Posts made by Wolfshanze

@cyanight

Ya, I’m not sure if I would go with a roll-up map or if there’s some other way to make a hard-backed map that could be put away and/or stored (maybe even hung on a wall when not in use?). Obviously a rolled up map would be easiest to store, but I’m concerned about a roll up map curling up during play. With the clear laminate to protect the map, is that only if its hard mounted? What kind of materiel did you print yours on? Obviously a metal map at $500 is a bit more than I would want to spend (okay, a fair amount more)… trying for something in the happy medium. I guess I’m still looking for my 6 questions answered, but I am always curious to see what different people do… seems no two take the same approach.

Ok… I’ve seen lots of people with Giant Maps… obviously a lot of people make them for custom tables… I’m pretty sure some people print giant maps without a custom table… (they roll it out when they want to play?).

As a total noob at custom printing (I did one very small project of a battle board, where I printed it on outdoor banner vinyl and had it mounted by a frame shop… mind you, this was a 9.5"x9.5" battle board meant to fit inside the box)… what is the best way to print a huge custom game map?

I’m a self-admitted dummy when it comes to this sort of thing… I’ve seen plenty of links for various maps (usually pdf files I believe), but (unless I’m not looking in the right spots), no actual instructions for the best way/material to actually have these maps printed. Could anyone in the know explain a step-by-step process for the best way to print huge game map? Obviously, start by finding a local print shop, but after that, what next? Is there a preferred material to use? Is there a difference between if you plan on mounting it on a table or rolling it out for play each time? Would you use different materiel for mounting vs rolling it out each time, or would both be the same? I’ve heard the term “laminated” tossed about too… how does that factor in? Does one pretend this is a “wall map” project? What do you tell the clerk at your local print shop when you bring this in… when I brought my small battle board project to the print shop, we both kind of looked at each other with puzzled eyes… I wasn’t sure what to tell them and they weren’t sure what I wanted… I’d like to avoid that if I have a large custom map made.

I’m sure there’s others like me who might not know what to say/do to have one made, but maybe don’t want to speak up… so, i’ll do it for them… and i’ll start by declaring “YES I’M A DUMMY… Plz explain to a dummy what needs to be done to have one of these maps made”.

1. What do I tell/explain to the clerk when I want to have one made…
2. What materiel do I use…
3. Does it matter if its going to be mounted on a table or “free rolled” for play… Do I use different materials for this difference?
4. If its rolled up and unrolled for play from time to time, how do people work with the inevitable “curled up ends” that would probably happen after unrolling?
5. Aside from making a big custom table, or a “roll up” map… is there any way to make a hard-backed custom giant map that is easily storable? As to avoid the curled ends dilemma?
6. Am I missing any important questions or steps? Remember, I’m a dummy on this… I may not be thinking of everything I need to know to have one made.

Thanks to anyone in advance who’d like to answer these questions… I’d like to get a good 1942SE map printed before those files vanish into the internet somewhere. Of course these questions could work for any map anyone wants to make!

I’ve posted these elsewhere before, but for keeping stuff together and organized, these are definitely relevant to this thread… a closer look at the storage bins (stored side view) and over the top of all six bins with units inside and national stickers on top.

If you like the storage bins I use, they are “Stack-On SBR-13: 13 Compartment Storage Organizer Box with Removable Dividers”. I bought mine at my local hardware store (Lowes, in my case), but they are also available on Amazon if you’d prefer to order them. They are about $3.25 a piece, so don’t cost much.
Current Amazon link:
http://www.amazon.com/Stack--SBR-13-Compartment-Organizer-Removable/dp/B000AM8BBI/ref=sr_1_1?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1461292343&sr=1-1&keywords=Stack-On+SBR-13+13+Compartment+Storage+Organizer+Box+with+Removable+Dividers%2C+Red

And a closer look at my Battle Board and dice/tray.

