Axis VERSUS Allies, right?

[Podlet]

This falls into the "You know someone will try to do it" category!
If you only buy a starter and a few booster packs for this game, you probably won't have enough pieces to do an "army" from one country. I can see allowing British and Russians to fight alongside Americans, and Italians to be partnered with Germans. But will this be a "fantasy WWII" in the sense that any unit can fight on any side, or will there be a basic rule that says Axis units can't fight alongside Allied ones? This really isn't a problem because players can easily make a house rule that says historical enemies have to fight their actual opponents. Really picky or stickler-for-accuracy players (with lots of pieces) could even restrict "armies" to units that faced each other and fought on actual fronts. So the question remains, will this game be an approximation of the actual feel of WWII, or will you, as General von Manstein, be able to order your Soviet Guards to attack with Tiger tank support against the Italians dug in with their Shermans on the river's edge?
:confused:

[Major Adler]

I hope that organised tournament play will require all to bring an Axis and an Allied army to a tournament...with the first roll giving the winner the opportunity to choose what side he wants to play...and the looser of that roll plays the other side...

Major Adler...out.......

[Shrapnelsmile]

I would like that Adler.

That would require you do a good job contructing both forces as you can never predict a die roll. It would also prevent people from monopolizing their favorite armies, or, may the CMG gods forbid, always using the one army in the game with the superior units.

[Major Adler]

I would like to see further historical restrictions...even with what we have spoken of...you would be able to see Japanese type 95 tanks and Special Naval Landing Force infantry fighting with German Tiger tanks and SS infantry...but at least it is something...I guess theater restrictions can be left to Shop/house rules...

Adler...out......

[series]

The game is called Axis AND Allies... I hope that's not a sign for who is teamed with who...

[SeattleGamer]

I understood that the game would allow mixed forces and that there were no requirements that axis could not mix with allied forces. You assemble your force to "X" points and get to fighting. Reminds me of an old AH card game, Naval War, in which you were dealt cards, and played with your "fleet" and it was a mixed bag.

[Der Panzinator]

I think I read where you can do both. For those who just want to battle it out with whatever they have you can mix and match all you want. The cards will have historical designations that will be used in optional rules to keep the forces historically accurate.

[series]

They should do something similar to the Dragon Ball Z Card Game. You could mix your combat styles, using Energy Attacks, Saiyan Attacks, Physical Attacks, and etc; or if you chose one style, you get a bonus.

What they should do is say, if you have an Axis/Allies mixed team, you get X points to build an army, but, if you have only axis or only allies, you get X+Y points or something of that nature.

So for example, if in a scenario each army can be worth 30 points, and there is a "Historical Bonus" of 5, a person using only axis would get a 35 point army, while a person using both would only get 30. One guy would get a wider selection, the other more units in battle.

[gamecubedude00]

Personally, I think the starter set will only include TWO NATIONS. Including anymore than that will make it very hard to divide up and play a good game.

Also, I'd probably play a Russia vs. UK/US post-WWII scenario if I had enough pieces. Armies aren't really a problem with me.

[SeattleGamer]

GameCube . . . they have already stated the there will be 48 minis in the initial set, and these will cover 5 nations: Britain, Germany, Japan, Russia and US. The starter box will include 12 minis, including one guaranteed random rare.

I think the rules probably allow any combo of minis to play on one side because if you didn't buy an armload of starters, you probably won't have enough of a selection of a single nation to play a game. They are trying to get new gamers into the fold, and telling someone "You will need to buy $100 worth of starters to really start" would send the wrong message.

While I'm on the subject, do people here think that the 48 minis will be evenly distributed amongst the 5 nations (9 each). Personally, I don't. I think some nations will get more pieces, and others less.

[XAos]

...do people here think that the 48 minis will be evenly distributed amongst the 5 nations (9 each). Personally, I don't. I think some nations will get more pieces, and others less.
You'r probably correct for AFV's, one of the sites lists about a dozen;
1 Italian
1 Japanese
2 British
2 Russian
4 USA
6 German
Which seems biased towards the preferences of A/H's likly customer base. i.e. USA V's German as the prefered scenario. I don't think we have many clues about the infantry. Except that the germans get 2 "rifleman" figures and I can't see a 48 piece set having 2 riflemen for every nationality.

[RichardBaker]

We've got two sets of army-building rules:

Default: An army is either Axis or Allied. You can build pretty ahistorical armies (for example, including a few Japanese infantry in your otherwise German-Italian army), but you never build armies where Allied units and Axis units fight side-by-side.

Historical: As above, but now there are more restrictions. Japanese units can't go into German armies. Russian units can't go into US armies. You may observe year-of-introduction limits, like no pieces introduced after 1943. Oh, and the French can go into any army. They might be Vichy French, after all.

