Let's Talk Axis and Allies

Like I would imagine most here, I played a ton of this back in HS. We usually played for money, putting a few dollars in a pot. I played in a tournament at the D*C around 2001 and haven't played since (seems to be the case for any game I attempt to compete in a tournament in).

Over the years there have been several games released in this family of games and I lost track a long time ago of what all was out there. Recently, I've kind of been wishing for simpler multi-player wargames like this and Risk as I'm starting to tire of the Warrior Knights, Rexs, and Game of Thrones. I wanna throw some dice!

Anyway, I see there's still an A&A title sold in Target and there's an upcoming WWI version which really has me intrigued. boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/133956/axis-allies-wwi-1914

So, what's the going on with the A&A games? Anyone still play them? Have a favorite?

Like you a played a lot of A&A in high school, and my buddy and I played 2-player quite a bit one summer in college. I also had the PC game where I'd play against the awful AI. I got burned out on the game. After so many plays you and seeing all the optimal beginning moves the game felt too stagnant. You could play 4th edition online for a little while and I tried that out. Kind of interesting because the board is different, but proved not to hold my interest.

Never played any of the spin-off games. I'm kind of intrigued by the WWI game, I was always curious about what an A&A WWWI game would be like. I don't think there's really ever been a WWI dudes on a map game.

There's also Attack!, the new Fortress America and Runewars. Any of those strike your fancy?

The D-Day one is nice because you can play it in a couple of hours.

I like A&A, or I like the idea of it, but if I'm dropping six+ hours on a game, it's Twilight Imperium. Once I realized this a few years ago, I sold off my A&A.

I remember the set-up time being excruciating.

I remember only being allowed to play as Russia because no other game caused me more AP than A&A

I remember once we started playing the hotseat PC version, that's all we played cuz it was so much easier

I remember A&A Europe being awful. No one could beat Germany if they blitz'd Moscow. The game struck me as br0ken.

I had a shrink-wrapped copy of A&A Pacific for years before I finally gave it away

I don't miss those games at all.


....

.....if an A&A game came out on XboxLive or for WP7 or Surface, you bet I would insta-buy it

WWI A&A? I am intrigued. There's never been any good treatment of WWI in board game form (unless you count DIPLOMACY as a WWI game).

Paths of Glory is a pretty good WWI game.

Yeah, I gotta be honest, the base game is one of my lowest rated games. I have had so many MISERABLE experiences with this game. It is one that I wouldn't play again under any circumstances. There are a lot of problems with the game---ratio of length to decisions, game decided early but drags on for pointless hours afterwards, a senseless, anti-battle loser, meat shield combat system. I think that Axis and Allies is one of the main reasons people don't like wargames, it's too bad a lighter, less punitive, more fun system isn't the de facto mass market standard for wargames.

To be fair, I've heard some of the other games in the line aren't so bad.

Back in the early nineties when I was working at my local games store, we had a weekly ladder tournament that was a heck of a lot of fun. Of course you had those really experienced players that took it as a challenge to play the axis players and win consistently, and they had some really cool strategies. Been a long while since I payed last, and haven't played any of the sequels, but I loved A&A.

I have the 1st edition if A&A Pacific from like 10 years ago and like it fairly well. It's not something we bust out often but we still play it once or twice a year. It's only 3 players so there's a bit less AP to worry about and nobody gets the shaft by being forced to play Russia. Japan can eiher win by capturing a capital (India Australia or US) or by VP gained every turn based on how much money they're getting. This makes it so there's still a point in playing if/when the initial axis blitz stalls out(game starts pre Pearl Harbor so Japan's first turn all Allies defend on 1).

I think there was a 2nd edition released a while ago. Not sure what's different. Also I believe theres 2 versions of the base game now. Ones like $30 the other $50. Cheaper one is stripped down and faster I think. Not sure.