Hello out there.

I am the Midnight_Reaper. My interests include collecting and playing Axis & Allies games, collecting alternate rule sets, and devising alternate rules of my own. I also enjoy helping others, both in real life and virtually. I try to help answer rules questions when I can.

I am also over on boardgamegeek.com, going by Midnight_Reaper over there as well.

I live in Maryland, am a veteran of the U.S. Army, and am working full time while attending college as well. Haunting the forums here and on BGG is something I do to stay abreast of what it happening in the world of games and what I do to unwind after a long day.

-Midnight_Reaper

And a Merry Christmas to you and to everyone else here at AxisandAllies.org. And a Happy New Year to everybody as well.

-Midnight_Reaper

@Super-Semple While I like the idea of Combat Medics, I think that they might be outside the scope of Global War. When infantry and tank units represent Corps or Armies of troops (which would have thousands of soldiers), what would a Combat Medic unit do, exactly? Do you have a Corps of Medical troops, with hospitals, ambulances, and convalescent facilities? What effect would you have this literal Medical Corps do for you?

I don’t mean to punch holes in your idea, I’m just trying to help you make this rule a better rule. This idea might be better as Hospital unit that is stationary, similar to an Airbase and a Naval Port, and provides some benefit when ground units in nearby zones are taken as casualties.

Alternatively, you might build Hospital Ships and have them off-shore, to provide medical facilities for Amphibious Assaults. The US Navy had about 15 Hospital Ships in commission during WWII, and they were not alone in providing aid and comfort to the wounded.

My 2 IPCs,

-Midnight_Reaper

@CWO-Marc As for what we did and did not have back in 2000, I made a small chart

Unit from Classic (1984)
Aircraft Carrier
Anti-Aircraft Artillery
Battleship
Bomber
Fighter
Industrial Complex
Infantry
Submarine
Tank
Transport

Units Added in Europe / Pacific / Revised (1999/2000)
Artillery
Destroyer

Units Added in Anniversary (2008)
Cruiser

Units Added in Europe 1940 / Pacific 1940 (2009)
Mechanized Infantry
Tactical Bomber

Units Radically Changed in Europe 1940 / Pacific 1940 (2009)
Industrial Complex

Units Radically Changed in the Second Edition games (2012)
Anti-Aircraft Artillery

Units Added in Zombies (2018)
Zombies

So, yes, both a lot already around in 2000 and a lot more still to come.

-Midnight_Reaper

@superbattleshipyamato123 said in What if Germany magically had Plan Z?:

@midnight_reaper

The thing is, these Plan Z fleet crews can magically be resurrected (they magically came to life, anyway).

Good sir, you have left science fiction and alternative history (which is where the majority of the discussions here go) and charged straight into high fantasy.

Persistent chemical weapons are nasty, nasty things. Your magically delicious Plan Z fleet will be overloaded with constantly respawning dead.

Mind you, since you have wandered well away from anything that possibly “might have happened”, instead of persistent chemical weapons I’ll go with the following.

To counter the magical Plan Z German Navy, the Brits bring back Merlin and King Arthur. The Knights of the Round Table shall meet what’s left of the Op Sealion invasion force after Merlin uses hurricanes, tornadoes, magick storms, meteors, fireballs, and dragons to sink your invasion fleet.

Your Plan Z fleet might be invulnerable, but the transport fleet for your invasion is not so lucky.

As I said before, if you want Op Sealion to work so badly you are willing to use fan fic to get it, then just wish it into success. Anything less is just extra steps.

-Midnight_Reaper

@anikom15 said in History of the Design?:

Apologies if this has been answered already or is in the wrong place, as this is my first topic.

A&A has been around a long time and I remember the days when there were various websites and forums dedicated to the game. Not sure how many of those are still around, but it got me thinking if anyone has attempted to document the history of the various editions and spin-offs of the game. I’m mainly interested in design/balance considerations.

If anyone has links to share, that would be very appreciated. I’ll continue looking around the internet myself and report back if I can find anything.

