Mechanized Russia

Stacking infantry is death for the Soviets. 6 tanks on the first few turns is actually the way to go. Or as many tanks as you can with a mech here and an infantry there. It will let you hold off the germans and swing your army where you need to go. If you don’t have a mobile army they will be at moscow before you know it.

That’s the worse plan I’ve ever heard. That is so easy for Germany and Italy to counter. Germany and Italy can wall their way to Moscow. Infantry stacking is the only way to go.

6 tanks is a good R2/R3 buy if you think you can actually use those tanks to stop Germany from safely stacking Bryansk or Belarus or Eastern Ukraine or something like that. The most obvious reason why that might be true is if Germany attempted Sea Lion, but it could also happen if Germany got diced in Paris and lost most of their fast movers, or if Germany bought a ton of infantry and artillery on G1/G2, or if Germany bought a bunch of subs and bombers on G1/G2. Basically if you can slow Germany down by a full turn by preventing them from stacking the next territory in their lineup (or by taking that territory back from them after they’ve unsafely stacked there) then you gain almost a full additional turn of Russian income before the Russian capital and/or economy collapses, which more than pays for the inefficiency of tank purchases.

On the other hand, if you buy 6 tanks and don’t stop Germany from advancing on schedule, then, yeah, you’ve just blown money Russia can’t afford to lose, and Germany will get Moscow for cheap.

Buying 2 to 3 artillery and/or mech. infantry per turn as Russia is almost always a good idea, because it can force Germany to keep their forces together, or it can allow you to defensively stack, e.g., Leningrad for an extra turn and then safely retreat your mechanized forces (or send mechanized forces from Moscow to the rescue of a stack of infantry retreating to, e.g., Bryansk). You pull off one trick like that, and, again it pays for itself. You win a couple of battles against pairs of German units with 2 inf, 1 art, 1 ftr that you might have lost with 3 inf, 1 ftr, and, again, it pays for itself. Even if you don’t manage to pull that off, the difference between having 9 (or 27) Russian units and 10 (or 30) Russian units is not game-changing…we’re talking about a few percent on the Moscow battle or a few extra tanks for Germany after they conquer it; we’re not talking about throwing the game way.

It’s also just more fun to have something to do with the Russians other than turtle. If it’s not clearly worse to buy a few mechs and art, why not enjoy yourself?

@weddingsinger That makes sense as far as it goes, and I wouldn’t say you’re missing anything, exactly. I think the emphasis on keeping Germany out of the Baltic States is slightly mis-placed; the Baltic States is just 1 IPC. It’s Leningrad that’s the big economic swing zone, so the question is what turn will Germany arrive in Leningrad, and then ultimately in Moscow. I think you could get away with a purchase like 8 mech, 1 art on R1 and R2 against most G1/G2 openings, but if you stretch it much past that and start mixing in tanks or planes as well, then I’d be tempted (as Italy) to stop fussing with Egypt and start sending mechs and tanks for a max stack of can-openers. If you give up too many Russian hit points, then you can’t hold the territory two spaces back (e.g. Leningrad) against Germany’s fast movers, so you’ve got to hold all of the territories in the middle (e.g. Baltic States, Belorussia) firmly enough that Italy can’t can-open them, and if you never build any regular infantry, then you’ll run out of infantry to do that garrison work and you’ll start trading more expensive units. If you get forked enough times, eventually your defense might collapse and you might have to drive back to Moscow in a hurry, allowing the Germans to advance two spaces a turn and make up for some of the turns when the Germans didn’t advance any spaces in a turn.

@weddingsinger What did Germany buy in your test games?

Good topic. I think if Germany declares war G1 you dont have many othee options than infantry. With a G3 DOW i try to have a total of 3 arm, at least 5 mech, 7 is nice, and one extra fighter . I think it is important to challenge volgograd.

i like the fighter 9 men stratbombing is russia downfall

i love the mechanized idea but if it ever comes down to a siege of moscow was it a suboptimal choice for defense unless it bought you until g7-8

Instead of Mech…If allies are going heavy enough in Europe (not 100%), but enough to make Germany build defense in their west, a better option is to purchase mostly artillery instead of mech. And retreat all infantry. Don’t waste 1 inf in a territory to prevent a free walk-on. Mostly just results in a lost inf. In theory, if going heavy against Germany, there will be plenty of allied fighters in Moscow to prevent a G6 or even G7 Moscow attack. Once the Siberians come back and pair up with 25-30+ artillery, Russia’s stack is very lethal. I’ve run into a player online triplea (one of the guys who helped create BM3). He does this strategy very well. US makes significant landings, and Russia become defensive; but very lethal. Germany can’t come to Bryansk.

