BATTLE IN VANCOUVER! IT'S ON! Nov. 23-25. Who will survive?

The next Battle of Britain will be held on the 14th July 2024.

This all-day event is held in Derbyshire, UK. Typically we have 6 to 12 players, meaning up to three A&A games running - Anniversary, 1942.2 and 1914 - allowing everyone to decide which they wish to join.

If you’d like to join us then please either reply to this thread or message me via this website.

Again 6 hardy souls braved the pandemic! We decided to play a game of 1914 so we could all participate in the same game.

1. 1914

Used 2 house rules: max 4 builds in India; land units move 2 if every territory is friendly. Powers were allocated at random:

CPs - Mike (Aftertaste) as AH & T; Adam (Private-Panic) as G
Entente - Andrew (h0lym0nk) as Italy & USA; Mark (Credulous) as F; Jon (jon1988) as R; Dave as GB.

R was able to consolidate virtually all it’s units into Poland and so put the fear of God into AH & G, who countered with almost equal stacks in Silesia (G) and Galicia (AH and some G). The Entente decided to pursue a G first strategy and R advanced it’s stack into E Prussia. The CPs rubbed their hands with glee! While this might create a possibility of the Entente capturing Berlin it certainly gave the CPs an easy route to Moscow. G put everything it could into E Prussia to fight a battle in which it might have had a slight advantage, so as to prevent the R stack retreating. In order to do this G accepted the need to fall back on the Western Front.

The battle in E Prussia resulted in quite a few more losses for R than G. The dwindling R stack was stuck there without reinforcements while G could add units easily if it wished.

Meanwhile F pressed forward against G’s western borders, reaching the Ruhr. Perhaps F had a slight advantage in that territory and it also had a sizeable stack in Munich to follow up. Unfortunately F lost badly in the Ruhr, effectively ensuring that G would recapture with sufficient force to stall the F attack.

G took out the GB North Sea fleet for the loss of only 2 subs.

Turkey kicked GB out of Mesopotamia and captured Egypt.

All of this in just 2 turns.

The Entente abjectly surrendered!

2. 1941

With some hours of the day left to play we decided to follow with a game of 1941. Dave had to leave so we now had 5 players. Only house rule was an additional GB destroyer off Canada to balance the game. Sides allocated at random.

Allies - Mike (Aftertaste) as GB; Andrew (h0lym0nk) as R; Mark (Credulous) as US
Axis - Adam (Private-Panic) as G; Jon (jon1988) as J.

The Axis decided on a strategy of jointly pressing hard on Moscow, probably linking up in the Caucasus. And this is what they did!

However, a GB & US fleet was established off the coast of Western Europe by the end of turn 1. Normally this takes longer so G was not happy! By the end of turn 2 the Allies had 7 units in Western Europe, including a US and a R fighter, with a combined defensive power of 19. G decided to attack this with the 8 units it had available, with an attacking power of 21. I have just used triple a to discover an attacking success probability of 70%. Risky. But absolute disaster!

Clearly it still hurts!

In the meantime J captured China, the Spice Islands and the Phillipines.

Aware that G would be unable to afford units for the Caucasus given Allied Pressure on Berlin the Axis decided that their chances on Moscow were not going to improve. G’s sacrificial attack was another dice disaster, doing far less damage to R than J needed if its follow-up was to have any chance of success.

After J duly undertook its kamikaze assault, the Axis tearfully surrendered.

With continuing Covid 19 restrictions some of us decided to play via Zoom using triple a. Of course this was not as much fun as playing face to face, but the four of us who joined in very much enjoyed the day.

Mark (@Credulous) kindly hosted the Zoom session.

We decided to play Anniversary (1942 set up). Mark played Japan and Adam (@Private-Panic) Germany / Italy. Leo (@Wittmann) took USA & Russia and Andrew (@h0lym0nk) GB. The Allies had a bid of 12 which they placed as a GB destroyer off Canada and a R artillery.

The opening moves on the R front favoured R, as G counter attacks all suffered more casualties than they inflicted. GB attempted its Taranto moment and lost heavily, leaving Italy able to capture Egypt. Japan suffered no mishaps, killing the GB fleet of India, the US flotilla at Pearl Harbour and the Chinese fighter.

GB considered its choice of factory locations and decided to opt for South Africa. Fortunately Hirohito spotted the possibility of capturing this and under Japanese orders the Italian navy navigated the Suez Canal and dropped 2 ground units in south east Africa, and these were able to capture the factory the following turn.

The US landed in north Africa, but then lost its 2 transports, defended by a single destroyer, to a G Luftwaffe attack. The US decided to allocate a considerable proportion of its resources towards an Atlantic navy sufficient to allow further landings in north Africa. These pushed towards Egypt.

This allowed J some freedom in the Pacific. J captured India and built a factory there. Briefly this appeared threatened by US pressure on Egypt and a R threat south from the Caucasus, but the prudent deployment of J fighters to India and Egypt stymied any Allied ambitions. Later Australia also had the honour of joining the J empire!

Meanwhile G managed to keep R in check while also combining with I units to deny the Allies the opportunity of gaining the French national objective. As a result the Axis were gaining most of their national objectives, but the Allies few of theirs. This and the collapse of the British Empire gave the Axis an income advantage of around 30 ipcs per turn.

The Allies surrendered, with a G stack before the walls of Moscow and a growing J threat on Caucasus. The US Pacific fleet had captured a couple of islands (while J replaced the naval fighters it had sent to India) but had no opportunity to effect further advances. The US Atlantic fleet had sailed south to defend Brazil from Italy’s South African fleet, robbing north Africa of reinforcements. Perhaps the only bright point for the Allies was GB’s capture of Norway.

The four of us had a chat and decided that the autumn and winter BoB dates should be arranged with the intention of falling back on a virtual event should Coronavirus continue to preclude face to face play.

@Imperious-Leader - sounds good brother! I’ll forward you the data.

There will be an Axis & Allies tournament hosted by The Columbus Area Boardgaming Society (CABS) at 11 am on May 14th in Worthington, Ohio. Featured will be a 1942 tourney & also a Global tourney. Go to the Columbus, Ohio Axis & Allies Meetup site for more details. Prizes for winners.

I’m signed up for the G40!

Glad you enjoyed it Credulous.

My West Russia miscount was a disaster for G and absolutely the biggest error of all errors in our game. Just amazed that after that the axis both gained a second opportunity (that failed) to take Moscow and even so successfully kept R bottled up for sufficiently long for a replacement G European stack/threat to be in place.

After the West Russia disaster I thought I had lost. Either that perception of impending doom was wrong (as I know you believe) or the axis military commanders played a blinder to claw back a draw, with their own “hopes” of final victory. I quite like the second interpretation! :-)

After the West Russia catastrophe I couldn’t afford too many more mistakes and think I pretty much managed to avoid them.

What would have happened if I had not bogged up in W Russia? I probably would have discovered another game changing error to make instead!

Looking forward to our next game. We’ll see how I manage to bog that one up! :roll:

@Imperious:

PAUL MELNYK is his name. Look for him playing classic.

I met Paul at a tech event. Sent him an email, twice, and have not received a response.