We’ve started to see abuses similar to the airbase rules with the Soviets. What’s happening is that as the German player builds up on the border of the USSR, when it looks like Barbarossa is about to happen the Soviet player pulls his forces back from the border, leaving a single infantry in each border territory, with strong forces in the next territory eastward and all of the aircraft consolidated into one territory (of course) to cover this second line. This causes the discard of a card each turn, of course, but the logic stated here is. “So what if it costs me the card? I’m not going to be able to declare war before Germany anyway, and saving those front-line units is more important.” This creates an issue for the Germans, since they would have to hit the second line in the Mechanized Phase, and thus any casualties they take against this second line (which, thanks to the withdrawal, is stronger than it should be) will be more costly, since they’ll be taken against either Pz Grenadiers or armor.
This not only runs against history, since Stalin would never have done such a thing, but also makes things much more difficult for Germany, since the Soviets do not take anything close to the number of casualties they normally would on the first turn at war, Germany takes higher casualties in their mechanized forces, or both.
While this is a logical tactic within the game, as I said, it’s totally unhistorical. The ideas I’m considering are:
1) The Soviets MUST maintain the 5 ground unit, 1 aircraft garrison in each of the listed territories after achieving Tension Level One, period.
2) Make the current rule tougher by saying that the Soviets do not draw any cards for any reason on any turn that the border garrison is not met. Or make it even tougher by saying they don’t draw any cards for any reason until the turn after they achieve border garrisons. Making it this tough will give Germany a lot of leeway to make mischief in other areas, and in games with more than one Allied player will cause whoever is playing other Allies to really pressure the Soviets to toe the line (or at least garrison it).
3) Add a rule that states that if Germany attacks the Soviets after Tension Level One on any turn in which the Soviets could have met the garrison minimums but didn’t then ALL German ground units may move and attack in the mechanized phase of the first turn of the war. This could be justified by saying it represents the total surprise the Germans achieved at the start of Barbarossa.
Of these I think I like the tougher option of the second one best, since it’s the one that would give the Axis the most flexibility. I like the third idea as well, but the Soviets could circumvent that merely by dropping back yet another territory.
