@SuperbattleshipYamato

Which was considered by the US to be the biggest naval base in the pacific!

https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/npswapa/extcontent/wapa/paradise/paradise4.htm#:~:text=Truk Lagoon was regarded by,the war in September 1945.

@Poptech Your point about a base being surrounded is a good one, though it undercuts your own argument.

Being surrounded doesn’t mean your fuel and ammo ceases to exist, it means it won’t be replenished and you have to work with what was already on hand. Seems to me that since fuel and ammo are stockpiled at naval and air bases, territories that have them would be at a huge advantage when surrounded vs a territory that doesn’t and is surrounded, and units stationed there would be better off.

But since you either failed to read the responses or just dismissed the reasons the bonus movement makes sense, maybe it would be better to come at it from another angle?

Do you agree that naval and air bases existed in the second world war? If so, why do you object to their inclusion in the game? If you don’t object to their inclusion, what benefits do you think they should confer?

If you can answer those questions for yourself, you have a clear path to if you want to set up your game with the markers included, and what those markers will mean for your play group.

If you feel you’re already there, and you want to convince the rest of us that your way of playing is better, you might find you’re better able to persuade people by first understanding where they are coming from. Asking a question, failing to acknowledge the responses, and then acting like you’re the one who is not being listened too is not very persuasive.

@sachmatkris

German bombers can’t reach the US east coast in a typical anniversary edition game.

Where are your german bombers taking off from at the start of their turn? Where are they landing at the end if your turn? How far are you allowing them to move in one turn?

I suspect this may be a source of your issue. In anniversary a small fleet is absolutely needed to cover a transport which is in range of enemy air units, but it is typically manageable. However, if you are giving air units freer movement than they are due it could very quickly unbalance the game.

@bigfatal

Yes and no. The UK has a lot of earning potential, but a lot of it is vulnerable to attack or capture, making UK very “swingy”. If things are go well for the allies, UK will be pretty wealthy, if it goes badly UK can end up being very cash strapped indeed. Playing with national objectives (which is the way I prefer to play) will amplify this even further as the UK is the easiest ally for the Axis to prevent earning any bonuses.

Meanwhile the US has a huge does of IPCs that are rarely touched by the axis, even when things go badly for the allies, and is also the only nation with 20 ipcs of objective bonuses available, so the US is still very much the big spender of the game.

As to what’s in it for the US in the pacific: Its less about increasing US earnings and more about limiting Japan’s. Left unchallenged Japan can reach stratospheric income, bringing the UK economy to its knees as they drive to Moscow.

There are also two pacific based objectives for the US, so that adds 10 potential ipcs of direct incentive, plus the chance to pick up one more for the UK and prevent Japan from earning any, which stacks up to enough money to justify a US fleet investment.

I find allied players that are good with a slow push play style do well fighting it out in the pacific, but those that are better at a quick kill/knockout blow style will have more success trying to kill Germany before Japan gets too big. I also find a pacific allied strat is more likely to work in the 1942 set up than it does in 1941. (Part of the reason I like that set up better)

Without objectives it may be better for the allies to just fight a delaying action in the pacific and focus on Germany, but I have not played that way enough to say for sure.

@imperious-leader

I’ll admit that I haven’t played Revised in quite a while, but I think a buy of all tanks would be pretty easy to counter considering that for 15 ipcs you could get 2 inf, 1 art, and a tank that will beat three tanks on both offense and defense.

Huh. Yeah I googled it too and didn’t find anything! It was definitely a small kind of company, fortunately they were smart enough to put their website on the wrapper.

http://gamesmiths.us/

Looks like $12 was a convention price. The buy it now is $15 plus shipping. If I were you I’d still go for it!

@mordedura

I would say that it is absolutely playable out of the box, though I think it plays better if you dig out some poker chips, printed money from another game, or loose change to use as in game money rather than tracking income with pencil and paper as the manual suggests.

For units, you won’t be swimming in spare pieces, but I wouldn’t expect to be with a game that is this detailed but costs so little!

I have not played it as extensively as I have other versions, but I have never run out of pieces in the games I have played, whereas in previous editions (revised in particular) we would always have a cup of change ready to use as additional marker chips. (A penny means one extra unit and a nickel means five)

In fact, I assumed all the complaints that 1941 did not have enough pieces came from people who did not understand how to properly use the chips to indicate multiple units of the same type. Having read Midnight_reaper’s reply I can see I was wrong, and it may be an issue even for experienced players.

I don’t know if its a factor in my personal experience, but I personally LOVE how few new units you’re allowed to buy in this version and its the reason I play it.

