Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Omnius

Subs really can put a hurt on convoys for reducing resources flowing to factories, or supply to units abroad. Plus nothing like subs already in sea areas to put real fear into players wanting to move valuable ships into those sea areas.

the most important ship in any navy is the lowly cruiser. Good for ASW but even more important for taking losses.

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ORIGINAL: Omnius

Warspite,
I spent several hours reading your AAR and found it very instructive. The one thing that really stood out was the lack of submarine warfare and that the CW did not build a single convoy point during the whole game. I think you're missing out on a very important part of the game. Subs really can put a hurt on convoys for reducing resources flowing to factories, or supply to units abroad. Plus nothing like subs already in sea areas to put real fear into players wanting to move valuable ships into those sea areas.

Your not using the oil rules really showed how easy it is for the Axis to always use HQ's to reorganize units during a turn. That goes double for the Chinese. Plus you can then sail or fly around willy nilly as the Axis. I prefer the oil rules even if they are a real pain in the behind getting convoys sorted out properly. I'll be glad when we get separate oil tankers.

I thought your decision to garrison Cagliari with a valuable German mountain unit and an Italian HQ. You lost more quickly than that resource hex was worth. Now you have to rebuild that German white print mountain unit that would have been invaluable in the USSR. Plus you'll want to rebuild that expensive Italian HQ. I was curious about what you had done in Tripoli when you finally showed you were taking it. I was surprised you waited so long to get that trick done to set up Italy for the takedown.

I also thought you made a mistake not declaring Vichy France as soon as you captured Paris. That would have put the British ground units in France in real jeopardy of getting bounced off the continent if I'm remembering my Vichy rules correctly. Being late to capturing Paris should have made you decide against trying to capture Spain.

That was really interesting how you basically had no solid front lines in the USSR, especially in the south. However you were correct in thinking about getting that done soon.

I'm not so sure the Axis would lose this game. The US is just getting into the fray. The Allies aren't really in a good position in either theater.

I see you are very enamored with those expensive carriers and BB's. Not only did you not build transports and amphibious hips soon enough you forgot that the most important ship in any navy is the lowly cruiser. Good for ASW but even more important for taking losses. If you ever play someone who uses subs prolifically and well you're in big trouble. Especially if they trash a sea area loaded with convoy points that gets emptied. Air is great for ASW, until the weather turns stormy and then they're worthless.

I thought your initial plan for China as the Japanese was odd in that you tried to attack Changsa from the north and west rather than a more frontal assault that wouldn't be across rivers. However you certainly laid the Chinese Nationalists low, up until the Communist Chinese came roaring out because you didn't guard well against that.

It looks like you didn't take Denmark on the first turn to close the Baltic to force the CW player to have to decide between a naval move or a ground move to move Polish ground units. I thought the stack of units north of Warsaw/Lodz was a big mistake. That hex will have to attack across the river so better to have units in hexes south of those cities. Plus you left a huge hole in the Polish line to the south and west that made encircling the units in that line way too easy.

I take it you completely ignored Ethiopia. As Italy I love to transport the good infantry unit and supply unit out on the first turn. I drop the supply off in Tripoli where it can be useful to put units in supply for a turn. I usually drop off the infantry unit in Italy.

A shame that you decided to end the game, it would have been interesting to see how it developed.

Omnius

England expects that every man will do his duty. Horatio Nelson October 1805

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ORIGINAL: brian brian

In Ethiopia … playing the CW: if the Italians send a TRS through the Suez Canal on the first turn I will gladly trade a likely lost USE Chit (perhaps unless the Allies are sitting on a 5, 4, 4 or something similar) for a 100% guarantee of reducing the Axis lift in the Med by 50%. In other words, I would DOW on the next impulse. Maybe the Italians were planning on sending both through to pick up the supply unit and the INF there, but I wouldn't wait to find out, as they might choose to risk only one TRS per turn to get both units.

For the Italians, if the CW didn't draw any TERR units in the region, I just walk the supply unit to Libya. In an oil game, the British can ground strike it and it will never re-organize without tracing to oil, otherwise they have to chase it if they can, and the Libyan camel unit might ride out to screen / escort it. I think we have finally got all the rules on that figured out. The supply unit is always in supply, so it never flips / gets dis-organized for moving without tracing to a primary supply source. However it doesn't change hex control as it moves, so if it gets flipped by enemy bombers it's stuck there if using the oil rule.

I really look forward to playing a new game with the new Khaki in Flames counters (adds the Italian Red Sea Flotilla counter and allows use during war I believe) and the new WiF8 rules, in terms of this area of the map. Towards the end of Avalon Hill, a mod came out for Third Reich that covered East Africa, but it would still cost 15 BRP to attack anything on the extra map, so that never happened. Games just seem to have a hard time making things go in what was a fairly active theater of war for a few years there.

