Axis & Allies 1942 Online: (Ranked) Attempting Operation Sea Lion #2 - Worth it?

[@bravehome4276]

I wanted to thank you Manix for this idea! As a newbie, it proved (in my first attempt) to be the perfect opening! The UK player never saw it coming, and took UK easily G2. He's gamely trying to play it out. G3 did a swing of my remaining 3T on UK to Arch, where he parked mainly bombers and Rus 2F with minor ground, added in Karelia and wiped out the Allied European Air in 1 fell swoop. On to Moscow G4! Want to also thank Sonderport Station below -- if the UK player defends properly (8I UK1), then I can simply use the transports to speed 6I/turn to Karelia! What a boon over slogging it thru Baltic or worse Bela!

[@codewaterairsoftandmore1050]

I am hoping we see some new features soon like an in game chat. Also I don’t think a scenario editor would be too difficult, maybe something to hope for in the future. Keep up the great work with the videos 👍

[@coryrasmussen8974]

While I don't play online so I haven't tried this strategy against actual players, I have found taking Britain by round 2 against the AI is absolutely devastating for the Allies. The road to India for Japan becomes wide open and there's nothing to stop Japan from Surrounding Russia. Usually spend two Transport and two Cruiser in Round one. I deploy all air units to Western Europe in the round one non combat move. The attack is actually overwhelming as you land 6 land units, use 6 planes, and bombard with 3 cruisers. You can still attack Karelia and move all other units to the eastern front easily. I have also found this strategy works really well for keeping America at bay from landing on Europe as you've built up your fleet a bit. i have found you won't be able to take Russia until round 5 or 6 but its a slow squeeze as they become completely surrounded by Japan and Europe. Taking out UK as soon as possible is the best German strategy IMO. Russia still has too few IPCs to make a competant two front assault on Japan and Germany.

[@bouvond]

Love your videos man, I watch them when I eat lunch, good stuff.

[@manix429]

Thanks man I appreciate that!

[@returnofpifco]

I also tend to watch them during a break or lunch - they have got better and better.

[@bravehome4276]

@@returnofpifco Who needs to eat while watching these? They're already great food for thought!

[@brendanpang4059]

Thanks for mentioning the possible build paths! I think it was MY comment that caused you make the segment from 4:00 to 9:45. Even though it turns out my suggested one (which was the combo of land and naval units) is not that effective lol.

[@manix429]

Ha yh thats right your comment did get me thinking, and to be fair I really thought the carrier/destroyer with land units combo would work better too. Just shows how useful the battle calculator can be.

[@michaelhulce9190]

Great video! Thanks to sealion I lose 4 out of 5 games ladder. The one time I hit it was so worth it. The allies just collapsed haha

[@soerenwizard]

The whole purpose of this type of operation, is to induce the UK player to make silly spends, that cannot be released in the short term. Having just two transports in the Baltic, that can be defended against air attacks, allows the German player to move 4 low cost units from Germany to Karelia in one turn. This means that the Soviet player faces attacks from cheaper units. Also, the 2 fighters on the carrier can be a threat on two fronts (UK and USSR). Finally, the stack of fleets required to defend Allied invasion of Western Europe increases. If the Allied stack of fleets is too small, it can be attacked by the Greman fleet in the Baltic.

[@manix429]

Thanks for this. Really helpful. I think mainly the vid was trying to help players defend against it as Britain initially but also just to get the probabilities out there that actually taking Britain would be hard. But as you say using it force Britain into a round or two of bad spends is well worth it. I didn't think about the Germans ability to ship cheap troops into Karelia each turn with those transports though, I really like it. The Germans could do always do with more trash units on the Russia front to support the tanks so again, another real advantage of spending on water initially. Thanks again

[@soerenwizard]

@@manix429 I must also state that I am not making this stuff up. I just finished playing a game with friends, standard rules initial setup. I played UK. The German player used this tactic. He was never able to conquer UK, but I ended up having 11 Inf, 2 tanks and 1 art tied up in the UK. My side ended the game by forfeiting after 7 rounds, when the USSR was finally attritioned to death. If executed with iron discipline, the small German fleet can tie up the UK. These are the actual numbers of relevance: the German fleet in the Baltic - 1 AC, 2 Fi, 2 Cruiser, 2 Transport. In the same general area, the Germans further had 2 Fi and 1 Bomber. This means that a US fleet that has to enter SZ 8 needs to be like: 2 Bat, 1 AC, 2 Fi, 2 Cruiser, 1 Dest. That is an exchange stack, if the Germans attack (!).

