Best posts made by Private-Panic

Hello my fellow A&A addicts!

I live in the middle of England and organise a quarterly Battle of Britain event, which attracts a number of members of this forum. Unfortunately they do not let me win often enough.😢 Where are their manners?

I have been playing A&A for 4 or 5 years now, starting when a brother bought me 1941 for Christmas. My wife has yet to forgive him. Since then I have acquired every A&A version currently in print and enjoy playing them all. Anniversary is probably my favourite, but I play 1941 most often, at least twice a month, as it is easier to organise an evening game.

I am a keen games player and play many other games too. But A&A is my favourite.

Cheers
PP

24th March 2019 Battle Report

We had a record attendance with 10 players, three of whom were new to the event and very welcome. I must say they fitted right in and we all had a great time. My thanks to everyone for braving traffic and road works in order to join us, and to Dave, who very kindly allows us to use his house.

Below is a picture of nine of our 10 players. We took pity on our fellow forum members and asked the least good looking of us to take the picture!

I wrote the two battle reports below, although one is entirely based on notes provided by Leo. Another battle report will be added by Mike, hopefully in the not too distant future. Everyone else is invited to add their own comments and corrections! :relaxed:

We decided to play three games, as follows:

Anniversary

Played 1942 set up with no bid.

Axis – Andrew / h0lym0nk
Allies – Mark / Credulous (UK & Russia) and Leo / wittmann (US & China)

Thanks to Leo for letting me have some notes on which to base this report.

Throughout the game, dice was the decider. Andrew admitted the Allies had had terrible luck and he only good luck.

Japan attacked Pearl and won convincingly, moving towards India with the other half of its fleet. Built 2 TTs to augment its starting one. The US could only counter by moving to Hawaii. It would build a CV and Fts every turn, going all Pacific. The Solomons were taken on US2, for a US NO. Nevertheless, Japan was ahead in income, capturing India J2, after it was abandoned by the UK. Japan soon making 60 income, even after the loss of the DEI, only losing a NO on turn 6. The Japanese assault on the ME and threat to East Africa kept the UK player on his toes. The SA factory was built on turn 3 and helped keep Cairo switching hands until turn 5.

At one point J left one of its fleets dangling and the US pounced on it with very good odds. In round 1, Japan got 7/9 hits, and the US won with 4 only units spare. Those darn dice again!

The war was won in Europe though. Russia held Germany at bay, until a disastrous R6 saw Russia lose three battles, with heavy losses. Moscow fell on I6, after Germany had weakened it. Japan was in the Caucasus by then.

The UK took France and 11 income 3 times , but Italy always retook it before the US could get the NO. (Remember there were no US European purchases.) The UK did lose 9 units to a German air attack on G3, but rebuilt.

Italy’s fleet lasted until the US attacked on turn 4, hoping to weaken it, so the UK could follow up. All 6 units were eliminated in 2 rounds. Until then the Italians had stayed safely in the Eastern Med, continuously harassing Cairo and Trans Jordan. However, Gib was held by the Allies for the whole game. The funniest moment was a German Sub attack on a US Gib landed TT and DD. Both players rolled 14 times, before the Sub sank the 2 US ships!

Only 2 SBRs were attempted, both on Berlin by the US and causing 7 damage.

A last ditch 9 vs 10 units on Berlin was attempted by the UK. It failed as AA took out one of the 3 Air needed to have any chance of success, Mark got one hit from his remaining 8 units and Andrew killed 5 in return.

Well played Andrew.

1942.2

Played with no bid. Intercepts included.

Axis – Mike / Aftertaste (Germany) and Dale (Japan)
Allies – Jon (Russia & US) and Colin (UK)

Mike has kindly offered to add his battle report to this thread.

1914

No Russian Revolution. Two house rules – maximum build of 4 units in India and ground units able to move 2 spaces if both were friendly.

Central Powers – Adam / Private Panic
Entente – Steve (Russia, Italy & US) & Dave (UK & France)

I enjoyed this game tremendously, which I hope shines through as I write about it.

The Entente started the game poorly and never managed to recover the initiative. Germany was very lucky in its attack on the UK fleet, losing just 2 subs. Later in the game Italy attacked the Austrian fleet, losing all its warships while inflicting no losses. Similarly, the Russian Black Sea fleet took on Turkey’s equally strong fleet there, losing both cruisers while failing to sink any Turkish ones. So far, so lucky for the CP’s, but the war is not won at sea!