There are some amazingly AWESOME members on this site who do some fantastic work across the board on all kinds of things with Axis and Allies that I can only dream of… but speaking of dreams, i’m the mayor of realville, and in my world, I have realized the following things.
I’m not a carpenter
I’m not a painter
I operate on a tight budget
I don’t have a basement, large study, or spare room I can dedicate strictly to A&A

Seeing as i’m none of the above, that pretty much rules out building a custom A&A table, painting a few hundred units with awesome work, paying someone else to do all that for me, or actually having the space to put such an awesome table in my house. To all you on the forum able to do such awesome work, I salute you… much kudos to you… if I ever visit your home, please have bread and peanut butter on stand by, cuz i’m bringing plenty of jelly! Now on to what I can do!

The below info and pics is what a completely untalented in all the needed fields guy can do… and, if you’re like me… this is still within your grasp! (Good News!). I don’t foresee myself ever having the space, time or friends willing for Global 1940 (though I think that game is awesome), so I’m limiting myself (for now, unless I can con some friends to step up to Global 40) to Axis and Allies 1941 (to teach the noobs in my hometown) and Axis and Allies 1942 SE (once I get them on board).

I’ve done the following to trick-out my Axis and Allies Setup:

1. Purchased both A&A 1941 plus A&A 1942 SE, combining all units into common unit trays
2. Obtained six storage bins (using hardware store screw organizers) for storing the five nations and one neutrals bin, marking each with custom made national stickers for easy identification
3. Purchased additional A&A OOB units from HBG and E-Bay eventually doubling or tripling available units for each unit type over what I would have had by combining 1941 and 1942 units alone.
4. Beefed up a “neutrals” tray with 24 factory sculpts, custom damage chips and some neutral infantry, tanks and fighters for (pending sometime) neutral country house rules for 1942 SE
5. Made a custom Battle Board from a PDF file available on this forum, printed on banner vinyl and hard-mounted at a frame shop (fits in game box!)
6. Printed custom enlarged maps for both 1941 and 1942 on banner vinyl (stored in map tubes)
7. Purchased “Battle Bucks” from HBG and IPC chips from IWNGU gaming (pictured with maps below) for in-game cash (plus extra IPC chips, as I have extra 10s and 25s for big spenders)
8. Purchased 30 Combat Dice from FMG (six dice for each nation), for some national swag on rolls, and a nice ammo pouch to hold them in
9. obtained a nice wood & felt dice tray… every gamer needs one of these (and to be honest, I’ve had this tray for awhile for other games… but if you need one, try Amazon.com if you don’t know where to look).

I think that’s it guys… i’m including some pics of my customization’s… if you have any questions or comments, feel free to do so.

@Private:

And just to clarify yet further - the sub is not flying either! :-D

You obviously didn’t roll as well as I did during the Research phase…

@tsaa:

how many can they build in australia each turn?
this was news for me, is it mentioned in the rulebook?

Not sure what you’re asking being in the rulebook (units per turn, or where plants are), but there is an Industrial Plant is clearly printed on the board in Australia, (though I place an Industrial Plant in Australia as a reminder that it’s printed on the map too)… as stated in the rulebook under the “Mobilize New Units” phase (pg 20), plants can only produce the number of units equal to the value of the territory it is in… so Germany has a value of “4” in 1941, four units a turn can go in Germany… Australia has a value of “1” in 1941, so the answer is one unit a turn can be produced there.

Simply put, if the Allies stood up to Germany before Munich sold-out the Czechs, Germany probably would have had a massive mess on their hands if they had to militarily take Czechoslovakia… people assume a LOT of things, like the Germans were this massive modern mechanized monstrosity that few could stop… this simply was NOT the case in February 1938 when it first cropped up.  Lets just assume, we look at a few things without the assumptions many put on Germany, and look at a lot of the realities if a war broke out before the Sudetenland was turned over to Germany, no Munich happened, and Czechoslovakia stood firm against Germany in 1938.

1. Czechoslovakia is NOT Poland… this seems obvious, but terrain alone is very much different… instead of flat plains, great for massive panzer formations and flanking units, you have a lot of mountains and rough ground… not exactly ideal for Blitzkrieg warfare…

2. The Sudetenland defenses were fairly well developed and would have posed a significant challenge… the Czechs had a fairly well-laid-out line of trenches, pillboxes and defenses all around the Sudetenland to defend approaches through rough terrain facing Germany… if these were manned and defended, it would be a tough approach for Germany to deal with under even ideal circumstances and with superior equipment.

