Ivan, Jun Hao, Alvin, Jason and myself started a perfect Raya morning by eating Bah Kut Teh near Jun Hao’s place. Hooi Teng as usual FFK us so after breakfast we started our 5-player Axis and Allies Anniversary Edition.
Roles were chosen randomly and it turned out : Ivan - Japan, Jun Hao - Russia, Alvin - UK, Jason - US while myself took Germany + Italy as I was the more experienced player.
Having both Ivan and myself on the same team on hindsight is a bad idea as both of us are veteran Axis and Allies players.
Both of us executed “Kill Russia First” to perfection and Russia was conquered by the 5th turn.
Jun Hao took well to the beating and I hope the loss did not turn him off.
Alvin declared his dislike of the game when he saw me and wolfx playing it in Comics Corner awhile back and have not changed his opinion after playing. The destruction of the UK fleet by the Luffewaffe seems more and more like a good tactical move everytime.
US and UK both bombed Berlin in this game and the usefulness left me with new ideas for the next game. Since the US have trouble getting to the front lines, perhaps it can assist UK and Russia earlier by sending more Bombers to station at UK.
The picture above shows Alvin holding his Bang! the Bullet casing to demonstrate how the game will end with a Bang!
UK’s assets were being conquered left right and centre in Asia and Africa, leading to a very weakened UK. US on the other hand suffered little but behind the hands of a beginner, did not supply enough troops to the front to make an impression. However, he made full use of China and it’s rabbit armies to cause Japan some nuisance.
Play ended at about 3pm - we started about 11am. Russia’s collapse would have been averted from being this early if the controller have more experience, but then, that is the purpose of this session, to give players more experience!
This is the new Orchard Central with its long outdoor-esque escalators.
Orchard Central
The first escalators
The second set took us all the way up to 6th floor (i think)
An interesting shop at the top: Fruit Paradise with its fruit heavy cakes.
Some far out view. Fruit Paradise does not allow close up photo taking, so you just have to be there to look!
Another view of Fruit Paradise @ Orchard Central
A shop @ Orchard Central selling care bears.
We had our lunch here: Quiznos Sub. I like one of their taglines: Toasted - If it ain’t Quiznos, it’ll leave you cold!
It was Monday Merdeka boardgame meetup and we decided to do an Axis and Allies Anniversary session. Before we start, it’s time for a little game of King Me!
Game & teaching courtesy of Ceternal.
It’s a fun light game of moving your nobles up the ranks. The first noble to reach the top will have to go through a voting process to be the king. Beware, everyone have their own agenda and it might turn out the nobles that go through the voting process will lose their head from opposition.
King Me! is a fun quick diversion before the main event.
First we setup the board and I explained the rules to Ceternal, blownfreaks,
rhyen,
patomas,
jack208.
All of them have not played the game before and some have not even touched Axis and Allies 2nd Edition. I hope I did a good job and we randomly picked our country.
On the Axis side Ceternal took Japan, blownfreaks took Germany while patomas took Italy. On the Allies side, rhyen took Russia, jack208 took US and I took UK.
Japan started off with the traditional assault on the British India Fleet,
A subdued attack on the chinese province of Fukien ending the Japanese turn.
Meanwhile the russians did naught but to fortify their position with infantry hordes, anticipating a blood-thirsty attack by the germans on Caucasus. It was evenly matched and lo the germans were no match for the russian horde. This, the battle of Stalingrad was the beginning of the end of the german army as we shall see later.
I did my normal push for Norway with UK, taking it easily and as a bonus, took out a wandering german navy off the norweigian coast.
UK also bought some destroyers and cruisers to discourage german naval ambitions.
Italy landed some troops in Africa while US built up her fleet, both doing a relatively quiet turn.
The next turn, the Japs turned their sights towards the Pacific.
While the germans stalled on another attack towards russia.
More russian infantry hordes reinforce the red position.
The germans tried taking Karelia but was beaten back by British troops guarding russia’s flanks.
It was Luffewaffe’s finest hour as the germans took out all british shipping in an attempt to stop UK’s help to russia.
Die fuhrer ordered 5 destroyers but at the expense of less troops for ground combat.
Despite this, the end is inevitable as the red army finally build up enough russian hordes to counterattack, pushing the germans back to poland.
