Is Paris the Only Re-Roll Battle?

I agree about Taranto.

I think if you concede after a poor roll in Paris that is your affair although I wouldn’t consider it particularly good sportmanship with 3 tanks left. If you brought everything land and still lost I might feel a bit differently about that.

It seems unfair for the Axis to get a mulligan for bad rolls but not the Allies. If you lose the Paris battle, you should concede the game.

Given Paris, France is the first attack of the first round of the game, there’s literally no harm in restarting the game if it goes really badly for one side or the other.  Really bad for Germany and there’s a significant reduction in the chance to win; really well for Germany and they could put extra pressure on Russia faster too - though not nearly as bad as if the Germans get creamed.

That said, I’ve played games where Germany does badly in Paris and the Axis still win.  It’s more of Italy being a power when this happens because you let the Italians clean up afterwards.

As for Taranto, no.  At this point a lot of the first round is done and restarting isn’t really the same game.  Russia’s telegraphed, Germany’s telegraphed, Japan’s telegraphed, America’s telegraphed…strategies may need to change to adjust for restarting just because England got unlucky.  Honestly, you don’t HAVE to do Taranto either…I’ve seen England use their ships and planes for other things and allowed Italy to get a bit more powerful in hopes the Americans can stop them soon enough.  Not saying to not do Taranto, just saying you don’t have to do it.  Especially if you want to stop Japan first by securing China, then turning back against the German/Italian armies.

If you lose the attack on France that is pretty much game over. Start a new. Players can put their bid in France, sometimes I put an infantry there myself, keeps Germany from doing southern France or Normandy or that one infantry can hit or allow the fighter another round to roll a hit and sometimes that cuts into Germany mech/armor which helps Russia out.

Quitting after a bad Paris is bad form.

When the allies get absolutely Trounced in Paris and Germany wins all naval fights with no lost planes and most of its navy intact, Nobody gives a damn;  And that’s an awful start for Allies.

Have people also forgotten that the Axis have TWO boardsto win on?

I’ve seen the Axis recover on several occasions after a bad or failed paris, or sealion, because everyone laughs and doesn’t take Germany seriously anymore.  The focus tips to pacific and Germany recovers.

Play the game.  Win or lose.  And don’t start refusing o play just because you didn’t get “optimal” results.

Some of the most exciting games come from the surprises that happen to you.

I usually make it 99% odds by sending all ground in range to France.  Even then you still lose that 1 in a hundred games, it is really rough to recover from that. mostly because of the income boom and partly because of the armor/mech you lost.

Agreed, Gargantua.  However, if you were to restart a game, that’s probably the only time to do it without it counting as an official loss in my mind.

Sometimes the better part of valor is knowing when to convert an all out attack into a strafing run.

Here is the thing, No Paris G1 means both Russia and UK are safe (assuming UK places on london). Russia won’t die until G9 at best (assuming no allied help) and UK is fine from sea lion (g4 sea lion at best, assuming g3 dump scotland and then all in london).

Now not all failed france attacks lead to, “well italy can still take it” UK can reinforce france with a max of 5 fighters, tactical, and bomber, which you should absolutely do with whatever you are not using for attacks (or land there after sz 97). Now you can use all air for attacks and still get 2 fighters, tactical, and bomber added to france. If Italy fails as well and france gets to buy and place, which I have also seen happen, well that is super game over. You probably wouldn’t want to keep going as the allies either, I mean the allies VC win count takes forever.

This keeps coming up.  There is no way to get diced on this battle without choosing to do so.  You have 10 planes, 3 tanks that do not normally come to this battle because they are busy killing the UK navy or wandering off in another direction.    You may naturally assume that attacking SZ 110 and SZ 109 is required somehow;  it is an optimal move but it is by no means required by the rules.  If you take that many planes to Paris, the dice aren’t going to determine the outcome.

If you fail to take it, you are taking the same risks you do every time you spread out your available attacking forces.

Then if somehow you blew it, Italy can take it.

There is no such thing as failing to run this battle.  You can either use massive overkill or you can take the 3% diced out chance.  It doesn’t ruin the game to get poor luck during this battle;  it causes extra casualties, which is the hallmark of a well balanced game–you can choose to take it with the minimum required or with a maximum of certainty, but not both.

