• So my team and I went across our first play. It lasted for 14 hours (rules explanation and setup included). We were so excited and interested in the story that we decided to pursue it with one more session, that lasted for 6 hours. Total play time: 20 hours  Then we had a discussion whether to continue or plan a brand new play another time. We decided to start a new one, SOON.

    This game is the one that had the more success of all the games of my collection that I played with my friends. It almost made people crazy as the tension was very high at each move.

    At the end, as we wrapped up the sessions, 4 out of the 5 players said it’s the best boardgame they’ve ever played. One gave some weak points, but he enjoyed it a lot. The drawbacks he presented were minor ones, like the fact that units have the same strength across all the nations, so I guess I’ll introduce him to deeper wargames as Unconditional Surrender! World War 2 in Europe that I’ve ordered some days ago.

    Russia and USA were not waging war before the 4th turn, so the two players had to wait something like 8 hours before they could play with their main force (they had respectively China and ANZAC). Nevertheless, they didn’t complain because we acted as a team on each side, and we were taking decision together so that they were taking part to story as well.

    The only remaining question is about “how to win”. I used the one created by Young Grasshopper and his group, with several victory points in order to count points after a certain time. So we said that the Axis won the first session (they had taken North Africa) but would certainly collapse on a long run.

    What is necessary on top of what’s in the box is :

    • Papermoney
    • Counters to show the remaining movement points of planes
    • The player aids that I’ve done - I’d be ok to translate them into English if someone would correct it afterwards, my English being not perfect. They are available in the files game section in BGG.

    It’s also good to have plastic pieces for factories.

    We had no difficulty with the rules, only with “how to win”, therefore:
    we have these questions, please:

    • After how long (in hours and in turns) do you count the points (if you use the YG system)?

    • After how many turns (not hours) does the game end (in general of course), if you use the standard victory conditions?

    • How many turns are you able to play say after 12 hours?

    • How do you designate the victorious team in your group(standard condition, special ones, after how long)?

    Thank you to the people having helped me host the game in a perfect way and understand the rules, mainly Young and his videos and people in BGG.

    Cheers

    /Seb

    *** Edit for clarity

  • Sponsor

    Seb,

    What are fantastic testimony… thanks for sharing. My friends and I have been talking a lot lately about A&A and how it can really hook new players and hold their attention for years, we have come to call this “the spirit of Axis & Allies” (it sounds like your group caught that spirit). That was a long game for a 1-0 Axis win, but I totally understand the extra hours needed for thought and rule clarifications among new players… I’m wondering why it was clear that the Axis were going to eventually lose if the Allies had no objectives? maybe they were very close to getting 1 or 2? I’m not surprised that the Axis got the north Africa token, our first games back in the day always saw Italy running rampid until we tried some aggressive turn 1 attacks from the UK in the Med. To answer at least 1 of your questions… my group starts playing at 10am and goes until around 8-9pm, not because the game has ended, but because thats when players have to leave to go home. We always prefer to start a new game the next gathering, so at the end of each day, we just accept the score for what it is whether it’s 1-0, 0-3, or 2-2, and we can usually get about 9-10 game rounds in without putting pressure on players to hurry or implementing time restrictions. Thanks again for sharing.

  • TripleA

    It is just common courtesy to go to war round 1 or 2. Plus there is absolutely no reason to wait.


  • @Young:

    I’m wondering why it was clear that the Axis were going to eventually lose if the Allies had no objectives? maybe they were very close to getting 1 or 2?

    We felt that, taking in account the money that the Allies were collecting at each round and the shrinking territories of the Axis, a long-term play would have resulted in a win for the Allies. Germany was still strong in Western Europe but wasn’t able to break the lines to Moskow. Conversly, USSR was pushing hard in Hungary and was about to endanger Berlin. In the Pacific theater, Japan was losing China and the southern islands. UK with Chinese and Russian support was at the doors of Hong Kong, while USA was gathering huge forces to cleanup the seas. So we agreed that the Axis won the first session by 1-0 and the Allies would have won within 2-4 more rounds, and agreed also to restart a new game as soon as possible :)

  • '21 '20 '18 '17

    Great game report.

    Your consensus on “who would win, eventually” is how most games are determined.  Fighting for capitals after Moscow is a big slog, that’s how it goes–the game kind of mutates at that point because the stacks keep growing and there are no rules that limit stack size, unit maintenance, etc, they can get pretty big.

Suggested Topics

  • 9
  • 3
  • 14
  • 6
  • 46
  • 20
  • 38
  • 10
Axis & Allies Boardgaming Custom Painted Miniatures

41

Online

17.0k

Users

39.3k

Topics

1.7m

Posts