Last nights game Recap. Fantastic game.

Well we had a five person game last night and surprisingly it only lasted around 3-3:30 hours.  I ended up on the side of the allies and I was initially dismayed because I had first random pick of the countries, and of course I end up with the Soviet Union. That is okay though because out of the 10 or so games I have played I had yet to play as Russia and I knew they are pivotal in the destruction of the axis.  So anyways it was basically me and two very inexperienced players ( the UK player it was his first time) so basically I was trying to tell them what to do so that we could win.  I figured we were dead in the water because the two axis players were both skilled.  First turn I absolutely crushed Germany with a hit to west russia and belorussia.  I think I made the perfect opening Russian move.  I was torn between Ukraine and West Russia and Belo/W Russia but I think I made the perfect choice.  I know a lot of people argue about demolishing the fighter in Ukraine which is helpful but I am now a firm believer that my opening move was the correct one.  My troops were so stacked along the western front that Germany had no idea how to hit the Russians and it actually caused him to only make a minor offensive on the first German turn which helped me restock caucases and w russia even more.  Regardless later on in the game I screwed up royally but it kind of helped out a little.  I accidently didn’t realize he had 6 tanks stacked so he rolled over west russia with a huge air assault/infantry charge.  After this I only had a few guys in Russia so he was able to hit me with a 6 tank attack and take out my capital thus earning my money.  The catch was is that he screwed up even more because he didn’t place any of his planes in germany and only restocked it with 6 infantry, 3 tanks, 2 artillery and he had one bomber there.  Regardless next turns Britian was able to do an amphibious assault and took out all but one guy.  USA had heavy bombers and heavy bombing (we don’t play with LHTR only the boxed rules) so he used his bombers and fighters from britain to take out a huge stack of infantry positioned in front of Germany.  This opened the door for a stack of 3 Russian armor to move into germany on my turn and take their capital (he had only one lowly infantry yet).  It was a huge blow and was the deciding factor of the game.  I got all of my money back, protected my capital after retaking it and japan was just beginning to make the offensive move into Russia.  Germany was able to take back the capital but britain retook it very next turn and then there was no hope for germany. Had he not of made this huge mistake the axis might of actually prevailed but we lucked out.  Either way it was a great game and I now love playing Russia as much as I love playing Japan.