We had four players and played one game of 1914. Tomas (Dukla Passer) and Dave played the Allies. Adam (Private Panic) & Dale played Axis.
The game started very badly for the Axis with an all-out G fleet attack in the North Sea coming to grief as Tomas threw hits with every single dice. A-H took three turns to capture Serbia and at least as many to gain Venice.
Meanwhile R consolidated everything it had in Ukraine, dwarfing G & A-H forces sent East despite the Axis strategy being to concentrate against R while defending in the West from Venice and the French border. Things looked bleak for the Axis, who were clearly losing right from the start.
Three things then happened to balance the game.
The UK focused more and more of its resources on reinforcing Russia and France. This allowed T to gain the upper hand against India, capturing Egypt and Persia.
R put a sizeable force into Rumania. A-H went all-in from Galicia after G had moved its own units from there into Belarus. R felt unable to attack the A-H stack in Rumania for fear of then being unable to defend Moscow against G. Even an attack on G forces in Belarus risked then being unable to turn back from a contested territory to hit the A-H armies pouring north out of Rumania into Ukraine. Continuing terrible dice for the Axis made capturing Romania far more difficult that it should have been, but once Romania was incorporated into the A-H Empire growing Axis forces were able to push R back to Moscow and reduce its income to 11 per turn.
That pressure in the East perhaps encouraged F & GB to overextend themselves in the West. They occupied Munich in force and suffered an inevitable counter-attack. G had sufficient advantage to inflict significant losses on the allies, but the Axis inability to throw even moderate dice reduced the scale of the victory. Nevertheless, the Allied retreat in the West vacated all G territory as quickly as it could.
At the end the Axis could point to growing forces in Ukraine offering the prospect of an attack on Moscow in a couple of turns or more, despite GB’s reinforcements.
On the other hand the Allies had landed US troops in Egypt, forcing T to defend its capital, so robbing its advance on India of needed reinforcements.
A draw was declared. And a decision made to try the Larry Harris Tournament rules when next playing 1914.
