Best posts made by DoManMacgee

Hi all, just confirming that if/when this starts up again I’d be down to give it a try. I’m not the greatest/most studied at Classic (compared to highly-skilled/veteran players, anyway) but I’m down to participate to pad out the roster for sure.

@Argothair:

To really boil down your advice, you’re saying to skip the attack on the British Home Fleet and the American Pacific fleet in favor of sending maximum Axis air toward the center of the board

Center board pressure, yup.
Only exception to the whole “not hitting the UK Home Fleet” bit is that I make sure to dive on the SZ12 Fleet (The DD/CRU pair). Taking that out gives the UK one less bombardment, gives Italy a chance to get its “clear the Mediterranean” NO, and might make the US think twice before storming Morocco US1.

Anyway, onto the nitpicks/discussion:

@Argothair:

Britain can pretty easily bring 4 land units + 3 air + 2 bombards to attack France.

That’s true, but think of the typical Allied strategy in AA50. Most players try to land in Norway and drop an IC there. If UK is spending its time diving on France it delays this factory until they decide to divert the resources needed to occupy it.

Additionally, devoting everything 100% to a France landing B1 implies letting the Baltic Fleet and surviving German Subs live. If UK does this and Germany landed its air force in-range you could be looking at a pretty bloody G2 attack on the UK Fleet (unless UK buys like a CV or some other big naval force B1).

I’m not saying that leaving France in shoddy shape is necessarily a good idea either, and I definitely see the downsides of having to tether a 10+ INF/1-2 FTR stack to France for most of the game.  It really does take away from the Russian front if I can’t cripple the Soviets economically in the first 2-3 turns.

Holding France isn’t 100% necessary either. It sucks if I don’t have enough punch to retake it on G4/G5, but if Moscow falls round 5 and the Allies are in France/Italy, that still should come up an Axis win once either:
A: Germany takes Russia’s lunch money and builds a massive land force in Europe.
B: Japan’s tank stacks flood into Europe to save Germany’s bacon.

@Argothair:

Second, it’s not clear to me that you can kill the British Indian fleet J1 AND shut down China hard AND and take India on J2.

Fair warning before I describe my order of battle here, bids change this strategy completely. I probably wouldn’t recommend something that’s basically a cheese in a tournament setting with bids because an experienced player would definitely recognize that India is a key position that the British need to hold at all costs if they want to keep Japan’s income from exploding.

Fair warning #2, the image I’m looking at for the setup is blurry, so forgive me if I get the SZ #s wrong (I try to describe the physical location).

That being said:
J1:

• Most of the East Indies Fleet (CV/BB/1 FTR, the other FTR is going to Yuunan), FTR from SZ51 (Caroline Islands) Vs. India Fleet (DD/CV/FTR), idea is to do this battle last and take casualties based on how other battles go (i.e. if everything else went perfectly take the ships as casualties to maximize available planes, if things went poorly elsewhere keep the navy around to transition into a normal Japan game.  Calc says 92% chance of attacker win with 1-2 casualties expected for attacker.

• Manchuria INF, 1 Kisangu INF (2 leftover), Japan FTR (it can’t reach Burma anyway) (Total: 3 INF, 1 FTR) Vs. Suiyuan (2 INF).  Calc says 94% chance attacker wins. At least one INF should survive. Yes, I know this means completely abandoning Manchuria to the USSR for a turn, but unlike older versions of A&A the Soviets gain 0 IPCs from attacking Manchuria, just one extra Chinese INF and the temporary deprivation of Japan’s NOs if they fail to counterattack the following round. In fact, I want the Russians to come at Asia as hard as they can because it means those 6-8 INF (possibly more if they funnel troops into Persia or Western China) won’t be in Moscow/Stalingrad when they’ll be direly needed rounds 3/4.

• 2 Kisangu INF (the other went to Suiyuan, see above bullet point), Manchuria FTR (Total: 2 INF, 1 FTR) Vs. Hupeh (1 INF). 98% Attacker.

• Transport from Japan picks up INF+Tank, BB from Japan, CRU from Philippines -> SZ61 (South China Sea), Kwangtung INF + Transport + bombard (Total: 2 INF, 1 Tank, 1 BB, 1 CRU) Vs. 1 Fukien (1 INF). 99% Attacker.

• FIC (2 INF, 1 FTR), Japan Bomber, Formosa FTR (Formosa->SZ61->Fukien->Yuunan->NCM to Burma), SZ36 (East Indies, the rest of the fleet engaged the Indian Navy) FTR (SZ36->SZ37->Burma->Yuunan->NCM to Burma) (Total: 2 INF, 3 FTR, 1 Bomber) Vs. Yuunan (2 INF, 1 FTR).  Calc says 99% chance Attacker win with 4 units surviving. If I get lucky I won’t lose 2 units but I’m not afraid to sacrifice a FTR or two to keep China down.

End result (key territories):

• Burma: 1 INF, 5 FTR (one from Manchuria, one from Formosa, one from FIC, two from SZ36 (East Indies), 1 Bomber.

• SZ35 (India): 1BB, 0-1CV, 0-1FTR (the FTR from SZ51 (Caroline Islands)).

• Manchuria: Empty.

