AA50 3-D Terrain Gaming Table (COMPLETED July 20, 2010)

Start of Germany 6 - Moscow has fallen (for good). Paris has been liberated but will be re-taken.

The US fleet was trapped in the north Pacific and then suicided into the Japanese armada. Gave my son a brief and ultimately futile lesson about blockers as mine were at first mocked, then explained, then admired… and summarily swept away.

At the end of J5 he ended up with 5 fully loaded carriers off the coast of Southwestern US, but no surviving destroyers within 4 Sea Zones… so on US5, instead of staffing transports headed for Germany, I built 7 subs underneath his carriers out of spite and a desire to educate >:)

Italy has been pushed nearly out of Africa and is turtling.

Japan has been pushed almost completely out of China, has 6-7 IPCs in Russia, and is outrageously strong at sea.

UK has remained very strong, which has been extremely fun and unusual.

French/free french struggle was good, although Vichy did not take much action.

ANZAC cat and mouse with Japan is perfect, could see them being a huge hassle for a Japan that goes hard into china/russia/mainland IC.

Russia pathetically weak with no hope of survival, adjustments needed.

US very weak, unable to defend coastline against determined Japan even with 100% pacific investment. adjustments needed.

Allied surrender looms.

I have been playing around with different configurations for a custom table and wanted to note some things I’ve landed on that I really like. A main one thing is having the map mounted so that it can slide around as needed on top of a bigger playing area. My table is 65” x 95” in total with a 5.5” arm rest around the outside and the middle is a recessed neoprene surface. I have the OOB Global map mounted on 1/2” rigid foam with a 1/2” aluminum frame around it. This allows the map to slide up close to whoever’s turn it is, but then be in the middle so both players can roll dice In front of them without disturbing the map and in easy view of the other player. (Plus we like lots of room to roll the bones). This ability to adjust the surface along with a standing height, makes it comfortable for long uses because you can move around more and don’t feel as tied down.
Things I’ve learned and changed from original design - I originally used too big of a frame for the map and mounted it on too high of a foam block (you can see these pictures at the bottom) - it made it hard to see the other player’s dice and the big frame took up too much real estate. My global map is mounted on much thinner foam (the framing is bad, you can see if you look closely) but I also used much thinner aluminum angle for the frame. This gives just enough grip when needing to move the map around (I use furniture slides on the bottom, which glide very nicely on the neoprene) but doesn’t make the whole thing too bulky. Having it an inch or so off the surface keeps the dice off, but isn’t so heigh that you can’t see the other player’s dice rolls. When playing other versions (such as Zombies) the board is much smaller, but it can easily swap in and out on the same table since it can move around where ever it is needed or be pushed aside.
I originally made it normal table height, but found long reaches while sitting were harder and it just felt cramped. Standing height with a bar stool is a great way to have the best of both worlds.
The 5.5” rim around the table itself gives you a nice arm rest that doesn’t interfere with the gaming surface. I’m playing with how to best add some cushion to this part - open to suggestions. Sometimes I just lay a piece of leftover neoprene on it.
Dice bounce nice on the neoprene and stay off the floor. It also feels nice and has enough give to allow things to slide but be picked up easily. Wouldn’t definitely go with neoprene again as a surface covering.
I made the drawers open to the inside of the table so you can stay hunched over the action while accessing and stowing stuff away. 50/50 on whether I would keep this if I were to do it again. If I were doing it again, I might try to build customer drawers form scratch using actual drawer glides, but that was beyond my ability when I first did this, so I just used clear plexiglass boxes with aluminum pulls mounted on them. It’s nice having them clear, and I was happy with how the pulls came out, but without glides they can be a little fussy sliding in and out of their slots.
I originally designed the table so that I could put a cover surface back on top when not in use, but find I don’t really ever do that, so if I were to do it again, I might not mess with that part (I never even finished staining those as you can see in the pictures).
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@655321 decals very small decals and I bought 3 of those sets so there is that. Lol

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@xHavokx said in Help Identifying these game pieces!:

awe that sucks…I was hoping that they were from this game as it actually looks pretty damn fun.
Its also very weird that there not legit because if there not then whatever else game this is, 100% copied pieces from axis and allies then.

Example being the Artillery Piece that’s in the pic compared to axis’s Artillery is identical. Even down to the dice that was in the bag having the American team star with circle sticker on them. Also the “T.” cardboard pieces which I figured were the “territory claimed” pieces. I do realize that a lot of toy/game company’s re-use molds and such. Every other piece looks similar but there’s always something off or different about them. Plus the 2/3 pieces (I have more pieces that I didn’t show) Are similar but have the “peg” type bottom’s like they were to be clicked into a game board…In my hours of searching axis game pieces, It didn’t seem like any had that.

From your profile you seem to have a lot of knowledge about this game but I still hope to get another opinion or someone that knows what they are from still. Thanks though I might just have to chalk it up as a loss.

Ha Those pieces with the “peg” bottom was from a game that Milton Bradley was trying to make like the Battle Ship Game . It was called “AWE HE BLEW UP MY TANK” !!! LOL

@Young:

I’ve got a few table videos, however… I’m still working out my perfect solution for the map.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2i9Icyi0MgU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUH2-SRTSEE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss_jl0R-8PA

Thanks YG for the links.

Lets see it!

Christmas bump.

'tis the season : ) worth a listen : )

@John:

Another awesome video, YG.

Cheers JB.