I'm tinkering around with a new German opener - ignoring SZ 110

@dazedwit

Why the factory in egypt? Do you need it now and can you defend it?

Also why the transport and fighter for UK-pac? They start with 2 fighters and a tactical so no need for more air they need some ground forces imo.

You cant defend the transport anyway, japan is way to powerfull

@dazedwit said in I'm tinkering around with a new German opener - ignoring SZ 110:

@shadowhawk

I guess I didn’t take a wide pic of Asia. Japan is busy with Russia in the North and nowhere near Calcutta at this point. So grabbed another trn to help pick up more money islands in expedited fashion.

IC in Egypt because I have a nice sized fleet about to dominate the Med. In no danger of losing IC to Italy because turtled in Egypt with one block in Alexandria. I guess Italy could invade w/ 4 units and offshore bombardment but that will be very close fight. I was going to land the two planes from Malta battle in Egypt but sent them to Gib cuz that’s what I thought you said they go. I figure UK should be only one left after 2 turns, and then convoy lots of money off Italy. IC gets a nice entry point to Middle East and soft underbelly of Russia.

What would you have bought instead of IC. $13 left after AB buy.

You still want to keep your capital protected as well. So 3 inf 1 art would be good in londen.
Once you have secured afrika you dont really need a factory there.

Also if japan is up north you can use your initial transport to take 1 island and have anzac take the other 1. next turn you take the last islands.

If japan is weak you need to abuse it by having land forces to drain him white, use china to harass and make him attack everywhere and then use UK-pac to just attack the strongpoints. He needs land units the quicker you kill those the better.

Also your chinese fighter is really exposed there, so are you 6 chineese infantry in the front line.

Your better off with a sub as well, nice to harass japan force him to use destroyers. But if japan really did leave it like that at the end of J1 they are really in for a hard time losing 2 of their 3 transports round 1. Also losing a lot of units north as they didnt have extra forces there.

@dazedwit said in I'm tinkering around with a new German opener - ignoring SZ 110:

@shadowhawk

those six Chinese are the six that liberated Yunnan so don’t know what I can do about that.

the Flying Tiger is in Burma. Japan would have to declare war on UK to attack it, and they are in no position to really threaten Burma. It could be taken out with planes but personally I would use the planes to wipe out all Chinese inf they can reach.

I wouldn’t necessarily say Japan is weak - they are just occupied with other things.

Japan had all 4 units alive after taking yunnan? Because you needed 6 inf to take it back? And then had terrible luck in defence?
Still the fighter is exposed there but you can still place your india stack there with the fighter + where is the tactical india starts with?

Also in this situation UK-pac would declare war and whipe out most of the japanese transports round 1. At least from what i seen that is all the transports in range. And take java for good measure. Gives them a huge income the next round and japan not in a position to threathen.

Japan will declare war round 2 anyway because else UK-pac will declare war :) so 1 round difference is not a big deal, the 15ipcs NO bonus for japan and anzac is.

Also why lose a destroyer in the med as a blocker? Just put it with the fleet you want italy to attack your fleet, you got more of basically everything there. IF he attacks he loses his fleet and you can attack on your turn somewhere else as it repairs.

@dazedwit said in I'm tinkering around with a new German opener - ignoring SZ 110:

@shadowhawk said in I'm tinkering around with a new German opener - ignoring SZ 110:

@dazedwit said in I'm tinkering around with a new German opener - ignoring SZ 110:

@shadowhawk

those six Chinese are the six that liberated Yunnan so don’t know what I can do about that.

the Flying Tiger is in Burma. Japan would have to declare war on UK to attack it, and they are in no position to really threaten Burma. It could be taken out with planes but personally I would use the planes to wipe out all Chinese inf they can reach.

I wouldn’t necessarily say Japan is weak - they are just occupied with other things.

Japan had all 4 units alive after taking yunnan? Because you needed 6 inf to take it back? And then had terrible luck in defence?
Still the fighter is exposed there but you can still place your india stack there with the fighter + where is the tactical india starts with?