[@bravehome4276]

Another fine idea! Recent game UK built 6 more F for UK, current 8! At this point I abandoned the Germ Baltic Fleet and just used the 2F to help on Moscow. All those F also took away from India builds! UK4 he still has no transports, and I have 2 subs hidden in Baltic waiting for him to build some (subs+air if he has built sea Defense for Trans -- yummy)

[@christopherquigley5468]

The UI in this game makes sea lion possible against a new player. I almost got sea lioned because I couldn't see the transport ships. Luckily, I think my opponent didn't realize he had the odds, so he waited another turn. And that is the only reason he lost. The UI needs to make transports (their number) more clear. It was only when I zoomed in that I could see more than one.

[@user-ge1pz2km6q]

You can see your opponent's purchase and mobilization....

[@pikpikgamer2346]

Thank you for putting the odds calculator in the description

[@manix429]

No problem, its a useful tool

[@pikpikgamer2346]

Manix I just picked up the board game of 1942 thanks for all the strategies to help me. This game really helps my friends and I pass the time during quarantine, thanks again

[@manix429]

Awesome, i've never tried the board game but want to at some point. No problem, hope you win!

[@pikpikgamer2346]

Thanks for the good luck I look forward to all your future A&A content, stay safe

[@NationalNatron]

I think the extra Mediterranean transport and Battle ship is a consideration, Bomber or no bomber but also would you not attack only until you start loosing planes? then attack again in round 3 or potentially save ipc until round 2 "Tricking the UK and USA players to make different purchases/moves in the first round...

[@mrpie55vainglory46]

Hey this was a fun mini-series to follow. I have a lot of thoughts but my main one is about maxing out all the possibilities you mention in your video. Let's say that reasonable things go our way: Russia doesn't kill German bomber on R1 We kill all British ships on G1 (we don't attack american fleet because we aren't Sealion G3) We send battleship and transport just outside Gibraltar (and take it) on G1 (and put a tank in France to be taken by Gibraltar transport to Sealion G2) We buy aircraft carrier + 3 transports (instead of 2 with cruiser) and none of this fleet dies to British air. This might be optimistic but doesn't seem impossible! They might prefer to keep their planes alive for defense of Britain. G2 sealion now has an extra 2 tanks and 2 infantry (but no more bombardment) for total 5 tanks, 5 inf, 6 fighters, 1 bomber. By my calculations, that's an 87% chance of German victory if the opponent buys what yours did (7 inf 1 AAgun). Please feel free to check my math. I'm wondering if this strategy could work at lower tiers against people who can make mistakes that lead to this outcome? To Manix and viewers, what do you guys think? Is it possible to add in 2 tanks and 2 inf instead of cruiser in this way? Maybe I'll record a video where I set up this scenario and share the results. Math: imgur.com/a/84CN90y

[@mrpie55vainglory46]

Update: I played a game against myself and set up the situation I described above. I haven't made a video yet but maybe I will when I try in ranked. The outcome was great for the Germans. Again, not totally sure it can be pulled off this well against a good Allied player. That being said, if it works, I think it's worth it even with the British Indian fleet knocking on my door in the med and with Russia having built stacks. Let me know if you guys think this is at all realistic. imgur.com/a/NdsjVZb

[@manix429]

I like the idea for sure, the transport in Gibraltar was something I didnt test properly so combined with more transports in the Baltics sounds dangerous for the allies. Plus the probability of a win if the allies do an aerial attack (2 fighters, 1 bomber) on that fleet (1 carrier, 2 fighters) they have around a 24% chance of winning. So thats pretty solid for Germany. Definitely worth exploring!

