I just want to stress two overlooked points: (edited for brevity)
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German Bombers in the Pacific (only need 3 and they don’t have to fire a shot) to prevent Japanese navy blocks with less than 5 destroyers or equivalent force endurance to assure the “block”. This prevents a 1 destroyer screen to allow the allies to advance on money islands/homeland.
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You cannot “force” Germany to engage its bombers to “whittle them down”. I don’t care if you put Roosevelt on the flight deck to entice me, not going to happen. Make them land troops against Germany. This holds for taking Russia, when you can just take them out of the game. Remember, you don’t need to produce only bombers, and after turn 4 or 5, you likely won’t need many more.
Optional comments below, don’t read unless you are bored: (just a silly personal rant or two, some history and comments, if you don’t want to waste time, skip it)
1) continued: One experiment saw massed German bombers leave Europe strafe Austrailia for the VC win as they “can open” for Japan. Name a strategy where you can redeploy turns of production to another board in 1 turn.
2) continued: I’m glad to see others discussing the economics of this strategy long term. And you will know I am attacking your fleet when I spend a turn dropping subs to support the bombers, hope you have enough destroyers. Just like a turn of dropping mechanized infantry when Russia gets feisty.
I’m back. (Sorry for my absence, change of careers and time)
Been a couple of years, but I’m glad to see the “Dark Skies” concept shows its merit.
I have given up trying to beat this one myself.
We disbanded our meetup group and haven’t really returned to live play since 2013. (still a bit frustrated they changed the aagun rules which made this viable, but my comments were disregarded and that is why I explored this concept to demonstrate the folly of design by committee, committees ignore fringe concepts as unlikely or unnecessary to consider just ask allied generals of 1939).
When we showed that you could take the US with operation “Hollywood” back in revised, I found it odd, they redesigned the game board to prevent the concept in later editions. Later in global they changed the neutral rules for US to prevent Japan from stacking its air force in German occupied Canada on turn 3 (when US can enter the war, i.e. Japan strafes Washington, Italian starting transport captures empty Washington). I hope this serves to point out the value of fringe thinking, as it is often a form of exciting and rewarding game play.
I reviewed half of this thread, but haven’t checked other’s games. (I make it a point not to look at games I am not in, as I prefer to develop as independently as I can, helps me to not develop a static way of viewing the game. Don’t want to become the WW1 Generals that scoffed at the “blitz” concept.)
I was first inspired to test bomber stacks when a 12 year old showed up with his friend at a game store we were hosting a session at, he retook Asia against his equally inexperienced friend with 1 Japanese infantry and a stack of bombers) I didn’t want to ruin his fun and tell his friend to snip the troop (plus I was playing Germany ;) ).
I later explored the concept of tactical trading of bombers (at a loss) for troops to revive China using US bombers to trade Japan and thus increase the tactical value and board position (to steal from chess) of standing allied forces against empty Japanese territories. In one game I cleared 13 Japanese infantry (across 5 or 6 territories) for only 2 bombers lost.
Anyway, I know my thoughts don’t carry much weight with veterans here, (been playing since the 80’s, first gencon tourney was in '93 pre-internet influence when we changed the style of play from stacks of massed infantry to allied transport fleets with carrier builds by UK or Russia for the “allies always win” “need a bid” concept in classic A&A).
I’ll declare the test game that I never finished a loss, so that you can say this isn’t unbeatable. It wasn’t a good example anyway as I was trying to overdue it and show both Japan and German bomber builds. (I later found that Japanese bombers are not necessary, Japan is best used as a resource to keep the allies honest/handicapped.)
If this isn’t unbeatable, it sure seems hard to stop both Japan and Germany when this is employed. Surely we can agree that if chosen, it sure limits the allies more than the “sea lion” concept that encouraged the AAgun rule change, that permits this air unit travesty. Again 20 years of AAguns make all air strategies bad, removed overnight to kill a sure thing sea lion early on, and no one else thought to ask what void will this make. Sure, limit them to 3 shots each and we can remove them from the board for the cost of 1 or 2 air units, LoL, open skies for the rest of your air force. Plus they can only fire at you if you attack them, he he he.(In the old days you got shot at flying over them.)
Viva classic AA gun rules! And let strategies survive committees, the best counter is another strategy, not a rule change.