• SZ61 (Off China): 1 TT, 1 BB, 1 CRU, potentially other ships.

• Fukien: 0-2 INF, 1 Tank

• FIC: IC from buy.

J2 you’re looking at 1 INF, 5 FTR, 1 Bomber Vs. whatever UK brought to India. If UK swings absolutely everything in range like you suggest (3 INF/1 AA from India, +1 INF from Persia, +1 FTR from Egypt, +1 FTR from Australia), then India will hold until J3 (1 INF from before + 2 tanks from FIC (J2 buy) + the IJN transporting the land units from Fukien + bombard will overrun whatever UK can possibly bring).

So it may have been a bit bold of me to suggest that India will “definitely fall by J2,” but it is possible if UK’s priorities lie elsewhere.

As for the strategy being “unstoppable,” I’d hardly call my plan unstoppable, but it does have a certain appeal to it if the first 2 rounds go smoothly.

@panther Panther,

Using the latest github build worked. Thanks for the quick feedback.

Sorry for not checking the support subforum before asking you directly.

Unfortunately, you don’t get the cruiser bombardment.
You have to bring the transports + escorting naval units into the SZ during combat move phase, unloading only if the battle in the SZ is successful. You can’t choose whether or not the Cruiser participates so it can get a bombardment.

More importantly, this also means that you cannot bring the transport from SZ13 (south of France) to aid your Sealion attempt, as the UK Navy off Gibraltar (SZ12) still blocks it.

That drops your odds of success to basically zero.

Even if these rules weren’t the case, I wouldn’t hedge my bets on a first-turn-kill that only has 30% of success (estimating on the low end because your battle to clear the waters around UK also needs to succeed and I’m too lazy to run this scenario through the battle calc). It’s low odds to succeed and even if you win, one of two things will happen:
1. UK can retake London B1 via its surviving fleet + the Tank from Canada (it’s unlikely you’d have many ground troops in London unless you got extremely lucky).
2. If UK fails, US will surely succeed in liberating London A1 with its starting units.

This strategy also gives USSR a free round to reorganize its forces and collect a good chunk of its income compared to a normal start. Additionally, UK’s fleet off Egypt, along with most of the Egyptian forces will have a turn to evacuate ahead of I1, allowing them to march towards more strategically important areas of the board (India, Caucasus, etc.).

You can Sealion in the 41 scenario for sure, but it takes a bit more setup. Try buying a Carrier G1 and landing some of your starting FTRs on it, for starters.

@Suppressmeajumma The Western Allies should certainly be landing in the same spot, and Northern Italy, since it has a factory, is certainly a good place to land (France is also good, since it’s two spaces away from any German Factories, so harder to reinforce). My point was more that defending the USSR should be the main objective of the US/UK, not making some kind of grand D-Day Style Landing. You might want to prioritize landing troops in Leningrad before making any landings in France/Italy, so that they can liberate the factory there for the USSR and defend Moscow from the German onslaught.

@VictoryFirst It was already made. https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/41503/2025-classic-tournament/. Wins/Losses go there. This thread has the link to the bracket buried in it, which is here for reference:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bl9ZgBWBZMZhybNTT6CUEiTC_QA6k949IWDZeYY_Qrc/edit?gid=1557325169#gid=1557325169

@SuperbattleshipYamato said in Has Anyone Played This ?:

2. Its hex based system

That’s a point of interest in and of itself. In A&A Hexes only appeared in Battle of the Bulge but most wargames use them, so they’re not completely alien to me. Are there bonuses in combat for flanking the enemy or penalties for moving your units into the enemy’s “Zone of Control”?

Adding to the above is the introduction of a Cobra “Weather Dominator”, allowing to turn hexes with water into ice (i.e land) hexes at the cost of 1 reinforcement point (basically IPCs). They’re generally used to faciliate the land movement of Cobra-Destro units and bridge areas.

This seems neat. Good gimmick to make games more dynamic.

One huge change that I’m still getting used to is that ships, aircraft, and land units occupy hexes that contain both land and water together, attacking and defending with each other (with some small exceptions). As such, amphibious assaults are made with ships and land units fighting together, and most battles (especially over islands) are conducted with all air, land, and sea units fighting together.

Yeah that one sounds very strange. Land units being able to freely shoot at ships seems very off.

The unit selection

The asynchronous units sound very interesting. Honestly I wish the mainline A&A games did this as the different powers were better at different things during the IRL WW2 (the North Africa game seems like a step in the right direction with different stats for different nations’ units (compare the tanks between the different sides for an easy example).

Infantry work in the exact same way, but they only cost 2 reinforcement points, so it’s easier to spam.

Probably not a good thing but the stacking limit might somewhat mitigate the usefulness of spamming outside of blocking.

Each side has national advantages (although they’re not called that), encouraging certain moves.

Are they optional rules or mandatory?

All powers have a base, which essentially acts as their capital, which is where all units a power buys are placed (with some minor exceptions) and the capture of one base on the other side instantly leads to victory for the capturing power. Interestingly each side has a “shared” base, where units from two powers on the same side can be placed.

I know basically nothing about GI Joe other than the absolute bare basics. Is the game 2v2 or is their an uneven number of powers (example: most A&A games are 3v2 (R/B/A Vs. G/J)?

