Games with modern-day parts

[Holden]

Eagle Games’ Civilization game can provide modern infantry, towed artillery and really cool modern tanks. These pieces are all a bit larger than the standard AA pieces.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3633

Supremacy only ever had two expansions which added miniatures (the standard game comes with abstract cubes and oblongs). These expansions are Main Battle Tanks and Boombers. These pieces look great however they are also on the larger side (the tanks are 1" long and the boomers are 2 1/4" long). Rolco Games sells these pieces in a variety of colours.
http://www.rolcogames.com/product.php?id=41&catid=14

I also have Stratagame and the ships are just a tad shorter than the standard AA battleship piece. The rest of the pieces are on the larger side. The colours are very bright also.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/27582

[jim010]

After looking into Nuclear Armageddon on Boardgamegeek, it looks like getting a copy is only possible direct from the designer - and that others trying to get it have had not much luck, or poor results even when they got a game.

Buyer beware on that one.

Thanks for the heads up on the Supremacy pieces.  Strata games may be teh way to go, unless I want pewter - which I don’t.

I was hoping Table Tactics would do modern ships, but it seems they haven’t done any new molds in years.

Cheers

[CWO Marc]

I measured my Stratagame pieces and here are the results.  The ship is 4.5 cm long, which is about the same size as an A&A American destroyer (the Stratagame ship being about 2 mm shorter and 2 mm wider).  The infantry piece is 2.4 cm high.  The artillery piece is 1.5 cm high.  The mechanized infantry piece (a somewhat fanciful-looking APC) is 2.7 cm long.  The light tank is 2.2 cm long and the heavy tank is 2.5 cm long, not counting the gun in either case.

The pieces are made of hard plastic, which I generally prefer over soft plastic, but I find their overall design to be disappointing.  The pieces are more stylized than the A&A ones, with much less detail.  The head of the infantry piece for example is basically just a cylinder with a helmet on top, with only the faintest possible suggestion of a nose and eyes.  The ship looks reasonably okay from a distance, but from close up it’s a bit simplistic.  In terms of detail and realism the best sculpt is probably the artillery piece.

At the time when Stratagame came out, the company which produced it had plans to publish a similar game set in ancient China, using Chinese junks and so forth as pieces.  Nothing seems to have come of those plans, and Stratagame itself doesn’t seem to be published anymore.

I also checked out my Supremacy tanks, which are 2.8 cm long (3.2 cm with the gun), 1.5 cm wide and 1 cm high.  As Holden said, they’re a bit on the large size compared to A&A tanks but they look great.

[jim010]

We need an Axis & Allies type game that is WWIII with cool pieces.  A 70s/80s Nato vs Warsaw Pact or more modern.

[KOOLHOVEN]

You could keep an eye on Ebay and watch for the old Helen of Toy games known as
Fighting  Ships and Task Force.I have these and they have nice modern ships.They go very well with my 1/3000 metal ships from Navwar/Denian.Although these games were designed
in the late 50s/early 60s the ships are very modern.The CGN is very stealthy,roughly the size of the CVs that came out in the later AA games.The DDG is about the size of the later
AA BBs,maybe bigger.The FF,not very modern but would work well in AA.The sub is smaller
than the new AA subs,about the size of the classic sub,reminds me of the Barbel class or
maybe the latest Dutch sub.The CV is HUGE,about 5 inch.Reminds me of a WW2 Lexington
class with an angled flight deck.The CV/PT boat are out of scale with rest,the PT about half the size of the sub.The merchantmen/jets are AA like,pretty plain.
These were sold in the old war comics of the 60s/70s,although I bought mine in the mid 80s.The rules were very simple,but I love the game pieces.I agree,a WW3/modern game
would be great!

[Flashman]

You might find pieces from Power useful:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/117658/power

Dimensions (length):

Armoured car - 2cm
Tank - 3cm
F16 - 3cm
B52 - 4cm
Destroyer - 5cm
Battleship - 6cm
Rocket - 7cm

[Imperious Leader]

except that that game is impossible to find. So it cannot help anybody as a source for “modern parts”

[Flashman]

Well I’ve got two copies (the modern version), so you’re not looking hard enough…

Maybe you mean the original version is hard to find, but the pieces from that are not as good judging by BGG pics.

[Flashman]

Nice Geeklist:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/42985/games-with-a-bajillion-little-plastic-pieces-king

Mighty Empires is great for customising War of the Ring.

Spanky chopper in Blood Feud.

[Imperious Leader]

Maybe you mean the original version is hard to find, but the pieces from that are not as good judging by BGG pics.

I bought the original pieces back in 1981 after talking with the designer. I used them for my own AA game way back then. Yes i was housing AA even in 1981! I have 5 sets of these and they are terrible and not even in AA scale. But back then i never compared it too AA… these were just pieces for anything.

The new game is not in print and very impossible to find.

[Guest]

Here is a picture of the old pieces. This is the version that I have

[Guest]

Definitely not as good as this version

I didn’t even know there were 2 versions or I would have bought the new one

(Rank = 62)

[Imperious Leader]

I have the first run of the game. MY board is definatly not as nice as yours.

I got pieces in yellow, white, red, and grey.

the smaller tank is almost in AA scale.

the game plays like the Helen of toy games taskforce

[Flashman]

My copies are of the 2nd version, otherwise I wouldn’t have recommended it.

The pieces are in the primary colours: red, blue, green & yellow.

Also the board is simpler, as you get a “console” for each player to store units, reserves etc:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/82252/power?size=original

Also browsing around my collection I noticed these planes from Airways:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/525846/airways?size=medium

Just wondered if people would prefer aircraft mounted on stands like this; you could have them on a peg that slotted into the stand or into a corresponding slot on a carrier.
More expensive to produce, but gives a more imposing impression of air power.