Axis & Allies Anniversary upgraded version

Axis & Allies: Commanders Expansion

I have made an expansion for the game adding commanders. Except for a few special abilities, everything is based around a re-roll system.

New features

Quick Guide:

All commanders have certain amount of Power. Power represents how many re-rolls that can be used per battle. A unit can only re-roll once per combat round. Abilities affect this.

Each nation can only use 3 commanders in both offensive and defensive battles each game round.

More info in the ruleset

Commander Cards:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/w3z1i45j2o20bfd7485b3/A-A-Commanders-Cards.pdf?rlkey=k4g8u3ekxdq3t54mpth0rvwgm&st=zcpducg4&dl=0

Ruleset:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/jnbuguxslt4egsw631l6p/A-A-Commanders-Rules.pdf?rlkey=hhuf1lsox9heb6o2i1mvx1t9g&st=ip2jb34r&dl=0

(Optional) Card Backsides

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/0i2i599fkv0g0wi99t2un/Optional-A-A-Commanders-backside-of-cards.pdf?rlkey=8qdrks0lm984pr881372rza82&st=1rcogr9h&dl=0

Final note:

This is a work in progress and therefore subject to change. Critique is very much appreciated. This version is not properly gametested.

Card examples: (see the rest in the Commander Cards link)
Guderian.png
MacArthur.png
Monty.png
Yamamoto.png
Zhukov.png

Asking the community here which map version would be preferred from below, or there a combination not represented? The game is European theatre, but there is an Asian/Pacific half as well. Game will be offered through HBG.

Historical flags only on capitals or important cities. Territories outside of homeland use lighter shade of colour.
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Historical flags on capitals and small flags on territories to denote ownership along with colour. Territories outside of the homeland will use local flag.
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Axis & Allies roundels used instead of historical flags. Territories outside of homeland still use local flags.
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Axis & Allies flags used for all spaces. Outside homeland is a lighter shade.
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@General-6-Stars ill find it for you and send the values

I don’t know about yall, but I’ve been trying to reduce the amount of separate game aids all over the area. Siredblood’s AA50 map is a work of art and took the liberty of adding IPCs and National objectives to the map. Not sure if it’s too cluttered now-- maybe the Natl objectives should be between the IPCs and map. What do you think? First almost perfectly on a 6’x4’ map.

[Artistic credit goes to SiredBlood and BigWatcher]

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@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

Here’s my collection of Russian sculpts from both A&A and HBG:

Baltic Timper Ship (G40):

Srednyaya Class Submarine (G40):

Gnevny Class Destroyer (G40):

Kirov Class Cruiser (G40):

Kostromitinova Class Aircraft Carrier (AA41):

Gangut Class Battleship (G40):

Yak-3 (G40) and I-16 (HBG) Fighters:

Il-2 (G40) and Su-2 (HBG) Tactical Bombers:

Pe-8 Strategic Bomber (G40) and IL-4 Medium Bomber (HBG):

Yak-6 Transport Aircraft (HBG):

Russian Infantry (G40) and Early War Russian Infantry (HBG):

85 mm Antiaircraft Artillery (G40), 152 mm Artillery (G40), 122mm M-30 Artillery (HBG), Katyusha Self-Propelled Artillery (HBG):

Zis-42 Mechanized Infantry (G40), BA-6 Armored Car (HBG), Gaz AAA Truck (HBG), Gaz-60 Mechanized Infantry:

T-34 Tank (G40), JS-2 Tank (AA41), Su-76 Tank Destroyer (HBG), T-26 Light Tank (HBG), T-34/76 Medium Tank (HBG), KV-2 Heavy Tank (HBG):

A&A vs HBG T-34 Tanks:

Nice! I like how you kept some of the original piece color in the mix on the French Navy. Lookin’ good all around!

@aaronimpulse:

Should have tried to sneak the maple leaf in there somewhere!

Like most artists, the obvious often evades me. Next version I will definitely do that.

Yrs.,
R.