Game dice boxes, towers, command sticks, tables for gaming….

Mexico was not independent during the civil war. It was under French control.

It depends on what “work” means – in other words, on whether players would consider a Kursk scenario appealing.  Conceptually, Kursk would be similar to A&A D-Day (minus the water) in the sense that the battle was fundamentally a frontal assault on a heavily-defended static position, and similar to A&A Battle of the Bulge in the sense that it would involve ground forces driving into enemy lines, but different from both games in the sense that from the German point of view Kursk was a pincer movement aimed at pinching off a salient, and that from the Russian point of view it was a two-stage offensive-defensive battle.  Personally I think it has good potential to make an interesting game, if it’s designed properly.

I played my first game of Amerika last night. It was pretty easy to learn once I was finally able to remember which sculpts were the self propelled anti-aircraft units and and which ones were the self propelled artillery units. It took awhile to play because I was carefully going through every step and double checking to make sure I didn’t develop any bad habits as far as the rules go. I can see being able to play a game in under 2 hours including setup if you had 2 or 3 players who already knew how to play. That would be perfect for the lake in the summer when you go into the cabin to wait out a rainstorm. A&A on the other hand would be more of a whole day this is never going to clear up type of game.

It’s a good game and very well made. I picked up the Strategic Markers expansion set with the game but didn’t use any of the extra rules that come with the pieces so I could learn the game first and decide which rules and extra pieces would be appropriate to make it a better game. I did find the map a little small so I am going to get a bigger one for use at home on the big table. I like lots of elbow room and space to line up my tanks without using chips. In the game the Japanese got bogged down in the northwest with the allies holding the line at Hanford Nuclear Research Facility. They had better luck in the south moving inland and taking out Los Alamos NRF. The Germans made it as far as Detroit in the north and Nashville in the south but couldn’t capture Oak Ridge NRF. On the fifth turn the allies were lucky enough to roll big and go first, which meant that they had 2 turns in a row and were able to take back Los Alamos and 3 cities and accumulating enough points to win the game. If the axis would’ve went first on the fifth turn it would have been a different outcome and they might have won on the fifth or sixth turn. It all came down to that one roll…

@Variable:

The pics are working just fine…

And this looks AWESOME Pac War! I would be interested in a “how to” and a cost estimate for making other games in this fashion. Please, let us know!

Unless it was mas produced, I don’t think that something like this would be cost effective.  The material cost alone $45 and it was on sale!  The hexgrid was drawn by hand (HOURS and HOURS of mindnumbing work) as were the other graphics.  Stitching it all up was not particularly hard but there was zero room for error due to the fact that so much time went into the play area.  “Oh well, I screwed that up.  Just cut another piece of fabric.” was not an option.  You would have to start from point zero.  If I were producing this board for someone, I would not feel guilty charging $250 because it was so labor intensive.  However, if you could buy cloth with a grid already printed at the price I paid, price would drow WAY down……figure $100.  That would be $45 for material and $55 for time and graphics.

@georgemak1:

A question for the HBG crew. Any idea when the next German set is due?

November

Yeah, I saw this item too.  In fact, I was watching it just to see if it sold.  The auction ended without a sale and the seller has relisted it.  I couldn’t believe the price when I first saw it.

Did anyone check out the game pieces?  They look pretty cool but are quite a bit bigger than A&A pieces.  He has some pics comparing them.  The factories are HUGE.  A lot of the land pieces, particularly infantry and AA guns, are on these big bases the size of poker chips.  In fact, you are supposed to use poker chips for stacking purposes.  You would need such a huge map to handle all of those larger pieces.  The aircraft carrier piece he showed next to an A&A aircraft carrier and it dwarfed the A&A piece.  The ships are almost as big as the A&A Miniatures pieces, but not quite.

I wouldn’t mind having a copy of that game just to check it out but not at $1250.  Maybe if I were a millionaire with money to throw away, but unfortunately I’m a simple working stiff.

call flames of war company

:-o
May I suggest a possible infantry change based on historic facts. Russians had more men, Germans had better equipment and training for their troops not to mention their skill at combined arms tactics. So, why not let the Russians have their cheap infantry buys while giving the Germans a bonus in attack strength, say 2 in attack and 2 in defense when combined with armor or air units, ( no need for Artillary). Now that is what I call an easy fix. Since the germans start out with more tanks and planes than thier opponents they will kick butt early. But when the allies start to build up their combined arms, Germany will be overwhelmed in numbers. So the axis better do a lot of damage real quick to win.
    Should be more fun though.
If someone does play-test this in a game could they let me know how it worked out? Thanks.

:roll: Crazy Ivan

If something doesn’t work right,
                  fix it!
    I can’t help it, I’m left handed