3. The Germans did NOT have a quality advantage over the Czechs, especially in tanks.  In 1938, Germany really only had two types of Panzers in service… the MG-only armed Pz-I… which was barely more than a training vehicle… and the laughable Pz-II… armed with a whopping 20mm cannon… once again… not exactly anything that is going to strike fear in your enemy.  Pz-III’s were still in development… and mass production would not start till 1939… Pz-IVs just weren’t around… on the other hand, the Czech army was well armed with (at the time), a very capable Skoda CKD Lt vz.35 (later known as the Pz-35t, after the Germans got their hands on it)… the Czechs had nearly 300 of them at the time… these tanks were, in-fact, superior to anything the Germans had in 1938… quite a difference from the common misconception that the Germans always had better tanks than their opponents.

The Czech army alone, was well equipped and in a very defensible position, and could have held out far longer than Poland did, given the situations of 1, 2 and 3 listed above… in-fact, its entirely feasible, the Czechs alone may have completely halted an invasion of their country as long as the Allies didn’t give away their border defenses at Munich.  This doesn’t even account for what would have or could have happened if more countries jumped-in to the defense of Czechoslovakia.

I’m in the firm belief, that had Germany militarily invaded Czechoslovakia in-whole before the surrender of territory at Munich, that it would have been a military disaster for Germany… and very possibly the end of the Third Reich, shortly thereafter.

I’ve gotten several private messages and some responses in this thread… so just as a head’s up and a community service…

1. Because of the private messages, I have ALREADY made a deal to unload my custom units, and they are, in-fact, already mailed off.

2. I know its kinda pointless now, but if you’re still that curious as to what I did have, here’s the complete list of the custom HBG units I had purchased in the last few weeks to beef up my bins… since I later made a decision to pull them and not use them, I did eventually re-order equivalent numbers of default/original OOB A&A units from HBG to beef up my numbers (like if I didn’t like the two HBG Japanese Fuso battleships, I reordered two OOB Kongo or Yamato battleships to replace them… so-on and so-on.  Anyways, here’s the (now kinda pointless) list:

(BTW: you may notice that for the most part, planes are missing from this list… I found most custom HBG aircraft to be good enough and scaled well enough to survive my “off-scale axe”.  So there are many HBG planes like P-47s and F4F/Hellcats that survived the cut and made it into my permanent bins)

HBG Battle Pieces (custom units)

US - Olive Drab:
5x Pershing Tanks
5x M5 Stuart tanks
15x M4A3 Sherman tanks
5x P-51 fighters

5x Essex CVs
5x South Dakota BBs
2x Nevada BBs
5x Baltimore CAs

UK - Tan:
10x Churchill Tanks
10x Valentine Tanks

5x Ark Royal CVs
3x King George V BBs

Russia - Brown
2x KV-2 tanks
11x T-34 tanks
4x T-26 tanks

German - Black
2x Schleswig Holstein BBs
2x Seydlitz CVs
8x Pz-III tanks

Japan - Pumpkin Orange:
10x Type 97 tanks
5x Ki-43 fighters
2x G8N Rita bombers

2x Kaga CVs
2x Ryujo CVs
5x Nagato BBs
2x Fuso BBs
5x Mogami cruisers
5x I-400 subs

I concur, their contact is terrible to non-existent, and they are slow to deliver… but at least they do (eventually) deliver… and for some very nice things that you can’t seem to find elsewhere (Combat Dice comes to mind)… it’s worth one poor customer service episode, and a little longer wait time to get something very nice for Axis and Allies that you will have for years… I don’t intend on dealing with FMG again, unless they offer something I can never get anywhere else… but at least they DO deliver (eventually), and I now have my Combat Dice!

P.S.
I had to toss that 7th Russian die into my “random dice collection can”… you have no idea how that 7th oddball 31st dice messes with someone suffering from acute OCD.