Austria and Germany sent sufficient forces west to hold off the Entente, while committing everything that it could to taking Russia out of the war. Forward offense by R allowed G and A to eliminate a significant part of the R military machine whilst advancing on Moscow, which fell on A5.

In the meantime, A had struggled in Serbia, needing Turkish support for it to be finally captured in T4. But A did take Venice in A1, and unexpectedly found itself able to advance on Rome, which it captured on A5.

Meanwhile T had inflicted a heavy defeat on the UK in Syria, allowing it to capture Egypt and achieve an income on a par with the UK. G had also eliminated UK forces in Africa, contributing to the UK’s loss of income.

Despite losing 2 capitals in turn 5, the Entente struggled on.

Combined F, UK and US forces did begin to make headway against G’s western front, but without inflicting any defeats on G, which always retreated when it needed to. Despite gaining the Ruhr in F7, CP income far surpassed Entente income.

In the meantime, A consolidated a considerable force in Piedmont ready to pounce on southern France, with no Entente forces between it and Paris. Turkey had attacked India, with the UK’s remaining 3 units greatly outnumbered there. It had also begun to build navy, threatening the Entente’s dominance of the Med, aided by the CP’s having gained control of the Rome minefield. G’s retreats on to its reinforcements grew the forces it could bring to bear, while allied advances meant that they outstripped their reinforcements.

The game was declared a CP victory. Steve and Dave were a joy to play against, accepting every bad dice roll with good humour and grace.

Well - last weekend’s BoB was a blast with 11 players and 3 games (1942.2, Anniversary, 1914). Lots of fun and laughter!

The next Battle of Britain will be held on the 28th January 2024.

This all-day event is held in Derbyshire, UK. Typically we have up to three A&A games running - Anniversary, 1942.2 and 1914 - allowing players to decide which they wish to join.

If you would like to come along then please either reply to this thread or contact me using the messaging facility on this website.

Cheers
Adam (PP)

@shake118118 said in Battleships attacking subs?:

Can battleships attack/defend against subs? My understanding is that subs and destroyers can. If not, can you just bring one sub against a fleet of battleships and continue to roll till you knock out all battleships? Seems wrong. Thanks.

Welcome to the forum @shake118118 . I think Panther may already answered you with his “Yes”, but to expand on that any naval unit can attack/defend against subs. If a sub submerges, which it can do if there is no enemy destroyer present, then that sub is not involved in the battle, so no attack/defend against that sub is relevant. If the sub does not submerge and so is part of a battle then it can be hit by any naval unit.

The exception is planes, which cannot hit a sub unless they are accompanied by a destroyer.

I hope that is clear.

Here is my response to the questions, as David requested.

When I started playing A&A perhaps 4 years ago I immediately fell in love with the game. Almost as immediately I discovered that no-one else I knew had ever played it. Therefore it was clear that I either had to introduce family and friends to it, or make new friends with other lovers of the game.

I have been pretty successful in persuading family and friends to play, having taught upwards of 20 people how to play 1941. More then half of these continue to play. However, that success did not extend to them necessarily following me on to more complex variants.

Fortunately a rule question had lead me to this forum where I discovered a fellow Brit, wittmann, who was very warm and welcoming. But it was soon clear to me that there were few active UK members of the forum and no UK events.

If I wanted to play more complex variants regularly I needed to change things. I shared the idea of starting an event with wittmann, and with his encouragement held the first of our quarterly Battle of Britain events perhaps 3 years ago. I trawled this forum for UK members and messaged all of them. Some were no longer active members, others live too far away. In the end I got perhaps 3 forum members and 3 friends, plus myself to the first event.

Numbers are showing some signs of increasing, despite 2 of those friends having dropped out. We now have 5 forum members regularly attending, plus me. One of the original friends continues , with another now having joined us. So that is 8 regular participants. As I am keen to grow the event, the search for additional players continues. We currently have a new player committed to join us at the next event and four others expressing interest in doing do. Many of these were found via Board Game Geek.

I am hoping that the Battle of Britain will provide a foundation for growing an active UK A&A community.

All of which I hope explains why and how I started the Battle of Britain. Which just leaves me to draw out some tips:

1. Be clear as to what you want to do and why. Seek feedback from your target audience as whether this is what they want to do too.
2. Use the resources available on this forum - the member list and locations and the messaging facility. Also use other game websites where you can access information as to members that love A&A and their locations, such as Board Game Geek. Plus your own network of friends and family outside the forum. Don’t keep this wonderful game to yourself!
3. Be patient. It can be frustrating when attendees change their plans at the last moment, but they (and you) have other priorities in their lives, no matter how much they love A&A!
4. Lastly, be determined. It is your energy that drives the event.

