of WUS because you believe that the designer intended to put a cordon sanitaire around the USA during peace

If that were his intent, he could have said it clearly that way but chose not to.

this is probably not a case of an error, a mistake, or any kind of grammatical problem.  it is that you interpret the word “within” in light of how a transports move and want it to say “within reach of” with transports but that’s not what it says.

ABH;

Yes, you’re so right, the continent immediately collapses, Russia grows into a giant beast while the axis scare the crap out of the USA.

But only 1 round of Japanese ships can pass through, further waves stay back to protect the homeland.  Trying to pass 2 waves of ships risks a deep block

@taamvan:

.  
this is probably not a case of an error, a mistake, or any kind of grammatical problem.   it is that you interpret the word “within” in light of how a transports move and want it to say “within reach of” with transports but that’s not what it says.

This.  So much this.
It’s very presumptuous.

I for one have a little more faith in Avalon Hill and LH’s team to represent the desired game system.  And they’ve had ~5 to catch this supposed mistake.

There is a reason why you don’t ever see Kill US-first plaid among the better League matches: it doesn’t work well against experienced players.  Sure you can have fun against relatively novice players and sometimes grab a funny victory, but it is not something to try against someone who has much skill.  The United States can easily build fighters that can defend the Mainland, threaten attack against the Japanese fleet, and be redeployed to another sector of the world in just a round or two.

As Ichabod mentions, it is a one-time-use-only sort of strategy.

I think Larry should put flying tanks into the game too. Not for every nation mind you, just for ANZAC because that makes as much sense in 1940 as parking the entire Japanese fleet in Pearl Harbour despite the political situation. Yeah, flying tanks for ANZAC that move 3 spaces. That doesn’t ruin the spirit of the game either.

@SS:

The rule should be no Axis naval pieces can stop next to any US mainland, Island territory and Convoy boxes while US is neutral.

If I’m reading rule correctly Japan can’t stop within 2 sea zones of Alaska and West mainland. Thats it ah. The above rule should apply.

I know its for game play but it should be all one way or the other way.

Unless you totally drop the ball, how can and Kill USA First ever work?

Japan moves to Hawaii, the US pulls back to the WUS, and puts 2 dd blockers out to stop attack.  USA build troops in EUS to counter Germany advance.

UK declares war against Japan.

The end.

Does SZ 13, 14 and 26 are out for Japan until war is declared?

@Karl7:

Japan moves to Hawaii, the US pulls back to the WUS, and puts 2 dd blockers out to stop attack.  USA build troops in EUS to counter Germany advance.

This.  The rule does not keep Japan out of striking range (like some people think it ought to), but it does ensure intervening sea zones that USA can block.  Essentially it allows America to thwart a landing - but not if they just sit in Hawaii.

@Baron:

Does SZ 13, 14 and 26 are out for Japan until war is declared?

No.  The only sea zones of limits are 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.
This gives America enough space to defend themselves.

It also means Japan cannot invade Canada without declaring war on the US before actually invading.

ROBOTS!!
Yeah, France could have robots. They attack at 5 and defend at 5. Movement 2. The only way you can kill them is with a Japanese Kamikaze at 1. Replace all of the French infantry in the starting setup with robots.

Sounds silly doesn’t it? Not quite as silly as parking the Japanese fleet in Pearl Harbour in 1940 given the tensions between the 2 nations, but silly nonetheless. If you can exploit a grammatical error in the rule book and feel justified about it don’t bother ever asking me for a game. I only play people who play the game honourably. Pathetic.

Lets add Russian land Battleships, they can move 10 and can only attack Berlin at a roll of 6 or less and take 20 hits to destroy, and Russia gets 20 of them. Again, not as silly as parking the Japanese fleet on SZ 26.

@SS:

The rule should be no Axis naval pieces can stop next to any US mainland, Island territory and Convoy boxes while US is neutral. If they do it’s an act of war !

:-D

Only restriction I see is Alaska and West mainland. Just saying that ain’t most in rules.

stop being weird GHG. There are so many things in these games that are silly and unhistorical. It is weird that you accept all the other stuff, but think japanese fleet outside hawaii is what breaks the game.

1. there isn’t a single unit in the game that isn’t ridicolus compared to history
2. the economy and looting of captals is insane
3. the infrastructure of the game makes no sense.
4. the size of the areas are completely ahistoric

@Kreuzfeld:

stop being weird GHG. There are so many things in these games that are silly and unhistorical. It is weird that you accept all the other stuff, but think japanese fleet outside hawaii is what breaks the game.

1. there isn’t a single unit in the game that isn’t ridicolus compared to history
2. the economy and looting of captals is insane
3. the infrastructure of the game makes no sense.
4. the size of the areas are completely ahistoric

you are right with those 4 things, however, the Japanese fleet cannot simply waltz into SZ 26 without being at war w/ the US. And have you noticed, it only said this in the ENGLISH version of the rulebook as one of the first replies pointed out? GHG is not being weird, he’s trying to prove a point to you guys and its going completely over your head.

@Ichabod:

A rule was written which expressed a PURPOSE of restricting the Japanese from being too close.

What’s “too close”?  Japan can attack USA from SZ 26, but only if the American player chooses to let themselves be attacked (by not blocking the intervening sea zones).

Maybe there could be good reason to let them slip through if you think the invasion will fail and you want an early DOW?  That’s up the the player.

@Ichabod:

So we have rule intended to keep the Japanese fleet back, but not really keep them back?

Apparently, we have a rule intended not to prevent the Japanese from “sneaking up” on the US, but to give the US enough of a buffer to intercept the invasion.

The rule doesn’t “keep the Japanese fleet back”.  But it ables America to do just that.

@Ichabod:

Both for gamism reasons, and realism it just flat out doesn’t make sense for an entire enemy Navy to be permitted to park itself right next to the US Navy’s most important Naval Base in the Pacific Ocean…

… Regarding the size of the sea zones. Yes, they’re huge. But they’re pretty darn close to an area that a navy could patrol; which means for gamism reasons, make no sense that any nation’s Navy could pass through undetected for a very long time.

Visually the width of SZ 26 appears to be no less than 25% of the distance between Japan and Western USA.  This is a bit of stretch to be considered “right next to Hawaii”.  It’s not even an issue of USA knowing they are there.  It’s an issue of whether their presence (in so large an area) would trigger a DOW. Seems unlikely considering:

@taamvan:

One of the last islands in the Hawaii chain is French Frigate Shoals, and the Japanese in real life lurked right there with ships subs and seaplanes, right before and right after PH.

By the time it’s apparent those ships are heading further East, it’s already Japan’s next turn.  In this game you cannot intercept a fleet on your opponents combat movement phase.

Anyway, it’s silly to argue too much about realism in this game, and it’s silly to second guess designer intent.  I’m only posting because I want to read GHG’s next enlightening and persuasive analogy to giving the RCN an armada of unstoppable flying undead pirate ships.

@Hunter:

GHG is not being weird, he’s trying to prove a point to you guys and its going completely over your head.

Not even close.  He is trying to assert a point.  Trying to prove something entails presenting an actual argument.