Monday nights at Rogue Robot is boardgame night and occasionally we play Axis & Allies but we alway game. We’ve got about 7-8 guys that are regulars. Start time is 5:00pm to 6:00pm until 10 or 11. We are playing Formula D on our next Monday and the game supports 10 players and you are welcome to come by and introduce yourself and have a go at the race.
We’ve been meeting for over a dozen years and are always open to new players.
Cheers - Dave
Ok, they look great…but I’m still a touch disappointed with a couple of choices.
I thought FMG said from the start that the PZ III was already set to be in this? Instead we get two heavy tanks? The WW2 game did this with the Tiger and Maus already and IIRC it was not an overly popular move. I had thought (but I certainly may have been wrong) that part of the point behind 2 tanks was to allow some house rule variety. But it seems the Germans are stuck with “heavy” and “even heavier and slower” as choices. :-(
I’d have to agree - two heavy tanks is really boring. Considering the Germans manufactured only 569 King Tigers to 13,500 PZIVs and 16,500 PZIIIs I would have though that the PzIV or PzIII would have been a better option for the “common” german tank and the Tiger1 would have been the alternate or upgrade version.
Considering the low production number of King Tigers I would speculate that Field Marshall Games is going to make more King Tigers than the German did!
This won’t stop me from buying the pieces as the quality of the entire scult set looks good - I’m just dismayed that after two years of comment these are the two German tank options.
I think you are incorrect. This sculpt was made from SEVERAL Black and White pictures, an on-line WWII vehicle SPEC SHEET and an actual model.
Is it an AutoBlinda 41? If so than…. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AB_41.
They will all be separated, and in a Newly designed FMG Felt bag for each Nation. We use a different and more advanced/expensive production technique than both WOTC and TT.
Wow - that’s Cool!
I’m not sure if this has been discussed but does the Armored Car have a turret that can turn? The reason I ask is because in the picture it’s facing backward…
The tank was good, the ships are nice, I’m not much of a naval guy so they are less impressive to me, however those infantry look incredible! If you keep this kind of quality through the entire set then I’m sold! These will become my defacto playing pieces just as the Combat dice are now my defacto dice.
Great work! The poses are similar but it doesn’t bother me. Looking forward to more!
How is the game itself?
Ok I’ll chime in - I played last week and it was very enjoyable. The economy is different - each country has a slightly different cost for units. There are two sizes of factories, large and small. Battleships need to be repaired at a factory when damaged. Infantry can be built right in a terriotry according to it’s IPC cost - that was a fun new mechanic. Ships move 3. Bombers use two dice when they attack hitting on 8s. The game uses d12s. The defender can retreat! It all makes for a new enough game that it’s not like A&A.
Overall I foun it fun - and it had enough different that it make the game new and interesting. My gaming group will be playing again next week.
Generalyk - I designed the game you speak of. What do you want to know?
@Nicky:
Looking to expand gameplay in Minnesota… any takers?
Nick
We play every Tuesday night from 4pm to late at Dragon Port Games in Duluth. So yea, I’m up for a game. Where in MN are you?
What! No, no 25 pounder is a much better choice! :-D
@TG:
Here is my stream of consciousness post about A&A after a few playthroughs:
- 1941 without National Objectives is a fair game. 1941 with National Objectives favors the Axis.
Really? I’ve played 6 games of 1941 with NOs and each time excpet once the Allies have won. I well played Russia in 1941 is very, very hard to take, that is unless America forgets about Japan. I find that the 1942 version more favors the Axis. I’ve never played without the National Objectives.
I like the AA die concept but I think for clarity, it should have 5 numbered sides and the above image with the bomber. This way you don’t have to remember if you have radar then fighters hit otherwise bombers hit. I know it sounds like a small thing to remember but less is more. Also if you don’t put pips on the other five sides then you can’t use the AA die for anything else. Maybe you need another die…for something… you grab the AA die it’s blank on five sides, can’t use it. Makes the item less funtional.
A note about the set already produced - anytime someone sees the AA50 game with these dice they say, “Wow, it came with these dice?” and I say, “No I custom ordered them.” Then they say, “Those are really cool.” Nice job.
This was in response to the same thread on the Avlone hill boards and I copied and pasted it here for this discussion too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nexus73
What I am curious about is the true production number for AA50. The War Game: World War II was a 2000 unit production run and it still has yet to sell out.
