After Action Reports

Title:  Atlantic Fleets collide
Date:  3/15/09
Special Rules:  1941 NO Tech YES Nos
Victor:  Axis Victory
Game Length:  8? full rounds
Bias: Slight Allied advantage in skill
Description:
Allies: Went after Europe hard, landing a large quantity of forces into africa
Axis: Germany fleet held in the baltic, Italian fleet with Japanesse backup held in the med.  Germany pounded Russia hard early, then pulled back to protect the coast with Japan harrasing the US and pushing hard toward the middle east.

Deciding Point: Was when the allies lost way to many boats taking down the axis fleets, and were then mopped up by axis air.

That game against bugoo was one of 4 if I remember correctly, I feel that I played bad in both that game and the other game I lost as allies, especially with naval warfare. We played 4 games total and axis won all of them. From rnd 4-5 in both my axis games I felt I couldn’t loose.

As allies I thought I probably would loose after turn1  :|

For me there’s one of 2 options, either we’re doing something wrong with allies, can’t play Russia right, or naval warfare, or axis have an advantage which is perhaps as big as the allies got in AAR w/o bids.

I think the axis advantage in AA50 is in fact greater than the allied advantage in Revised. After all, many would agree that axis had about 40% chance of win without bids in Revised, and I think the chance was near to 50% playing 4 players face to face.

Now I don’t feel allies have even near a 40 % chance of win in AA50, and splitting axis team in two players will not change much, even if one plays germans and the other ITA + JAP, because axis fleets usually don’t need much cooperation

I think axis advantage in AA50 is closer to allied advantage in Classic than Revised one

Title:  Spring Break '41 (1941)
Date:  3/22
Special Rules:  Tech: yes (Heavy Bombers nerfed to roll at 5 for attack and greater of two dice for SBR) NO: yes
Victor:  Allies (Axis concession)
Game Length:  4.5 hours
Bias:  About even
Description:  Started KJF but Russia got some incredible rolls making Germany an attractive target.  German vulnerability and Italy having some success in the Med diverted a huge amount of US focus to Europe/Africa who focused soley at Italy to help Russia fight a one front war.  The UK by round 3 had IC’s in India, Australia and the East Indies which after holding against Japanese invasion started pumping out more ships (from E Indies and Australia) and tanks than Japan could handle.  UK made a huge point to sink any Japanese transport that was built, which made retaking the Phillipines and Borneo fairly easy especially after the UK got Paratroopers.  The UK single-handedly would’ve crushed Japan if not for the USA making quick work of Italy, forcing an Axis concession.
Observations/Recommendations:  Japan should have gone straight for the E. Indies but viewed America as a bigger threat, did not see 100% of UK’s effort going into Asia.  Allowing the US player to focus soley on Italy sped up what was becoming a certain allied victory.

@TG:

Classic was ridiculously in favor of the ALlies – it wasn’t even close after Russia moved.  Even after Russia got restricted, the Allies were still at a supreme advantage.  But you’re right:

(imbalance) Revised < Anniversary < Classic

I’d say least balanced:

Classic Worst, in favor of Allies
Revised Bad, in favor of Allies
Anniversary, close to neutral, can have a very slight bias for the allies or the axis depending on how round 1 turns out.

Title:  USA in the Pacific
Date:  3/23/09
Special Rules:  1941 with Tech + NOs
Victor:  Axis Victory > Allied Concession
Game Length:  Almost 5 full rounds
Bias: About equal

This game went pretty fast.  USA adopted a strategy of “all in” in the Pacific.  Only USA action in the Atlantic was one landing at Algeria.  USA max build every turn in Western USA.  Culminated in a big naval battle in the Philippines which the USA won, but without enough forces left to threaten Japanese Empire seriously.

Germany slowly moved in on Russia and by the end of turn 5 Moscow was virtually surrounded and would have fallen on turn 7 for sure - no help was on the way from UK or USA for Moscow.  Game conceeded by Allies.