Okay… been about two weeks, but I did get my complete order from FMG… including the canvas pouch to hold them in… however, they did dork up my order and now i’m mad… I ordered 30 dice (6 for each of the five countries), but I ended up with 31 dice… I got 7 Russian dice, so now my symmetry is all messed up!  :-D

@blacky:

I too have an increadible ww1 Axis and Allies board game designed and want it to share with you. So im trying to increas my level with reasonable posts.

Well, I’m showing you’ve now broken that cap, so link and post pics all you want.

@cyanight:

Great to know, thanks

And you’re the guy suggesting Orange and Black chips!  Great idea, but I’m totally reversing your suggestion of black is one and orange is five… I look at it this way… if it’s on fire (orange), that’s one… if you’ve been on fire five times over… man… that’s all burnt out (blackx5)… lolz!  :-D

@Private:

Sorry for suggesting the obvious Blacky - but one option would be to buy 1914 for the units.

Ya, that was kinda my point with HBG… not their custom units, but rather they sell the offical 1914 units separate from the game itself (unless its out of stock, I never check the 1914 units).

FYI, if anyone is trying to order chips that are out of stock on HBG (like as mentioned in this thread, Orange is in-stock, but Black [and Red] is out of stock), you can just order them from Amazon.com.  The chips HBG sells (like Orange) are  [ Mini Plastic Poker Chips 7/8" ]… try searching Amazon with that info and add the color you want… those are the same size HBG sells and stack perfectly with them.  I had previously ordered Orange chips from HBG, but Black was out of stock… while waiting for HBG to restock, I checked Amazon, found 7/8" black chips and ordered them… when they came in, they stacked perfectly with the Orange chips I got from HBG.

Just putting that out there if anyone is searching for them.

Have you tried Historical Board Gaming (HBG)? There should be an HBG sponsor ad/link on the right bar of this site’s screen… or did you mean something totally different?

@General:

After seeing the Rogue One trailer I’m convinced Star Wars should be renamed the Death Star Saga; Empire can now be referred to as “The One Without a Death Star.”

Well to be fair, this is not a “new” Deathstar (aka: Death Star III)… its’ the original Death Star (from Episode IV), and about the Rebellion’s stealing of the plans to find a way to destroy it (which some guy named “Luke” eventually does).  Something about the Empire putting a trench, that leads directly to a button that leads directly to the core, that leads directly to exploding the entire thing up… someone at the Imperial Design Bureau seriously needs to be fired.

Hey folks… no, I’m not selling any, and I don’t personally know anybody who is, but I just thought as “a community service”, I noticed a couple of different sellers on E-Bay with the oh-so-coveted Industrial Production Plants (a dozen per sale) currently on E-Bay… HBG lists these plants, but never has them in stock (and I already have 24 for my bins)… so… if anyone is looking for some, they are currently on E-Bay…

Also, if they get sold out before you get any, E-Bay is a good way to get your hands on some… just do a search for “Axis and Allies Replacements” or “Axis and Allies Parts” on E-Bay, and if there aren’t any on given day, usually someone puts some up here and there.

As a final note, for those wanting a different looking (or 2nd type) of Industrial Plant, I might recommend the “city” unit from the 2008 version of Risk (search E-bay or other sources for 2008 Risk replacements). It is the right size and scale to use with Axis and Allies and can easily be used for an Industrial plant as a stand alone or different (major) version.

Yep, yep… E-bay… I’ve got both grey and white factories off E-bay (white is original MB game, I think grey is revised).  But I got 24 white ones in my bin… Just E-bay search “Axis and Allies Replacement”… you’ll find all sorts of stuff.

Oh, and here’s that baggie we were talking about…  :wink:

Sweet!  I have a round wooden dice tray I got off Amazon.com… its very nice… and (hopefully any day now) I should have a full set of combat dice from FMG for the five major powers.  Those are nice bins… they look about the same size (roughly) as my bins.  I thought about bigger stickers for my bins, but I liked being able to see inside them while still closed.