Russian Unorthodoxy

The Axis have turned their attention to the West first so the wheels begin to spin in your Russian mindset. Solid, conservative play (generally speaking, the historical Soviet Option card plays) will probably put you in the best position to meet a historical (or near-historical) Axis Barbarossa-style invasion in the Summer of 1941. At some point, though, you sense that the Axis aren’t coming in 1941. (Usually, around Spring 1941, is when you can gauge this with some certainty.) As Axis forces stay amassed against England or perhaps march into Spain, fixated ever westward, your instincts tell you that the Axis are going to try to drag out Limited War as long as possible, cower behind the Nazi-Soviet Pact, and deal with you at the last possible moment.

It happens.

When it does, you should be ready for it. To help you, Marshal Stalin, here is some food for thought concerning Soviet Grand Strategy and Option card play for those times when you don’t believe the Axis won’t be bothering you until 1942.

If you played General Mobilization in the Summer of 1940, go have yourself shot right now. It’s a sucker play to get you to discard Stalin Challenges Germany prematurely and tell the Axis that they can drive down the West at will (but stay out of the Baltic States, Bulgaria, and Turkey) and the Nazi-Soviet Pact will be there to cover them. It’s a big Soviet kiss-off to the West and will, in the long run, make your job of winning the game much harder.

That’s because most Axis players will accept a Soviet invitation to stomp the West for an extra year (usually collapsing England in the process) without fear of any Stalin Challenges repercussions and will leave the British so crippled that they’ll be little use to you as an ally later on. Without the West to absorb as much material and mind share focus from the Main Event (the Russo-German war) as possible, the Axis can bear down on the Russian bear and keep dealing heavy blows for years before the West is even resurrected to the level of nuisance again. Unless you can, with four Limited War Option cards and another year of peace at home, turn the Red Army into such a colossus that it can win the war for the Allies pretty much single-handedly, you'd better consider stirring the pot in Europe and bailing out your British buddies.

What compels the Axis to stop fooling around in the West and deal with you is your Stalin Challenges Germany card. The Soviet Union’s western border is not that from the Great Piggy Bank of Axis Strategic Hexes in Central Europe, so the mere threat of the Red Army nearby is enough to drive even the steadiest Axis player to distraction. As long as you hold the card that allows you to kick open the door to Central Europe (i.e.,. break the Nazi-Soviet Pact) at a time of your choosing, the Axis player will probably consider that it’s better to do unto you sooner rather than later and forgo his continued westward campaigning.

Often, the Axis player will decide to keep pressing West and ignore a Barbarossa ’41 strategy after the game has been in progress for a while. In other words, this Axis "Long West" strategy is more often than not improvised rather than planned before the first Option cards are selected. Consequently, many Axis players will begin by dealing with the Polish Question first and conquering Poland (declaring it to be a Western Allied Minor Country). If this is the case, you’re in the catbird seat in Eastern Europe and ought to be licking your chops. Your window of opportunity just got bigger.

That’s because, with Poland divided (you did remember to pick up your half, right?), you now share a reasonably long border with the Axis. Longer than the mere Baltic States/East Prussia border, to be sure. Long enough to make some mischief and give the Axis player anything from a headache to an ulcer when activated. With the Polish Question resolved, Hitler and Stalin can go straight at each other throats at a moment’s notice with plenty of room to maneuver; this is something you can use to your advantage.

If, however, the Axis player has left Poland neutral and it remains so after you detect Hitler will "Go Long" (with Limited War) and stay focused on the West, then there is a deliberate Axis plan at work. That is, the Axis player is looking for an easy road to Axis Tide 3. A goal that he can probably pull off unless things go awry; that’s where you come in. Once you sense this is the Axis strategy, it becomes incumbent upon you, the Soviet player, to stir the pot in Europe and start chipping away at Axis advantages.