I look forward to reading other’s responses, which will no doubt remind me of all the things I should have said!

Due to a couple of cancellations we had 6 players and decided to have one game of 1914. Powers were drawn at random, resulting in the following:

Germany – Mark (Credulous), A-H – Dave and Turkey - Dale
Vs
UK – Tomas (Dukla passer), Italy & France – Mike (Aftertaste) and Russia & US – Adam (Private Panic)

Two house rules agreed:

1. Only 4 builds per turn in India
2. Land units could move 2 if all territories were friendly.

The Central Powers prioritised the defeat of Russia, yet sending enough units west to pursue aggressive defence, capturing Venice, Holland and Belgium in turn 1.

Russia consolidated all its units in Ukraine. In turn 2 A-H attacked this stack with an inferior force, presumably with the idea of doing sufficient damage to allow G to destroy the forces R had left. However, R obliterated A-H’s army and then retreated to Moscow with considerable units remaining.

The CP’s sent ever more units east, denying their western front sufficient forces to withstand Italian and French attacks. The heroes of R’s dogged defence were its air force which consistently shot down G and A-H’s planes to retain aerial superiority.

By the time the US landed in Greece, G had retreated to Kiel and A-H to Vienna. F and It had much greater incomes than their opponents. Turkey fought on valiantly against the British, despite F landings on their coasts.

After perhaps 5 turns the CP’s surrendered, still having failed to capture Moscow, despite the loss of so many men and materiel. R proudly survived with one ferocious infantry unit defending the walls of the Kremlin!

Hi All

I think what works depends on what your opponents do. Anyone who is too prescriptive about best moves is missing this essential variation. However I do play 1941 with 2 groups on a monthly basis, plus with other groups occasionally, and based on that experience would make the following comments:

• Taking West Russia in R1 is a must. R can get enough units on WR to preclude a meaningful G counter-attack. To my mind that means every R unit that can get to WR goes to WR. If I play G and R has not put everything into WR then I will attack what he has there, even if only with the intention of not winning the territory but just to kill R units. A secure R stack in WR defends Moscow and allows the recapture of both Karelia and Caucasus. The trick is for R to stay there as long as it can.
• Using any meaningful number of units against J is to invite any good G player in to Moscow. Withstanding G’s superior forces should require everything that R has.
• However, ignoring J allows them to flood across China into Caucasus, which may then need R to use its WR stack to recapture. Here lies the R conundrum.
• The answer is a judicious balancing act which will depend on what the Axis do, opportunistically grabbing victories that do not put units at risk (nor Moscow!) and allows them to switch fronts in the next turn.

Yea! Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to one and all! May 2019 be blessed with some great A&A games for each and every one of us!:v:

We have 11 regular attendees and can accommodate a couple more. When we have 10 or more players we play three games - one of 1942.2, one of Anniversary and another of 1914. Don’t worry about knowing all these. Any one variant will get you into the group and we enjoy teaching new players the variants they don’t know.

So if you want to join us in Derbyshire on 20th October just reply to this thread or PM Private Panic. (The following event will be on 12th January.)

Battle Reports are posted in this forum after each event, so a quick glance at those will tell you that we enjoy ourselves immensely.

With continuing Covid 19 restrictions some of us decided to play via Zoom using triple a. Of course this was not as much fun as playing face to face, but the four of us who joined in very much enjoyed the day.

Mark (@Credulous) kindly hosted the Zoom session.

We decided to play Anniversary (1942 set up). Mark played Japan and Adam (@Private-Panic) Germany / Italy. Leo (@Wittmann) took USA & Russia and Andrew (@h0lym0nk) GB. The Allies had a bid of 12 which they placed as a GB destroyer off Canada and a R artillery.

The opening moves on the R front favoured R, as G counter attacks all suffered more casualties than they inflicted. GB attempted its Taranto moment and lost heavily, leaving Italy able to capture Egypt. Japan suffered no mishaps, killing the GB fleet of India, the US flotilla at Pearl Harbour and the Chinese fighter.

GB considered its choice of factory locations and decided to opt for South Africa. Fortunately Hirohito spotted the possibility of capturing this and under Japanese orders the Italian navy navigated the Suez Canal and dropped 2 ground units in south east Africa, and these were able to capture the factory the following turn.