The ratio of the value of your starting units to your income is very different than other versions, which I think makes this game an interesting play even for experienced players and something beyond just being an “intro” version. You can’t replace losses easily so you really have to think hard about where and when to put your best units at risk, and the calculus about where to attack has a lot less to to with the value of the territory than it does with the value of the enemy units you’re hoping to eliminate.

@FranceNeedsMorePower

I’m going too. Really looking forward to this one!

See you there.

@zooooma

Yikes. Not a great sign, seems very much like a consolidation of the line.

Sure 1914 and AA50 weren’t currently in print, but not acknowledging them on the website suggests they’ve joined classic and revised in the not going to be reprinted category. If true, thats a huge shame. AA50 is by far my favorite edition of the game. Its sad to think the copies that exist now might be all there will ever be.

Has anyone here tried “World on Fire?” It’s so much fun! I came across a small table at a game convention and they were selling it so I figured what the heck. Best $12 I even spent! It takes like a second to learn and makes the game way more fun!

Its just a deck of cards for each nation the gives them special abilities. (Germans get heavy tanks and dive bombers, US gets marines and island air strips.) The effects lasts for one battle, so its not like a tech upgrade. (In fact, the rules say they work WITH tech, but I don’t play tech games so I couldn’t say.)

You get one card per NO at the end of your turn instead of the 5 IPCs.

Its not pretty. (Comes in a plain white box, with plain text on cards) but man is it fun! My brother and I are re-addicted to the Axis and Allies! The best part is, each nation gets two cards to start, so the opening moves aren’t same-old same old any more. If Germany has a lot of sub/air bonuses, they may go hard after UK fleet and take it easy on Russia. Lots of ground bonuses and they might do just the opposite!

@The-Mink

Panther is right, but I’ll offer one more clarification. Your allies can help you defend, but not attack. Destroyers belonging to your ally don’t participate in your attacks, so they can’t help your air units hit subs even if they’re in the same sea zone.

When defending, they do participate, so a UK destroyer can help US planes hit subs if they’re defending the same sea zone.

@FranceNeedsMorePower

See you there! Personally, I can’t wait. I wish the tournament was tomorrow.

@FranceNeedsMorePower

Yes, I’m planning on being in the Anniversary tournament.

@DoManMacgee said in Gen Con 2025 - AAR:

I wouldn’t say my “playing without a partner” was necessarily a mistake. I tried convincing any relevant A&A player in my life to partner with me. It just didn’t work out (and I didn’t want to miss the event outright). That being said I will continue to advocate that 1v1 should the official format for tournament play, even if I am in the minority. Most of the teams I played against were basically “the main player” and “the advisor who catches mistakes” anyway, in my opinion.

Yes, you did say in your initial post that you tried to get a partner for the tournament. I chose my words poorly. I should not have said “mistake”, I just meant it was one of many factors that put a hard road in front of you. My main intent was to call this out to anyone who is considering playing in future tournaments that playing alone is harder than you might guess. I don’t think I would get out of the first game if I’d tried it.

I can relate to that for other games, but I spent about 7 months prepping for this specific tournament format and have been playing semi-actively since 2008 (although I have never bothered with this one in Online Leagues, so my level of play isn’t as high as something like Revised for 42SE. Online Format Vs. F2F format are basically completely different games anyway, so that sort of experience wouldn’t necessarily help beyond a firmer grasp on the openings).

I can relate too! We didn’t quite spend 7 months prepping, but we did spend several months testing ideas when we could. Anyone considering a tournament run should, particularly if you have not played tournament rules. Where we erred was in using the first day and half of GenCon to do some intensive training/prep when we should have been resting up instead.

Yup. At least the Gen Con food is pretty good as far as convention hall stuff goes (I’ve played TCGs for most of my life, so I’ve had way worse).

Agreed. The food is good, my only complaint is the place is so huge, and with so many participants, getting to your favorite food stand during a short break can make you even more tired.

The 9-hour car ride on top of everything else was something I forgot to mention on my end. I’d like to imagine the lack of sleep affects everyone (mostly) equally though.

Yeah, that one I forgot too. I’m from philly, so again I feel you on that one!

Yeah. In my case I think physical conditioning is also a big factor. I should not have been skipping gym days in the month before the tournament for sure. That sort of thing was never a problem for me in the past but I just do not have as much natural stamina as I did in my teens/20s. Part of getting older I guess.

Yes, physical conditioning is another really important aspect for anyone thinking of going. Its easy to see a strategy game as a purely mental exercise, but if your physical stamina is lacking, it will absolutely affect your clarity of thought.

