The Quarantine Spring and Summer of Axis & Allies

The Twins turned 12 this spring and there has been a lot of interest in World War II. The boys have been reading youth novels about the war, the Holocaust, and what the world was like back during that time period and the conversation turned to the war as a strategic event in history and I broke out some books and eventually my copy of first edition Axis & Allies.

Boom. They were sold. This led to us picking up an updated version of Axis &Allies which was a simplified version of the original and they enjoyed it.

We borrowed Axis & Allies: Pacific (1st ed) from my best friend and that went over well, so one of  my sons used his birthday to ask for Axis & Allies: Europe (2nd ed):

This version was a lot more complicated then what we previously had played and took some false starts to learn all the rules (for example, the US cannot build a factory in Sicily :P ) but we enjoyed it and its on the top of our list. 

With his birthday money my son then bought Axis & Allies: D-Day, a very different version but still enjoyable and smaller scale to finish in a smaller amount of time.

But wait! There is more.

My son, completely obsessed at this point, decided to use more of his birthday money to buy the latest version of the whole world version, Axis & Allies: 1942:

It like a cross between the 2nd edition Europe version with more pieces and complex rules and the World 1941 with the full map. He's very excited to try it out. 

Board Games With the Spawns

I haven't talked about The Boys much but they are a very large part of my life, both regularly and especially in gaming. The twins are turning 12 this coming April, and the younger brother is 10 next week, so they are getting to the age where more complicated games are not only intriguing for them but also possible.

This past week I started to introduce them to one of the big influences of my childhood love of board games, Axis and Allies. After doing some small scenarios and rules introduction, we broke out the latest version I purchased, Axis and Allies 1941.

It includes Destroyers but not Artillery pieces, comes with fewer bits overall, and the setup has fewer pieces per player and the economy is such that you buy fewer pieces every turn. But the general idea is the same: Japan and Germany have bigger starting forces and must win before the larger buying power of the Allies overwhelm them.

Since this is a shorter and simpler game then other versions its perfect intro for The Boys. And it went well!

Wilmick and Terjoe were the Axis, while Aarjay and I were the Allies. I went easy on them, helping them with strategy and ideas, and in the end I left a path open for victory before lunch.

Another evening Wilmick and I had a skirmish in Mothership.

Next up, Axis and Allies Pacific!

Axis & Allies Pacific - The Doom Race

For my birthday I got together with two of my buddies for a day of board games and unhealthy food. We settled on our one big game being a slugfest game of Axis & Allies Pacific, or as I like to think of it, The Doom Race.

The game starts with Japan having a massive war materiel advantage on the board but very limited resources to replace them. The Allies, in this case USA/China and British Commonwealth represented by Australia and India, must work to stem the tide until their economic advantage allows them to push the Imperial Army back. Japan gets victory points every turn based on how much territory they control; once they reach a magic number of VPs they win the game. That's why I jokingly call it The Doom Race: its a race to Japan's doom for the allies and the VP winning line for Japan.

Japan's First Turn in progress.

In played as the US/China in this game. As per usual tradition, the Japanese player Andrew used his carrier fleet to decimate the Americans at Pearl Harbour, but leaving them exposed to my land based fighter/bomber  counterattack the same turn which wiped them out in return. Then I began my build up of naval forces to contest and control the Pacific.

Build Up Underway

Meanwhile, the British player, Brian, has his hands full trying to defend both India and Australia from assault. Andrew saw an opportunity to launch an unexpected land assault against Australia to divert resources from Asia and it looked a little dicey for a turn there as I was too far away to try to retake the Australian capital should it fall.

Assault on Canberra!

But the dice gods were with us and Brian's forces held the line and next turn I was there to clean up.

US Task Fleets Approach.

Meanwhile, Andrew used his large fighter armada to drive to the border of India while supported by his remaining Imperial Fleet and things were looking worrisome once again...

India is threatened...

But reinforcements were arriving daily and the Chinese army slowly pushed towards the coast to drain Japan's resources and cut off supply lines as the American fleets moved into operational range.

... but reinforcements have arrived!

With the Philippines recaptured and the capitals safe the question was now if Japan was going to reach the magic victory point finishing line before they were smacked down. Some quick math and discussion showed the Japan would need something like 4-6 more turns to reach it and would probably be driven below the threshold needed to get any points before then.

All in all it was a good game, lots of fun with friends. Its very hard to win with Japan against experienced allies players and I'm done this game enough to know not to panic at the initial destruction visited upon the allies by the Imperial forces in turns one and two. Australia was a close one though, we were one bad round of combat away from a loss there.

Task Fleet OMFG

Axis & Allies : The Fall of Germany

I got the original Axis & Allies board game when I was the perfect age for such a game: old enough to understand the rules, and young enough to have a lot of free time to play it with friends or solo. That original game became played out after many rounds and results and as an adult I found myself enjoying the more detailed Pacific and Europe versions instead.

But when I heard the old original had been updated with new rules and extra units (Destroyers and Artillery!) the urge to revisit the game was strong and for Christmas my wife bought me the game and I coerced Andrew, another early adopter of the original game, into playing me this past weekend.

Note: if you haven't played the original Axis & Allies, this post is not for you.

The first thing we noticed different was the map changes. A lot of sea zones had been added to slow down movement of ships and planes, and a few land zone changes in Europe and Africa would vastly change the ground war there.

We randomly picked sides and I winced a little as I got the harder Axis forces. I prefer defence in strategy games and knew that Andrew was my superior in taking apart offensive strategies. Still, I gamely setup and pondered how I would approach dealing with Russia and UK in Europe, and the American navy in the Pacific.

Another game changer: Soviet Union has the first turn! In the original, Germany got to go first giving them a step up in the attack. In this version, the Soviets were able to go on the offensive and take out my lead units. I tried to mount a counterattack but found I was always short infantry and tanks for the rest of the game despite purchasing almost nothing but those units.

I tried to make an attack in Africa, but despite battleship bombardment and outnumbering the British 2 to 1, my landing was repulsed and on the UK turn Andrew brought in the Indian Ocean navy to crush my hopes of Mediterranean Sea logistics. I retaliated next turn by putting his Atlanitic ocean transports to the bottom of the sea, but it was a short reprieve as the Soviets continued to push into German territory and roll back the waves of Volkstrurm and Panzers I poured at him.

By sending the British Indian navy fleet to the Mediterrean, Andrew gave up India to the Japanese (another game changer: victory is determined by controlling 9 out of 12 cities on the map, India containing one of them) and I did the standard "Pearl Harbour" attack. I made some progress in the land war in Asia, but a smart move by Andrew to eliminate my transports followed by a disasterous attack against the Soviets from Manchuria crippled my efforts and at one point I had no territory in Asia proper. I remedied that quickly but the lost turn was enough to ensure that Japan's days were numbered, especially after Andrew's fourth D-Day assault on Western Europe finally had enough forces to actually hold it.

I conceded at this point (actually, I admitted defeat a long time ago but we played on because we were having fun seeing how the Pacific theater would evolve) and moved on to some games of Panzer General which Andrew covers here.

I'm not sure what happened in Europe. I was on the back foot early and never recovered. I'd love to switch roles and see how Andrew plays the situation.

Next time Anderson! *shakes fist*

EDIT: Added images.