Sal Vasta points out, "To me, this strategy of ignoring Poland and taking a long Limited War against the West is the mirror image of an East First scenario. Players are all hot about the Axis attacking Russia first right now because there is a relatively high chance they'll beat the Soviet Union to a pulp. Whether it is the West going down for the count using the above strategy, or the Soviet Union similarly going down in an East First scenario, the game will certainly take a seemingly "pro-Axis bias" because Germany didn't accomplish Axis Tide 3 historically. The point that needs to be made is, what does the map look like when there are about two years left of fighting to do (circa Spring ’44 after a long Limited War)? So far, it seems the war has sufficiently turned against the Axis in most cases and that any Axis early war advantages are lost (and then some).

"The problem is, as I perceive it, that no matter how you slice it, a long Limited War is less predictable and more luck reliant on the part of the Allies. If the unengaged Allied faction fails to stir the pot in Europe, because they were unlucky in die rolling or stupid enough to blow their main chances (like playing the Soviet's General Mobilization card in 1940), then of course the Germans with their Mark III (post Lebensraum/Barbarossa) Army are going to slice and dice whatever faction they are focused on."

So, the unanswered Polish Question becomes one that you, the Soviet player, must consider answering. After all, a Polish buffer state will only slow you down on the road to Germany, so one way or another, something must be done about Poland. If you’re going to stir the pot in Europe, how you go about it will depend on the resolution of the Polish Question. Either it has been resolved when your time to act is at hand, or it has not been. Let’s examine in detail both possibilities.

If the Polish Question is resolved when you detect that the Axis will be neglecting you in 1941, then you have all the options available to you that you could want.

Let’s say it’s Spring ’41, time to pick your Summer ’41 Option card, and you decide that the Axis aren’t coming this year. What are your options? What can you do to make some merry mischief in Europe, Scandinavia, or the Middle East?

Let’s assume that you’ve done the three Border Disputes (Polish, Finnish, and Rumanian), closed the deal on the Baltic States, and have played two or three Mobilization cards (depending how you feel about the Manchurian Settlement option). What’s still up your sleeve?

Well, forget your four Limited War Production cards, the German Ultimatum, and General Winter for starters. Those are of no immediate use for your Rage Against the Axis plan. No, what you’re trying to do is break the Pact and bugger the Axis in the most effective, demoralizing way possible (and those cards won’t help right now).

Essentially, you have two ways to break the Nazi-Soviet Pact. The first method, which we’ll call "Plan A," is to play Stalin Challenges Germany and roll high (and with a +1 Political DRM for a presumed Axis Tide of ‘1,’ that should be doable). The second way to break the Pact, which we’ll call "Plan B," is to have you activate Turkey (or Bulgaria) as an Axis Minor Country and plop the Balkan Pact on the table for a nearly sure-fire Pact-braking experience. (The Axis could voluntarily eliminate the Turkish (or Bulgarian) armies to dodge this bullet, but that's a very tough call for the Axis.) Using either method, though, requires proper timing.

Playing Stalin Challenges Germany is the "direct approach" to accomplishing this goal. Like all of the other approaches (in Plan B), it is dicey and requires some luck to pull off. In this case, a result of ‘6’ is optimal (and obtainable with the assumed +1 Political DRM), providing a "Successful Challenge" result that can tear the Pact asunder and allow the Red Hordes to immediately start doing their thing. A result of ‘2’ is bad (Unsuccessful Challenge) and a result of ‘5’ is a dilemma (Stalin Pressures Neutrals).

With an Unsuccessful Challenge, the Axis might activate a neutral minor whose Border Region you’ve annexed or he could slap a Command/Supply Failure on you just as you got a head of steam up and started attacking.

With Stalin Pressures Neutrals, if the Pact isn’t broken you can break it, but will have to count down several turns to end the Truce Markers you’ll have to deal with starting with Reassess Policy. It’s a bird in the hand when a Successful Challenge result that you might roll next turn is really two in the bush. That’s why a Stalin Pressures Neutrals result can be a dilemma; if the Pact isn’t broken yet, should you do so and go through the Truce process?

