Slitherine

In two recent campaign games my human Axis opponents have ignored critical VP locations they could easily have taken, particularly of note is Bryansk. In both cases they lost the campaigns but neither played incompetently in other ways and in one game I nearly lost Moscow for a while.

In the other game it seemed the player was deliberately leaving my trapped Soviet armies to avoid me rebuilding them and just living with the fuel loss this caused.

Has anyone else either come across or used this tactic successfully? I just think avoiding the reoccurring VP locations is insane but maybe I will be proved wrong! Is it a point of honour form some players to only go for Moscow?

The bypassing armies strategy in general may have something to recommend it. (Personally, I don't employ it. Too much chance of it wrecking a carefully-planned attack during the frost phase.) But it's ludicrous as applied to the VP per turn spaces. Unless you actually succeed in capturing Moscow--and a competent Soviet player won't let you--you have to win the game on points, which means capturing at least three VP per turn spaces early and holding them until the end of the frost phase. Anyone who leaves Soviet units in Bryansk to "wither on the vine" until turn 8 or later is setting themselves up to fail.