We all have cool stories, some of us had relatives who actually served during World War II. Some of us even had those relatives see us play the game, perhaps even bought it for us. Mr Harris writes in every A&A game about how his Father, who served in The War, inspired him to create this historic game that has brought so much joy, competition & arguments to each of our play groups.
Smearing of all things the zombie fad on our beloved game is a weak brand management call. Que the “its acquisition” and “well, see if you have a brand castle you must make a boat extension…” or “the only way to make it grow is to bring in new people” apologists.
This is nonsense. Its hasbrah-wizardz, owners of MtG and they can get eyeballs on a friggin Emoji Axis & Allies variant if they wanted to. Hell, being the Lords of Dungeons & Dragons you’d think they could parouse the MM and do better than this, I mean is Rick even still in walkin dead? How many zombie games are there? And the great Axis & Allies has to perform this weird dance?! Shameful.
The Anniversary Edition, A&A 1942, Pacific 1940, Europe 1940, A&A 1941, A&A 1942 2nd Ed and the 1940 2nd Eds had little to zero marketing & advertising. The outdated website had only scant information in the form of a sell sheet or something akin to that. There was never in store posters or flyers or anything… There was never an official Axis & Allies presence at GenCon let alone the other shows (no slight on the wonderful community & tournament organizers you know who you are BRAVO to all of you)…
Still the Brand was kind of reborn with Anniversary Edition as wotcs first attempt was also a fail - Axis & Allies Revised. To this day the ugliest sku they made amirite? Good Christ Anniversary was a revelation! Still, Revised was the first new updated version of Axis & Allies 1984 (Pacific & Europe being theater games - both awesome, especially Europe) and they undoubtably moved a shit ton of them. Goddamn I hope the digital effort I see isnt using that board look - its fucking awful whats up with the x-ray corn flakes floating around the oceans?
Anyways if that thing sold and if this non-Larry-Harris-kitch-trend-acquisition-device sells reasonably, which it prolly does cuz wotc reasons, then there could have been some other variant created by Harris. How about A&A 1939? Start the godamn game when the Hun rolled into Polska. Maybe go further back to like 1936 and have the Nations be able to begin things in different places than they did. Perhaps A&A 1946 - Stalins USSR is out of control and the Allies must stop them. Or if there must be a row boat brand extension keep it in the moat and do say a “Fortress Allies” where only the US stands and is being invaded - yeah like that Amerika game but better. Anyways they ripped off A&A & Fortress so why not. :)
I understand if some people love the variant, and certainly understand the designers just trying to offer something new and interesting (although cards in A&A makes me shudder), but they could have done way better and I still can’t accept hasbrah-wizardz turning my Grampas into 2 hit dice D&D undead. Especially today.