Know what the possible results are on the Stalin Challenge Germany card is one thing. Figuring out when to play it is another. Personally, I like the three die rolls and clear weather of Summer, so I will tend to play this card in the Spring of ’41 to appear in the Summer. It’s a gutsy move, because you might not be completely sure that the Axis won’t pop you with their own offensive in the Summer of ’41 at that time, but even if they do, there’s worse cards to greet Barbarossa with than Stalin Challenges Germany. A Successful Challenge at any time during the Summer will allow you Blitz combat, and if you’ve got some tanks laying around, there is some definite grief you can give the invading Axis horde with that. (Besides, how great can Barbarossa be if you’ve figured it wasn’t even coming at you this year? The Axis player is probably improvising and you will be, too, if you meet it with Stalin Challenges. Just do your best to out-improvise the Axis player, that’s all.)

Unfortunately, you don’t have a lot of great choices to make for your Autumn selection, but you have to go on the assumption that you’ll be in a shooting war with the Axis by then. That means either your last regular Mobilization card or your Manchurian Settlement card (depending on which is available).

For your Winter card selection you must assess the situation on the board. Are the Axis still weak in the East? If so, muster your Stalin Orders Attack card and really press matters in the snow; save your Release Strategic Reserves card for the Summer of ’42 where you can maximize the Conditional Replacements it will generate. If the Axis are managing to bog you down and plug the holes, then play your Release Strategic Reserves for the Winter of ‘41/’42 and get some of your better pieces on the table before the Axis start rolling you back in the Summer of ‘42. With those new Strategic Reserve pieces, you’ll have plenty of decent ground units (Guards), your port-a-fort, and three more HQs to blunt the Axis’ first Blitz against you. The combined weight of these units being in place by the Summer of ’42 gives you some real potential for being in good shape going into 1943. Remember, VE-Day will be in ’46, so if you’re in good shape in ’43, the Axis are going to be hurting big time by the game’s end.

For more conservative players who don’t want to gamble on a Summer ’41 play of Stalin Challenges Germany, play your last regular Mobilization or Manchurian Settlement card for the Summer of 1941 (just to be sure the Axis aren’t coming). Don’t dawdle after that, though. Get your Stalin Challenges card lined up to be revealed in the Autumn of ’41 with Soviet Initiative in the queue for the Winter of ‘41/’42 (thus, you can get some Blitzing done while the Axis are still, hopefully, busy). Plan for Release Strategic Reserves for the Summer of ’42 and forget about Stalin Orders Attack. You’ll need the Counteroffensive and General Winter for the Winter of ‘42/’43.

If you’re not up to Challenging Germany and want to try the indirect (or "accidental") approach to breaking the Nazi-Soviet Pact, you have three Option cards (listed below) that can get the job done by activating Turkey or Bulgaria as an Axis minor. That must then followed up with your Balkan Pact card to actually break the Pact. Obviously, it would be better to have Bulgaria be your enemy and the Casus Belli for breaking the peace with Germany. That’s because Bulgaria is a shrimp that you can easily clobber whereas Turkey could become a potential sinkhole for Red Army corps (Istanbul can hold out for a long time against cross-strait attacks). On the up side to tackling Turkey, if you can find the time to play the Turkish Border Dispute card, you can get another Ceded Border Marker and HQ into play without needing to worry about later Turkish activation!

The Soviet Expansionism Approach: The Expansionism approach’s advantages are twofold. The first advantage is that it provides a better chance to succeed at 50% (that is, to activate Turkey as an Axis Minor Country) with each Conditional Event roll than the other two choices (at 33%). Expansionism also offers the advantage of preserving the Soviet Initiative Option card in the Soviet player’s hand (an extremely useful Limited War Blitz card that’s perfect for keeping a late-war drive into Germany going at full steam) and Comintern will remain a joker up your sleeve. In other words, two of the biggest Axis worries still remain available Options for future use.

The disadvantage of the Expansionism approach is the disadvantage of a Conditional Event Segment activation of Turkey. That is, the Axis player will get a chance to organize his defenses before the Red Army can move in and start roasting Turkey.

The Soviet Initiative Approach: The principle advantage to the Initiative approach is the fact that the activation die roll for Turkey will be made during the Political Events Segment (at the beginning of the Soviet player’s turn). Thus, the Red Army will have a chance to rush in, use Blitz combat and armor shifts, and try to knock the stuffing out of Turkey before it can organize its defenses.

