Axis & Allies Miniatures Set 3: Contested Skies

It’s kinda hard to answer your question because it depends on how much you are willing to spend, do you want to play historically, do you only want to collect one type of fleet?  I would say that it would be hard to win many games if you go German and then play against someone who is bringing an American fleet.  I say this because the Germans (and let’s add the Italians, French, Australian, and even to some extent the British) are so underpowered in the way of air power that I think you would lose every time.  If you play historically and avoid any kind of cheesy fleet combinations…well, you might have a chance.  In my opinion, and that’s all it is, you’d be hard pressed to beat an American fleet in a 150pt or higher game.  At that point level you can bring a battleship, two carriers and enough planes to destroy whatever your opponent is bringing…only a Japanese fleet with multiple Yamatos might stand a chance against an equal point American fleet.  Let’s say you collect only a German fleet…how would you stop my air power?  I’d have all your ships sunk before you made it within striking distance.  Maybe I’m full of crap, but, I’d say go American if you want the most balance and options.  Maybe the second set of WaS will have more air support for the Germans and the other Axis powers (Japan not included) but as it stands now…they’d get crushed.  I don’t think that would be much fun for you.

Yes, you are right about the planes being rares. I looked at the previews on the Avalon Hill site again and it seems I mistook the rare symbol for the uncommon symbol. Which is is something very easy to do, given that it is so small.

So I got the case of D Day releases and am generally quite pleased.  As I got to the last box I was hoping for a German or British Rare but got that French tank.  Oh well I had no doubles on other rares and am pleased.

What happened to the scale of the 88mm.  I know it was a scary piece but its not that big.  At the same time there were a couple of other vehicles that came across very small.

So we set up a new map.  I made a 3 foot by 8 foot hex map on a roll of brown craft paper.  For all of the various terrain types we cut different coloured paper hexes and laid them out.  It was a very cool map and I can change the trerrain as desired.  We played a European game of 500 point armies in a meeting engagement.  It was about four hours to play 7 turns.  With so much terrain it was important to build significant transport into the mix and run it up and back shuttling the infantry into the fight.

I lost three Sherman varients just to take out the veteran Tiger.

Great fun!

Excellent question.  I do not have any historical evidence of widespread tank vs. tank ramming, and I don’t really expect that it went on.  I included the rule more for sake of gameplay with non-armored vehicles (jeeps, halftracks, etc.) The rule represents a sort of last ditch option available to a player with nothing left but jeeps who is trying to face down a tank.  I’ve people ask to be able to ram on a number of occasions, so I decided to come up with a rule for it.  The attack itself is pretty anemic (need 6’s to hit) so I can’t think of why a tank would ever choose to ram another vehicle instead of using it’s short/medium range armor attack roll instead.  Now a jeep, on the other hand, really wouldn’t have any other attack against a light tank.  With the ram you might be able to damage a tank, but you are certainly going to destroy your jeep trying.  Let me know if you end up using the rule and if it works for you or not.

@Rebel:

So… is this board basically dead? I mean D-day was about 5 sets ago. Anyone really around here anymore, or has everyone gone to the Forumini and Underground?

this post is dead and buried. Most people go to formini now. Much more traffic.

Add this to the mix…a Stuka Pic!

WOOHOO!

WoTC posted this one yesterday.
http://boards.avalonhill.com/showthread.php?t=8876&page=4&pp=10

I have been taking a MK IV basically as bait, 3 machine guns, panzerfaust, some troops, light mortars and two officers. Clearing disruptions every turn is huge. Machine guns work on the troops along with the mortars and the MK IV hopefully holds its own if not the panzerfaust go to work.