As I'd hoped, Bill has posted a battle report for the game of Axis & Allies (revised edition) that we played on Saturday. I played the Allies, while he controlled the Axis powers. Although it was a one-sided affair almost from the start, which is less interesting than a tight game, we still had a fun time with it overall.
Time runs out for Germany - click to enlargePlayers of the original Axis and Allies will definitely want to check out the later edition. Not only does it add a couple of new unit types (artillery and destroyers), but it also corrects a lot of the imbalances present in the 1981 edition, most importantly the terrible tech charts.
If I were to pick a few rules changes that make the biggest strategic difference they would be:
- Changing the defense value of tanks from 2 to 3. This is particularly massive for Russia, as it allows them to maintain a stronger defense while simultaneously delivering powerful attacks to Germany's eastern front.
- Adding the Sahara desert to Africa. This makes it far more difficult for the Germans to conquer the continent, starving them from what used to be a guaranteed source of IPCs.
- Low cost submarines. At 6 IPCs, subs are a steal - and with their sneak attack they can cause havoc early and often.
- Removing the combat value from transports, and making them ineligible as combat targets. A staple strategy in Axis & Allies naval combat used to be bringing extra transports to a battle to take early hits. Not only is this moot, but now transports are auto-destroyed when present in a sea space containing only enemy units.
I look forward to playing a game as the Axis sometime soon; after the beating that I delivered to Bill I'm curious to see if I can overcome the problems he ran into and threaten the world.
6 comments:
I like the cunning Allied method of recapturing Norway by paving the North Sea. Saves faffing around with an amphibious operation!
I had Canadians in Norway on turn two (or perhaps one?) - either way it was great. They ended up linking up with the Egyptians in the end game to take out some Germany territory or another.
Back to your comment though, it actually gets at one big thing I dislike about the revised game: the board is a lot smaller, but the pieces are the same size. Not only that, but they removed the "zoom" boxes, so you end up with pieces spilling out into the sea in many areas.
It does look a bit messy in the more cluttered areas. Sounds fun, though; I could never find anyone local enough who was up for anything heavier than Risk
Could you play with the revised rules on the old board, just adding in the Sahara desert manually? Or are there more fundamental board changes that you need with the new board?
Several years ago, I got my dad "Axis and Allies" for his birthday. My father, my mother, my brother, my husband (then boyfriend), and myself sat down to play, while my grandmother watched. My dad and I were the Axis (I was Japan, he was Germany). My COLORBLIND brother was the US, my boyfriend was Russia, and my mother was the UK.
My dad and I went into the hallway and had several strategy sessions. We were totally unified in what needed to be done. The Allies, however....
My mother kept getting up to do laundry and had no idea what was going on. My brother had no idea which armies were his (since all the armies were various shades of green/khaki). My boyfriend was getting mad, because my dad and I had identified him at the biggest threat and were ganging up on him.
It was one of the most hilarious and fun gaming sessions ever.
@Tesh:
No - there are quite a few territory changes, especially in the sea zones.
One really odd decision with the game board was to include the IPC track, which chews up a pile of real estate. It was much better when there was a separate cut out to track industrial production.
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