There are a few of disadvantages to Initiative approach, though. First, your spending one of your precious Limited War Blitz cards early in the war (when it has such great possible uses late in the war). The other big disadvantage is the lower chance to succeed at 33% than that offered by Soviet Expansionism (50%). There are also fewer replacements offered by Soviet Initiative than Soviet Expansionism (2 tank steps versus 3 infantry steps) at a time when steps count the most.

The Comintern Approach: The Comintern approach can be wacky. You might find it an advantage if you wind up with a Soviet Allied Turkey (who wouldn’t?), but that doesn’t accomplish the larger goal of breaking the Nazi-Soviet Pact. If Turkey becomes a Soviet ally (a 50% chance), then Bulgaria must go Axis at some point (a 33% chance) or the Balkan Pact Option card won’t break the Nazi-Soviet Pact, thus defeating the whole purpose of this exercise.

So, even if things seemingly go "right" (and you succeed in subverting Turkey to the Soviet cause), they might really be going "wrong." That’s because, if you only get Free Passage, the Axis will either waltz right in when their time comes to deal with you or you’ll have to shed a lot of forces out of the Motherland to defend Turkey. And even if Turkey becomes your ally and arrives with a full Mobilization die roll, you still don’t get to break the Nazi-Soviet Pact so the pressure on the British will still be too great. Ack!

The one geographical "ace" you have up your sleeve if the Nazi-Soviet Pact is not broker is that there are usually a couple of neutral countries left in the Middle East. If you can activate and occupy them, will give the Axis some fits when they try to mop up the British Empire. That is, Syria (which is created via Vichy) and Persia can become key players at this juncture of the war. Syria will keep the Axis from advancing past its vital crossroads at Damascus until the Axis are ready to deal with you. Failing to beat the Axis to Syria, you might still be able to land a Declaration of War against Persia and at least be able to close its Strategic Hex down.

If the Polish Question is not resolved when you detect that the Axis will be neglecting you in 1941, then you need to take a look at the map and consider your options. Given the same set of conditions (repeated below), you have to examine the map in light of a black hole at its center (i.e., a neutral Poland). That really does put an interesting spin on things.

It’s Spring ’41, time to pick your Summer ’41 Option card, when you decide that the Axis aren’t coming this year. You’ve done the three Border Disputes (Polish, Finnish, and Rumanian), closed the deal on the Baltic States, and have played two or three Mobilization cards (depending how you feel about the Manchurian Settlement option). With Poland still a neutral minor country, what are your options?

Remember that you’re still trying to break the Nazi-Soviet Pact and nail the Axis big time. The trouble is that even if you do, your "frontage" with Germany is a measly hex or two along the border of East Prussia. And even if you capture all of East Prussia, where do you go for an encore?

If you ignore Poland, you’ll be following Plan B (above) to open up the Middle East but don’t follow it up by breaking the Nazi-Soviet Pact via the Balkan Pact card. Instead, keep the N-S Pact in place and do all you can to drive on Damascus (assuming Vichy France exists and Syria is now a Neutral Minor Country). That means achieving a Declaration of War versus Syria by some method (including a Stalin Challenges Germany, if necessary; though it shouldn’t be). Your goal is to beat the Axis to Damascus and close off the entire Middle East to the Axis for as long as possible. If that fails, then maybe you will have to try to break the N-S Pact and choose the Middle East as your main battle ground to fight the Axis until the Germans resolve the Polish Question.

If you open up Poland, you have two ways to go. You can fight ‘em or you can join ‘em (well, try to get them to join you).

If you want to open up Poland and want Poland on your side, you have exactly one proactive option, Comintern. Of course, even then you’d better be ready for fight. With a 17% chance that Poland will only grant Free Passage, whatever non-German troops the Axis have available that can be rushed into Poland will be, and they might even take Warsaw from the Polish Reserve corps before you can get there. More worrisome for you is the natural 33% chance that Poland will just up and side with Germany and you’ll have to fight the Poles anyway. Only if Comintern delivers you a full or limited Polish activation can you really plan on marching into Western Poland and lining up against Germany in that "forward" position.

While it is possible to play Comintern for the Summer of ’41 and roll up Poland, Hungary, and Yugoslavia as Soviet allies (talk about a German nightmare scenario), you can’t count on that (even if you’re playing against Sal Vasta). Comintern is too chaotic. But looking beyond Poland to Hungary is definitely something to consider since you’re trying to press the Axis as hard as you can.