There are 2 ways to win: Capturing bases (I would compare this to a capital capture in normal games) or getting enough victory points from the board, the latter of which is both the most likely scenario of victory and similar to an economic victory in some Axis and Allies house rules.
Classic has economic victory as one of its official win conditions (for Axis) and its probably my favorite victory condition in the series. Big plus for me there.

4. It’s pretty fun. The round limits and victory conditions keep the games short and avoid the kind of prolonged deaths losing powers in Global 1940 experience. The changes provide an interesting twist, while what’s kept from other games make it easy for returning players to understand the rules.

If the game reaches the round limit and no one wins with one of the previously stated methods (capital/economic), how is the winner determined? Is it a draw?

5. I would put it in between 1941 and 1942. Definitely one of the simpler Axis and Allies games. Probably most similar to D-Day of the games I’ve played in terms of complexity.

Sorry to ask a follow-up on this one, but to narrow the scale to the “lighter” A&A games, which of the following (assuming you’ve played them) would you say this is closest to (complexity-wise). Disregard the actual quality of the games. I’m only asking about scale/complexity here:

41
Zombies
Classic
Revised/42 1st Edition
OG Europe
42 2nd Edition
OG Pacific

EDIT: Sorry, butchered my original post because I typed it on my phone. Hopefully this is more readable.

@the_good_captain
Game History

Round: 1

    Puchase Units - Italians
        Italians buy 1 fighter and 2 infantry; Remaining resources: 2 PUs; 

    Combat Move - Italians
        1 infantry moved from Somaliland to British East Africa
        1 artillery and 1 infantry moved from Libya to SZ 17
        1 artillery and 1 infantry moved from SZ 17 to Albania
              Italians take Albania from Neutral_Allied
        2 artilleries and 3 infantry moved from Venice to Tuscany
        2 artilleries and 6 infantry moved from Piedmont to Tuscany
        2 artilleries and 6 infantry moved from Rome to Tuscany
        1 infantry moved from Naples to Tuscany

    Combat - Italians
        Italians creates battle in territory Venice
        Battle in Venice
            Italians attack with 1 infantry
            AustroHungarians defend with 3 artilleries and 6 infantry
                Italians roll dice for 1 infantry in Venice, round 2 : 1/1 hits, 0.33 expected hits
                AustroHungarians roll dice for 3 artilleries and 6 infantry in Venice, round 2 : 3/9 hits, 4.50 expected hits
                1 infantry owned by the AustroHungarians and 1 infantry owned by the Italians lost in Venice
            AustroHungarians win with 3 artilleries and 5 infantry remaining. Battle score for attacker is 0
            Casualties for Italians: 1 infantry
            Casualties for AustroHungarians: 1 infantry

    Combat Move - Italians
        Turning on Edit Mode
        EDIT: Adding units owned by Italians to Venice: 1 infantry
        EDIT: Adding units owned by AustroHungarians to Venice: 1 infantry
        EDIT: Turning off Edit Mode

    Place Units - Italians
        1 fighter and 2 infantry placed in Rome

    Turn Complete - Italians
        Italians collect 14 PUs; end with 16 PUs

Combat Hit Differential Summary :

Italians regular : 0.67
AustroHungarians regular : -1.50

Like I said over IM, I screwed up and misclicked when trying to swap out the Italian INF for a Neutral one to avoid combat in Venice. I edited the Italian and AH INF back in during NCM Phase.

Like with B/F, will post save after USA1.

@Plantageneto What specific moves are you making to accomplish Sealion so easily? IIRC the only way to pull it off turn 1 with any degree of consistency involves buying technology, getting lucky and getting “long range aircraft”.

Not a problem! Love your video series on Classic by the way. Hoping you’ll examine other versions at some point but it’s clear that your love is for Classic first and foremost.

@Martin Yes the “miss” on my part was using Japan’s bomber offensively when it could have at least NCM’d from Manchuria -> Germany to give one more HP to the units there. That might have made some level of difference in the final fight but in hindsight, once the UK air got as many kills as it did it was unlikely that Germany was going to survive.

Good luck to you as well!

DISCLAIMER: THIS POST WAS MADE GIVEN MY PLAYGROUP’S UNDERSTANDING OF THE RULES OF AAZ. IF ANY OF THIS INFORMATION IS FACTUALLY INCORRECT PLEASE LET ME KNOW ASAP SO I CAN CORRECT IT. THANK YOU

Yo (again),

Last night’s game was certainly an interesting experience, but it wrapped up far too late for me to write something immediately, so here I am now.

This is my second post of 3 I’ll be making on this topic, where I’ll cover Axis & Allies & Zombies from a gameplay perspective. I played this game the way I believed it was “”“meant”“” to be played by the designers (in a 5-player game with Zombies, the Zombie Cards, and the “Desperate Measures” features of the Zombie Cards (and technology, by extension) all enabled ). The intention here is not to evaluate balance necessarily (that’s certainly not something that can be determined from just one game anyway), but to get a “feel” for how the new game plays compared to other A&A titles. This is about fun-factor and play-ability for now, not necessarily design quality and game balance (although I may end up lightly touching on those points in this post).

