Memory lane: Those carefree newbie days…

  • 2007 AAR League

    My first game of A&A took place at convention in Stockholm, Sweden.
    It was first round of play, and there was a spot vacant. I was recruited to fill in.

    There were plenty of newbies, and I got a cursory explanation of the rules “Check the setup chart. And heres how much money you have, and here are the phases in which you buy, move and combat.”

    There were five or six boards, of 5-player games, and the GM put newbies as the Allies and experienced players as the Axis. I got Russia.

    I didn’t have a clue as to what to do, but I thought I should attack something. EEU, UKR and NWY looked too well defended, so  I went for … Sinkinang!  :-)

    The German player started saying something, but was hushed by the Jap player. A true sportsman  :-)
    I guess the UK & US didn’t have a clue as to anything - much like me - so they didn’t object.

    I rolled into SIN with 1 arm remaining, losing a RUS ftr in the process

    Germany was up and promptly wiped out my Karelian defender.

    At this point the GM walks up to the table. HIs eyes suddenly bulge, and then he cries out, loud enough for everyone in the room to hear: “What the hell is Russian Control Marker doing in Sinkiang!” , whereupon 30 pair of eyes turns to me.
    I didn’t make it to 2nd round in that tournament  :-D

    Ah, those were the days!

    Do you have story from your newbie days? Share the pain with the rest of us. I promise I won’t tell anyone  :-D


  • Playing AA on the old MSN game zone.

    I was Germany and i remember my Medd battleship basically won the game alone.

    I first finished off UK bb in west medd and had my BB, sub, and transport ( landed man in Gibraltar) to protect from UK1…

    Then UK made her fleet and eventually i sent the Bismarck out to attack the new UK fleet with air force and wiped it a second time  ( this was not supposed to happen based on the uk fleet)

    Then things really got hot!

    The American player got real pissed off and spend every dime on navy to try to kill my 2 ships ( lost sub, but kept tranny)

    I attacked US fleet with my fleet and sunk that load of plastic and the allies got really pissed off. They didn’t do anything to me and i sunk like 1 BB, and 3 subs.

    Then i sent Bismarck to try to escape and tranny got men from Morocco and eventually i landed and took Brazil.

    The last straw came when US made another fleet and sent it to crush Bismarck and the battle finally sunk my battleship and tranny but US again lost her entire fleet and didn’t even take Brazil.

    The Allies were not doing well in Russia, because Germany was just buying land units and allies didn’t do anything to stop it…they conceded the game out of disgust.

    That BB was the games MVP


  • taking away many of my brothers IPC’s with a bunch of bombers,since i had read that part of the rules,he didnt,our first game ever,classic,he proceeds to yell “WTF!” slams his fist on the board,scattering pieces everywhere.Calling me a cheater.Since then we have never played a game of A&A together since.The only person i play with now is a good friend. :-D


  • Your story made me smile Perry. I remember my first time playing A&A, all my friends except for myself thought the game was to complex and wanted to play Risk.


  • The Russian player gaining a confused look on his face and then asking “Where’s Russia?” was a hilarious moment…  :-o


  • I was eight when I played my first game aganist my dad, who had always beaten me at risk. I had carefully read the rule book, so when we played I was the axis and he was the allies. In risk he had always spread his forces out evenly, which had worked to his advantage, so he attempted the same with the allies, which is a fairly good strategy. I formulated my plan of invading the u.s.s.r. from the west with germany and the east with japan. I conquered Russia in only 4 turns, as well as took most of Africa and with japan I managed to take australia. I easily won an economic victory for the axis. My father had concentrated too much on strategic bombing and had prematurely landed in western europe; which failed. He was both shocked and impressed that I had won.
    I would be knocked a few notches down at my first tournament, though…. :-D

  • 2007 AAR League

    @Rakeman:

    The Russian player gaining a confused look on his face and then asking “Where’s Russia?” was a hilarious moment…  :-o

    ROFL, that’s a beauty!!!  :-D :-D :-D


  • i remember one of the first games i played as germany, i took a beating. as it looked like i was going to lose, i moved a transport with two infantry down through suez (as i had taken a large part of africa at least), and proceeded to move to australia over the next few turns and capture it!

    i may have lost germany, but australia became the new fascist capital! (i’m from australia, so there were many lol’s around the board)


  • My first game of A&A was with a college buddy who owned the game.  He hadn’t played it much himself, and I was learning the game from him, so you can imagine the mess we made of the rules.  He took the Axis once, and the Allies once.  In each game, he bought IC’s, then proceeded to capture territories and place them in the newly won areas THE SAME TURN.  Also, when he took over a territory with an IC, he IMMEDIATELY placed all the units he’d bought on it.  We also didn’t know there was supposed to be something called “limited production” at any IC. . .

    Imagine Germany buying 7 tanks and 4 men, storming Karelia, then plunking down all the new hardware in Karelia that very turn.  Yep, our games didn’t last very long  :-P


  • My first game was 23 years ago when I was just 7 and was used to my family punishing me at risk.  Then one night my older brother (15 at the time) and his friends come home with this new game called Axis and Allies and they needed a 5th player so I was conscripted into the red army and thrown to the German tigers in what was to become Russia’s most pathetic moment.  I’m sure Stalin would have had me shot after the first turn, but he was not around so it was left to the Germans to get rid of me which they did in three short and painfull turns.  I was then cast from the room with much laughter from the Axis and grumbles from the Allies.

    I did not play another game of A&A with my brother for 6 years during which time I played with my friends as often as possible awaiting my chance for revenge.  Then one day I challenged him and he actually accepted, 24 hours of playing time over three days later I was victorious.  Since then our games together have always been highly competetive and even ugly, its all worth it though when I beat him even now.


  • @Danger:

    My first game was 23 years ago when I was just 7 and was used to my family punishing me at risk.  Then one night my older brother (15 at the time) and his friends come home with this new game called Axis and Allies and they needed a 5th player so I was conscripted into the red army and thrown to the German tigers in what was to become Russia’s most pathetic moment.  I’m sure Stalin would have had me shot after the first turn, but he was not around so it was left to the Germans to get rid of me which they did in three short and painfull turns.  I was then cast from the room with much laughter from the Axis and grumbles from the Allies.

    I did not play another game of A&A with my brother for 6 years during which time I played with my friends as often as possible awaiting my chance for revenge.  Then one day I challenged him and he actually accepted, 24 hours of playing time over three days later I was victorious.  Since then our games together have always been highly competetive and even ugly, its all worth it though when I beat him even now.

    That is AWESOME!  :-D


  • My first games were also guilty of butchering the rules. Instead of reading the rules carefully, I saw that the battle-board told you the values at which the pieces rolled for hits. What I missed was they were attack values, not defense values! So basically when we played our first games attacking infantry were killed only if you rolled a 1 (defending infantry were if you rolled 2 or less, lol!!). Lets say that after a week I was thinking this game was crap because subs could own battleships and infantry attacking could bitch-slap tanks, planes, anything actually. I then actually read the rules the whole way through and you would have thought that I had just won the lottery, it all made sense after that.


  • That is funny - +1 for the laugh

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