The US landed in north Africa, but then lost its 2 transports, defended by a single destroyer, to a G Luftwaffe attack. The US decided to allocate a considerable proportion of its resources towards an Atlantic navy sufficient to allow further landings in north Africa. These pushed towards Egypt.

This allowed J some freedom in the Pacific. J captured India and built a factory there. Briefly this appeared threatened by US pressure on Egypt and a R threat south from the Caucasus, but the prudent deployment of J fighters to India and Egypt stymied any Allied ambitions. Later Australia also had the honour of joining the J empire!

Meanwhile G managed to keep R in check while also combining with I units to deny the Allies the opportunity of gaining the French national objective. As a result the Axis were gaining most of their national objectives, but the Allies few of theirs. This and the collapse of the British Empire gave the Axis an income advantage of around 30 ipcs per turn.

The Allies surrendered, with a G stack before the walls of Moscow and a growing J threat on Caucasus. The US Pacific fleet had captured a couple of islands (while J replaced the naval fighters it had sent to India) but had no opportunity to effect further advances. The US Atlantic fleet had sailed south to defend Brazil from Italy’s South African fleet, robbing north Africa of reinforcements. Perhaps the only bright point for the Allies was GB’s capture of Norway.

The four of us had a chat and decided that the autumn and winter BoB dates should be arranged with the intention of falling back on a virtual event should Coronavirus continue to preclude face to face play.

@Wittmann Well now your allies know they will be sending an assassination squad round. Being always a helpful chap I have let them have your address.

@prop_nutt As Garg says many here play fellow forum members using free s/w. Let us know if you want any help with that.

The other comment I might make is that you have a mid - complexity A&A variant. Some of your friends might find it easier to start with the simplest / quickest variant - which is 1941 - and build from there. Of course forum colleagues who love the complex challenges of A&A can find 1941 overly simplistic and you might feel the same way. Personally I love all the variants!

Welcome to the forum Colin!

P.S. Do tell us what it is that you have to feel guilty about? :zipper_mouth_face:

Thanks for the hard work David. And Panther, who is so very helpful whenever I have a problem.

Given David’s comment above, here are a few random thoughts on the site as a source of income, with the caveat that I know nothing about on line business, my experience of running a business being very different:

1. The site does not appear designed to generate income. Access to all areas is free. Financial contributions are voluntary.

2. Much of the value of the site is derived from voluntary non-financial contributions, such as posts from fellow users sharing knowledge and expertise. The site can be viewed as merely providing a repository for this. Thus the financial value that might accrue from the site without discouraging such non-financial contributions may be limited.

3. Despite those non-financial contributions from fellow members we lose the vast majority of joiners very quickly. Thousands have joined. Only a tiny proportion remain active. If we understood why we might be able to improve the rate of retention. My guess is that many join to gain an answer of some sort, but are insufficiently addicted to keep reading the answers to questions raised by others. What is the planned new joiner engagement process seeking to draw them in? One such might be use of the forum to play triple a, but at the moment this route is left to chance, with little attempt to encourage participation.

4. Keeping new members for longer would probably generate some additional voluntary financial contributions, but is only a first step towards any sort of income generation plan, which would require that members gain more value from the site than it being an information repository. My willingness to financially contribute each year is based on use of the forum to discover other players and play triple a. If I am typical, then it may be a mechanism might be found to charge for this facility. Do we know why some contribute and others do not? What research has been done?

5. Charging for already existing functionality is always going to be problematic. Easier would be to add value in new ways, except that finding new ways to add value ain’t easy!

Nine players played 2 games and as usual the war room was filled with screams, cheers and laughter. As always, my thanks to everyone for braving traffic and road works in order to join us, and to Dave, who very kindly allows us to use his house. :+1:

1942.2
We agreed an allied bid of 15 and then drew Powers at random, which gave us:

Axis – Leo / wittmann – Japan and Adam / Private Panic – Germany
Allies – Mark / Credulous - UK and Dave - Russia & US

The Allies placed their bid as 2 UK subs in the Indian Ocean and a R infantry. You can tell what is coming!
R1 saw a more adventurous start than usual, with a strafe of Ukraine as well as everything else stacking West Russia. Adam hid his delight, expecting G to get odds on West Russia. However, both attacks succeeded brilliantly for the loss of only 1 infantry.