UK got Long Range Aircraft, it helped sink a transport here or there was not a major factor.

3/24/2009	1941 with Tech + NOs				General Strategy: USA Max Pacific	
	Ger	Russia	Japan	UK	Italy	USA
1	45	31	40	42	15	49
2	49	31	54	43	10	49
3	49	25	59	26	10	40
4	53	31	65	19	14	50
5	54	28	57	31	Conceded	

Axis by Team

	G	J	It	
1	45	40	15	100
2	49	54	10	113
3	49	59	10	118
4	53	65	14	132
5	54	57		111
6				0
7				0
8				0

Axis	250	275	49	574

Allies by team

	R	UK	US	
1	31	42	49	122
2	31	43	49	123
3	25	26	40	91
4	31	19	50	100
5	28	31		59
6				0
7				0
8				0

Allies	146	161	188	495

Major Events
1 UK gets Long Range Aircraft, Germany tries and fails to take Egypt, sinks some UK fleet , Japan builds factory in FIC
2 Rus/Ger trade Karelia, Italy fails to Take Egypt, Japan Takes Egypt, UK sneaks into France
3 Japan expands into Africa, build mighty sea force to match US plus IC in Manchuria, UK sinks italian fleet, France is retaken
4 Massive Sea/Air Battle In Pacific, Heavy Losses but US is Victorious, takes back Java
5 Japanese forces in Persia and eliminate China, Germany tanks in East Ukraine, Allies Conceed

Title:  1941 With New Players
Date:  3/28/09
Special Rules:  1941 with Tech + NOs
Victor:  Allied Victory > Axis Concession
Game Length:  4 rounds
Bias: About equal

All players at the board were new (1 game experience or 0 games experience) except for Italy who has played about 10 games of AA50.

The game took some interesting turns.   The players were willing to make attacks that sometimes were not in their % favor, with the exception of UK and Italy who did not make risky attacks.

Major Events Turn 1:

1. Germany took Karelia and Russia took it right back.
2. Germany attacked Egypt but did not get any hits first round and withdrew.  UK counter attacked and took Libya.
3. Japan played conservatively, taking Philippines along with Borneo and East Indies.  Japan did not advance into China.  Japan attacked and sunk the Battleship in Hawaii with fighters.
4. UK moved in and took Morocco.

Turn 2:

1. Germany and Russia once again traded territories, but Russia rolled well and was left in a defensible position.  Russia income above 30.
2. USA builds in Western and Eastern, adopting a balanced strategy, and lands in Morocco.
3. Germany builds a couple bombers and UK builds a fleet to match.

Turn 3:
By turn 3 Japan had only secured 1 of its National Objectives.  As a result income was in the low 30s.  Germany had also failed to secure more than 1 of its National Objectives, and Russia income was now greater than Germany income.

Turn 4:
UK sinks Italian fleet and secures Africa.  I did not record numbers sorry, but by this turn incomes of the Allies were superior to any of the incomes of the Axis.  Meaning UK, Russia and USA each had an income that was greater than any of the Axis.  Germany was in the 30s and so was Japan.  Russia stunned the table with a 52 income after taking Finland and Bulgaria and Balkans in the same Round.

Axis conceeds.

Title:  Rookies for AA50, But not A&A 1941
Date:  4/5/09
Special Rules:  1941 with Tech + NOs
Victor:  Axis Victory by Allied Concession
Game Length:  5.5 rounds
Bias: Experienced Axis Player (Japan) and Experienced Allied Player (Russia), rest Rookies to AA50

Tech almost turned this game from a dashing Axis victory to a slim Allied win.  All players (except Italy) rolled for Techs, but only the Allied players succeeded.  In Round 1 German took out the UK in the Med Sea and Egypt.  Italy was able to mop up and move toward Russia.  Japan had great dice and lost virtually nothing on round 1.  India was ripe for the taking on J2 as was Australia.