With the Italians distracted with guarding the germans’ back in europe, their navy was destroyed by a fleet of british spitfires, ending up in a major push in north africa by the british against the isolated italians.
Despite an early victory, China wasn’t looking too hot for the Japanese, rapidly losing ground and then some more as the chinese rabbits took back the whole of China.
The cause of the successful Chinese rebellion was the arms standoff with US.
rapidly deteriorating into a major build up of naval assets.
Culminating in a massive titanic battle over the Caroline Islands, with every ship and planes at both nations’ disposal thrown into the fray.
However, the japanese navy proved to have the better assets as they prevailed.
However, with germany and italy tottering on the brink of defeat, it won’t be long until UK and russia turn their sights east. A lone Australian fighter flew to India for the awaited buildup.
post game analysis: having two veteran players on one side - me and jack208 tipped the balance of this game against the Axis forces who only had ceternal as the experienced player. rhyen also did well in defensive russia while blownfreaks blew much IPCs on failed attacks.
A fun fun game session. A Hari Raya game next perhaps?
We started at 2pm after lunch at a yummy claypot chicken rice place behind Comics Corner. I did not know Mage Cafe opens after 4pm on Mondays, hence the lunch elsewhere, but it was good. Alvin arrived half an hour later and helped to take some of the interesting photos here.
An arty Alvin photo shot.
Landlocked Mongolia produced some sea units again to help newbie wolfx differentiate between the cruisers and the destroyers. Thanks, Mongolia!
This is me showing off a one page summary of all the nations’ objectives, downloaded from Boardgamegeek.
The battle of the Pacific saw little action in the game apart from a seesaw fight over the Hawaiian sea.
Soviet far east was invaded successfully after a preliminary buildup of transports and a massive amphibious assault. Manchuria and Kiangsu was defended successfully after feeble Chinese piecemeal attacks.
British India troops outdid themeselves by securing Burma without casualties. French Indo-China fell the next turn.
Eygpt made an ill advised attack on Libya and after getting wiped out from an Italian counterattack, had to go on the defensive. The next turn saw the complete annilation of Eygptian troops from Italian fleet bombardment and Trans-Jordan was also captured for a decisive Italian victory.
Stalin made a mistake attacking too early and despite taking Belorussia the next turn, lost the important Caucasus position. This is after losing Leningrad in the first turn.
wolfx made an interesting 1st turn landing in France using UK and forced the Italians to intervene and secure France. The bonus from the France IPCs and objectives gave UK an 11 point swing, which I had never consider before. Perhaps next time I would aggressively pursue this option over the Norway invasion as the Allies. wolfx even got US into the Atlantic action (of course at the expense of the Pacific theatre), but he has to work on improving his supply lines next time (not enough transports!)
The threat of UK was too much too bear and I had to borrow blownfreaks’ tactic of using the combined Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine to destroy the UK navy. Of course, this was not to last as the RAF bombed the remaining cruiser out of the water the next turn.
Behold, UK naval superiority refuses to back down. Fortunately this means the 11-point swing on France can be delayed another turn.
The Pacific theatre saw little action in the whole game. As wolfx wisely surmised, island hopping is a slow business, and the Atlantic theatre demands similiar resources such that only one of the theatres can be supplied properly.
The British India troops surprisingly did well, reaching French Indo-China, but the Chinese failed to mass up properly for an effective charge. Japanese strategy here forgoes the Pacific and concentrate instead of pumping in troops into the Asian landmass.
The German Juggernaut grinds down on the Russian army, leaving southern europe and western europe to the Italians’ defence. An early attack instead of defense also contributed to the quick Russian collapse.
Operation torch - invasion of Africa failed to go off and Italians have unchecked access to the African continent as well as the Middle East. The US invasion of Norway got off pretty well but without proper supply lines, it is not enough to prevent Russia’s collapse. The build up of UK’s D-Day fleet spells trouble for Axis-occupied France but with the Italians helping in defensive duties, it will need more than two UK transports to land a sizable force capable of holding on to France.
Another arty Alvin photo shot. Axis & Allies, so far this is the third play of my game and I’m glad to report that I am still learning new strategies. After a few more plays, maybe I can graduate to the 1941 scenario? Looking forward to another session during Raya holidays!