Of course, nudging the Nazi-Soviet Pact "partition line" further westward via Comintern is one thing. It must still be broken to really deliver the goods, grappling with Germany in brave unequal combat, and bailing out your British buddies by opening up one helluva "second front." To that end, you have to follow up Comintern with Stalin Challenge Germany for the Fall of ’41 and keep driving westward - into the Reich if at all possible. The goal here is to get the Axis player not just to react, but to overreact and take a lot of steam out of their westward march by conducting a successful westward march of your own! If you’re a gambler and expect you’ll hit a Successful Challenge in the Autumn, then you’ll want to follow that up with the Soviet Initiative card for the Winter of ‘41/’42 and try to deliver some serious death and destruction. If you have balls of steel, play your German Ultimatum card in the Spring of ’42 and try to shut down Germany completely. Wow!

Of course, things will have to go like clockwork to pull off that stunt. If you’re handed the Polish Army to assist you in your quest, the upcoming war against Germany will become that much easier. If Poland resists and joins Germany, chances are the Germans will rush in a few corps and set up a picket line of German Zones of Control that the Poles can hide in or behind. This means that even after the Pact is broken (by your upcoming Stalin Challenge card), now the Axis have a lot of "free" steps to throw in your way and slow down your dreams of Communist Liberation (all in the name of helping your democratic ally, of course). You’ll do well to liberate Poland, much less capture an Axis Strategic Hex in Germany and bring the whole house down.

If you want to open up Poland and don’t care if Poland is on your sides then set the subtlety and chaos of Comintern aside for now and ask yourself, "do I feel lucky?" If the answer is "yes," then play Stalin Challenges Germany for the Summer of ’41 and hope to hit a Successful Challenge result twice. That is, once to activate Poland as an Axis Minor Country (which you must charge straight into and try to liberate it as best you’re able), and once to break the Nazi-Soviet Pact.

You don’t necessarily have to employ these two Successful Challenge results in that order (Poland then Pact). It makes sense from a "rolling westward" view, but if you don’t break the Pact with Stalin Challenges at this juncture, you probably shouldn’t even bother. (Your Middle East intervention option, as previously described, still remains open in this case.) So, cautious players may opt to break the Pact first and then, if a second Successful Challenge proves elusive, Poland can always be brought into the war by one of the other three cards (Expansionism, Initiative, or Comintern).

Consequently, it is a good idea to follow up the Neutral-Poland-Stalin-Challenges-Play with one of those three cards. (I would play optimistically and reveal Soviet Initiative in the Autumn of ’41, but your balls may vary.) In the Winter of ‘41/’42, of course, depending on the on-map situation (do I have any hope of getting anywhere or not?) I’ll either play Stalin Order Attack or Release Strategic Reserves. Either way, the Axis player won’t like what he sees.

Now, the other approach to leading with either Comintern or Stalin Challenges Germany for the Summer of 1941 is to try to weasel Poland with either Soviet Expansionism or Soviet Initiative and then play Stalin Challenges in the Fall. The big downside to this is that you can’t play either Stalin Orders Attack or Release Strategic Reserves for the Winter of ‘41/’42 since you won’t break the Pact until sometime in the Autumn (after your Winter card selection must be made). This means playing a bland card for the Winter or ‘41/’42 (your last Mobilization or, perhaps, the Manchurian Settlement card) and maybe for the Spring of ’42 as well with your Release Strategic Reserves card coming out of the Summer of ’42 (just to score those big replacements). This is hardly engender the kind of "stuck pig" reaming and screaming you want to inflict on the Axis player and is likely to do little to help your British allies except to have the Axis player draw off enough forces to screen against your non-Blitzing, going nowhere forces. A Sitzkrieg on the Germans’ Eastern Front is the best they can hope for, and with this sequence of card plays, that’s exactly what you’re giving them. Therefore, I don’t recommend a Soviet Expansionism or Soviet Initiative play for the Summer of ’41 when you know the Axis are going West and Poland is a Neutral Minor Country.