The US spent 90% of its IPCs on the Pacific.  It caused some problems and 2 seperate fleets begun to move towards the Japanese.  On J3 a classic pincher move with Carriers, 1 Battleship, 1 Cruiser, surrounded by Destroyers sent both fleets to the bottom of the sea. This however slowed down Japanese movement toward Russia and allowed China to just ‘hang around’.

Russia began to fade and a failed invasion of France on UK4 doomed Europe.  The USA got Heavy Bombers on US4 and started to become a real problem.  Japan fully dominated the Pacific landmass and the islands, but Heavy Bombers out of Alaska started to put some dents in the fleets.

Luckily Moscow fell on G5.  It was recovered on Russia5, but Italy and Japan were closing in. The Soviets could not last another round and UK was all but useless with a few men in Great Britain and a couple in South Africa.  The US could have survived a few more rounds but a Axis victory was declared b/c Europe and most of Asia was engulfed.  Another fun adventure in AA50 1941.  It was quite evident to me that Russia needs to go on some offensive to keep Germany from just pushing the entire game. Also the US strategy for hitting the Pacific played a bit differently could have been disasterous for the Japan.

I would completely agree.  The US lose its fleet and for the next few turns they could do very little.  It neutralized the threat to the Japanese island holdings and allowed a push toward Moscow.  The UK without US help could not hold Europe or even put enough pressure on Germany, that late in the game, to stop them from charging east and ending things.  What always amazes me is how Techs change the game.  W/o heavy bombers the US would have conceded and the game would have ended a turn earlier. Happy gaming!!

Title:  Allies Take Capitals but Lose Anyway!
Date:  4/10/09
Special Rules:  1942 with Tech + NOs
Victor:  Axis Victory > Allied Concession
Game Length:  8 rounds
Bias: About equal

	Japan	Russia	Germany	UK	Italy	USA
1	41	29	54	39	12	48
2	46	28	51	33	24	48
3	54	29	39	39	24	47
4	56	27	49	40	28	55
5	60	22	50	37	30	49
6	72	15	52	83	25	43
7	77	11	45	20	19	53
8	68	15	54	24	23	78

Axis	394	474	185	1053

	G	J	It	
1	54	41	12	107
2	51	46	24	121
3	39	54	24	117
4	49	56	28	133
5	50	60	30	140
6	52	72	25	149
7	45	77	19	141
8	54	68	23	145

Allies	176	315	421	912
	R	UK	US	
1	29	39	48	116
2	28	33	48	109
3	29	39	47	115
4	27	40	55	122
5	22	37	49	108
6	15	83	43	141
7	11	20	53	84
8	15	24	78	117

Major Events
1 Russia has bad opening, gets unluckky, Germany sinks a lot of UK fleet, US takes solomons
2 UK takes Norway, Germany takes Karelia, Japan begins building factories in Asia
3 UK takes Finland, Russia liberates Karelia, UK withdraws from Egypt, Italy takes it
4 UK takes france, Italy takes it back, US lands in Morocco
5 Japan defeats China, closes on Mosow, Italy own most of Africa, Japan retakes solomons
6 UK gets very lucky and takes germany amphibiously, Italy liberates
7 Japan attacks Moscow and fails, but Moscow is weakened heavily
8 USA attacks and takes Italy
9      Japan takes moscow, allies conceed.

Title:  A bridge too far 1941
Date:  April 10th, 2009
Special Rules:  NO’s
Victor:  Allies Victory by Concession
Game Length:  4h
Bias:  About equal.
Description:
Allies: Adopted a Kill Germany First (KGF) strategy.  UK divided it’s forces between India and Europe. USA made landings in Norway and Congo Africa via Brazil while still sending reinforcements in Pacific.  Russia kept their ground in front of Germany , fighting for the big 3s.

