Wizard of the coast is sending out additional playing pieces

Four points I guess:

1. I usually stack Ukraine with Russia. Trying to attack the Central Powers will lead to what actually happened in World War 1, Russia getting steamrolled and politically collapsing.

2. It seems to me like your France isn’t playing aggressively enough in the face of Germany focusing on Russia. You didn’t mention the French once if your report, when it seems to me like you could have made a serious push for Ruhr, which would have either crippled the German economy or forced it to actually send units West.

3. If Russia is proving a challenge for you, you can always march troops from India -> Persia -> Sevastapol to keep the Russians alive. Even under tournament rules there’s nothing stopping the UK from dumping it’s entire income in India and rampaging across the Middle East. The Ottomans shouldn’t be able to put up too much of a fight unless you’ve got a really strong Ottoman player. This gives you free reign to either wipe out the Ottomans or prop up the Russians long enough for the Americans to win the game for you.

4. If the Italian front is stalling and Americans aren’t needed in France, you can send the Yanks to Italy instead. If you’ve established Allied naval dominance and the Austrians aren’t putting up any serious fight in the Trieste/Venice region, a steady line of Americans will probably be enough to ruin Austria’s day, or at least force them to divert troops away from Russia.

Hm, one way to deal with it, is of course make the theater more interesting.
But our main goal was actually to balance things out, and the idea is to take a few IPC from the Allies to achieve that.

Is there anyone with more experience to give at least a ballpark figure estimate if this sounds about right?

The worst blow is 12 German infantry.  Didn’t Larry notice that after setting up the game there is none left?     
Don’t tell me his playtesters told him that Russia would knock one out…

1914 Italians look like Japs.

1914 Russians look like 1940 Italians.

I do wish they would keep the same colors,

BUT…i do love the new UK color over the old UK

One could get a rules download, get different colored pieces that look similar from other AAA games and hand them out as tryout games to newbies with excellent map, piece containers, game box and odd looking but functional pieces.  If one is feeling benevolent, throw in some dice. :)

@Uncrustable:

@toblerone77:

Small packs of sculpts packaged like minis for larver scale games would be cheap to produce and sell very well. Expanding into small skirmish type battle maps and expansions would be a gold mine for WOTC.

and its not like they haven’t done anything like this before (d-day, battle of the bulge)

they should make and release another collectors edition game (like anniversary) that is absolute top quality in every way, with more than enough pieces,
multiple rule sets(beginner - advanced), multiple setups for different years
no crappy cardboard chits, some form of IPC, some form of marshaling cards etc etc
just jack up the price, il buy it ;)
Axis and Allies Global 1939

could even just re-release G40 again, but in a collectors form as one single game. (with the new 42 setup)
4 solid large map pieces instead of the fold outs we get now…

I get what you’re saying. But if they sold packs of minis or boosters and threw in some playing card sized rules or something they would sell. Small packs of vehicles and the like would be a gold mine and cost far less to produce than A&A minis. Frankly had they made those in the same scale as traditional A&A pieces they would probably sell better. They could even call it Axis And Allies Tactics or something.

So… any actual news on how the test play is going/went?

I don’t know why Larry doesn’t do an expansion pack for A&A. Better Tech chart, Tech Units, set-up changes for each year, NA for each nation there’s so much they could do with 1 expansion it’s insane.