Colin I

K Man: Makes the 2 strike tanks perfectly realistic - great at Blitzing the weak but expensive (if still dangerous) to use against the prepared. I still don't understand why some nationalities don't get 2 strikes with armour. You could argue its leadership and tactics but I think other metrics (HQ, readyness, morale) cover this. Its true the French armour was technically better but used badly in 1940. But the poor French HQ/morale/readyness vs superior German scores. deals with this issue just fine. Perhaps this is the case - if you only get 2 strikes if you are above a certain readyness I'd regard this as an elegant solution. Reasonable for bombers too - you only get to run really high intensity strategic bombing if you are well organized.

Well, one counter is to overun air with ground units. This seems hard in WaW, not sure why but I've broken through front lines to target enemy air and done surprisingly little harm. Has something really changed here? I really like TAC and feel if you overuse it there will be counters.

OK - incoming Axis turn. Game on!

Posting for a leasurely PBEM. Lose to Jollyguy and Hellraiser, tend to stand a decent chance against others. Your choice of sides. Anyone?

Hmmm, OK but if it is sunk then US readyness should increase - could lead to some Gamey tactics but remember it really was like that in WWI.

Love the map extension to the north of Sweden, Norway and Finland. Just played a very entertaining game where the UK entered Russia via Norway/Sweden/Finland. The small number of lifelines and weather changes led to a nice game of cat and mouse between UK special forces and the Finns. Also find that cutting railroads definately increases chances of mass encirclements in Russia - both this and the higher unit density there can only be a good thing, much closer to the way it was.

Aesopo - specialized use. The 88 was great in the Desert but not so good at D-Day (it is big so gets flattened by artillery, in the close range high cover environment of Normandy the German high velocity 75 was harder to spot but at that range still deadly. The British adapted 25 pounders (artillery) as AT too. I think in a strategic game this is below resolution - really think the AT unit is unecessary given we have AT technology anyhow.

Timskorn - Rambo is definately not in the tournament - need a new opponent. Thanks Colin

Really Rambo? I think I was matched to you if you are in? Not played WaW yet at all.

One wonders if Intel is a good counter to Terif. I suspect that some of his surprise tactics might be rumbled, though I'm sure he has a counter even to this possibility I think Intel changes are great - very realistic, there is always a chance vital Intel will leak.

Hellraiser - advice appreciated. A few return comments: 1. Super fast France - this shouldn't have happened in the first place. [Colin - Agreed] 2. You should have taken Norway in turn 4 (standard move for the Allies) [i often do - here I wanted to try another strategy but we saw the result!] 3. Be a little more aggressive with the western allies - Russia alone is no match for Axis especially with a perfect early and mid game like I had. [Your navy made it hard. I almost went into Scandanavia, could see from long range carriers you had an army group waiting for Sweden, and wanted to attack when you Dowed Sweden, but didn't get timing right]. 4. If you time your western front opening when Axis has a respiro in east (i.e. after a local victory like I had at Stalingrad) be sure your Wallies will be wiped out immediately. With mud and winter approaching in Russia it was clear that no major actions were to be seen until spring 43. You decided to land in Egypt exactly when Axis could afford to dispatch considerable reinforcements in the area without any possibility of being threatened by Russia. Try to force Axis to choose where to fight (and thus lose initiative on one front for sure). [Agreed, again it was hard to time things perfectly because I was sneaking huge forces past a naval battle. One reason I fought so hard was that I didn't want you having subs all over the place that could bump into my transports. I do agree about timing, as I said I hoped you would not be able to operate from Russia. I really think another mistake was use of too many transports, not enough amphibian craft and not having the four carriers to reduce entrenchment on Cairo. Once I saw how heavily defended Middle East was it was clear I'd lost]. 5. Scrap this habit of attacking ports/cities with your navy - it is not worth it. Your strength points losses are very high and the replacement cost is immense, especially for some piss poor country like the UK [Most damage came from your bomber] 6. In Russia you played conservatively and cautious - this was a very good approach because Axis was very strong after pursuing the aggro strategy of collecting a lot of minors previously. But you were a little bit trigger happy (like I am when playing Yoda [big Grin] ) and launched local counters - near Stalingrad - which had for every german unit killed 2-3 red units killed in return. If you decide to leave your forts, do it en masse and cripple Axis in the place of your attack [Agreed. I was reasonably happy with Russia in the sense it had good technology and MPP but it was the West that failed. I tried to keep counters minimal]. "....Hellraser defeats the Russians" - well this is not necessary...I only needed London after the capture of Stalingrad for a major victory. So most likely, the spring of 43 would have seen 9 Axis AFs near Paris and 2 paras ready to jump [Wink] Your move on Egypt was not ok for my plans - Cairo is a victory objective [Decent plan but too late] I am not trying to sound smart here or something, just trying to point out, what in my opinion, are important things to do when playing Allies. [Advice appreciated] Perhaps we can switch sides and play again, we both can learn things from each other. [indeed - I'm pretty sure I can't play as perfect an Axis game though but look forwards to another game, maybe in WaW. Learnt a lot from this game].