@weddingsinger
I’ve played against a group in Nashville a few times. They like Allies. This was several years ago. They bought mech mainly for defense. Mech could drive up to Belarus quicker and reinforce the defense stack. Mech could work for Russia on the front end (maybe slowing down) the German advance into Russia. But I don’t think it will work against a good German player or really be very helpful on the back end like turn 6 or 7. All of those mech in Moscow instead of artillery.

I tried this in a face-to-face game against Karl7, who of course is very good with the German pieces, and wound up losing Moscow on G6 on a German attack that had 91% odds – but Germany lost about 80% of its stack taking Moscow, so it was likely that the Middle East would have held, and almost certain that Cairo would have held. We ultimately scooped at least as much because the Western Allies didn’t have a sufficient compensatory attack as because the German drive was unstoppable. Like, the Allies were able to barely take Rome on UK6 using a one-two punch, but trading both Moscow and Calcutta for Rome is not a good trade.

I think my main mistake was that on R2 I placed slow movers up front in Vyborg with fast movers behind the lines in Leningrad, with the idea of maximizing my threat to Finland. This might have worked fine if the Allies were swarming toward Norway, but the British Atlantic fleet was wiped out, there were German subs in the Atlantic, and the British and Americans were both focused on beating up Italy in the Mediterranean. Without Anglo-American pressure on Norway, the Russians can’t afford to invest too much against Finland. Karl7 was able to temporarily retreat all Finnish forces into Norway, and just come right back to Finland after Leningrad was dead zoned by the advancing Baltic States stack. I held Finland for one turn, and then I wound up with 10 slow movers stuck in Vyborg, unable to either kill the reinforced Finnish stack or safely stack up in Leningrad.

What I should have done was put the fast movers in Vyborg and the slow movers in Leningrad – that way I could have moved the entire stack to Archangel or Belarus to join up with the rest of my forces to form one mega-stack capable of temporarily holding out against the main German forces. Instead I was defeated in detail. All of my armies except the 10 inf/art in Vyborg and a blocking force of 4 inf + 1 AAA ultimately made it home to Moscow for the G6 battle, which is a somewhat impressive recovery rate (if I do say so myself) given that I was playing far enough forward that Germany wasn’t able to build any units in either Leningrad or Kiev until G6. Still, 15 armies is still too many to lose when you’re building mechs; the point of mechs is to get damn near everybody home.

I’ll try the strategy again with the proper configuration of fast and slow movers in another game and let you all know how it goes. Keep the faith! The Allies will find an answer to the German mech/tank rush.

@Argothair
Nice report. Mechs are so versatile, they are challenging to play. Truly a great addition by Larry.

the oob game is too imbalanced for this to make a positive difference. G1 can buy an extra turn, endgame is G5-6 now. I recommend modding the game as I have laid out before. Russia cannot take iraq or scandanavia because these are needed for allied factories controlled by powers that can afford that. pieces left west are cut off and destroyed.

@weddingsinger Agree; I won an in-person game recently after buying 9 mechs on R1 and 8 mechs / 1 tank on R2 against a German Sea Lion. The Germans took London, along with heavier-than-expected casualties, on G3, but the Germans never pushed the Soviets out of Romania and the Russians wound up out-earning the Germans (trading 4+ of Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Finland each turn) by about R5. The Axis scooped when they saw that the US didn’t even need to liberate London; Russia could hold Germany off all on its own while the Western Allies contained and rolled back Japan.

Granted, this involved some luck on the defending dice for London (Germany should have had additional air force survivors) and some sub-optimal positioning for German defenders (with a bit more advance planning, Germany probably could have held more of Eastern Europe), but it still felt like a board where you definitely wanted to be playing the Allies.

I would say that mechanized Russia makes a much weaker defense of London possible. I bought 2 inf, 1 ftr for London while sending away 2 infantry to Gibraltar and sending the entire British starting air force to either Taranto or to pick off a sub off the coast of Canada (meaning that the fighter had to land in Canada and couldn’t return in time to defend against a G3 Sea Lion). I think that was slightly too weak; if I had that game to do over I would have bought 3 inf, 1 ftr for London and perhaps not sent the fighter to Canada (sending only a DD instead) to kill the German sub…but the fact that my pathetic defense worked anyway was a sign of just how powerful MechaRussia is against Sea Lion.