You can’t compare “The War Game” to AA50. The war game is a self published product with little or no distribution chain. AA50 has the backing of Wotc, it’s distribution chain, the Axis & Allies brand name and Larry Harris. Yes the marketing for AA50 has been horrid but let’s look at some numbers:
In publishing, publishers price an item at 5 to 8 times the cost of the item. So if AA50 retails for $100.00 then it costs Wotc $12.50 to manufacture (100/8=12.50). They sell it to a wholesalers for 50% of retail, $50.00 and they make $37.50 (12.50-50=37.50) They give Larry his royalty say 10% of net or $5.00 taking their profit down to $32.50.
Now, I know that for the Minis they like to produce about 50,000 units. This is boxes of minis. So if we guess that they did half that for the AA50 game, which would be 25,000 then we take their profit $32.50 x 25,000 =$812,500. That’s a tidy sum. Now out of that has to come all the expenses of design, game testing etc. but these people are all full time and working on games any way so production of AA50 doesn’t effect the overall cost of running Wotc. After all they are in the business of making and selling games.
You’ll never get a real answer. In publishing, knowing how much to print is a very hard thing to judge and the information is closely kept.
This is my best guess.
This is an interesting notion; What is the value of a brand such as Axis & Allies.
Here’s a rumor I know - Hasbro owns Avalon Hill and Avalon Hill owns the Advanced Squad Leader Brand but they license the rights to Multiman Press for $50,000. So if ASL is worth $50,000 then A&A is a whole lot more. After all ASL is no where near as popular.
I’d guess Hasbro would look at $500,000 or more for the A&A brand. My best guess.
I like the idea of hammering Russian production with bombers. If Germany could stop units from Stalingrad and Leningrad then they might have an easier time in Russia, but as it is now Russia makes almost as much money as Germany but starts '41 with very few offesnive weapons so they need to build a tank corps to make Germany bleed and if they are constantly fixing their factories fir say 10 IPCs a tyurn thats 2 less tanks they can build and this puts them on the defensive entirely.
I’ll try this in my next game, if I play Germany.
@Imperious:
ok but the .ai file is backwards compatible automatically. I made the map for you people and for the people who cant make these things so they can benefit.
Ummmm… ok but the links are too a PDF…? And thanks for making the map.
@Imperious:
The map is too small. The extra territories removed the chance to afford larger spaces where pieces didn’t overlap into other territories. In Europe this is an acute problem. So now with the map below you got 72x36 rather than 45x23
IL -Have you added the Chinese double roundel to the Chinese portions of your map? If not I’d like this added as it easily allows the Chinese controller to know where they can move forces. Also is it possible you could give me a copy of the Illustrator file, backwards compatable to AI10 so I could modify it too? It would save me tons of work and I like what you’ve done, but I understand if you don’t want to give the file away. I’d post any of my mods in the house rules forum for all to use. So what say yea?
@Craig:
Tech and NOs are both optional rules, but the NOs shouldn’t be.
They make the game.
As for the Chinese fighter in the '41 scenario, he could have brought at least one Japanese fighter along with his three infantry. But it is all about choices. Maybe he felt that the fighter was needed elsewhere.
Craig
I didn’t know that the National Objectives were optional and while I could have once known the tech was optional I’m sure everyone would have wanted to play with it anyway.
The National Objectives are such a compelling part of the game that I wouldn’t want to play without them. In my opinion, then make this game much more interesting.
As for the Japanese opening strategy I can’t completely coment as I wasn’t playing Japan. I do know that the guy that was playing Japan was a bit concerned about making more than his starting 17 IPCs, so he went out hard for an IPC grab and I guess that didn’t include trying to take out the Chinese fighter.
What about China? Did they got totally killed after Japan 1 or Japan graciously ignore them? I assume at least the fighter was killed
So, China was ignored first round? Or you were playing 1942 scenario? Still, I think Japan can kill the chinese fighter first round even in 1942, so maybe you decided there was a better thing to do in another place, true?
No we played 1941 - The Japanese didn’t want to put up 3 infantry vs. 1 infantry and a fighter, after that the Chinese were careful to keep it out of harms way and if I recall correctly the Japanese might have attacked and taken 1 province in China on the first turn.
The Italians retook France from Germany 3 times?
Which rule allowed that? :?
Ooops how’d that little M get in there - retook France FOR Germany, FOR Germany… ya that’s what I meant.