Hey all - I feel like I owe those who liked my channel and supported it the reasons why I stopped it - here they are and I apologize for abruptly leaving without communication.

There’s no one reason, so here goes:

1. My contractors that I hired to make the new War room did a sloppy job. They did many things that I didn’t notice until after I paid them. For example - none of the walls they put in are even square - my bathroom East wall is over an inch wider than the West wall. The doors they put in had no latches and when I put the latches in none of them would latch because the doors weren’t hung square. My windows still leak. Within two months the new toilet froze and busted, even though I drained most of it beforehand. This made me feel like a big fool and demotivated me to finish it.

I realized that I actually had an ideal setup in my old house, having the War Room in the basement. It had a poured foundation so no water leaks and stayed temperature controlled year round for free, because it was part of the house. This new room I have is in a outside metal building with no heat or air, and the expense of paying for all of that, plus paying to keep the room relatively warm/cool for only a once a month event seemed excessive. A consistent low humidity also is a factor when you have paper products associated with the game and wall posters that can take damage, which requires consistent heating/cooling.

2. My overly ambitious new map/rules project eventually swamped me. Making land and water in Photoshop is pretty easy. Filling in and naming hundreds of territories that each have their own terrain and weather, plus adding all the other improvements I wanted - without even knowing if they would be fun and balanced until tested and retested - is hard. Especially doing it without overcomplicating it. They say a genius is someone who can take something complicated and make it simple. I think I realized I’m no genius.

None of the guys in my play group even wanted a new map anyway - they just responded with blank looks when I told them I was making one. Remember, I hosted a monthly game night for 6 1/2 years. That’s almost 80 game sessions. Been there, done that. So if I wasn’t going to come up with something bigger/better, I had no interest in taking on all the work/expense of making a whole other room to do the exact same thing on the same old map I was bored with.

3. I respond poorly to criticism. I’m a perfectionist and very hard on myself already. I was getting youtube comments to watch my vids on fast speed because I talked too slow. I also had criticism that I couldn’t even pronounce Axis and Allies correctly, so how could my ideas be taken seriously? Despite my getting 20 good comments to one bad one, I still let the bad ones rankle me. So I started thinking, why am I doing all this just to get myself upset? Because I’m actually an introvert, I can’t talk fast and on the fly like other successful youtubers can, so I felt I should just back off and leave it to them.

4. This year I turned 60 years old. I realized I’m now in the fourth quarter of my life. This is a time when a man starts thinking of his legacy. What do I want to be remembered for? Do I want to be remembered as just as a guy obsessed with a game? Not just a game, but a game with the theme of the most destructive war in history. A war that killed over 60 million people and allowed Communism to spread halfway around the world, spawning later killing in wars like Korea and Vietnam.

Do I really want to spend my last days rolling dice, eating chips and chuckling over that? They say “war is sweet to them that know it not”. I was never in the military, but I have a friend who was an artillery man in Vietnam, and I can’t get him to play. Probably because he’s seen how horrible war really is. How foolish it seems to me now for me to try to shrink all of that death and misery down to my kitchen table and make a game of it with pretty cards and dice. Much less investing thousands into a dedicated room for it. I’ve read enough memoirs of WWII soldiers to know that they didn’t dream of fighting and glory. All they wanted was for it to stop, and to go home and live normal lives.

So that’s where I am now on the journey. I appreciate all of your support and use of my ideas. Although I (somewhat impulsively) deleted all my videos, the bulk of those ideas are still in the house rules you can download elsewhere here.

I still read the forums here occasionally, and get email notifications of chat messages from those who want to reach me, so I’m around - not dead or anything!

So you’ve got some great new House Rules (in your own view, anyway) for Axis and Allies and you’d like others to cooperate and play along. This is not always easy, but here are a few tips that will improve your chances of selling your ideas:

1. Introduce your rules to brand new players. One of the hardest things for people to do in life is change. Just think how hard it is for people to stop smoking, stay on a diet, etc. - and remember it is just as hard for someone who has been playing this game for years to change a rule. On the other hand, a new player comes into the room ready for anything - they’ve never played before, so all is readily accepted.

2. Play at your house. People will be more likely to try your ideas on your turf. Especially if they are eating your snacks and drinking your drinks.