One thing that bores me to tears when reading reviews of other board games is that the reviewer tends to attempt to explain the rules of the game to the reader. There are other posts and resources explaining how to play AAZ in varying levels of detail on this site, so I would direct any reader who is new to this game (or to Axis & Allies as a whole) to seek out those posts/resources.

However, I will explain the changes to this version in high-level details, to be fair to those of you who are like I was and have not played AAZ yet. Out of politeness, I am also going to mark where the rule-dump begins/ends, so you can get through this post faster if you’re already up-to-snuff on how Zombies work:

ZOMBIE EXPLANATION START

• Core Rule Set (unit set, costs, stats, etc.) is based on AA50. That being said, there are a few differences.

• No Cruisers or AA Guns.

• No SBRs.

• You can no longer use an ally’s TT or CV for your land units or FTRs.

• You buy/place units at the end of your turn, meaning you can better adapt your purchases based on how the turn went. This has strategic implications I’ll go into more in part 3, so stay tuned.

Zombies exist:

• Spawn every time an INF dies (1 INF -> 1 Zombies, 2 INF -> 2 Zombies, etc.)

• Spawn whenever directed to by a “Zombie Card” (more on those below).

• If only Zombies exist in a territory, that territory loses its IPC value (and the Zombies “gain” its IPC value, more on that below).

• If Zombie-Controlled territory (they even have their own roundels, printed on the back of the normal ones) reaches 25 IPC, the game ends and “the team with the highest IPC value wins”. This effectively means the Allies win, given the huge discrepancy in starting IPC values.

• Players can coexist with Zombie-Units in their territory or attempt to remove them (ask me if you need more details on this, the rules are a bit complex and I’d be here a while trying to explain it. Better yet, ask Panther or one of the other “rules guys”, as I’m liable to give you incorrect information).

• Zombies get a post-shot at the occupiers of any territory they exist in at the start of a turn. The controlling player doesn’t get to fire back.

• During combat in a territory where Zombies exist, all 6-rolls kill a Zombie, whether you want to or not.

• Also during combat, Zombies mindlessly attack at the start of every round of combat. The Zombies have their own special dice, but the breakdown of their attack is as follows:

• Roll 1 die per-zombie.

• 1 - Kill Defending Land Unit.

• 2,3 - Kill Attacking Land Unit.

• 4-6 - Miss.
  (Killed units are taken as casualties, but still get to fire for the combat round).

• After combat, if the attacker won, they may stay and continue fighting the zombies in an attempt to wipe them out before they can potentially become a problem later.

ZOMBIE EXPLANATION END

I apologize again for explaining all of that. Hopefully someone finds it useful.

Anyway, regarding the core gameplay changes, I’m sad to see AA Guns and SBRs go. The AA in particular was an extremely important unit for defense, but there are barely any air units in the starting setup so I guess I can let it slide (the rules for AA Guns were always a bit nebulous anyway, the changes they made in G40 only made them more nebulous, in my opinion).

I feel that they could have simply reverted to the old SBR rules from Classic/Revised (direct IPC Damage instead of “damaging facilities”) if they wanted to “simplify the A&A experience” or whatever Wizards was thinking (also; if they wanted to “simplify” things why did they make the Zombie rules so bloody complicated?).

I couldn’t care less about Cruisers though. Easily the most useless unit in all of A&A. Even the Battleship is a better purchase because at least it can soak up a hit.

The changes regarding sharing transports/carriers were just to clear up clutter in the rulebook, I think. This is fair, and I couldn’t spy any openings for either side where the rule would have helped if it still existed.

Again, I’ll hold off on commenting on the “purchase/mobilize units” changes until part 3.

I’m going to review the gameplay factor by briefly stepping through the game I played with my group last night. I’ll explain my thoughts as we go along, with a conclusion at the end. No, I do not have exact unit movements recorded. I figured there’d be no point in that, because:

• It was everyone’s first time playing the new game.

• There are huge gaps in player-skill in our group. Some players are competent, but others simply do not make moves that would be considered acceptable by most of the players on this site.

• This post is already getting a bit long the way it is.

Anyway, with that in mind, let’s dive in, shall we?
R1:
For starters, this map and setup are more-or-less based on 41, but with a few changes:

• IPC Values are buffed across the board.

• “Eastern Europe” has been split into “Eastern Europe” and “Balkans” to make the game feel more like Revised/42SE.

• “North China” has been split into two territories, the names of which I can’t recall. One is basically Sinkiang from Revised/AA50, a final barrier between China and Russia. The other is a buffer zone between the “Sinkiang-esque” territory and Japanese holdings.

• India and the “Sinkiang-esque” territory have special Industrial Complexes that can only build INF. I’ll talk about these more in part 3 but I wanted to note them here.

• A few extra SZs have been thrown about. US still can’t make it to UK in one move, which makes land bridges slower. The US and Japan can both make it to the Solomon Islands SZ in one move, which makes the prospect of setting up the USN difficult, given the huge disparity in starting forces.

• The setup is pretty close to 41 from what I remember, but Russia seems a bit stronger and Germany a bit weaker. This is probably to address the fact that OOB 41 was basically unwinnable for the Allies.

Anyway, on to the Soviet Player’s turn.