I am interested in hearing what you might have to say. I’ve a collection of A&A games, unofficial A&A game expansions, and a stack of similar-to-A&A games that might be used to expand your A&A play. The history of WWII fascinates me, and the history of A&A and its take on WWII fascinates me as well.

As for some links…

Don Rae’s A&A Strategy Essays:
http://donsessays.freeservers.com/axisand.htm

MIT A&A House Rules:
http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~gc00/reviews/ana.mit.html

Thrasher’s A&A page at Wargamer.com {curtesy of the Internet Archive }:
http://web.archive.org/web/20020203145924/http://www.wargamer.com/axisallies/default.asp

The Internet Archive is a great place to find things that used to be on the Internet - like the rules for the old Table Tactics A&A expansions:

The old Tabletactics.com website

-Midnight_Reaper

I started playing in '96. It was good then and it’s still good now.

-Midnight_Reaper

@Darenm said in Pacific charts:

After looking at your first picture of the complete inventory, I am also missing all of the red pieces except for infantry. I will have to shelve this copy and keep looking. Thanks again for your help.

Well, there are actually two versions of this game. In the first version, the Japanese pieces are red. They have red ships, red planes, red arty and tanks, and red infantry. The Chinese pieces (which are all infantry) are brown. In the second version, the Japanese pieces are orange (officially, burnt orange). They have orange ships, orange planes, orange arty and tanks, and orange infantry. The Chinese pieces (which are all infantry) are red.

So, having only infantry in red does not necessarily mean that your copy is missing pieces. Allow me to show you some pieces in orange:

source

source

The source of the second picture (http://axisallies.com/versions/pacific/) also has some commentary on this game and a better picture of the National Production / Japanese Victory Point tracker:

source

Long story short, if you have red infantry AND a bunch of tan pieces (for the Brits), a bunch of green pieces (for the Americans), and bunch of orange pieces (for the Japanese), you may not be short of the pieces you need in order to play this game.

How do you tell which copy of A&A: Pacific has the red Japanese / brown Chinese and which copy had the orange Japanese / red Chinese? Best way I’ve heard is that the front of the game box says tells how many pieces are in the box. Some boxes say there are 345 game pieces, some boxes say there are 335 game pieces. There should be 335, the 345 was a typo. It’s my understanding that the 345 boxes originally came with the red Japanese / brown Chinese and the 335 boxes originally came with the orange Japanese / red Chinese. Some pictures for reference:

source

source

I hope that clears things up for you.

-Midnight_Reaper

@trulpen said in Post League Game Results Here:

@akreider2 said in Post League Game Results Here:

Trulpen (Axis) over Akreider2 (Allies). Bid of 9. Despite the Allies winning a lot of the small battles. I think we need to do a 20 bid. Though I also did the mistake of under-committing with the US to the Atlantic when I saw Germany building a navy.

https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/35374/l20-1-trulpen-x-vs-akreider2-a-9-bm3/152?page=7

trulpen and his german navy. Wonder when that gets around to be the joke of the neighbourhood?

If it’s stupid, but it works, then it’s not stupid. The corollary being that if you don’t know why it’s working, be extra careful when trying it for yourself…

-Midnight_Reaper

@djensen

Your work on Google SEO has payed off in the usual way: spammers have arrived. Or a spammer, anyways: marieclint123fdr has been up to no good on the forum. That user has posted only three posts, but all three are for ielts and other testing spam. I just thought you should now. I’ve marked their posts as spam already.

On the bright side, if the spammers have you in their sights, they must think they will get some visibility from posting here.

-Midnight_Reaper

@daviousthebad said in Buy A&A Jedko Edition:

@birthofiron Hi there. I don’t have any expansion pieces. Just the original game.

He was talking to me. I will take care of this.

@birthofiron said in Buy A&A Jedko Edition:

@midnight_reaper

I am looking for a France/China expansion piece sheet for the Nova/Jedko version of Axis and Allies. Thought I would reach out in the hopes that you might still have one available.