Also in this situation UK-pac would declare war and whipe out most of the japanese transports round 1. At least from what i seen that is all the transports in range. And take java for good measure. Gives them a huge income the next round and japan not in a position to threathen.

Japan will declare war round 2 anyway because else UK-pac will declare war :) so 1 round difference is not a big deal, the 15ipcs NO bonus for japan and anzac is.

Also why lose a destroyer in the med as a blocker? Just put it with the fleet you want italy to attack your fleet, you got more of basically everything there. IF he attacks he loses his fleet and you can attack on your turn somewhere else as it repairs.

I don’t remember what Japan took Yunnan with.

I honestly wasn’t paying much attention when moving Japan around. I would always send escorts with the trn. It is what it is.

The Tac either never got put on, or I may have scooped it up by mistake when cleaning up the board. I put one back on.

I removed the IC in Egypt and dropped 3 inf and art in London instead.

Edit: playing alone, I don’t have a roomful of eyes to tip me off when stuff is missed.

Just saw the missing units so id check for them, didnt know i notice these things from startup because i set up the board so many times i can nearly do it by heart.
But the fleet near india is quite strong, BB + cruiser+destroyer so even just sending 1 cruiser as escort would make it a tempting target for UK-pac.

It depends ofcourse what japan bought and stuff but if i can take out all of the transports in the south and i can take java and the other island its a big win. They cant take it back so even if i lose the transport it will be 3 turns of getting money for me.

Just trying to give feedback and saying what moves i would make given the information on the board. Things like moving 6 chinese infantry in the line of fire is something i try not to do to much if i can help it.

@dazedwit

Well first off, why is there an italian fleet in SZ80 the french could have taken care of that :P The convoy damage isnt worth leaving a transport alive.

Where are the troops from afrika? Egypt looks pretty empty?

But normally i would sink the last remaining italian ships there, hard to see where germany is weak with just pictures.

But you can play this against yourself, as i feel that im playing against you and being handicapped by moves that i dont have any control over.

@dazedwit

Yea felt a bit that i was playing you, just had a bad day and read your message the wrong way.

What i would do as the UK?
Well im missing a tactical bomber in the med, where did it end up?

Hard to see what your italian fleet looks like but ok.
Asuming france takes the fleet in SZ80 because they are not just suiciding their ships in a convoy zone where they can be picked off without doing any damage. Your not doing convoy damage if your not alive at the end of italian turn, and germany or italy can easy pick off those 2 ships.

Uk would use mentioned lacking tactical + 2 fighters + strat bomber to kill the italian fleet.

Should be 2 fighters + 1 tactical + 1strat bomber vs 1 destroyer + 1 cruiser + 1 BB. Yea the sub doesnt get to play this time.

Use 2 fighters + destroyer on the german destroyer.
Buy 1 destroyer + 1 fighter and some leftover goes to south afrika.

Non combat the whole fleet to the convoy zone and mobilize the destroyer there and the fighter on London. Though this depends a bit on where your german airforce is located and how much can reach it. Else the fleet will stay in the med and i dont buy a destroyer but more forces for south afrika.

Also i didnt see your stuff on UK1 but if you had 1 destroyer + 1 cruiser + 1 BB in SZ112 i would have attacked it with 2 cruisers 1 BB 2 fighter + 1 bomber, or 3 fighters if the schotland fighter would have survived.

@dazedwit

Yea should have taken te fighter as tactical is more expensive and more powerfull.

No need to use the fleet to kill the italian fleet just nuke it with air and keep fleet where it is. Ofcourse destroy the german destroyer as well. Keep the fleet in a nicely annoying position and with italy not having any fleet anymore and france taking the spot off egypt at least that front is sort of secured.

Using the fleet would take it way to far out of position, with no german destroyers around the next turn those 3 subs are dead. No more convoy damage.