Time to declare Hellraiser the winner. There is a huge allied armada heading to Egypt but its mostly on transports and it doesn't look like I will capture a port to land them. I can pull them back, but do not really have enough time/MPP to launch something else before Hellraser defeats the Russians. My strategy was long term - had lots of industrial and production technology for US/USSR and all three allies were at IW3. But its not enough, Hellraiser didn't make many surprise moves but everything he did was slightly faster and slightly better than I expected. Besides, he now just has to build U-boats to completely neutralize the West. The Egypt move I think was a good one but the Russians didn't hold the caucausus as long as I hoped - to trap the Iraqi/Iranian Axis forces. I was also trying to line up Russian paras to cut off his expeditionary forces but didnt manage it. In the early stages the ultrafast fall of France made me fear for Sealion so UK wasn't as proactive as it should have been - though it did have a very good army. So congratulations to Hellraiser - he played great. Good luck with Terif!

....yes, I think you guessed right. Americans land in Egypt and eliminate an the Italian engineer. Russians kill another corps. Winter! Mud! Phew......

German corps damaged/destroyed in Russia. continued naval skirmishes - last ship standing wins Winter strikes, I hope...... :eek:

On original posting I was paired with Rambo, I think, but I'm not sure if he is still in tournament.

Hellraiser - I've not received the turn you describe here.

Russians retreat. Italian cruiser sunk in continuing naval conflict.

Doughty Russians fight back - think that was 2 armies, 1 L4 armour and a corps destroyed. Western Allies destroy a German cruiser in the continuing Naval battle.

Liam - tend to agree. Most of the people I beat as Axis tended to launch local counters that lost the Russians 2 units for every 1 Axis. To continue: Russians brace as the Axis close in on their positions around Stalingrad/Caucausus. Meanwhile some optimisim at sea - 1 Axis cruiser down, 1 sub down, one cruiser damaged. US Amphib runs for cover after bumping into Italian navy.

Thanks - got it.

Help - how do you set waypoints to navigate a naval unit around trouble. I'm in a tricky fight with Hellraiser and need to do this. Tried holding down the shift key etc but can't find the right combination. Rapid reply appreciated!!

Russians retreat and pray for Snow. Allied air spots German navy and pursues - one German battleship escorted by 2 subs, the battleship is sunk with Allied U-boats prominent in the battle.

Russians nail a German paratrooper and Allies sink a German cruiser in the rolling battle off of France.

I presume WAW isn't like a patch. You can still play SC2? I'm finishing a game with Hellraiser in SC2 and don't want to ruin it.

Sorry Rambo - if its any consolation did further damage in return. Another Italian battleship down, German sub limping.