"The War Game" ~ A must have for A&A fans.

MacGyver · "The War Game" ~ A must have for A&A fans.

So, i thought i'd throw this out here, since i've been playing this game with a large group of friends for the better part of 3 years. Its basically a A&A world game on steriods, using a 3'x6' board! Its incredibly addicting, and basically takes the beloved A&A world game to a whole new level. There's different variances of the game, allowing you to play a normal game starting in 1942, or a more indepth game starting in 1939 with political outcomes and different choices.

Countries to play from include
USA
Great Brittan
France
Germany
Italy
China
Russia
Japan

http://www.thewargame.com/game_page.html

TorontoBizz

I've been tempted to pick this up. Have you played it? What do you think about it?

Duck Crusader

Seen it at recruits. Looks as fun as A&A, real similar rules (so much so I'm surprised they haven't been sued). Better have ALL day...

Richter von Manthofen

Its expensive , the units look stoopid (all countries use German molds IIRC).

Its a complex game, but the rules might be good - read them once, but never got into the game...

Texas Grognard

Oooh!

I saw this at Heat of Battle. Plays a lot like the A&A boardgame.

MacGyver

About the only complaint i have for this game is that the pieces are exactly as Manthofen said, all German sculpts. Other than that, because of the depth of different "modules" that are available (for free mind you, they are listed on his website), each game can play alot differently that others. Its by far 10x better than vanilla A&A, and it is a much trickier game for experienced axis players to win than regular A&A.

The game is played with 12 sided dice instead of 6 sided dice.

Prices for each of the units are different for each country. (So yes, if given enough money and a horrible strategy by Japan, China could eventually build battleships for an extremely high cost.)

There are different "add on rules" for some of the following,

Railroads - The ability to move pieces across nations railroads, not using their base speed for noncombat moves.

Rommel's Rules - Tanks and infantry working together in combat help their attacks and defence (much like artillery and infantry in A&A). 1 tank can make 2 infantry hit higher, and 1 infantry can make a tank defend better.

Strategic bombing - Nuff said

Air Supremacy - This makes hits from fighter planes make the opposing player take losses on aircraft before other land/sea units.

And, a super huge diplomatic add on, which can use money and dice rolls to affect neutral nations. (normally, neutral nations can just be invaded, and their IC production added to your total)

If you have any other questions, i can definitely answer them.

cwfgamecast

I've heard this is a lot of fun but the biggest downside, for me, is that I've been told if you start this at 8am you will be lucky to finish it by 8pm the same day. In fact, you may have to play a single game over the course of a weekend.

I'd rather play numerous games once or fewer games multiple times than a single game once in that time period.

MacGyver

That can be a slight problem, especially if you have people who are horribly indecisive. However, the games we normally play take anywhere from 4-8 hours, yet we've also had one game only last 30 minutes (due to germany being obliterated by Russia on turn one)

cwfgamecast

There's one guy I regularly game with who is a blast to game with. Lot of fun, knows the rules, great guy, very talented terrain maker, great painter, and even makes some incredible rules for modifications (he runs a Halloween Necromunda game every year with some cool mods).

The only downside is he is very methodical plotting every eventuality. That takes a 15 minute WaS game and turns it into a 45 minute game. It takes a 2 hour A&A game and turns it into a 4 hour game. You get the gist.

Up side is during that entire time everyone is having a blast.

MacGyver

If you let him play, make sure he either plays Russia or the United States, for they are actually the easiest of the two nations to play, and take the least amount of time.

Russia just normally builds meatwalls, and well the USA doesn't start with alot of units/territories.

Make sure your fastest two players are UK and Germany, UK can actually be the worst.....since she's got units everywhere.....(the build phase can take forever if you can't make up your mind)

I forgot to note this, but you can build Infantry on ANY territory you control.....save for one exception, a conquered territory with a value of 1. You basically can build up to the territory's value in infantry in any square if its a "home territory" location, or half of its value if its a "conquered"

jfkziegler

The board reminds me a little bit of the Large Map that used to come with the Freeware Axis and Allies game.

TorontoBizz

Thanks for all the feed back. It will remain in my "maybe down the road" list of games to buy. I don't think I have the room for such a large game or the time to play it right now.

Jameson

I own it. I use the AAM V1 and WAS pieces instead of the standard German ones they give you.

dvsimp

I really like this one. The map is beautiful. Instead of the German pieces which come with the game, I use my old Axis and Allied pieces, makes for a uncluttered map. The basic rules are almost exactly the same as A&A with some improvments. There are many additional Modules to add complexity if you so desire

acs0424