Axis and Allies Pacific

I had the privilage of enjoying some Axis and Allies Pacific at President Oakes' house last Thursday. I, of course, as Emperor, played the Japanese. Oakes played India, Australia, China, and the United States. Now, get this... The US starts out with 72 IPC's! That's 72 million man hours of production! Japan starts with 19! So, you can see that I was at a disadvantage.

My strategy was simple... After Perl Harbor (simulated rather nicely in the rules by allowing Japan to attack at full strength and forcing everyone else, except the Chineese, to defend at 1.) I decided to give the US a "scorched water" policy in the Pacific. I decided to retreat and keep on retreating in the Pacific until the US came close to the Home Islands.

On the other side of the board, where my fleets, armies, and airpower confroted those Brits and Chineese, I dominated. By the third or fourth turn, I had almost completely destroyed the British seapower in the area. The Ark Royal (British Aircraft Carrier in the Indian Ocean) went down in a shower of bombs.

Now, of course, on land it was a near run thing. I did take the Philippeans, Java, and the Dutch East Indies, but for a time I had a hard time holding onto French Indochina. This was remedied, however, when I took my armies from all of the other islands and landed them there.

After the sea was clear of British vessels, I was able to land troops on the Indian subcontinent at will. The Brits had a nice army sitting in India, with lots of tanks, and I thought that maybe the Brits would push into French Indochina... If they would have done that, I probably would not have been able to attack India. But, for some reason, the Brits were on the defensive and didn't push. India was a close battle, but the Japs ended up victorious.

The turn before, the US had moved its fleet into the Japanese home waters. After destroying the original Jap fleet that bombed Pearl Harobor, the remainder of the US fleet was destroyed by Jap fighters. Of course, the US had a lot of stuff on the board, and they were pushing through the Pacific. But, because I took a capital and held it for a turn, I won the battle.... :)

I'd certainly like a rematch, this time with me having some 72 IPC's to start with... :)

Strategy... If you are Japan, kill the UK navy as quickly as possible. Then, do as much as you can to take a capital.

If you are the UK, basically what you should do is try to take out as many Jap ground forces as possible. Husband your navy, guard it and keep it, for you don't want the Japs to have the run of the sea.

If you are the US, you need to push NOW. If you are able to push into the South Pacific and retake some of the Dutch East Indies, then you will take some pressure off of your UK allies. If you don't do this, look for Japan to run roughshod over you. I don't think that the US going after the home islands is helpful, although I've seen it work before... (and I was the Japs that time too... I think that was the last Axis and Allies Pacific game I played against Ryan. If I remember, I barely took Japan back... Maybe that was a good idea, after all...)

Well, Happy Gaming!