The first “Zombie Card” of the game went to FIC. One Zombie was more-or-less ineffective for the time being. We had a good laugh at the Soviet Player’s expense, as they were clearly not going to be able to kill 3 Zombies this turn to get their tech roll.

In a normal play for this scale game, the Russians hit Ukraine and West Russia with basically everything, leaving a blocker in Karelia (No IC there in this map). West Russia went well for them, but after 3 rounds of mediocre rolling on both sides in Ukraine the Soviets had to retreat. They bought 2 INF/2 ART, typical stuff.

Even at this early point, one of the nuances of this edition of A&A became very clear to us…

…The Zombies weren’t going to make land easy to hold. 4 Zombies were left behind in Ukraine due to the INF casualties. In a normal game, the surviving TANK would be in good shape to be reinforced by the other German starting units, and Germany would be on-track to securing a huge advantage due to the failed Russian attack. But in this game, things were different. In this game, Zombies were a thing.

G1: I was the German Player
And a thing they were… I didn’t even get to make my move before my TANK was killed off by Zombies, and my IPC value dipped. The Zombie of the turn took out Mexico, which immediately hurt the US Player’s income (no units start in Mexico). This prompted a few jokes, none of which I can share for obvious reasons.

I got a free roll on the tech chart for my troubles, and wound up with the “Zombie Mind Control Ray.” It moves Zombies in territory I control during NCM, but I never got a chance to use it.

Anyway, being the Germany player, I was immediately faced with two options:

1. Attempt to retake Ukraine and establish a stack (…that would be perilously in-range of the West Russia Stack + Caucasus reinforcements)

2. Hold the line.

After thinking back to the discussions I’ve had regarding the Zombie mechanics before the game launched, I thought of a more sinister plan…

3. Strafe West Russia until all of my INF die, leaving a mass of Zombies on Stalin’s front-porch.

Perfect.

To add insult to injury, I sailed 2 INF on a TT from Italy to Egypt on a suicide mission. The idea was to let Zombies pile up in hard-to-break territories and force the defenders out, then swoop in after the defenders die to get easy kills on the zombies. This turned out to be half of a good idea, but retaking Zombie-held land proved more difficult than I anticipated.

Naval combat is the same as ever in this game, so I wiped out the entire Royal Navy G1, even the Canadians. I lost most of my subs doing this though due to lucky die-rolling on the UK’s part.

I bought a mix of land units and passed play to UK.

UK1:
Sweden has joined the game
That’s right. The Zombie card for the UK Turn spawned a Zombie in Sweden, meaning they join the war and the Zombies gain more IPC Value.

The existing Zombies had a good run this turn. FIC Zombie got a hit, and the West Russia Zombies got 2, reducing the Soviet stack to 6 INF (the Soviet Player took non-INF units out first to try to slow the rate of new Zombie).

The UK Player quickly picked up on my tactic, and strafed the poor Japanese position in FIC just to kill their own INF and the surviving Japanese INF. Other than that, they weren’t able to do much except destroy the Japanese fleet off FIC (to establish a blocker for India) and pick off the German Battleship with the RAF. They blew all their money on INF for India and the beginning of a new fleet.

The tactic of indirectly crippling the enemy with the Zombies was proving powerful.

J1:
This turn’s card saw a Zombie show up in Finland-Norway, and with no starting German TT in the Baltic, the two units I had there were basically sentenced to death. Japan was also able to convert a Zombie in FIC into 3 IPC, which was helpful, but too little too late to save the territory.

The Zombie rolls continued, spelling doom for FIC and taking a bite out of the forces in Egypt and West Russia. The main Russian army was down to 5 INF at this point, looking great for my Germans.

The Soviet Player made the common mistake of stacking Siberia (literally called “Siberia” in this game instead of “Buryatia” like it usually is). The Japan player attempted to exploit this by landing in-force. Other than that, they committed to a China-centric attack while also dumping INF on the beaches of the Philippines to die intentionally (and so further damage the US economy).

Japan’s attacks in China went well, and they even stayed to ensure that the Zombies were cleared out afterwards. Sadly, Siberia did not go as smoothly. Only a TANK/ART/2 FTR remained after the Soviets (and Zombies) dished out some strong rolls during the battle. That means 6 Zombies (originally 7 but one died during the battle due to someone rolling a “6”) were set to prey on the TANK/ART that were left behind. Japan’s economy had been severely crippled due to the player’s bad decision to not retake FIC from the Zombies, but position-wise they were in good shape. The UK Pacific Fleet was 100% destroyed, there were no Soviet Forces in the East, and the main Japanese army was one move away from seizing the Chinese “INF-only IC”.

A1:
The Americans flipped over the next Zombie Card, which brought a Zombie to Australia. It also would have allowed the yanks to grab a tech if they killed enough Zombies this turn, but they were in no position to do so.

Zombie Rolls were merciful this turn, but an incredibly lucky roll killed one of the INF in Norway-Finland, meaning only 1 INF was left to deal with 2 Zombies.

The US started the process of cleaning up the Atlantic, but other than that they just amassed their forces and prepared for the rest of the game. They didn’t bother to retake Mexico, and led the Chinese on a suicidal march into Japanese China, successfully spawning a Zombie. Not a bad play.