Axis: Japan conquered  most of Asia but were stalled in the Burma jungles, faced by the dreaded Indian IC, dubbed: ‘‘call center’’.  Germany steadily advannced on Russia, marching trough Poland.  Italy was overwhelmed in Africa after breifly holding Egypt.

On their biggest push toward Russia, Germany was stopped near a bridge in  Poland and ambushed by two subsequent massive allies landing that destroyed all of it’s panzer forces, luftwaffe and opened a clear way for the Red Army. It was soon followed by surrender.

Observations/Recommendations:
Allies won, despite their heavier losses in Poland, they still had a huge production advantage and there was no way for Germany to replaces it’s tank and planes. Japan was stalled long enough and failed to take India.
Link:  None

Title:  Epic
Date:  5/10/09
Special Rules:  1942 with Tech + $4/8 NOs + Dardanelles Closed + Escort/Interceptor rules
Victor:  Allied Victory > Axis Concession
Game Length:  13 rounds
Bias: About equal

First off what $4/8 NOs means is that instead of being $5 National Objectives we played with all NOs for all countries being worth $4.  The single Russian one was worth $8.  The objectives themselves were unchanged.  Why?  Cause Popeye and Santa told us to do it that way.   :-)

The game got started in an unusual fashion when instead of buying a carrier or more fleet the UK instead bought 2 bombers on their first turn and moved all fighters within striking range of the Italian fleet.  This meant dropping off 2 infantry in Gibraltar and landing 2 fighters Gibraltar in turn 1.  On turn 2, the Italian fleet was attacked off the coast of Egypt by 4 fighters and 3 bombers, who all then landed in Egypt.   Although the UK got higher than average losses, the Italian fleet was sunk after having used it only once - to invade Transjordan.  Throughout the whole game Italy only got more than $9 income when Japan took Egypt and Transjordan for a round or two.  This was in exchange for UK getting a somewhat late start building a fleet.

Prior to turn 7
Allies had adopted an “all in” European strategy to attack France or Italy.  If you’ve played AA50 more than a couple times you know the drill, the UK builds a fleet and does some little landings in Norway or France maybe.  The US builds a big fleet and ships it over around turn 3 or 4.  The difference in our game is that the US was in SZ12 on Turn 2, since there was no Italian fleet to worry about anymore.

Turn 7
Ok so we pick up around turn 7 when things start to get interesting.  UK and USA do a joint landing and combine fleets in SZ6 and land in NW Europe of all places with about 40 units total.  This is enough to prevent being immediately counter attacked by the Germans and destroyed, but by the turn after it was impossible to hold this position without being wiped out.  At this point Japan was starting to threaten Africa and had secured all of the pacific.

Turn 8
Despite having a low income, Italy had basically been buying infantry all game long, and so now if you do the math they had like 25+ infantry sitting around.  Germany and Italy both had to play somewhat defensively because of big fleets off the coast but Germany was still putting the heat on Russia, and by now Japan had motored up into the Caucus and taken it along with some Germany forces.   Russia decided to take a chance and try to take back Caucus from the combined Japanese and Germany force there.  Russia rolled incredibly well, and although they statistically should have won this battle, they won it by a landslide, and even retained some infantry.  This very will might have been the turning point for the game.  UK and USA, being unable to hold their position, decide to split their fleet, the UK going north to Archangel and beginning to funnel troops from UK to Archangel, 8 at a time each turn.  USA went to SZ12 and kept the threat on Italy and France but not before leaving some troops (about 16) in the Karelia for help to Russia.

Turn 9
About this time USA got the wacky idea to build a transport and a sub in the pacific and start to threaten Japanese holdings in the south pacific with some bombers too.  Japan had just moved all its navy near Egypt, ready to take it and move into the Med.  However, Japan turned some of its fleet around to deal with this new American threat.  USA was maintaining fleet in SZ12 and also dropping troops off in Africa, both to hold it from the Japanese and threaten Italy.  Russia was slugging it out with Germany and had the bright idea to advance into Persia, which held up the Japanese advance in this area, although still Japan was advancing through China and across Siberia.

