I went and reread some rules after posting the commentary and realise that there are a few changes from Revised to Anniversary that we omitted in our haste to play the game. some of the tactics and strategies employed for our maiden game was wrong and probably unusable for subsequent games.
1st rule boo boo involves the overhauled Submarine rules. First, our subs still defended on a 2, which was revised to just a 1.
Our subs were ‘attackable’ by air units, which was wrong as in this version destroyers need to be present to sonar out the subs.
Subs and transports now are by themselves now not considered hostile for purposes of intercepting enemy movements. So Normandy and Algiers can still be a 1st turn target.
Submersible ability of subs are now activated before combat so it can exclude itself from combat if no destroyers are present to sniff it out.
The first strike capability of subs are now activated each round instead of in just the first round. So destroyers are really needed to catch those subs out.
The other boo boo came as we played that fleet bombardment damage are taken without a chance of firing back. This is wrong as Anniversary change the rule to that it can fire back. It also include the additional rule that fleet bombardment can be only as many as there are ground units in the battle. I guess that playtesters have already encountered the devastation wrought by cruisers.
The last rule we never bothered is that bombers now take AA flak only in the territory it is doing bombing runs.
In a moment of madness, I bought this game from the Friendly Local Game Store (FLGS). Bought it Friday night, set it up with Ivan on Saturday afternoon and finally test drove it on Sunday morning. So what do I think of the game?
The first thing I noticed is that playing as the Allies is tough! It felt that the starting units mix and production for the Axis are ramped up, with the caveat that there are many more spaces between Japan and Russia now. The Japan-Germany pincer movement on Russia is now delayed but in its absence, Germany has certainly became a juggernaut.
Although we’ve only played two rounds, I’ve estimated that Russia could have fallen by turn four. The rumoured strategy of Japanese planes kamikaze-ing Russia to soften up the target for Germany doesn’t seem so far fetched now.
On the Axis side, Ivan complained that Italy changed a few of his plans as southern europe cannot attack together with Germany. The attack coordination is off. India is also harder to reach for the Japs now unless they build an IC in Borneo.
The biggest change however came in the transport rules. Transports are now extremely vulnerable and valuable resources must now be diverted towards protecting them. This of course means that the Allies’ transport to Germany must now be protected by a flotilla of ships, causing an extra turn of delay to buildup.
The introduction of the cruiser unit makes shoreline and islands extremely dangerous, vulnerable to bombardment. A free undefendable attack every turn. Italy used it to great effect in the Mediterranean while the British used it to break down Baltic shore defenses.
Some caveats with the game components: 1. cruiser units are extremely difficult to differentiate with destroyers. 2. There are no placeholder cards for areas bulging with units. 3. There are no air route markers. What’s up with that, Avalon Hill?
Following is a short commentary on our test drive session. Note that we mutually agreed to use the 1942 scenario and ignored technology to simplify the decisions for our session.
1st turn:
Japanese started with much less transports. It could be because Japan starts first in this version. The attack into Russia is delayed till next turn. Russia as usual consolidates her far east front against the inevitable attack.
Pearl harbour happened twice, first resulted in the destruction of the US Fleet and the second resulted in the destruction of the Japanese Navy. The fully loaded aircraft carrier off the coast of US was a 1st turn purchase. The first Pearl Harbour virtually guarantees the need for US to sink all her IPCs into a new carrier.
China was ignored in this game, which could be costly as it can push against Japan interest in Kiangsu, Manchuria and Kwangtung. However it could be just a valid strategy to ignore China and land in Russia instead to go straight for Moscow.
Another scripted moment: destruction of entire British Empire Navy off coast of India. However the lack of transport will delay Japanese aggression.
Eygpt was strengthened considerably against a 1st turn occupation by an Italian-German one-two. However the Italian Battleship and two cruisers can wear down defenders bordering the Mediterranean easily.
Two wolfpacks in the Atlantic discourages a first turn landing at Normandy or Algeria, so I hit Norway instead.
Karelia SSR now starts with a factory… which is not advantageous for Russia at all. Germany now has an option (which Ivan exercised) to capture the factory, and use it to pump out assault troops to pressure Moscow starting turn 2.
This is the meagre Russian force which has to be husband carefully to withstand the German blitzkrieg. There are just too many avenues to attack Russia now - Eastern Ukraine, Belorussia, Archangel. It is difficult to protect them all and even harder to make opportunistic strikes.
There is an additional Northwestern Europe territory for the Allies to make a landing. This is actually one of the changes that benefits the Allies as it spreads out Germany’s defenses.
Eastern US is empty as usual.
2nd turn:
US has to threaten the Japanese Home Island early to divert some of their attention onto herself. Else the triple transports pictured here will ferry obscene amount of troops to invade Russia’s backdoor. In this picture, it can be seen that the multiple transports has helped the Japs to breakthrough Buryatia SSR while the US fleet waits off the coasts of Wake island for the theoretical strike on Japan’s transports.
We did not managed to resolve this attack as we couldn’t figure out whether the unit limit of 3 chinese troops is in effect during an attack. But you can be sure that the Japanese defenders of Kiangsu will not have an easy time of it.
India manages to hold for another turn due to Ivan’s forgetting to move French-Indochina troops to Burma for an assault on India.
Russia empties after a brutal attack from Germany wipes out all her tanks and artilleries in Belorussia. She is left with only 2 planes and a bomber as well as her infantries. Not good at all!