R2:
“Why am I commenting on the entire game?” You’ll understand soon enough…

The Zombies continued, this time arriving in the Balkans. Fortunately, my main stack was there, and the Zombie wasn’t able to get a kill. However, Siberia fell to the Zombies, leaving Japan in a rough position. Meanwhile, the last remnants of the mighty Red Army died in West Russia before the Russia Player could even begin their turn, leaving them in a rough spot with basically no army.

Resigned to their fate, the Soviets sent a lone INF from Karelia into Eastern Europe, desperate to cause a diversion with a Zombie. To everyone’s surprise, the lone INF beat the INF blocker I had in-place there, completely cutting off my planned Tank Blitz into Karelia.

Now relatively safe, the Soviets sent the rest of their standing army into China to hold the INF-IC, and built as many units as they could manage.

G2:
I now faced a position that I believe the developers intended. The Soviet Army was totally crushed and defeated. but a White Wall of Zombies stood between me and victory. The Zombie Card dumped a Zombie into Borneo, threatening the UK Economy. My objective card was to kill 3 Zombies for a tech, which I barely failed.

The Attrition Rolls this turn were brutal. Norway-Finland died, Australia lost an INF (leaving a Tank to deal with the Zombies), Borneo fell to the new Zombie, Japan’s Chinese territory lost an INF to the Zombies, and Egypt was reduced to just 1 FTR (and 4 Zombies).

Figuring that Egypt was crippled, I decided to go for the kill on the FTR, and marched my troops in. I was ultimately horrified to learn that the Zombies were already more than I can handle, and my 2 TANK/FTR were all wiped out in the process of killing the UK FTR. That means Zombies ruled the day in Egypt.

Meanwhile, I cleaned up the Balkans and retook East Europe. Next turn, my death stack would be ready to hit Karelia, and from there my path to victory, around the Zombies, would be clear.

B2:
The UK got a truly terrifying “Desperate Measures” Zombie Card this turn:
“Choose a Zombie-Controlled Territory. Move half of the Zombies from that territory to an adjacent territory.”

4 of the 7 Zombies from Siberia were now in Manchuria (which was unoccupied), and Japan’s economy took a nose-dive. Scary stuff.

Attrition rolls were ineffective this turn, but the threat of losing Australia made the UK’s turn uneventful anyway, as they were delegated to cleaning up Australia, flying a FTR to Philippines, and stacking India. The Royal Navy was finally established, which threatened to liberate Europe in the coming turn…

J2:
Japan didn’t have much to offer this turn. Their Zombie Card took out New Guinea, and attrition rolls did nothing.

The Japanese Player attempted three objectives this turn, and failed all of them spectacularly:

1. Finish off the Chinese (2 INF/ART/2 FTR Vs. 2 INF/ART/FTR) - Result - All defenders destroyed, but no surviving attacking land units (Zombies Win, 4 Zombies on territory), Japan retreats 2 FTRs to Kwangtung (“Coastal China”)

2. Reclaim Manchuria from the Zombies - Result - A landing with 4 INF was attempted, but horrendous die-rolling saw the 4 Zombies roll 4 “As”, killing the entire Japanese landing party and leaving Manchuria in the hands of 8 Zombies.

3. Seize the Philippines from the weakened defenders - Result - 1 INF/1 TANK/3 FTR + Bombardment Vs. 1 FTR Vs. 3 Zombies somehow resulted in all of the land units, the British FTR and one of the Japanese FTRs dying. Attempts to strafe the Zombies failed spectacularly. 4 Zombies now lived in the Philippines due to not a single “6” being rolled.

The critical mistake here was that the Japan Player forgot that Zombies can’t hit air units. Let me elaborate a bit:

The Japanese player whiffed the bombardment and lost an INF to the Zombies. They got their hit on the UK FTR and the UK FTR got a hit back, killing a JPN FTR. Knowing that 1 TANK would likely not survive a full round of Zombie Attrition, the Japan Player tried to stay and fight the Zombies. Immediately, the Zombies rolled an “A” on their combat round. The Japan Player wanted to take a FTR as a casualty, but were reminded that Zombies can’t hit planes. Thus, the poor lad had to take his last land unit as a casualty, resulting in the Philippines going Zombie.

A2:
The USA Player laughed at our misfortune, as the game was already over.

“But how?” You may be wondering.
Two Words. Zombie. Apocalypse.

Yes, the alternate win condition that was mostly written off by my play group game into effect, ending the game in the Allies’ favor (their IPC count, naturally, greatly exceeded the Axis). 25 IPCs were really gone in just two rounds.

WINNER - ALLIES

So that was a game of AAZ. Our total playtime was about 2 and a half hours, and that includes the time it took to setup and review the new rules with everyone.

Honestly, everyone in my playgroup had a blast playing it. The Zombies add a chaotic factor to the game that is not normally present, and the quick result was greatly appreciated, even if it was probably a symptom of everyone’s unfamiliarity with the Zombie Mechanic.

However, I did find that the Zombie Cards added a degree of luck to the game that makes the thought of playing it competitively laughable. Our game was basically decided for us when the UK Player Top-Decked a card that transferred a horde of Zombies into Manchuria, which spelled disaster for Japan and triggered the “Zombie Apocalypse”.