Which left G unable to respond. G1 therefore focused on reducing the allied naval presence in the Med and Atlantic. Leo then announced with all his A&A experience that the Axis had lost this game! The UK sprang its attack on the J fleet off the East Indies. Disaster! Remaining UK units retreated to India, where an AC was placed to allow the retention of both fighters. Japan responded by attacking this UK fleet which it sunk, albeit with heavy J losses. J also left its 2 TTs where they could be sunk by enemy air, so in the following J turn had no TTs and only 2 of its starting 6 fighters remaining. A replacement TT was also lost to an air attack in round 2! :scream:

Meanwhile the US built all navy in the Pacific. This begun a US / J naval dance as fleets advanced to present a threat and retreated when themselves threatened. About half-way through the game the US did take East Indies, which J could not recover. J’s loss of TTs, focus on naval builds and lack of an Asian factory meant that very few units remained in Asia following the capture of China and R’s far eastern territories.

Which left G to combat R and the UK pretty much on its own. G maintained an offensive strategy against R despite a lack of units on its eastern front. Every unit that could go east did so. No attempt was made to hold France despite Leo’s urging that G should do so, the focus instead being to always retake it. On the other hand, Leo did persuade Adam to commit units to North Africa, which resulted in the capture of Egypt and the Middle East, this keeping the UK’s Indian builds from venturing into mainland Asia, where they would have significantly outnumbered J.

Leningrad was captured and held pretty early in the game. Bombing raids on Moscow during the early stages were also critical in minimising the R unit advantage. With J struggling against the US and the UK growing its ability to project a threat across the Channel, G risked stacking West Russia in the face of superior R unit numbers. As hoped, R withdrew to Moscow, allowing G to then risk taking and holding Caucasus.

R’s income was now down to 8 and G was able place 6 units in Karelia and Caucasus each turn. At last G began to have the units to match R’s. The fall of Moscow seemed imminent. :grin:

With the day coming to an end and the allies on the back foot, the US decided that an air only attack on J’s surface warships was its best chance of turning the game around, as this avoided J’s 17 subs and the US had a lot more fighters then J. This attack proved disastrous, particularly as remaining fighter moves did not allow the US fleet to reach safety. The attack was therefore pressed home until the last US fighter was shot down. Japan now had mastery of the Pacific!

So as to finish the game with some excitement, it was agreed the G would attack Moscow, even though it had no need to do so just yet. If G won then the game would be an Axis victory. If R won, the game would be a draw. Attacking and defensive power were equal, but G had three more units and so a slight advantage. Right from the off, R’s peasants out fought the Wehrmacht, whose troops ran away and cowered in a corner somewhere. Stalin made a victory speech despite only achieving a draw and Hitler killed himself. Churchill lost the election. Hirohito made a lot of noise, but then he had done that throughout the whole game! :cry:

1914

Mike / Aftertaste has kindly offered to add his battle report to this thread.

Just sponsored 2022 David :blush:

We had an excellent day with 10 players (after a couple dropped out due to illness) including 3 that are new to the event - Rob, Ste and Simon. Welcome all!

We played 3 games - one each of 1942.2, Anniversary and 1914. Below is a very brief synopsis of each game. Anyone who wishes is invited to add a longer battle report on their game.

1942.2 was unusual in that Germany succeeded with Sealion. Russia put up solid resistance, but Moscow eventually fell to an Axis one two.

Anniversary was also declared an Axis victory, with Italian victories in Egypt and Japan in India. Russia still looked strong, but the UK had no navy left and declining income.

The Central Powers also triumphed in 1914. Russia grabbed a chance against a much smaller German stack early on, but struggled with bad dice in all 3 resulting battles, losing the major part of its forces. As the Entente’s position deteriorated they were forced to take risks, none of which came off.

@djensen

I have just sent you $60 Dave.

BTW you will want to edit the opening post in this thread to change 2023 to 2024.

Cheers
Adam

We now have 14 regular players and usually have 10 or more attending, which typically means 3 games - one each of 1942.2, Anniversary and 1914. If you know any one of these variants you will fit right in!

The event is held in Derbyshire, which is about as central to England as you can get. Players come from as far afield as London, Hereford, Hull and Warrington. If you want to join us on 29 March just reply to this thread or message Private Panic via this forum.

(PS The summer event will be on 14 June)

Our next event will be on 10th April. In Derbyshire. We currently have 7 players and space for more, so get in touch if you would like to join us. Typically we have a game of each of Anniversary, 1942.2 and 1914 running and players get to choose which they want to play.

NB The summer event will be on 26th June.