3. Learn the history of the rules of the game. This requires some homework. You should know the history of each of the rules that you are trying to adjust. There may already be a rule like you want in place from a past edition of the game. Or you may find you will have a hard time selling your idea of navy frogmen since that has never been in the game at all. This is a sheet I made in order to learn the history of strategic bombing rules in Axis and Allies:

4. Create an official edition of your house rules and hand out copies to the players ahead of time.  This is not that hard to do with all the publishing programs available out there. Players will not be impressed with your crumpled, handwritten, misspelled house rules. And don’t try to get away with saying “the rules are in my head.” Here is an example of one of my Axis and Allies rulebooks that has house rules in it:

5. Make your game changes look professional. Here is one of my player cards. After some practice I’ve been able to make these cards identical in quality to the stock cards that come with the game. If there are any price changes to the units, you cannot tell that there was a change. Don’t get sloppy and white-out prices or scotch tape your ideas on there - you are asking for trouble!

Here is a photo of a change I made to my map recently. Can you see it? I added Burma and the Burma Road to my 1942 map with a sticker. I printed 3+ stickers before I finally got the exact size and shade to match. Don’t get lazy - if it looks professional people will accept it.

6. If possible, have a precedent for your house rule. If you can say “this rule is based on a rule from the 1984 Edition of Axis and Allies” it will be accepted better than saying “this is something I came up with myself.”

7. Gametest your rules ahead of time before introducing them - make sure they actually work. Bounce it off the veteran players on the forum. Don’t change something before testing and then have to change it back - it makes you look like you don’t know what you are doing.

8. If you get a heckler questioning the change, point out that there have been about 18 OFFICIAL sets of rule changes published for Axis and Allies since 1984. Tell him this is not an ancient game with established rules like chess that has been around thousands of years - the rules aren’t hardened into stone yet.

9. If you still get resistance, you can always hang this quote from Larry Harris in your game room like I did and point to it - after all, Mr. Harris invented the game - his opinion should always count!

10. If everybody really hates your idea, don’t try to push it. It may really be a bad idea. File it away and rethink it later. Better to have a room full of friends playing a game that’s not quite perfect than playing your perfect game all by yourself.

@dtodd3 Yes, although we haven’t played in a while since I’ve moved and have to build a new War Room.

@dazzaman77 Thanks for your kind words! I’m glad you got something out of the videos, and they were an inspiration for you! I admit that if something - even a wargame - can help someone through a difficult stage in life, then there is merit to it. I’m encouraged my videos and game adaptations have helped some people - thank you for reminding me, friend!

Hey everybody - I’m pleased to announce that all the known kinks are finally out of my Progressive Arms Research system we’ve been game testing for three years - the whole thing is now for sale at Historical Board Gaming! You can adapt this system to work for any edition of Axis and Allies. You will get the full size professionally printed chart, complete rules, and copy cards.

Click the link here to see my explanation video and purchase…

http://www.historicalboardgaming.com/Progressive-Arms-Research-Chart-_p_2750.html

@Hopper1999 Thank you, Hopper - I enjoyed reading your post, and feel more fulfilled knowing you got some good out of my past efforts!

@all-encompassing-goose Sounds good - hope you have lots of fun with it!

@JHendrix112 Hi Justin - Unfortunately I deleted all of my videos a few years ago after seeing some hurtful criticism on Youtube. I now regret doing that, as I realize now far more people have enjoyed the videos than disliked them. Thank you for the kind feedback. On a good note, a some of my subjects can be found in these forums in written form.

Hello all - a spare bedroom opened up in my basement and I’ve converted it into my own war room. � The centerpiece is Imperious Leader’s excellent 1942 map which I downloaded to a zip file and took to a local printer.

First an overall view of the table in the room:

Another view - propaganda posters and newspaper clippings from WWII are framed on the walls:

Next the ceiling: 2 strips of bright studio lights. A historic flag from each major nation in WWII is draped to the corners:

Handmade wood and felt dice rolling trays on both sides of the map keep the dice from hitting other pieces:

Handmade wooden trays for each nation:

This map on the wall is a copy of an actual German invasion map - circa Sept. 1942 - Stalingrad.

The closet was converted into a nook with a 40’s look. I keep all my extra pieces and game parts in the dresser below and the radio plays Cds with 40’s music:

A custom production chart at the head of the table - made of sheet metal with magnetic markers:

My custom battle-boards are double sided “attack” and “defense” to increase size and utility - each side of the table has it’s own that can be flipped over according to the situation:

�

Lastly, to avoid those disastrous game ending spills - everyone has his own cup holder under the table. House rule: no drinks on the table!

I’ve been wanting to something like this for 25 years - finally have the space and a good tolerant wife. Now the guys can play and just walk off and shut the door and it will all be there next time. Thanks again to Imperious Leader for the great map! � � �

@JHendrix112 Hi Justin - Unfortunately I deleted all of my videos a few years ago after seeing some hurtful criticism on Youtube. I now regret doing that, as I realize now far more people have enjoyed the videos than disliked them. Thank you for the kind feedback. On a good note, a some of my subjects can be found in these forums in written form.