~BirthOfIron

I sent you a private message, we can talk there.

-Midnight_Reaper

@kaleu said in On this day during W.W. 2:

March 5, 1943: first flight of the Gloster Meteor, the Allies’ only operational jet plane during WW2, from RAF Cranwell.

While the Meteor was in much greater use during WW2, the P-80 Shooting Star had: “two pre-production models … see very limited service in Italy just before the end of World War II”
Wiki P-80 Shooting Star

-Midnight_Reaper

Go find a friend in Australia who is willing to look through old game lots over there. Or, search eBay on the regular. Other than that, I don’t know how or where.

-Midnight_Reaper

Definitely interested in seeing what you come up with!

-Midnight_Reaper

Another, even bolder way to avoid Infantry blobs - hard limits.

Let us build a system where infantry stats are the same, but a power can only have so many of them. I would think that using the same number for all powers would not work right, so different levels it is. The following numbers are just for example, using A&A 1942, 2nd Ed. In this case, I will take starting infantry and gave the allies x3 and the axis x2. This is most likely not the best system, just the one I came up with.

USSR: 21x3=63
Germ: 29x2=58
Japan: 25x2=50
Unit.K: 15x3=45
USofA: 14x3=42

Whether this is better system or worse would need to be tested. But I think it would give that rare synergy between historically appropriate and game balancing.

-Midnight_Reaper

@the-captain In the pictures you presented of your painting technique, I spy some old pieces - specifically, some of the old Table Tactics pieces - landing craft, jeeps, and land mines. Are those original or reproductions? If they are reproductions, how / where did you get them made? Or is this just an old picture?

I would dearly love to find a new source for those old pieces, now more than 20 years old…

-Midnight_Reaper

@barnee said in Axis and Allies PC game:

@tjw0099 right on yea I’ve heard of it but never played it. I thought there was a thread for it here but … ? Lets ask @Midnight_Reaper he’s quite knowledgeable about all the games

I thank you for your confidence, but the computer A&A games are not my strong suite. Ask about the physical board games and I’m there, though.

Good luck getting your answers all the same.

-Midnight_Reaper

@superbattleshipyamato said in Underpowered Axis?:

@black

I always hate having the Axis attack first, based on how things historically. They lost, didn’t they?

The Axis powers did lose. They also attacked first, gaining victories with surprise attacks and bravado. Of course, in the end, they bit off more than they could chew.

Having the Axis attack first is historical. Whether or not the end, where the Allies win, is historical is on the players.

-Midnight_Reaper

@andrewaagamer said in Can aircraft make noncombat move thru friendly neutral if land units move into it on the same turn?:

@tank-buster said in Can aircraft make noncombat move thru friendly neutral if land units move into it on the same turn?:

I understand that land units (as explicitly stated in the rules) cannot move through a friendly neutral territory during a noncombat move, but does this include aircraft? If, for example, a UK tank makes a noncombat move from Persia (taken in previous turn) into Northwest Persia, could a UK fighter (based in Egypt) that just attacked Iraq in the combat phase make its noncombat move through N. Persia to land in Caucasus? Thanks.

This move would be illegal.

From the Axis & Allies Europe 1940 FAQ - September 3, 2014
Q. Can I move air units into or through a friendly neutral territory during the same turn in which I move land units into it to claim it for my power?
A. No. It doesn’t become your territory until the end of the Noncombat Move phase in which you move land units into it.

We have differing interpretations. We will need a ruling on the field. @Krieghund, yellow courtesy phone. Krieghund, yellow courtesy phone…

-Midnight_Reaper

@tank-buster Since aircraft can move over hostile territory on both their combat and non-combat moves, I would say yes, you can do this.

Mind you, if the only reason you are taking this territory is to gain overflight rights, you need not bother - planes travelling on non-combat movement can move through hostile territory to get to a landing site. You just need to land somewhere that was friendly territory at the start of the turn.

-Midnight_Reaper