Germany bunker/loading-up strategy

Its not viable unless you want a static battlefield condition. This means your slowly driven back by combined Allied powers. A dynamic battlefield where you can push back requires all the other types of units including Air and Naval. Planes and Subs are best to drive away the Allies from landing and that’s all you can do if you never build an established navy in the Baltic ( not Medd). If your pigeonholed on land you need tanks ( artillery are too slow). Many of your attacks will be hit and run.

what scenario are you playing ? OOB or Larry Harris Gen Con setup?

@Imperious-Leader I think they’re playing 42 1st Edition. The one that’s basically the Revised map with AA50 units (Cruisers exist, old AA Gun rules, new SBR rules)/costs (Tanks still cost 5).

No wonder why they made a 2nd edition so quickly, Revised is broken and 42.2 was made to fix the issues in Revised…

The bid for Revised in league is like 7 lol. If that’s broken what are G40 and 42SE?

42 1st Edition isn’t a mess because of Revised. It’s a mess because slapping the AA50 rules into Revised’s map and setup messes with the balance. Specifically, Transports having no combat value and Destroyers attacking/defending on 2 instead of 3 makes the opening moves go extremely screwy, to say the least.

I guess making the game broken with all $5 tank buys and shuck to Moscow is out then? I don’t know that different units broke 1st ed 42, but those tanks surely broke Revised. Not to mention the sub interaction rules. Ha

@noblerare said in Germany bunker/loading-up strategy:

@Imperious-Leader We are playing 1942 Second Edition, out of the box.

This is the forum for Spring 1942, AKA 1942 First Edition. There is a separate board for 1942 2nd Edition: https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/category/47/axis-allies-1942-2nd-edition

As your thread was actually about 1942 2nd Edition, you should ignore basically everything I said in my first reply. All of it only applies to 1942 1st Edition.

In 1942 2nd Edition, Germany is overpowered and your friend is playing Germany completely incorrectly if they think they should be passive with them. Germany should be building 2+ Tanks every turn and steamrolling the Russians before they can do anything. Follow this general plan:

G1: Take Karelia.
G2: Stack Karelia/Ukraine SSR
G3: Take either Caucasus or West Russia.
G4: Take whichever of the above two territories you failed to take last turn.
G5: Take Moscow.

It’s that easy. If anything the Soviets should be the ones contemplating a strategy where they “do nothing and build nothing but Infantry”, not the Germans.

@Imperious-Leader said in Germany bunker/loading-up strategy:

I guess making the game broken with all $5 tank buys and shuck to Moscow is out then? I don’t know that different units broke 1st ed 42, but those tanks surely broke Revised. Not to mention the sub interaction rules. Ha

Mathematically speaking, buying mass INF is still superior to TANKs (3 Tanks (15 IPC) will lose to 5 INF (IPC)). Not to mention USSR/UK’s starting forces are actually strong enough to check Germany. Germany can’t kill the UK BB if the Soviet Sub NCMs to SZ2 R1, this snowballs into the UK Fleet being unsinkable after B1, after they reinforce it appropriately. This snowballs again B2-onward, since UK can kill the German SZ5 fleet and immediately threaten Karelia/Norway/East Europe/Germany/West Europe, which slows down and “German Tank Moscow drive” considerably. For USSR, there’s no Karelia factory to babysit in Revised, so Soviets only have to worry about stacking West Russia and strafing/trading Ukraine until either help arrives from US/UK or Japan overwhelms China/the eastern Soviet territories (Novosibirsk/Kazakh/etc.). The entire game is a race between the Allies breaking Germany and Japan overrunning Moscow. In that sense, the Japan strategy of “build 2 ICs -> Tank Drive to Moscow” is a bit over-centralizing when playing online/to the OOB victory conditions.

@noblerare Moved from “Spring 1942” to the correct category.