Eygpt and Transjordan easily taken by German-Italian one-two punch. Africa and Middle-east is open, as easy as that.
UK managed to gain more foothold in Finland and Poland due to Germany’s stretching of resources to breakdown Russia. Nevertheless, Russia is more likely to fall first and UK has to watch her holdings in Africa or risk having her IPCs transfered to the Germans. Bombers from US lands in UK to threaten Axis shipping as they are lack of suitable landing spots in the Pacific theatre. Italian troops here also took the opportunity to help Germany secure her western coasts against the Allies.
Undefended transports was sunked off the coasts of Canada, causing the US to use an extra turn to rebuild transports and a destroyer convoy.
And here, in all its glory, the confusing unit differentiation of the ships: From the top, the five ships lined up together are Battleship (longest miniature) , Cruiser (second longest), Destroyer (third longest) and the last two are transports.
Played this tonight with Marcus’ copy. Not too bad, it’s like a more structured version of werewolf. Unlike Shadows over Camelot, all the players were relatively inexperienced, so there weren’t any usurping of decision making by experienced players. Figuring out who the traitor was quite fun.
Play mechanics are relatively simplified and players can jump in learning minimal rules and picking up the rest as the game progresses. I quite enjoyed the game.
I played Axis and Allied again recently to satisfy my cravings for some wargaming action. Finding no partners, I turned to the excellent online implementation at Gametable Online to play solo.
Previously I took the side of Allies at a face-2-face meetup and then Allies again on my first Gametable Online game. In the first game I had maneuvered into a favourable position with all three Allied nations threatening Germany. Russia was then being marginally threatened by Japan. Although the outcome was far from being conclusive, I believe the Allied nations could have taken Berlin before Japan takes Moscow. And in an A&A game, the taking of a capital usually sounds the death knell for the losing nation. The loss of IPCs for a turn can be fatal.
In my second online game, I played the game to its conclusion and finished what I could not have done in the face-2-face meetup - defeat the Axis. This to me is quite simple as it is a straightforward war of attrition to wear Germany’s units down. With three Allied nations bearing down on Germany, the outcome is quite swift.
Later I tried to play the Axis side to get a feel. Twice my trials ended in despair as the Allied economic juggernaut doesn’t seem to be slowing down from the constant Axis assault. In fact the best I could do was to play the eastern front to a statemate.
In the most recent game however, I was inspired to try out a strategy I devised from reading strategy guides. First I destroyed all Allied shipping. Fortunately or unfortunately, this is quite easily done with the Gametable Online AI as it doesn’t seem to attach particular importance to their fleet. By turn three, Germany and Japan had their focused Navy picking off straggling Allied shipping one by one. Of course this particular strategy is helped by the first turn purchase of aircraft carrier by the Germans and the purchase of aircrafts for the Japanese.The error with the online AI was that it did not even bother to replace their losses and it continued to spread out their units even when I was concentrating mine into focused taskforces.
The two concepts practiced in this strategy is to
#1: bunch up units to maximise the first strike damage and also to limit the casualties. By rolling more dice than the opponent, I was guaranteeing their best units being taken down first without them firing a second shot.
#2: limit their fleet movement/options to threaten my territorries. This is not an obvious concept as even jack208 made the same mistake in the first game against myself. Basically, by destroying the opponent’s fleet, certain units being tied up in anticipation of amphibious assaults can now be moved to a more productive front. Rather than having a unit sitting tight and be a pretty deterrent, a dominant sea force can ensure that those units can be freed to be used elsewhere. Example being my troops at France, Berlin, Norway, Eastern Europe can be shifted east to fight the Russians instead of sitting tight to deter UK or US’s landings. Now that is a lot of troops considering that each territory will have at least 4 units guarding it. The only thing I had to do was to destroy every ship that was put out by UK immediately without mercy by a combined fleet-aircraft operation.
The other strategy I used was to emphasize only on infantries and aircrafts. Infantries are cheap and easily thrown away. Previously I bought too many tanks and I realise from strategy guides that tanks are quite expensive to use. They are easily trapped at the front and then immediately wiped out by the opponent’s infantries. Tanks have to be husbanded well and this I did by attacking territories which I have overwhelming advantage in numbers. This way I can make sure there are enough infantries left to bite the bullet during a counterattack and have the tanks causing more than one round of damage. This again refers back to concept no#1 above which the online AI consistently violated.
The online AI spread out its units purchases into infantries, artilleries and tanks which was wrong. The ratio could have skewed more towards infantry, like 10 infantries and 1 tank as the infantries are cheaper to replace. Of course in my case I decided to forgo tanks completely and buy an aircraft fighter a turn. Rather than buy a 5 IPC tank that can be situational in its usage, I opt for 10 IPC fighters that can be sent into battle every turn, thus generating a constant return on investment every turn. The fighters could potentially have a movement range of 3 and the best thing is that it can fly home after a battle, saving its own skin to kill again the next run and leaving the infantries to soak up the damage. It is more useful as an attacker where again, concept no#1 can be brought to bear to ensure maximum first strike damage.
Needless to say, with focused strategies capitalising on the AI’s mistakes, I was able to win the game easily. Although I know a human player is more unpredictable and cunning, at least now I have the confidence to mount a proper Axis campaign.