AAE not broken–Tank Push Broken, Balance Restored

Here is another strategy to beat Axis player…

A real important thing is to plan out your strategy before playing it, consider possibilities and how to engage them.
Set your goal and know when you have won or you have to retreat!..

It is definitly not easy to play Russia but it is challenging.

What I have learned is to have a good strategy for your money as well.

My first to ronds of Russian purchase plus the initial 12 IPC’s are tanks…
I spend 10 IPC’s for UK tanks in Africa/Egypt to prevent,slow down or even conquer Africa at all!
Having 3 UK Tanks 1 Art. and pleny Inf is more then enough to do either one…

Starting out w. purchases for Russian Tanks the first two rounds seems questionable but in the long run according to the right strategy it will pay off.
R3 and so forth will be Inf.

The plan is to drag the axis player as far into russia as possible and leave one speedbum Infantry in front of Moscow in Belorussia.

R1  will be a collecting or gathering of all forces into Turkestan and Russia where tanks would be split up as equal as possibly.
If the axis player did not consider to attack Karelia from Finnland I would go for a strike for one battle cycle and see how the dices are going use your TRN if you want.

R2  You allready start to bring your tanks in position in Russia.
strike back if you have to to get Belorussia back.
Here is the case:
If axis player allreaddy decided to go for Belorussia at this time ,you will have a easy time to hit his TP and destroy it, but most likely he will try to wait another round to reinforce his TP and will try to go for some minor battles against Ukraine and Karelia.
If axis player is waiting for reinforcements for his TP, proceed w. reinforcing Russia Turkestan and tanks from Moscow.
You should have now a few Inf. units in Moscow, Karelia and the Main force in Russia.

The game will pretty much end up that you are attacking his TP w. your Units in Russia since you created a scenario where you are able to destroy the TP w. minimal Forces but better Odds in dice rolling against and Axis player w. a bunch of INF. units and probably a little less then 20 Tanks who are now defending on a 2 or less only.

Of course this Strategy is subject to create the right enviroment by letting the Axis player attack and is in an adjacent Territory right next to your bulk !

When Zhukov attacked the Hungarian and Italian forces by Stalingrad he knew that he would deal with an  unexperienced and exhausted opponent far from supply and reinforcements.
But to actaully have a success he also needed Gen. Timoshenkovs spadework by repeatedly retreating his forces and look for the right time and spot to hit back.
It wasn’t very well taken by either sides Headquaters but Generals often demnaded to pull back their Forces and stack up the chances to fight back in a better area,time or enviromnet wich gives the defender better odds/advantage!!

The TP is no guarantee for Axis player to win the game, there is to much put on one card.
I 've seen games where the slightliest mistake changed the outcome or like allready mentioned just horroble dice roll…I played this strategy and can rely on it that it will make it very hard for axis player to win because you open up so many spaces and might even divert his attention.
Africa allready mentioned in the beginning is a door opener for Axis player, this is why the two additional UK tanks will make it harder for Axis player.
You might divert his attention as well for him to focus harder in that area so he has to bring in more units or keep sea units from moving out into open sea.
UK player starts w. 4 Inf. units 1 Art. and 1 Tank against 1,1,1 so he has to act or react if he considers to gain the oilmoney or access to south Russia/Caucasus.
Karelia is worth an attack.
This strategy is not depending on the Patriotic pact only on those two UK Tanks in egypt.
So do what you want w. Patriotic pact.
To me it is a waste of time and energy on to much focusing on a specific area (Lenningrad).
you have to wait till R3 to have sucessfully converted 1 or 2 fighters and keep Lenningrad in russians hand…please do not take it personal !..

The TP had around 24 Tanks and somewhat like 15 Inf and 5 Art.
While I had as Russian player 13 Tanks and around 30-35 Inf to attack w.
I purchased 5 Armors (I kept 2 IPC’s from the initial) on R1 and two Armor in R2, R3 was like I said Inf only to fortify Moscow.
You start the Game w. 44 Inf units so it was not neccesary to buy more from the beginning and I figured out that I need a good force to counter back…Ftr are too expensive and not so handy for Russia so Armor was the better choice!
When I hit the Axis player and destroyed his TP that was it!!
It would take him 2-3 rounds to regain initiative in the East and by that time the Allies would allready eat cheese in France or going straight for Berlin!

And of course what helped the Allies to come faster in the Game was an UK AC in Canada lol…

Well when you play this Strategy the first time it will look weird anyway and the face of the Opposition will be priceless, I mean I withdrew all my forces and he was thinking what is he up to ??!..It will play out b/c you take vital elements out in the game since the beginning of it…Africa will not be conquered easy and delays or stops Germany takeing your allies Money…No wasteful sacrificing your units were you will loose your Units for nothing, loose 'em where it counts…like I said it will look weird because you give up Territories w. IPC value but you also lure him in and be able to strike him hard and effectivly!!!