Of course the game is biased against the Allies if the Axis are allowed to re-run their risk battles that don’t go well because its a long game…

I’m not saying its bad sportsmanship, I just think you need to consider what is actually happening when you tell someone before the game commences you want a do-over if the opener is no good.    It means that you are denying them a prominent early game chance to affect the final outcome in their favor but based on YOUR choices and risks.  The game is going to go quite differently depending on whether Germany loses less than 6 guys during the opener vs when it loses more like 8-20.

Your choices are going to determine how this plays out.  Planes that never attack the SZ can never be scrambled against or diced out.  If you insist on doing 3 (or 4) battles the first turn, not only are you spreading yourself as thin as possible but you are consulting luck more times with more rolls, increasing the chances of a critical failure.  This is true even if everyone and their dog agrees on this as the optimal opener;  optimal openers are not usually conservative ones. People are referring to bidding out the scramble, its totally possible that Germany “loses” all 3 battles and half its airforce on the first turn, then all this magic stuff that people keep talking about dropping Moscow before turn 6 never happens.

Stripped of its fun exterior, the game is nothing more than a series of minor, not particularly game-changing interactions and small choices that lead to you to 1-3 bigger culminating stack battles.  The precise odds in those battles will be determined by 1) how skillfully you placed, staged up and bought units  2) how much you wasted/sent away from the critical path up to that point.

The early battles are more affected by the OOB setup than your choices, but remember, in order to gain the maximum advantage by turn 6 you are taking a series of ever more challenging risks to gain the upper hand.

It is perfectly valid not to attack Yunnan until later in the game–it is a huge risk for Japan their ground forces are on the line.  Same any other risk battle.    AxA lets you trade time for risk;  more stuff gets built and shows up ready to fight each turn.  its simply a question of timing then, you are attempting to “rush” the game and force a quick victory by requiring that a series of good, lucky outcomes that follow one another or the game ends by forfeit.    If you wait until every battle is a blowout, the Allies become too strong to defeat at all, and the time/advantage curve bends the other direction…in the Allies favor.

I’m not saying you are a poor sport or a quitter, far from it.  Most of us do quit when we see the ‘writing on the wall’ and sometimes we go ahead and roll things out anyway even though its a lost cause (or roll out battles we decline to prosecute because they are too risky…just to see what would occur at each juncture).

But we play often enough that bad luck can come to stay, still it usually doesnt’ make the game a blowout because there are simply so many rolls in one game and many things that go down are not really dependent on luck (Russia always gets thrown on the ropes, its not a question of luck if gets demolished its a question of when and how that occurs.  America always enters the war at some juncture, on some terms, usually not of its choosing…that isn’t driven by luck).

So, even though it seems like a disaster, I’d say play through and see how it turns out, at least the game will run differently than the standard script.    Even losing games are pretty fun…

Re Roll Battle?

At the heart of the matter is the concept that if the Axis or Allies fail, in the critical attacks we have determined are critical,  in the first 1-2 turns that the entire war is pre determined by our master plans and thus no need to continue, reset the board and start again.

SO

The concept of reroll….in order to avoid just resetting the board at turn 1 and starting again is 100% based on the concept of predetermined opening moves and IF they do not go off as planned the entire war is over.

Thus

We should just ditch this game and go play chess that requires no dice.

OR

We should just join in the lamentations of the Axis players as the German/Japan opening turn did not go off in a fabulous manner and now they are depressed and no longer want to play this stupid game based on 6 sided dice. Just give in to them and rest the board until the desired dice outcomes make them happy.

Hell with it. Start the game at the USA turn 1 and just let Germany/Japan place their units in there declared combat areas and leave it up to them what would be a reasonable CAS rate on their units and take them off.

FINALLY

Do the Allies get a reroll on turn 9 when they make their critical attack into Europe to cripple and eventually destroy Germany on Turn 12… do the Allies get a reroll? Cant really restart the game. To bad so sad for the ALLIES? OF course many would say if the Allies are on turn 8-10 and making the big push into Germany the game is lost any ways and why are we playing this stupid game anyways? Axis concede and we reset to play another game.

Why not just make the Victory conditions then that if Germany has not conquered Russia by turn 7 and Japan does not have a out right VC victory by turn 10 on the Pacific map, we should just pick up the game board and reset?

No one has failed to take Paris in our group (yet).  We agreed that in the event that Germany fails, the Axis have the option of conceding and beginning another game.  Afterwards, the Allies are so heavily favored to win that it doesn’t make sense to keep playing.