You can play a great game of World in Flames just using the off-map boxes on the paper map for most of Africa. Even with a full map of Africa, the events there will have negligible impact on the war as a whole in a majority of games. But the little micro-wars there are a fun part of the game. Maybe the Master Edition, division level game of WiF would improve that some, if it ever comes out.

England expects that every man will do his duty. Horatio Nelson October 1805

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ORIGINAL: Centuur

Vichy declaring goes smooth. Collapsing Vichy has bugs in it, as has conquest. I really would like the two major ones in those (regarding the changes in control of hexes) to be fixed...

England expects that every man will do his duty. Horatio Nelson October 1805

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warspite1,
I forgot to mention that the time you used an O-Chit and didn't get any units to double was because you most likely forgot to choose an HQ to use for doubling. You probably clicked through before choosing your HQ.

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ORIGINAL: brian brian
The Axis end up with a lot of units in a no oil game, that's for sure. But I think you should keep going to see The Awesome Power of the Allies in 1944, if you've never seen it.

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The mistake in Poland I mentioned wasn't with the German set up, it was with the Polish set up. The one mistake you made as the Germans was to overrun the Polish fleet on the first impulse thus handing Britain those ships. I used to do that too until I realized it's smarter to not take Danzig on the first impulse, force Britain to then have to choose between a naval or a land impulse, or perhaps a wimpy combined. I don't waste any Polish units in the hex north of Lodz/Warsaw, that's a hex I want the Germans to try to stack in and attack from as it's across the river. It is pretty tough to protect Warsaw long if the German attacks in earnest.

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ORIGINAL: Omnius

warspite1,
I remember you mentioned muffing your naval gearing limit for one country. Did you know there's a simple trick to jacking up your naval gearing limit quicker than normal. Since convoy points are considered a 1/2 ship build you can build naval units to one less than your gearing limit. Then you build a convoy point and finally you can build one more naval unit that you want. That allows you to exceed your current ship gearing limit by 1, thus allowing you to run up your ship gearing limit by 2 per turn.

Omnius

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ORIGINAL: Omnius

EUBanana,
If Scotland decides to vote for secession will you change your location description to Littler England?

Omnius

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ORIGINAL: Omnius

composer99,
My sentiments exactly as regards the mighty Polish navy. It also shows how we'll start out not understanding the nuances of the game. As a German it's just so tempting to overrun those naval units in Danzig to capture Danzig. However after some thinking and playing I think players learn that that is not the best tactic.

As a British player concerned about protecting those ever important convoy points it is hard not to run a naval impulse. However if playing against a German player intent upon ground action then a British player could do a land move to move Polish ground units into better defensive positions. That means being able to spread them out a little more to keep from getting hammered with the surprise impulse ground strikes.

The game is a lot of fun because there are so many nuances to the game to learn and perfect.

Omnius

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ORIGINAL: brian brian

An aggressive CW player would probably order unmolested Polish destroyers in Danzig out into the Baltic for a 50% chance of finding the German merchant shipping, as they can easily open the game with a naval impulse. If anything they might select a Combined to get more air missions to intern the Polish pilots while simultaneously bombing whatever bits of the Kriegsmarine aren't in East Prussia. A French cruiser on a suicide mission might already be on the way, giving the Allies another chance at finding the ore convoys on a subsequent impulse.

There is only a 60% chance the British get either Polish ship counter…and a 10% chance the Germans get them.

The Germans do have to set up carefully to cover the possibility of the Poles deploying a unit or two in the extreme south or north of Poland, especially if they are attempting any other objective aside from Denmark on the first turn.

England expects that every man will do his duty. Horatio Nelson October 1805

quote:

ORIGINAL: brian brian

An aggressive CW player would probably order unmolested Polish destroyers in Danzig out into the Baltic for a 50% chance of finding the German merchant shipping, as they can easily open the game with a naval impulse. If anything they might select a Combined to get more air missions to intern the Polish pilots while simultaneously bombing whatever bits of the Kriegsmarine aren't in East Prussia. A French cruiser on a suicide mission might already be on the way, giving the Allies another chance at finding the ore convoys on a subsequent impulse.

There is only a 60% chance the British get either Polish ship counter…and a 10% chance the Germans get them.

The Germans do have to set up carefully to cover the possibility of the Poles deploying a unit or two in the extreme south or north of Poland, especially if they are attempting any other objective aside from Denmark on the first turn.

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ORIGINAL: warspite1

Right then that settles it, AARse V will feature a first turn overrun of Danzig

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ORIGINAL: Centuur

quote:

ORIGINAL: warspite1

Right then that settles it, AARse V will feature a first turn overrun of Danzig

So you don't feel to experiment? To bad...

England expects that every man will do his duty. Horatio Nelson October 1805