Opening Salvo - USS Boise & Myoko

Sure. The best online retailer for this sort of thing is Historical Board Gaming. go there and you will find every piece to almost every AA board game, even some Anniversary pieces. Of course, Ebay is a good way to acquire pieces as well.

@Cinefyl:

do I NEED a starter/base set to get the rules for a particular flavor (Task Force, Flank, Zebra, etc.) Does a base/starter set have enough pieces and parts to let us actually get started (even on a limited scale) to give it a test run without spending major $$$

Thanks!

You don’t need a starter or base set to play if you download the rules.  Each domain (land, War at Sea, and Angels 20/Bandits High) is independent and incompatible with the others.  Within each domain, all sets are completely compatible and no set is necessarily better than another.  The exception is perhaps with the land based game.  In the first four sets the vehicles were not always to scale.  Players call them version 1 or V1.  From the set 1939-1945 and thereafter, the vehicles were much more to scale.  We call them version 2 or V2.  Many, but not all of the vehicles were then reissued.  Many of the soldiers were as well, but they are essentially identical.

The starters have barely enough to get started.  I highly recommend buying some boosters or used collections on eBay.  Btw, I have a few extra unopened 1939-1945 (land game) starter sets and a number of War at Sea boosters:

Flank Speed, x1 booster
Condition Zebra, x1 booster
Set V, x1 booster
Surface Action, x19 boosters

PM for more info if interested.  Good luck and have fun!

Rangers are strong competitive piece, though unless they get new (non-improved) indirect fire units the Spotter SA is mostly just thematic.

(Edit)Here’s my full review:

As the opening salvo says, “its inevitable that it will be compared to the Axis workhorse, the SS-Panzergrenadiers.” Quite true, though thankfully the Rangers have enough differences to keep them from being just carbon-copies.

The Lead the Way SA is interesting in that it’s once per turn, not per phase (or during movement and/or assault), so be careful when you use it; unless it’s to grab a last minute objective, re-rolling a movement roll isn’t too important, though thematically it’s nice.

Spotter is again nice, if not too useful. The M1 81mm Mortar doesn’t need a spotter, nor do spotters enhance them, and the open back M7 105mm Priest is an easily neutralized unit. I suppose you could save 1 point and use the Russian mortars instead if you really wanted to. Also, lacking the Spotter SA they can’t enhance aircraft.

The Rangers have slightly improved defence and a re-roll over the similar Veteran SMLE Riflemen; the only time the Australian unit is, well when you can’t take Rangers (eg Pre-1942 game). By themselves the Rangers are at the high end of 5 points, but compared to the Garand they perhaps should have been 6; as is they make the Garand fairly useless. Sure the Garands can have the same dice, without a re-roll, but that requires more points for an adjacent commander, and is -1/-1 defence.

A great unit that I’m sure will see a lot of use both in casual and competitive games: 4.5/5

Please check out the poll. I’m cross posting this to get a good response rate…

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=6317.0

All the boxes from booster1 were like this.  Really easy to open and reglue.  Thats why the changed it int booster2.

As long as you cards are still sealed in the platic bag you are OK.  But it was really easy for “bad” people to open a box to see what was inside. If they didn’t like… just heat the glue a litte and reclose the box

I guess wizards took the decision purely on low cost… cheap bastards !!

@Ubermarine:

The Polish Calvalryman is a nice touch to the game.  Thay will be easy to use in groups of 3 or 4 against soldiers.  Im thinking the best way to use them will be to hide and rush machine gun nests.

Not just machine gun nests but also for going after BAR Gunners, anti-tank guns, and commanders. But I really don’t think you need more than 1 or 2 to accomplish this. It is very easy for the cavalry out of line of sight.

djensen

All in good time mate!

More insomnia.

I got a look at the French tank mini - Renault R35? - yesterday. I noticed it had a cross with indented arms painted on its tail.
Wait up, I thought. That’s not French. It’s Romanian.
A little checking revealed that the Romanian Army had over seventy R35s that they bought from France in the 1930’s.

So, your R35 mini can fight as

-Vichy French, axis, against the British in Syria in 1941 or the Brits and Americans in Tunisia in 1942

Romanian, axis, as German allies against the Russians in 1941-44

Romanian, allied, as Russian allies against the Germans in 1944-5

German, captured, 1941 onwards.

French, allies, in 1944 (they hid a few and dusted them off after D-Day).

For that matter the Syrians used some R35s against the Israelis in 1948, and the Israelis captured several and used them right back….

When fighting alongside the Russians, the Romanians were still using lots of German kit including PzIVs.

In the same vein, there was a short - lived Australian Tank Regiment in Lybia in 1941 equipped with captured Italian medium tanks (they all had to be scuttled as the British didn’t have the diesel fuel to run them), and the British Guards Armoured Division had a ‘pet’ Panther tank named Cuckoo that saw action against its former owners in 1945.

Anyone know any better examples?