Anyway, thanks for the comment! Sorry that you were also not able to win it all. I can’t make it to the Dayton tournament later this year (just not in the cards money/time-investment wise, as November is crunch time for both my job and wallet due to Christmas), but will hope to come to more events next year.

Thank you for the post! Sorry for the long delay in response, I’ve been out of town.

I will be going to Battlefront, and I’m sorry to hear I won’t see you there, but I certainly hope to run into you at a future tournament. Until then, good luck to you!

@DoManMacgee

Wow. Thank you for providing such a detailed rundown of your games! I was also playing in the tournament, (I think you may have even helped me set up a board at one point.) . My brother and I were also semi-finalists, but on the other side of the bracket. I very much appreciate getting a chance to read an overview of many of the other games I didn’t get to play in!

I did not keep as detailed notes as you did, and could never hope to provide as detailed a blow by blow, but I will confirm that the German Carrier absolutely seems to be in vogue for Axis Players, though I agree with you that I think its over-valued. I will say that for all four of my games, the bid went to the Axis, and I never got a sense that anyone felt that was unexpected. I guess our side of the bracket generally thought the advantage was with the allies, and your side felt differently. I’m very curious to see how the bid went for the championship.

More importantly, I want to say that I could have written this post about your final assessment of your experience after last year’s tournament, which was my first experience at GenCon. The only differences would be that I played with a partner, so I could remove that mistake, but would have to add that I booked my hotel too late, leaving me with a cheap a hotel, too far away and lost sleep to a crappy bed an unnecessary travel back and forth

We played too fast for our own good. We tried to cram in too much practice just before the tournament. We did not bring enough snacks to the hall and had to fight through the convention crowds to grab meals between games. All of it derived from a severe underestimate of how a lack of sleep would effect our play. We lost on a mistake I would not have thought we would ever have made, and it was far from our only error.

If you have not played in GenCon or a similar tournament, you have to know that you will try to play at your max speed to get in the most game you can. Going fast and not sleeping is a recipe for mistakes no matter how experienced a player you are.

Reading the above give pause to new players that are considering attending a GenCon tournament. Let say that having made some small adjustments for our second tournament, I am far more satisfied with how I played. I won’t say that we didn’t have some small errors as the tournament progressed, but nothing that cost us the game, and at that point our opponents were also having small mistakes too.

The trick is to ensure you’ve got enough sleep and awareness that you won’t miss the devastating mistakes that will cost you the game. It is not hard to do, you just need to go in with an appreciation for what its like deep in the tourney. Hopefully this thread is enough to provide that for anyone considering attending for the first time.

Very small side note: You were correct that you could have placed the new Chinese infantry in Hupeh in your second game. The limit of three per territory only applies to the number of Chinese units in the space before you place. If the number you place causes the territory to exceed a number of three, that is ok. The believe that you can never have more than three Chinese units in any territory is a persistent misconception that stems from the fact that the wording in the original 2008 rulebook was not very clear. It was clarified in the official Errata that is available on this site (https://www.axisandallies.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Axis-Allies-50th-Anniversary-Errata-FAQ.pdf) but a lot players learned this game from that original rule book.

I think you were right not to make too big a deal of it though. One of the best parts of these tournaments is the spirit of fun and comradery between opponents, and its not worth spoiling that if it won’t have a major impact on the game.

Thank you again for the detailed recaps! I sincerely hope to see you at a future tournament.

@FranceNeedsMorePower

I’m going too. Really looking forward to this one!

See you there.

@flipperlord

It means the Axis get 3-5 worth of IPCs to place.

@ckladman Yes, the game tends to favor the allies without objectives, and the axis with. To balance, you could trying giving a bid (additional starting units) to the side that is at a disadvantage, or play with objectives but reduce the payout. (3 ipcs vs 5.)

Hello,
I’m curious if anyone can help me with some general advice for in person Tournaments. For one thing, would it be a frowned on/weird to use small post-its to mark the board on my turn? I tend to forget a non-combT move from time to time, and I’m hoping the post-it method will be a better way to avoid that than having to double and triple check the board in a timed game.

Secondly, do teams talk in code at the table or do they just openly discuss in front of their opponents?

@The-Mink

Panther is right, but I’ll offer one more clarification. Your allies can help you defend, but not attack. Destroyers belonging to your ally don’t participate in your attacks, so they can’t help your air units hit subs even if they’re in the same sea zone.

When defending, they do participate, so a UK destroyer can help US planes hit subs if they’re defending the same sea zone.

@squirecam

Awesome, thank you!