See here is the catch…because Axis player attacked for example on G4 and you going to strike in R4, there will be no Ftrs at all!!!..this is what I was trying to point out, by creating the the right time and enviroment…

@murraymoto:

@maverick_76:

What I have found is the game is not broken at all. If you lend UK fighters to Russia (they can send two every turn!) it becomes very hard for the Germans to bust through.

the only problem with the UK sending 2 fighters per turn is if they can’t afford them due to the loss of Africa and their convoys.  If all that the US/UK are doing is planes, they aren’t buying ships to clean out the convoys.  Germany doesn’t need the Middle East or Africa for a Tank Push in general, but purely fighter builds will often give Germany easy access to those areas.  Moving Fighters to the Middle East then weakens Russia’s defense.

But that is what the US is for! In my games I usually consolidate my navy around UK or in the middle of the Atlantic and just overwhelm the Axis with battleships or cruisers. And usually the US has plenty of money still to buy transports to move men over to Africa and make that a lost cause for Germany. Also if the German player farts around too much with Africa and the Atlantic I’m going to go offensive with Russia. Granted for about four turns that is not possible but after that I have 8 planes, bombers (from US and UK at the start) and tanks and plenty of men.

Those are just rough estimates, a good game I have 8, worst case there is one per turn, but one thing I love to do is send my bombers over to Russia for counterattack potential. What I try to do is take away any possibility and force Germany to focus on Russia, with the combined income of UK and Russia against Germany it is a fair fight. Then with US sending transports full of troops to either Africa or mainland Europe the Germans usually don’t have many options. I mean if some battles don’t go your way, yeah the Germans can still be successful with the tank push but with this I find I turn a 90% assured German victory in that game into 70% allied favored victory chance. There might be some better strategies but this seems to be pretty accurate historically and works pretty well for the most part.

@murraymoto I tried it and I don’t get it lol. Can’t the Germans just go in Hungary en masse and ignore Rumania? On turn 2, they’ll be in Poland with the big stack and that’s that. Only about 4 infantry and 1 artillery will be a bit left behind, which isn’t enough to swing it either way imo, especially if some Russians will be a bit out of position.

Bessarabia might be the better option because it is at least adjacent to East Poland. A friend I am playing against is doing 4 inf in Poland, which is a better bid than the transport. Now you really start to feel the pressure up north. The transport will most likely be lost after turn 1.

Hmm, I tried it again and seemed to work better. Germany has to keep stacking Baltic States if it wants to threaten both Lenin and Belo. Lemme see if there is some way to take advantage of this as Allies…

@kwaspek104

Hi

This might be the original Europe ? You seem to be talking about Global 40 ?

I am not! I haven’t even played Global or Europe 1940 lol

@kwaspek104 said in AAE not broken–Tank Push Broken, Balance Restored:

Bessarabia

made me think it was Global 40

I have a couple of more notes on the Rumanian Wedge:

• As mentioned previously, the best thing for the Germans to do is capture and stack Baltic heavy. This can mean putting 4 inf in Poland for the Special Cash Advance and even using the transport to load two more in, if the Russians put a lot of inf in Lenin and you don’t want to attack it. If you concentrate on East Poland instead, Tank Push seems to fall apart. I think this is because the Russians have time to attack Belo on turn 4/5 with a lot of converted aircraft.

• Buying strategy for Americans is generally sound, although I would rework the order. Instead of buying 1 fighter and bomber per turn, just buy 2 or 3 fighters the first turn. Then buy bombers. The reason is any fighters bought on turn 2 won’t make Moscow by Germany’s turn 5 attack. (Delay one round if the Germans are doing a 6 turn attack.) Again, this is assuming Germans are stacking Baltic States, which is what they should be doing.

• The buy with UK is tricky. I would generally suggest at least one fighter, and probably one more aircraft. Consider saving some money for a fleet. The turn 1 with Western Allies is generally pretty tricky, need some more experimentation and tinkering to see what works best, and of course it changes depending on how Germans attacked and their luck.

-Now, for the actual Rumanian Wedge itself. It sort of kinda works. You have to be careful how many units you send. (I generally don’t attack the Russians if they are doing the Wedge. Again, I just focus up.) But the tricky part is if you send too many Russians, then there won’t be enough to defend Moscow. If Germans are doing a 5 turn version, you need everything within range of Moscow by end of turn 3. Delay one round for 6 turn version. The aim is to capture enough of the Balkans so that the Russians have enough money for a few more infantry per turn before the Moscow Battle. It is actually crazy how just two infantry can influence the battle. It can go from something like 67% to 48%.

I have to experiment with the Germans attacking the Wedge a bit more. I don’t know if it is beneficial or not. Will post more once I know. In general, I’ve found that Russians don’t have enough time to convert much allied aircraft.