Disclaimer (again): This bit on the zombies is based on how our group interpreted the rules. If I’m wrong on something please let me know ASAP so I can fix this. I do not want to have misinformation taint my image of the game

I also found that the attrition rolls for the Zombies consume a disproportionate amount of time that could better be spent playing. This could be sped up by just making the Zombies stronger during the attrition phase or by removing the attrition phase outright. I’ll give the attrition phase a pass though, because it was hilarious making people roll to see whether their troops would randomly keel over and die to the Zombies. Watching the invincible West Russia INF Stack, an icon of the series in my opinion, melt into nothing over the course of a round was extremely satisfying to watch.

If anything, it was way too hard to actually get rid of the pests. You have to roll a 6 to kill one Zombie (except in the case of spillover casualties, which are suffered by the Zombies). This means that, barring the one round of combat where you get spillover hits, you have the same odds of hitting the zombies as they have of hitting you. This makes attempting to seize Zombie-Controlled land effectively impossible unless you are bringing armies with 0 INF to clean-up, which becomes cost-ineffective when the enemy is just going to use the Zombie Stack as a Dead-Zone and kill your army for free once you’ve removed the Zombies for them.

All-in-All though, this game was great to play with friends who weren’t taking things seriously. Highly recommended for a late-night activity, for when there’s simply not enough time to play a larger A&A Game, or even for a time where everyone’s not quite in the mood for ultra-serious gameplay.

That being said, this game in its base form has no business being anywhere near a competition, and I hope that this game is not seen at Gen Con, Origins, WBC, etc., lest the reputation of the franchise as a competitive strategy game be damaged. At the bare minimum, the Zombie Cards cannot and should not be used in a tournament, and the “Zombie Apocalypse” victory condition should result in a draw rather than what is essentially a free win for the Allies. In its current state, the “Zombie Apocalypse” encourages suicidal play by the Allies to drown the Axis in Zombies and rush to 25 Zombie IPCs before the Axis can even have a prayer of reaching Moscow.

I mean, just look at the starting IPC values:
Allies: 68
USSR - 14
UK - 22
USA - 32

Axis: 38
Germany - 23
Japan - 15

That’s a 30 IPC difference (15 IPC swing). Yes, Japan will hopefully nab at least Philippines, Borneo and 2 Chinese territories (6 IPC Swing) J1, but the Soviets will trade West Russia and Ukraine (4 IPC total) for Karelia and Egypt (3 IPC total) between R1 and G1, which is an overall 1 IPC swing back to the Allies. That means the Axis only make up 5 IPC of the 15 they need to close the gap round 1, and that’s before factoring in territories that might arbitrarily fall to an inconveniently timed Zombie Card.

My point in explaining the IPC gap between the powers is to illustrate how easy it is for the Allies to win by forcing the Zombie Win Condition. Just march tons of INF into the Meatgrinder on the Eastern front and create a wall of Zombies. That effectively secures Moscow, as the Russians can easily punish any German Attempt at taking the clay by throwing more INF in their face and letting the Zombies do the rest. Japan is in a safer position to expand, but similar tactics can be used to slow them down by drowning FIC and the Chinese territories in Zombies. The Islands are probably a safe bet, but if the initial Zombies can’t be scrubbed from the islands quickly it will prove impossible for Japan to expand its income beyond its miserable starting value.

So that’s it. The game’s a blast for a fun time with friends, but competitively it’s a bloody mess. Stay tuned for part 3, which is a bit of a bonus part, where I’ll try the interesting experiment of playing this game Zombie-Free. I’ll also be running through the 1939 Scenario, which is an overly-glorified tutorial where Germany crushes Poland, France, etc., to see if has anything exciting to bring to the plate. Finally, I’ll share my thoughts on AAZ as a whole, and what elements of it I’d like to see in future A&A Installments.

If you actually read all this, way to go.
If you actually read this and the last part, double way to go.

@the_good_captain These attempts at sniping fringe territories really aren’t going my way…

Game History

Round: 2

    Puchase Units - French
        French buy 2 artilleries and 7 infantry; Remaining resources: 0 PUs; 

    Combat Move - French
        1 artillery and 4 infantry moved from Portugal to SZ 14
        1 infantry moved from Spanish Morocco to SZ 14
        1 infantry moved from Gold Coast to Togoland
              French take Togoland from Germans
        1 infantry moved from Tunisia to Libya
        1 artillery, 5 infantry and 3 transports moved from SZ 14 to SZ 17
        1 artillery and 5 infantry moved from SZ 17 to Piedmont
        4 artilleries, 1 fighter and 13 infantry moved from Burgundy to Piedmont
        1 infantry moved from Picardy to Burgundy
        1 fighter and 6 infantry moved from Paris to Burgundy
        1 artillery and 2 infantry moved from Belgium to Ruhr
        4 artilleries and 13 infantry moved from Belgium to Picardy

