We need an allied playbook.

@crockett36 For those watching at home, Russia helping the Chinese stay alive did not help either of them. A few troops, maybe a tank and a mech, but nothing substantial should be sent -unless they do Sealion.

@crockett36 Agree. If you get 4-5 infantry bid you can do the Yunnan stack. But its difficult to advance the stack in the face of so many japanese planes–China survives but it doesnt thrive.

And, if you spent the bid on that, you cant spend it on the fighter + sub for UK to mess with the opener on that board. With the fighter in scotland, the Germans lose the BB. The sub in the med puts the taranto odds over the top and more UK stuff survives such that Italy loses most of its best pieces on the first turn. 2-3 subs in the med and it just gets goofy.

I do drop a few troops from the russians walking home among the last chinese troops holding out. Eventually, its a lost cause and China’s income is 2-3. Except in BM.

In one video, I proposed a negative bid: the loss of units. Japanese planes specifically.

@crockett36 Sure, splotch 1 SB and the 1 TB that can reach Yunnan on turn 1. I’m in.

@crockett36 It just doesnt affect the collapse of Russia very much.

AetV just wiped the floor with me with a KJF. I hadn’t played axis in a while.

@crockett36 Building factories too early can be dangerous as Japan. You can’t power the factories and build what you need to confront a full USA press. I’m a big fan of subs (in many versions) for USA, Japan, and Germany especially.

@crockett36 said in We need an allied playbook.:

In one video, I proposed a negative bid: the loss of units. Japanese planes specifically.

@taamvan said in We need an allied playbook.:

@crockett36 Sure, splotch 1 SB and the 1 TB that can reach Yunnan on turn 1. I’m in.

Interesting idea, but I absolutely positively would not use an IPC based negative bid to reduce Japanese planes. My order would be:
Kwangsi art
SZ6 TT
Kwangsi inf
Siam inf.
SZ19 TT - perhaps this should be after the other TT - not sure.

Just removing the Kwangsi art should save the Prince of Wales (SZ37 BB) in a J1 DOW. Or make the Yunnan attack really dodgy.

Itd blow the timing of taking the spice islands. if its negative bidding wouldnt the opposing player choose whats lost? why would it be based on a predetermined list?

was reading the BM mod notes and it says that the BM guerilla rule and china survival isnt game changer it leads japan to crush india even faster (tho japan gets an extra bonus NO in thar version)

changing japan isnt why russia dies so were fixing what isnt broken…give germany 1 sb and sea lion is much harder to pull off

The way I read it, the player playing the allies would decide what’s removed from the Axis. It is a really interesting idea actually. I think bids could be much smaller that way because you could remove the units which punch above their weight. Which would certainly be the Japanese land units on Asia, and the transports which help to get more Japanese land units on Asia (as well as the islands).

Moscow doesn’t die in the top level games, at least not usually very early. So I challenge the suggestion that the bid needs to fix that.

BTW, I disagree that losing 2 out of 21 Japanese planes would make a significant difference to taking the spice islands. What are you talking about? Losing transports would certainly make a difference though.

i meant his suggestion would mess up the japanese money, not mine

japan has so many planes we just call it the sprinkle…choose where the few ground units go first then sprinkle planes as needed

I think that we are turning the wrong screws to make Vanilla work optimal for everybody.

The idea of an Allied Playbook is to give access to every Player to play as accordingly as possible to stand a chance against the Axis player.

This can only be achieved when we make sure that the “Allied player” understands the mechanics of the board and knows the crucial Spots on it and also gets a true feeling of what to purchase when.

We can take Axis pieces from the board as much as we want to and still loose!

A List of Spots were we have, no must! lay an eye on should make a good start together with a correctly adressed explanation of why this Spot is so important.

Best regards
AetV

this convo is just a digression from that original goal. I dont think there can be an allied playbook without it being an endlessly complex series of if thens. crockett brought it up so maybe he has a different view.

there are plenty of ideas like middle earth and allied dark skies, yunnan stack, russia mobile stacking… that are good rough plans. I wanted to try out the gibraltar stack but youve got to see whats happening before you pick your response so i had to keep it in my pocket for a few games.

the game is nice and mature and weve blabbed out every good idea i can think up which is why sirebloods, yg and mark movels efforts are all welcome

and its good to chat with the crew the discussion has pretty much died off…

@simon33 that is very well thought out.

@aequitas-et-veritas what would those spots be for you, a et v? The perimeter vcs in the Pac must be on your list? Moscow, Egypt, London. 91?

@taamvan still scheming for OOB . I think flat tops for uncle Joe was close to a sure thing except against top tier players. It was working against a top tier when I lost to pac vcs. Those rules I despise.

I’m experimenting with a neutral Grab t3. Fun, lucrative. I think desperation could drive me to invest 10 per turn on tech as America, GB, maybe Rus before ger pushes in. Why despise it? Its in the rule book. Also trying a slow navy build in the Indian and pac Ocean. Playing the axis right now. And thinking about war room.

@crockett36 thats all crazy talk. there are many variations out there to enjoy

I appreciate those variations. I still have an itch that needs scratching. Grasshopper s is fantastic for a one day tabletop event. Don’t know the details of the others. I want to get to yours. But the OOB intrigues me. I once thought the middle east and Africa were a loss. Now I have no problem with keeping those areas. I will say that it’s closer to balance than is thought.

@crockett36 did you read my allied playbook post forgot to flag u

@oysteilo said in We need an allied playbook.:

I am just throwing in my two cents here. I think i am one of the few that actually have tried the tamvan mode.

I think it adresses the problem with the oob version differently than bm3. It changes the stup by giving soviet a fighter and a tank. This doesnt affect anything but changing the setup is so so. What it does good is, it takes money away from Germany as opposed to bm3 where the solution always is to throw out more money. This is infact a HUGE weaknes with bm because the games last forever.

Because of the nov/moscow/vol/cauc objective is changed to 3 it also becomes more evident to go after Norway as the allies i think. Maybe this becomes too predictable in the long term

In the end. an easy and elegant fix, but it is probably not enough

i think this the point. exactely! :)