Nicely done.

@Panther I realized I was running an older version and have updated my game. If it happens again, I will provide game files.

The last two games I have played against the AI I have encountered an issue. Problem being, the AI performs an amphibious assault with one or more loaded transports with no escort (no surface ships, no aircraft). I choose to scramble, defeat the transports, but the enemies troops still make a successful assault. Shouldn’t all transported units gone down with the ships? Is this a bug? It is rather disheartening to lose a territory over this.

I do not own multiple copies of any games. We do, however, own:
1940 Pacific
1940 Europe
Zombies
1914
1941
classic MB edition
Perhaps in offset to only owning one copy of each, I have purchased hundreds of additional sculpts over the years to augment our games.

@siredblood Any status update for the custom maps?

28 years in the Navy padded my stats a bit. 30 territories for 111 IPC’s. The US is worth 43 of those.

I shared this in the thread for Siredblood’s map, but not here.  Here are a couple of pics of our table, mostly finished with SB’s custom map.

https://imgur.com/gallery/eeon10G

This was along the lines of what I was attempting to do in my game, but as Russia. Unfortunately, Russia does not have the resources to both create zombies AND successfully defend Moscow.

I think this is a valid strategy.

I asked the staff last night about:

a.) future versions of A&A (the answer was “I couldn’t say, even if I knew”)

b.) any intention of making a zombie mod for other versions of A&A, like Global? (the answer was not at the moment, but if AAZ is a big success, that may change).

I was fortunate enough to be part of a sneak peak of the new game last night at WotC. There were about 30 or so of us there. I met some number of esteemed members of this community. There was an introduction, some obligatory photos of everyone attending and then an opportunity to play the new game.

A few thoughts:

• WotC did a great job with the pieces of the game. The military pieces are stock from other versions of the game. The zombies are cool, with three different sculpts. The zombie dice are etched/engraved, which was a nice touch. While minor, the blood-spattered paper money was a nice touch as well.
• The map is smallish (to someone accustomed to playing G40). Russia’s capital is adjacent to German occupied territory, which led to a critical mistake on my part during the play through.
• Game play is different, but familiar. The turn sequence has been modified to account for the addition of the zombies. Zombies almost always attack/bite first. While not a huge variable, zombies are an interesting twist to gameplay that makes for some new strategies. For example, should I lose an infantry in this battle (and create a new zombie) or lose an artillery (and not make a zombie). Or, should I attack their infantry stack with the sole intention of creating a bunch of zombies, calling off the attack just shy of capturing the territory.
  -  A&A vets will pick up on the game quickly. The zombie rules are not difficult to understand. I think players new to A&A shouldn’t have a problem learning, since gameplay is rather simplified.
• My poor play aside, I felt the victory condition was a bit wonky. Once one side captures a capital of the opponent, they win at that end of that round as long as they also own all of their side’s capitals. Unlike other versions, where a team had a full additional game turn to recapture the fallen capital, in Zombies you don’t. In our game, I left Moscow vulnerable. Marshmallow of War took advantage, captured my capital on Germany’s turn (who go second, after Russia). My team mates were unable to liberate Moscow by the end of the game turn, end with an Allied loss. All rather sudden, in my opinion.

All things considered, I enjoyed the game. Will it be something we play every weekend? No. But it is a game I see our group playing on occasion when we don’t want to invest 20 or more hours in a game of G40.

Lastly, I would like the thank the folks at WotC for their generosity. All who attended were give a copy of the game, as well as an opportunity to pick up a copy of another WotC game (I got A&A 1914). Also, thanks to Marshmallow of War and the folks of Greater Puget Sound Axis and Allies Meetup Group.