[@manix429]

EDIT: Sorry the chance of winning that fight for Britain is around 51% not 24%, made an error on the calculator. So still a risky attack for Britain

[@cadkisson9]

@@manix429 I just had someone pull this off on me in Round 2. He had 6 fighters and a bomber combined with inf and tanks. I made the mistake of not maxing out infantry in Britain, and lost. The odds were ~55%-$45% in Germany's favor. Mistake on my part, either way you divert a lot of IPC away from India and a future Navy in Britain.

[@manix429]

Annoying isnt it? I think if Germany does it, Britain needs to defend and wait until the US can bring in naval support to control the sea. Then Britain can work on unloading some of those troops into France. But yh agreed, until that support arrives Britain is stuck and India is weaker than it should be

[@bleutooth1000]

What if you bring up an Inf and Tank from the Med with the battle ship and have a fighter help out the battle ship? I ran all the defense options with 1 extra transport (Inf and Tank) and none of the counters you mentioned stop it. 70+ % victory on round two, and round 2 you can spawn Inf/Art and push it east or west depending on what Russia is doing. That transport from the Med makes all the difference!

[@areslod7468]

Hey there, nothing to do with this strat, but i was bingeing ur vids and have a tip for u now that i am up to date with ur vids, u havent done it yet, and had plenty of opportunities to do it: the devensiv blitz: in the board game i always did an attack with a tank and noncombat moved it back, now i guess thats not compliant with the rules, but the way u do it, and u do it in the game, is to attack with the tank into an empty adjacent territory and move it back right away as part of its combat move for an exampel: ur recent video "Final game vs matt #7" at around 1min in, russia is about to be defeated (dev blitz doesnt change that) u could have used ur 3 tanks to take 3 territories (5IPCs) off of the japanese and rolled back into moskow with no draw back, but japan would have gotten 5 ipcs less for several rounds, u could argue u would rather have the japanese have these ipcs than the german tho, (whitch is fine i guess) but i think u just dont know u can do that (whitch again fine since ur still learning as u said) sorry for backseading tho, keep it going

[@manix429]

Thanks for the tip about this. I think someone else also commented about that particular video too and made the point I could have blitzed back into Russia. So I am doing that in games now finally, wish I'd known sooner haha. Thanks for the help

[@petersamantharadisich6095]

one thing that I did with russia in this strategy was to take Germany in r3 with russia after Germany took uk in r2 - it was hilarious - russia got all of german + uk income... basically that is my counter to germany going sea lion...really aggressive russia...also it makes taking Ukraine on r1 russia a good idea in the modified version - 1 less fighter and no bomber

[@BoldWittyName]

Two thoughts omitted here are #1 maybe you want a quick game. #2 if you are overmatched by your opponent, its a good way to snipe a win.

[@markh.3008]

What happens if you attack on the 2nd turn with 33% chance of winning, you can then retreat with most of your airforce, and repeat the attack on turn 3, possibly with additional bombers purchased on turn 2., you can position your fleet in a way that blocks the us transports from reinforcing the uk.

[@manix429]

I might have to do a part 3 to this because people are making some really interesting suggestions. I like your idea, so you then would position tanks + infantry in Northwestern europe ready for those initial transports to reload, and also combine that with more transports in the baltic sea or bombers and get a strong attack Round 3. Another strategy worth looking into!

[@markh.3008]

@@manix429 That's my idea, although the additional the bombers will probably have to be the path, as he should have an airforce to attack any transports that don't come with naval support.

[@kenhill5214]

6:30 He was at 26ipc - Why didn't he do 6 infantry, 1 armor, 1 AA?

[@kenhill5214]

10:00 It looks like the odds calculator includes a German Cruiser and Battleship, which are not shown on the screen. So I had 3 infantry, 3 armor, 6 fighters, 1 bomber, 1 cruiser, a battleship against (2+8) infantry, 1 artillery, 1 armor, 2 fighters, 1 bomber, 1 antiair and got 27.5%. It would take the German player some amazing dice to get into a situation like this. They cleared the Canadian seazone with 40% probability which can be improved with 2 subs and leaving the US seazone alone, but the sub is needed to kill the UK BB.

[@manix429]

Because he also wanted to deploy to India