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Axis & Allies - Page 3

Although I'm not big on strategy and tactics, I enjoyed this game a fair amount. My uncle bought it at a Wal-Mart when it first came out and I played it with his family when his sons were very young. The book was fairly thick, compared to most board games instructions, so nobody read it thoroughly, so we played three or four games with people just picking their favorite country and attacking whoever they wanted.

Later we decided to try playing it by the rules and it turned out to work a lot better - who knew? The setup and prep time is the biggest investment in each game (besides sorting and putting it all away again), besides the actual fifty bucks it cost originally I mean. We did get to where we played it enough we could get it out and put our units on the board from memory - that strikes me as maybe playing a little too much, but it was fun.

My cousin got to play A&A in prison also, and learned a lot of different rules variations, including whoever goes first, I think it's Russia, not being able to attack on that first turn, because they have the potential to deal an initial fatal blow to Germany that it can't recover from, if they make an all out alpha strike, which unbalances the game too much - I saw him do it a couple of times and it is a legitimate complaint; there was no way for Germany to get back in the game if the other Allies did anything at all to capitalize on Russia's strike, and without Germany's backbone, Japan had no chance.

I always chose England as my country but I'm not really very good at the game or strategy, and though I agree the turns are much longer, I do like the variety, though it is more complicated than Risk, I like it more because of the more interesting options like weapons development and different troop types. The combat card is kind of a pain but is helpful with the required die rolls right there under the pieces, though the numbers being roll-under instead of above always threw me a bit. Naturally, I wrote my own set of more advanced combat rules, like I did for HeroQuest, though they really weren't any better and were pretty primitive and probably more random than those the game came with, so nobody ever used them.

Overall, I think A&A was a great investment, and though I saw there were other versions like European Theater, we never got those before it originally went out of print, and I saw that it was being made again, in even smaller pieces I believe, but we really don't play games anymore so perhaps it will go to the next generation.

PS - one of the most memorable things about the games is, no matter how long it had been since we played, we would always occasionally find a fighter plane or bomber in the floor when someone was cleaning, even though nobody was ever missing one.

Allies and Axis

Good review for Axis & Allies. I always found that the United Kingdom was the weakest country in the whole affair and the US relatively untouched and able to bring up a big army just as history has shown. Interesting that you mentioned that rule about Russia because originally Germany and Russia were Allies and Russia only turned on Russia when they got intervention from the UK and USA. A little known fact. Therefore Russia starts out with little industrial credits but has great power behind it just as history as shown.

Axis & Allies Reviews RPG & Card Board

Have any of you played it with the new rule sets?
Some of the changes are:
It restrict Germany from attacking Russia for the first few turns. Germany can attempt to assassinate Hitler for a small bonus (or negative if they fail)?
America is restricted in his GPCs per month until attacked by the Axis or a certain turn.
And some other changes.

I have played Axis and Allies for years and love this game. I agree with [JB] who said push on England early and if you can get a Industrial Complex up in India or in China as Japan so you can quickly push all the way into Russia.

With good players it can be a hours of fun. The online version didn't do the game justice for some reason.

Page 3 Allies and Axis

New rules? Isn't this a review of the Axis & Allies boxed set? I thought they stopped making the boxed version of this a long time ago or are you talking about an online game version?

Allies and Axis

One of the best board games ever created. I love how some people go further by painting the Axis&Allies pieces with the WWII symbol.

Axis & Allies

Yup, this game was a lot of fun Hunter. I haven't played it in forever. This was great to pass the time when we were in some nasty, dusty, smelly, and dangerous place back in the day.

Axis & Allies - Page 3

I have played this game a few times. I did ok with it but I will say I am no expert on the tactics. I did however when playing the Germans take over all of Europe and defeated the Russians.

Axis & Allies Board Card & RPG Reviews - Page 3

One of the best WWII simulation on a board game ever. There were some older shorter versions based on certain parts of the war that were alright but playing the full map of the world is the best.