Get a transport off the S-afrikan coast and transport the 2 inf next turn.
Also use the transport to take persia for extra units. And deadzone egypt. No need for senseless dying there let the anzac take the brunt and be able to counter with a decent force.

@dazedwit

If 1 unit attacks 1 unit and both destroy eachother then there is no defenceless transport so it will stay alive. As the combat is over and all surviving units get back to the game board.

The french can take out the fleet off egypt on their turn so when UK comes around there should be no stuff there. Af S-france is taken before then ofcourse they would move to gibraltar. They would never ever move to a location where they can be easy destroyed by air. So they would never be in the convoy zone near italy.

Also the fighter from gibraltar can also hit that SZ and if i looked correctly they both can land on a tiny island in that SZ as well cyprus i think. So no need to move the AC anywhere.
The airbase on gibraltar gives your units 1 more range.

The french cruiser + figher can take care of the german destroyer so next turn your fleet can move into SZ109 and kill the subs.

You could move 1 fighter + cruiser against the italian fleet of egypt but the french can handle that the next turn if S-france was taken then they would be near gibraltar and have plenty of range. the italian fleet isnt going anywhere.

@dazedwit said in I'm tinkering around with a new German opener - ignoring SZ 110:

@shadowhawk

ah, yes, always forget about Cyprus. Now I know that when Gibbastion happens, Italy sends one trn to Cyprus instead of Egypt

This is my first time playing out the Gibbastion so I’m still learning. Hmm, maybe Italy drops two blockers and rest of fleet in Syria taking Syria and Cyprus.

I avoided keeping entire Italy fleet together because if I was UK I would smell a rat. I figured splitting them up would negate that response.

So, send all the planes but keep all the boats in SZ 92. That will be really tough to stop a sealion. Germany will send blockers on the turn they buy trns. If planes were still in London/Gibralter they could clear the blockers and the boats could NC to 110 and then less planes for London attack since they will be needed to clear the water first.

Playing this out for the first time, I would rec sending the boats after Italy and keeping as many planes as possible on Gib. Those planes should be enough to save London.

Granted, this rec is because Germany has been convoying max 11/turn and London IC at 20 damage so very limited defensive units placed in London per turn. If Germany wasn’t going full economic warfare, you don’t have to worry about London at this point. Economic Warfare can be laughed off turn one, but turn two it really starts to hurt, and turn 3 you are in full blown panic. Germany focusing on removing money from London removes 8-13 inf from London. Set up your typical Sealion battle on the battle board - then remove 10 UK inf. The battle is over after two rounds and Germany usually has a few inf left. If I’m planning a sealion and UK buys a ftr turn one I rejoice - they need inf and nothing else until the possibility of sealion passes. That extra ftr does no good if battle is over after two rounds. Those extra 3 inf ,might extend the battle to round 3, and the ftrs can possibly eat into tanks.

The UK AB turn one removes 5 inf from London that Germany had no part in, and makes Sealion that much more likely I think.

I’m going to have to set this up multiple times and try different paths, etc to get a full grasp of all sides - and learn what to do as UK and Axis in response.

The Gibbastion is very intimidating, but I feel there are cracks in the strat that can be exploited.

Every strat has cracks that can be expoited.
The blockers italy uses are useless as the french can clear them.
Also you just assume you will always do max damage with your bombing runs, what if i just shoot down those bombers with AA fire from the factory. You did 4 2x2 bombers runs so there is a good chance1 bomber is already dead by now. Its luck based.

Your transports are defenceless and you can buy a lot less of them, i can still move my fleet into SZ110. Every move as a counter move. Leaving SZ110 is risky, i could not have done this gibraltar move and actually killed the whole german fleet UK1 and smashed your tobruk forces at the same time. That would also be an option.

Leaving expensive units that dont have proper defence alive is almost never a good idea.

But like i offered before we can play here by forum using tripleA if you want. Just a lot more convenient and you can always make a video of it if you really want to. Not like you cant throw dice and then put them with the right side up to represent what was thrown.