• @toblerone77:

    I agree the game is awsome. My complaint, as well as other’s is just the quality and quantity of some of the components. It’s cool to have nation spacific pieces, but if it means poor quality I think it’s appropriate to complain about it. If all of the parties involved with the production of this game had decided to use even cardboard counters I’d have been happy. At 100.00 on average in retail stores people are going to get a little upset.

    I shouldn’t have to canibalize my other A&A editions to make a proper game.

    I did have an AC that was curved (AAR esp.) and cast poorly and wouldn’t sit flat on the board until I heated and bent it straight. I also have little white flecks in alot of the other pieces. Some ships have the super-structures half missing. I still am going to enjoy this game alot and am looking forward to playing but for money someone pays for this game I genuinely feel a little jipped.

    This has been my experience with both AAR and AA50.

    Well said, +1.

    LT


  • Does anyone know if you can order extra playing pieces from Avalon Hill? The supplied number of Italian Navy units is kind of a joke…If they have any success in Africa, they need to be able to send men and materiel over. Using the chips to designate mulitiple transports is very cumbersome. And if you lose 1 cruiser piece, you’ve just lost half of the supplied cruisers.

    I am quite interested in ordering extra pieces for all the nations, so does anyone know if this is possible?


  • Nope, tried.  Avalon Hill won’t be supplying replacement pieces to the customer.  :|


  • @TG:

    Nope, tried.  Avalon Hill won’t be supplying replacement pieces to the customer.  :|

    Any idea why? That makes no sense whatsoever. How can they expect that no AA player will lose some pieces and want some extras to replace them??Am I seriously going to have buy a AA Revised just to get some pieces?


  • i’m seriously contemplating just buying another copy of AA50A. for the extra pieces, and as they may stop printing it

  • Customizer

    @tin_snips:

    i’m seriously contemplating just buying another copy of AA50A. for the extra pieces, and as they may stop printing it

    LOL….This is pathetic. I was just consider that tonight at work! I’ve also thought of getting a second copy of AAR for the same reason. :evil:


  • @tin_snips:

    i’m seriously contemplating just buying another copy of AA50A. for the extra pieces, and as they may stop printing it

    Just get yourself a fabber (aka 3d printer):

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DAZwKKlNvE

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAt2xD1L8dw


  • Hell I won’t live long enough to retire any way I’ll take two.  :mrgreen:


  • I personally don’t mind the pieces the way they came in my box.  Some of the BBs had a ‘keel’ that I needed to remove in order for them to sit flat, but that is my only real gripe (other than the colors).

    You get what you pay for, though.  $100 may seem like quite a bit for a board game, but a lot of work went into AA50 to make it what it is.  If we had received everything we had asked for, the game would have been much more expensive.  I think what we actually received was worth it, especially if you only paid $70 for it.


  • Crazy question, why are the only unique Italian units their tanks & infantry? Why counldn’t Hasbro/Avalon Hill/Wizards Of The Coast come up with at least a few new units instead of recycling German & Japanese units? Second, what is the British tank in this game?


  • it could be a cromwell or churchhill?

    VV apparently not haha

  • Official Q&A

    It’s a Matilda.


  • so it is. poor choice of tank  :lol:


  • Really?  The Matilda tank was a powerful tank that packed a wallop and was largely immune to the German anti-tank had at the time.  If I remember, they had a large impact in the North African war.


  • The Matilda was an infantry tank. While it did have good armor protection, it lacked both speed & firepower. It could only do about 15 mph & was armed with a little 2pdr gun that wouldn’t penetrate German armor.


  • The Matilda was an infantry tank. While it did have good armor protection, it lacked both speed & firepower. It could only do about 15 mph & was armed with a little 2pdr gun that wouldn’t penetrate German armor.

    Incorrect.

    “Both the Panzer III and IV had difficulty in penetrating the British Matilda II’s thick armor, while the Matilda armed with a 40 mm QF 2 pdr gun could knock out either German tank…”

    • Ormeño, Javier (1 January 2007). “Panzerkampfwagen III: El pequeño veterano de la Werhmacht”.

    However, like you said, it was a slow vehicle.


  • @C_Strabala:

    Crazy question, why are the only unique Italian units their tanks & infantry? Why counldn’t Hasbro/Avalon Hill/Wizards Of The Coast come up with at least a few new units instead of recycling German & Japanese units? Second, what is the British tank in this game?

    Yea…i definately wish Italy had all unique units…I also wish i had a solid gold toilet, but oh well.


  • Matilda had a good armour and a good gun that was more than a match for the German Panzers.
    The problems of Matilda were two. First, it was extremely slow, and this hampered it use in offensive operation. Second, its gun can only fire APC round and was not able to fire HE shells.
    The latter was really a bad feature because Matilda was completely ineffective against entreched MG and infantries, so giving little support for the role it was intended: Infantry Support Tank. Moreover German AT Gun, namely the 88, are at advantage firing at long range, while Matilda having no possibility to reply with HE shells (type of ammo to be used to deal with the personnell using the AT guns) was like a slowly moving target. This reasons caused Matilda to be pulled out of the front line units and production ceased.


