O.k. Vareel, I like your strat, and I think you’re right that the key is to deny a landing zone for the massive Japanese airforce.  That being said, while it seems that it would pretty much trump the “Alaskan Pipeline” KAF if Japan waits to launch until J2, the heavy transport buy J1 is still a solid investment.  With so much attention diverted north in anticipation of Alaskan invasion, Honolulu is ripe for the picking and, once secured on J2, provides a real thorn in the American’s side for long enough to give the Japanese a decent chance to pick off ANZAC (especially if the Japanese player stacks Hawaii with fighter interceptors on J3, which makes it a major headache to capture if even a portion of the Japanese navy is left behind).

Also: Thanks for the heads up on WUS being worth 10 to Axis.  Must have missed that note completely somewhere along the line.

Interesting counter, Vareel, we’ll have to try large naval buys with UK as counter next time, although I’m still not sure if it’ll be enough to threaten Japan before WUS falls.

Also, I’m a little confused by your statement that WUS is only worth 10: I was under the impression that if captured by Japanese forces, it would continue being worth 50 IPCs (clearly an insurmountable figure if accurate).  Did I miss something in the rulebook that states that iWestern US is only worth 10 if captured by Axis, or did I misunderstand your comment?  Thanks in advance.

Hey there, this is my first post although I’ve been reading the boards for the last few weeks in order to decide whether to purchase AAP:40.  Anyway, went ahead and made the buy (and happy that I did, already had Anny edition, revised, MB and original Pac), but the sieze Alaska KAF strat has played out successfully for the Japanese in all three games I’ve played (all with the same seasoned vet friend) in much the same way as the OP mentioned it.  We’ve both tried it as Japan and it just doesn’t seem feasible to block the move:  because of Japan’s overwhelming initial airpower, as long as the Japanese player can hold onto Alaska, the Aleutians or BC, something like 26 planes (not to mention those on AC’s) can be brought to bear on U.S. by turn three (or 4, depending on your preferences).  Even if the Japanese player only has a few ground units available for the invasion of WUS, the airpower is overwhelming (remember, US can build max of 20 units by turn 3 invasion or 30 by turn 4 and realistically probably less given that the US has a starting value of 17 IPC on turn one).

Anyway, although I’m not nearly certain enough of the strat to call the game “broken” or anything of that nature, it does seem to be worryingly effective, in our case even when the American player knew it was coming.  Any thoughts on how to stop this?