Turn 10
One thing that was interesting about this game was she sheer amount of USA and particularly UK troops in Russia at this point.  Numbering between them over 40 units, it really stalled what would have been a Russian defeat at the hands of the Germans and also Japanese.  Japanese still building up and doing a good job mobilizing forces and getting ready to take on Russia, but it’s not possible yet.  There are just too many UK troops around.  On this turn Japan gets Paratroopers and USA gets Heavy Bombers.

Turn 11
By this time USA had 15 fully loaded transports sitting in SZ12.  Still, Italy and Germany would have been able to at the very least counter attack and destroy any landing force in France or Italy.  The German air force was like 9 fighters and 3 bombers by this time, stalemated against a USA fleet of 3car,6fighters, 1battleship, 1cruiser and a few destroyers.  So if the USA lost any of those fighters attacking Italy, it was a dead fleet.  The Italian/German player is very thorough and careful, and it is extremely difficult to find a weak spot in his defenses to make a meaningful attack.   So the Allies make the decision to head east.  The Japanese kind of over-committed a portion of their fleet to deal with a very small American presence in the Pacific.  The Americans head to the Med (SZ14) but don’t actually attack Italy, just take the Balkans for an NO cash-in.  The american pacific bombers withdraw and start the trek east to join in a battle two turns from now….(forshadowing!)

Turn 12
USA fleet heads to SZ34, within striking distance of Japan’s IC in India, Burma, and East Indies.  The fleet is an even match for the Japanese fleet in the area, but the USA has 30+ ground forces and the Japanese have more like 20.  Russia adds 15 tanks to the mix and it’s advantage allies.  USA Heavy Bombers mean a strike on the Japanese fleet is a good idea.  Germany and Italy figure out what is going on and start heading east with massive amounts of troops they were saving in the west to fight a USA landing in France, but it will take 4+ turns to get to Moscow.

Turn 13
Japan, knowing it cannot hold India this turn, withdraws from India.  Russia advances into India.   UK immediately builds 3 ground forces there.  USA moves 20+ more troops to India — then also to East Indies and there is a big sea battle.  4 carriers on each side, a battleship and a cruiser.  But the USA brings 4 heavy bombers to the party and it’s lights out for the Japanese.  Japan lose their fleet and their IC in East Indies.  A smaller 2nd battle in the carolines goes badly for the Japanese and at this end of this round Japan has 4 transports and one destroyer left.  USA has 3 carriers full of planes and about 15 transports in the vicinity of very underdefended pacific holdings.  Japan has now lost 2 ICs in two rounds and a 3rd in Burma is in jeopardy.

Axis concede.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Economically speaking the stats aren’t much to look at.  The Allies were down consistently about $10 a turn compared to the Axis.  Germany hovered in the 40s most of the game, Japan in the 60s, peaking at 71.  USA was consistent at 42-48.  UK was generally in the 30s.  Russia was in the 20s, higher earlier on, lower 20s later on.

Title:  Allies Snatch VCSs
Date:  5/15/09
Special Rules:  1941 with Tech, Without Nos, Dardanelles Closed, With Interceptor/Escort SBR
Victor:  Allied Victory > Axis Concession
Game Length:  5 rounds
Bias: About equal

Allies won in turn five by attacking 4 underdefended Victory Cities (Paris, Warsaw, Manilla, Calcutta) and holding them we were playing a reduced VC game.

As you can see here the economics were than Allies were up by 22 in the first round, and then in later rounds up by 3-6 IPC until the last round when taking France and Poland helped boost the money

We were playing with Tech and UK was the only country to get something, Increased Factory Production, which never helped the UK once.

G	R	J	UK	I 	US
38	27	30	35	10	38
36	29	42	27	10	38
35	26	44	28	12	38
33	28	43	27	14	38
32	26	44	35	14	46