  • I can’t deny with that.  The German 88 was an absolute terror on the field.  It was the most effective weapon in the German arsenal (alongside the MG42) during the war.


  • I thought the peices were fine - I had no problems with mine.

    I fear, however, that NOT buying the game will make more of an impact than buying every single version that is released and then complaining. It sends a mixed message to Avalon Hill - and at teh end of the day it’s sales figures that matter.

    The company wants to sell games, we all bought them… we bought the last ones, and they know we are going to buy the next ones.

    If you are that unhappy send it back - that will get their attention!

    If you the fans want peices - you the fans will need to come up with a way to solve it - and I suggest the method used by the other wargame companies.

    I present the so called p500 system.

    Invented by GMT games - www.gmtgames.com.

    How does it work - they design a game, and then rather than produce it at great cost, they work out how much it will cost to get made and then put information up about the game and invite people to pre-order.

    Once it gets 500 orders they advance to a more detailed design stage, knowing that they already have 500 orders. Once they have 750 orders they push the game into production. Those who pre-order get the game at a discount price. The number of pre-orders needed for something to go into design varies - and they always do a run of a few thousand and sell to games shops and what not, which then sell at full price.

    The advantage is the game is EXACTLY what gamers want. If it’s not, then they gon’t get enough pre-orders and the game is not made. Prior to release, all sorts of rules, graphics and play test kits are handed out so that it is heavily refined and play tested prior to launch. These are games companies run by games for gamers…they are not ‘commercial’ in that sense, and many of those working in the companies do so on a part-time basis - it’s a profesional approach to a hobby.

    So, since at the end of the day Avalon Hill staff work for Avlon Hill shareholders, and the MD will answer to his board and NOT you the customer, I suggest that the more enterprising amoungst you and go and get a quote for a line of plastic mins. You can have whatever you want… Panzer 4’s, Me262’s whatever.

    Once you have a price for a run of how ever many is reasonable - you can put out a pre-order page. People pay whatever is a reasonale cost to cover production, shipping and the time of whoever did the initial work. Say 500 people cough up $50 in advance you have the money to buy the peices. If you want to run commerically - you make sure your initial pre-orders cover the costs of a double size run so that you have packs made that you can sell at a higher price (an incentive to pre-order) - and either bank the money from extra sales (hell, you did all the work why not) - OR buy lines of minatures that you want, but that didn’t get enough pre-orders perhaps… in effect the things everyone wants like B-29s cover the cost of the more diverse units that only a limited number want.

    Only 10 people want B-29’s - not a problem, if after a certain amount of time you to fail to reach a minimum number of orders you refund them.

    If, however, you can’t find enough interest in minatures - then perhaps that is the story here. There simply isn’t enough demand to justify making such a niche product… and I must admit, the 4 people in the UK with Axis and Allies that I know, are quite content with the product as it is and see it is a lite WW2 themed game for a fun evening and wouldn’t want to pay more for plastic minatures.

    I would happily pay for more plastic minatures - I want jets, and heavy tanks for starters…

    But back to the P500 system - most of the wargames I buy take 2-3 years to reach me… not all charge in advance, most only charge at the moment of placing the production order. So you order the game, 12 months later you get charged, 3 months later the game arrives. I assume it would be the same, you collect pledges to buy - and then the week before placing the order you ask people to cough up the cash… then you place the order. Bingo…

    To be honest, complaining to a share-holder run company is going to achieve very little - especailly if you keep buying their products!!! It sends a mixed message - and besides, they want you to buy the game at the end of the day. Letters of complaint will achieve very little to be honest - unless we pay Larry Harris directly ourselves, he works for Avalon Hill and their shareholders - and if didn’t, then he wouldn’t be doing his job properly.

    So the game is a compromise between three competing interests, gamers who want a  customised luxery product, shareholders who want a profitable game - and poor Mr Harris who has to strike a balance between both groups.  :-D

    There is good community spirit here - Imperious Leader clearly has dedicated a lot of time and effort to his HHRHE and many of you have spent hours making modified figures, house rules, etc etc.

    There are no copy right issues if you make some miniatures in the same colours and scale as the AA peices as long as they are not direct copies and you do not attempt to make commercial sales using their brand.

    But I think you would be amazed at what you can get done if you organise yourselves

    and you don’t have to argue about what minatures should be produced… if people want KV1s instead of JSIII’s - let’s see which gets the most pre-orders!

    All we need to do now is find a sculptor, get quotes - hell, maybe even the person who made the latest A&A peices can leave a note on this board and give us his fee rate.

    I regulary pre-order stuff at between $50 and $60 - so if someone was to come up with a bunch of AA mins to expand the AA50 version, I’d be there with my credit card.

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