How to tell Classic first from second


  • I just bought a used Axis And Allies Classic Edition And was wondering wether or not it was first or second. I know that the difference is only in rules and that the peices, board, and everything else is the same. The only problem is that the one I bought Didn’t Have The Rule Book. Is there anyway to tell the difference without the rule book? Thank you,


  • If I’m not mistaken, the original edition of the Milton Bradley version of A&A was published in 1984 and the one with the rulebook modification / addition was published a couple of years later. Check the date printed on the box; if it says 1984, it’s presumably the original version.


  • The only way I know of to tell early model Milton Bradley (MB) era A&A games from late model MB era A&A games, without looking at the rule book, is to count how many infantry pieces each country has. Early versions came with 15 infantry per country, which was found to be too few. Later versions came with 17 or 18 infantry per country, to help make up the gap between pieces on hand and pieces needed on the board.

    I don’t know if that will help you, but good luck either way.

    -Midnight_Reaper


  • @Midnight_Reaper said in How to tell Classic first from second:

    Early versions came with 15 infantry per country, which was found to be too few. Later versions came with 17 or 18 infantry per country, to help make up the gap between pieces on hand and pieces needed on the board.

    Not to disagree; but, I am a piece freak. I keep all my pieces with each individual game. My 2nd Ed game has 15 infantry per country. The rule book for 2nd Ed calls for 299 pieces. If you count 15 infantry it equals 299 pieces. I am fairly certain the only difference between editions is the rule book…


  • @twmattox
    I looked in my Axis And Allies Classic and all of my countries have either 17 or 18 pieces, also I now know mine is probably 2nd edition because of the copyright date on the back.


  • @Playing-Kid Interesting. Would you mind looking at page 2 of your manual and letting me know if the piece count increased?

    I do know you could order extra pieces…


  • @twmattox
    Look at who posted this question, I made this post because I don’t have the rule book, and I will say that for people it still says 299 but it is not in common for it to have 17 or 18 pieces.

    Another that is not uncommon is for people to have a multitude amount of chip variance.


  • I have no idea the reason for the difference in pieces in certain copies of the game


  • There can be variations between print runs, as well as between lots within the same print run. Generally, the former are more prevalent, but there are a few copies around were the German and US infantry pieces had their colors switched.


  • @Krieghund

    Yes. I have seen copies like these: green Germans and gray Americans.


  • The cruiser and generic AAA units in the first printing of Guadalcanal similarly got colour-switched. It made no difference for the AAA sculpts, since they were a generic common design, but in the case of the other unit the game had a Japanese-orange American-design Portland-class cruiser and an American-green Japanese-design Takao-class cruiser.

    It’s too bad that the colour-switched green German and grey American infantry units are rare production errors, and thus aren’t widely available: they would be perfect for use in A&A Battle of the Bulge as house-ruled special units representing Otto Skorzeny’s disguised infiltration units.

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