@Hopper1999 Thank you, Hopper - I enjoyed reading your post, and feel more fulfilled knowing you got some good out of my past efforts!

@dazzaman77 Thanks for your kind words! I’m glad you got something out of the videos, and they were an inspiration for you! I admit that if something - even a wargame - can help someone through a difficult stage in life, then there is merit to it. I’m encouraged my videos and game adaptations have helped some people - thank you for reminding me, friend!

https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/37321/der-kuenstler/6

Hey all - I feel like I owe those who liked my channel and supported it the reasons why I stopped it - here they are and I apologize for abruptly leaving without communication.

There’s no one reason, so here goes:

1. My contractors that I hired to make the new War room did a sloppy job. They did many things that I didn’t notice until after I paid them. For example - none of the walls they put in are even square - my bathroom East wall is over an inch wider than the West wall. The doors they put in had no latches and when I put the latches in none of them would latch because the doors weren’t hung square. My windows still leak. Within two months the new toilet froze and busted, even though I drained most of it beforehand. This made me feel like a big fool and demotivated me to finish it.

I realized that I actually had an ideal setup in my old house, having the War Room in the basement. It had a poured foundation so no water leaks and stayed temperature controlled year round for free, because it was part of the house. This new room I have is in a outside metal building with no heat or air, and the expense of paying for all of that, plus paying to keep the room relatively warm/cool for only a once a month event seemed excessive. A consistent low humidity also is a factor when you have paper products associated with the game and wall posters that can take damage, which requires consistent heating/cooling.

2. My overly ambitious new map/rules project eventually swamped me. Making land and water in Photoshop is pretty easy. Filling in and naming hundreds of territories that each have their own terrain and weather, plus adding all the other improvements I wanted - without even knowing if they would be fun and balanced until tested and retested - is hard. Especially doing it without overcomplicating it. They say a genius is someone who can take something complicated and make it simple. I think I realized I’m no genius.

None of the guys in my play group even wanted a new map anyway - they just responded with blank looks when I told them I was making one. Remember, I hosted a monthly game night for 6 1/2 years. That’s almost 80 game sessions. Been there, done that. So if I wasn’t going to come up with something bigger/better, I had no interest in taking on all the work/expense of making a whole other room to do the exact same thing on the same old map I was bored with.

3. I respond poorly to criticism. I’m a perfectionist and very hard on myself already. I was getting youtube comments to watch my vids on fast speed because I talked too slow. I also had criticism that I couldn’t even pronounce Axis and Allies correctly, so how could my ideas be taken seriously? Despite my getting 20 good comments to one bad one, I still let the bad ones rankle me. So I started thinking, why am I doing all this just to get myself upset? Because I’m actually an introvert, I can’t talk fast and on the fly like other successful youtubers can, so I felt I should just back off and leave it to them.

4. This year I turned 60 years old. I realized I’m now in the fourth quarter of my life. This is a time when a man starts thinking of his legacy. What do I want to be remembered for? Do I want to be remembered as just as a guy obsessed with a game? Not just a game, but a game with the theme of the most destructive war in history. A war that killed over 60 million people and allowed Communism to spread halfway around the world, spawning later killing in wars like Korea and Vietnam.

Do I really want to spend my last days rolling dice, eating chips and chuckling over that? They say “war is sweet to them that know it not”. I was never in the military, but I have a friend who was an artillery man in Vietnam, and I can’t get him to play. Probably because he’s seen how horrible war really is. How foolish it seems to me now for me to try to shrink all of that death and misery down to my kitchen table and make a game of it with pretty cards and dice. Much less investing thousands into a dedicated room for it. I’ve read enough memoirs of WWII soldiers to know that they didn’t dream of fighting and glory. All they wanted was for it to stop, and to go home and live normal lives.

So that’s where I am now on the journey. I appreciate all of your support and use of my ideas. Although I (somewhat impulsively) deleted all my videos, the bulk of those ideas are still in the house rules you can download elsewhere here.

I still read the forums here occasionally, and get email notifications of chat messages from those who want to reach me, so I’m around - not dead or anything!

@all-encompassing-goose Sounds good - hope you have lots of fun with it!

@coedewa Here you go…DK’s Progressive Arms Research Rules.pdf Sorry for your trouble!

interesting - thanks!

I was reading the rules for this edition today and it says you can win a standard victory by controlling 9 of 12 victory cities. There is no mention of capitals in the victory conditions.

Am I correct to say you can theoretically win this game without controlling any of the other side’s capitals?

@CWO-Marc Thank you for these insights and links - very helpful!