Tjoek's A&A Anniversary OOB Map file (Updated March 23rd)

@vodot Love the roundels!

@Azimuth yeah, I understand the challenge, I’m a graphic designer and I was playing around with a circular map design when I stumbled upon yours. I still might finish my design as I was incorporating some map changes I found interesting. But so far I think I’ll need some blow up boxes or something to make it work at a reasonable size.

@AlphaKappa:

That is so helpful!  Thank you for the analysis!

It was my pleasure. A chance to pull out my games and admire them? If I must…  :-D

@AlphaKappa:

It’s too bad Avalon Hill didn’t print the new Anniversary Edition in the same colors as Europe '40 Second Edition.  I really like the lighter shade of those Italian pieces because they’re easier to distinguish from Soviet red-brown.

To be fair to Hasbro/WotC/Avalon Hill, all they promised was a re-print. And to a large degree, that is what the New A&A Anniversary edition was: a straight up re-print of the original go at things. Were there differences between the two prints? Of course there were. Were all of those changes for the better? I don’t think so, no. I especially wish they had kept the US F6F Hellcat fighters but instead we got more P-38 Lightnings. But overall, it was probably as faithful as they could do and a long shot better than either 1) not doing it at all (what a pity that would have been) or 2) just phoning it in and wholesale dumping all of the right pieces from A&A 42 and A&A Europe 40.1 Italy.

Instead, we got the original Anniversary Edition Italian tank, the M14/41. We got the Italian brown Japanese Betty bombers and Type 92 Howitzers (artillery). And they put them into a shade about as close as to the shade of the original Anniversary Edition Italians as they were going to get from two print runs separated by 9 years. And that meant that we got a bunch of Italian brown German ships and fighters. But we got a re-print of a game I didn’t think was ever coming back.

And for that, I don’t mind dark brown Italians. Even if I would have rather gotten the F6Fs and the Maroon UK Country class cruisers, I’m happy with what we did get.

-Midnight_Reaper

@Mr_Tricorder:

Have tried them out yet? If so, how big of a difference do they make?

Yes.
It’s definitely faster.
And it removes irritating conversations like:
“3! Hit!”
“Wait! Didn’t you announce rolling for your destroyer?”
“Nope. I wanted the cruiser.”
“Hmm”

@SS:

Siredblood has a you tube video of drilling colored dice

I got my inspiration from that one and added the extra holes for 2,3 and 4.

I’m not averse to printing a map at all, and the map files I’ve seen are indeed waaaay better. Truth is I just recently purchased the 1940 games and would like to get some use out of them before I abandon them for the master map. And will definitely look for the sticker paper my next trip to wallyworld. Thanks for the suggestion DK.

And here’s my new 1942 map

my1942custommap1.jpg
my1942custommap2.jpg

@coachofmany:

@AlphaKappa:

@Buran:

I have just received my US units I have attached some photos.  I was just wondering if what the fifth air unit is?  It looks like an F6F Hellcat fighter.  But there is nothing on the website about it.

Nice!  They look pretty good.  How’s the color compared to the OOB stuff?

HBG Olive Drab color is very close to Global 40 2nd Edition IMHO.

I don’t know, Coach!  I just bought a few of your new Shermans from a friend and I was pleasantly surprised that they match my 1st Edition US pieces pretty well.   :wink:

These Sherman sculpts are ace.  You guys did a good job with these and now I’m looking forward to getting some of the other ones too.

EDIT:  Okay, upon closer inspection in daylight, I changed my mind.  They are definitely closer in tone to 2nd Edition US.

@LHoffman:

Personally, I like the idea of having that area all around the board for all players to use. The good thing about not having made a table yet is that you can steal the best ideas from everyone else and incorporate them into your own.

Yes, that’s the nice thing about having a discussion forum where people share the result of their customization projects: it not only motivates people to try projects of their own, it also provides lots of ideas on which to drawn (sometimes including hard-won knowledge derived from failed experiments).

I have some pictures of my table in this thread:

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=32700.0

The photos which best show the side wings are titled 1 Left Table.jpg and 4 Right Table.jpg.