    Combat - French
        Battle in Piedmont
            French attack with 5 artilleries, 1 fighter and 18 infantry
            Germans defend with 1 infantry
                French roll dice for 5 artilleries, 1 fighter and 18 infantry in Piedmont, round 2 : 8/24 hits, 10.50 expected hits
                Germans roll dice for 1 infantry in Piedmont, round 2 : 1/1 hits, 0.50 expected hits
                1 infantry owned by the Germans and 1 infantry owned by the French lost in Piedmont
            French win, taking Piedmont from Germans with 5 artilleries, 1 fighter and 17 infantry remaining. Battle score for attacker is 0
            Casualties for French: 1 infantry
            Casualties for Germans: 1 infantry
        Battle in Ruhr
            French attack with 1 artillery and 2 infantry
            Germans defend with 1 infantry
                French roll dice for 1 artillery and 2 infantry in Ruhr, round 2 : 0/3 hits, 1.33 expected hits
                Germans roll dice for 1 infantry in Ruhr, round 2 : 1/1 hits, 0.50 expected hits
                1 infantry owned by the French lost in Ruhr
            Germans and French reach a stalemate
            . Battle score for attacker is -3
            Casualties for French: 1 infantry

    Combat Move - French

    Place Units - French
        2 artilleries and 7 infantry placed in Paris

    Turn Complete - French
        French collect 30 PUs; end with 30 PUs

Combat Hit Differential Summary :

French regular : -3.83
Germans regular : 1.00

B2 next.

NOTE: I didn’t bother addressing your concerns about Japan/the Pacific because, as you said, we’d just be getting ourselves bogged down into an endless discussion on the entirety of AA50, which is way outside the original scope of this thread, which was defending Egypt as UK in the 41 Scenario (I already kind of dragged us out of it by harping on NOs, so sorry about that).

Similar to what @Imperious-Leader said, just go for Navy. It’s not the optimal Japan strategy (getting a land-bridge to mainland Asia and driving to Moscow with an INF push while simultaneously gobbling up the Pacific Islands/attacking Africa is), but it’ll at least give everyone a good time.

Just remember, Battleships suck and it’s ill-advised to spend money on new Carriers. Build Submarines and Transports out the wazoo, and do your best to keep your initial, valuable starting boats (Battleships and Carriers) alive at all costs.

@leemorrison I am ready to start our game when you are. PM me your opening bid if you are ready.

@taamvan If you’ve paid any attention to the forum drama in the leadup to it’s release, you’d know that the game was a huge base-breaker on here. Probably a 70-30 split between people who said that the game “ruined axis and allies forever and they were boycotting it because Zombies were in it” (the 70%) and people who were willing to give the game a chance (the 30%, including me).

The point of my huge rambling posts at the start of this thread was to give the game a comprehensive overview, and a “fair chance”, since I figured no one else was going to (and still hasn’t as far as I know).

Unfortunately, while the game is amusing and the concept of Zombies is novel, the game is too unbalanced to have any long-term viability. I’d also speculate that the scale of the game is just too small for the community’s taste these days (G40 is the only game that sees any discussion on this site, really).

The latter reason for the near-total dismissal of this game by the core community may be more of the latter case than the former, though. As far as I know, 1914 and the 42SE Larry Harris Tournament Ruleset were also more-or-less ignored (although they did not receive the absolute vitriol and backlash that AAZ did).

I guess sales numbers will decide this game’s fate to WOTC, but from the community’s perspective I’d label it a massive failure, possibly even greater than 41. At least 41 didn’t break the community/inspire backlash. I’d still argue that the INF Recruitment Centers were a good idea though, and if WOTC doesn’t kill the brand they should work to include them in future editions.

@domanmacgee Game History

Round: 3

    Puchase Units - Americans
        Americans buy 1 artillery, 1 cruiser, 1 infantry and 1 transport; Remaining resources: 0 PUs; 

    Place Units - Americans
        1 cruiser and 1 transport placed in SZ 1
        1 artillery and 1 infantry placed in United States of America

    Turn Complete - Americans
        Americans collect 20 PUs; end with 20 PUs

Combat Hit Differential Summary :

As I’m sure you’re already aware, starting from round 4 the Russian Revolution is in effect and America is allowed to actually start playing.

1914-game1-usa3.tsvg

@AndrewAAGamer tl;dr to the above post. I was wrong to say that the Axis have a neigh-unbreakable advantage when playing with NOs turned on, but I still believe that they do have a palpable advantage, and that the game as a whole would be better off being played without them. The scenario as a whole, NOs or not, is much more balanced than I originally thought, though.

I’m not very good at Classic, but I’ll throw my two cents in.

Typically, I commit 1-2 rounds of shucking INF from South Europe -> Africa to try to rack up some IPCs. After the first two rounds or so you’re going to need 100% of your IPCs to commit to the stack war in Eastern Europe Vs. USSR/UK.

If UK wastes their money on a South Africa/India IC I’d punish them by committing the Germans to a Egypt -> Syria -> Persia -> India trajectory, while also sending as much of Japan’s navy as possible towards India to take the free factory. If Japan/Germany can break a hypothetical India Factory early on, it can give Japan some real momentum in gobbling up IPCs in Africa + putting pressure on Russia.

Remember: In Classic, Germany has to play defensively, as they stand no chance of breaking Karelia unless your opponent is really weak. Japan has to be the main breadwinner for the Axis, abusing the weak starting setup for the Allies in Asia and the typical hyper-KGF Allied strategy to try to either take Moscow or win an “economic victory” before the Allies manage to break Germany.