We expect that most tournament play will use the simple, default rules. But I wouldn't be at all surprised to see more restrictive tournaments for special events or certain organized play cycles. I believe that you'll see a Star Wars-like OP system for managing who plays the Axis and who plays the Allies, since our Star Wars minis game has a similar issue--don't want Rebels fighting Rebels, after all.

[Der Panzinator]

Thanks for the clarification Richard.
Sounds like you took some fundamental historical aspects into consideration.

From everything that I have read so far this should be a really fun, easy to learn, and fast paced game. :D
Which is great when you and all of your gaming friends and have kids and very limited playing time. ;)

Looking forward to hopefully getting a look at GenCon if I can make it.

[Major Adler]

thanks for the info on the army building guidelines...

just wondering though...will Allied Armies be allowed to fight Allied armies in organized play tournaments...OR...will a gamer be required to bring an Allied and an Axis army to tournaments (with an opening set-up die roll at the begining of a game to determine who is playing Axis and who is playing Allied , thus the chance that a gamer may play Axis and Allied over the course of the rounds of a tournament)...

Adler...out....................

[SeattleGamer]

Thanks for the info Richard.

I was especially intrigued with the "year of intro" wrinkle, which is a terrific thing to have in place. Might be kinda pointless having some axis player fielding his 1940 Pz II go up against the Russians fielding their 1945 heavies.

And I appreciate that two styles of play are included. Makes it lots easier for new people (why do I want to say "kids" right there) to give the game a shot, without having to worry about yelling Schnell and Banzai at the same time.

In games with my buddies, I'd always want to play historical. I'm not interested in tweaking any army list to be the best at everything if it means I need to cross axis/allies lines. But for tournament play (which really doesn't interest me much) I can see why the free-for-all is needed.

BTW . . . I just preordered a six pack of starter sets and a case of boosters. Now the waiting will be even more agonizing, because out there somewhere, on some assembly line in <pick a country>, MY Panther is getting painted! It's just been adoptd, and doesn't even know it yet.

[Der Panzinator]

SG,

Where did you place your pre-order at???

[RichardBaker]

Chatting with a couple of our organized play experts, it seems likely that we won't try to enforce Allies-don't-fight-Allies in tournament play. Making people bring 2 armies is a real logistical headache. But the jury's still out on this one.


thanks for the info on the army building guidelines...

just wondering though...will Allied Armies be allowed to fight Allied armies in organized play tournaments...OR...will a gamer be required to bring an Allied and an Axis army to tournaments (with an opening set-up die roll at the begining of a game to determine who is playing Axis and who is playing Allied , thus the chance that a gamer may play Axis and Allied over the course of the rounds of a tournament)...

Adler...out....................

[Arnminster]

I can see many logistical problems for organized tourneys if you require players to bring 2 armies.

If you require each match-up to play 2 games where the players switch off on which side they play then it would be fair. The only problem with this is if this game is like the other WoC games then each game would take an hour so that could take a long time to finish a tourny.

[Sinister]

I kinda see this as more a minature game using WWII units as to a recreation of WWII events at least from a tournament play standpoint? Is that right?

[squirecam]

I believe that you'll see a Star Wars-like OP system for managing who plays the Axis and who plays the Allies, since our Star Wars minis game has a similar issue--don't want Rebels fighting Rebels, after all.

How about the rebs backed up by a few panzers? :)

Looking forward to seeing this at Gencon.

Squirecam

[Carlo]

[QUOTE=RichardBaker].
Historical: As above, but now there are more restrictions. Japanese units can't go into German armies. Russian units can't go into US armies. You may observe year-of-introduction limits, like no pieces introduced after 1943. Oh, and the French can go into any army. They might be Vichy French, after all.
[QUOTE]
Well, after the armistice of the 8th september many italian soldiers fought against German troops and fascists.

[Major Adler]

RB - I would advise that you require each gamer attending an organized play tournament to bring an Axis and an Allied army...I figure an army will be 20 pcs. more or less...I do not think that is a logisitics nightmare...

Adler...out...............

[Podlet]

Thanks to everyone who wrote in response! I'm starting to think that an "open-ended" sort of format might work for this game. If the rules allow any sort of combination of units to fight any other, the game will be simple enough for kids to play, and you won't need a ton of figures to get started. Meanwhile, those who are more into history can put all the nationality or year restrictions they want on their scenarios. Maybe there can even be "open-ended" and historical tournaments at conventions, to open up the game to everyone from the kid who thinks the game looks "cool" and plays in a "Bang, you're dead!" style to the real purist who has taken the time to assemble a 1940 German light armored reconnaissance battalion, western front.
This game is really coming together! For those of us who are fascinated by WWII, like miniatures, and don't have the time or inclination to paint, this is a dream come true. All quibbles aside, this really looks promising -- and a lot of fun. Cheers! :D

[RichardBaker]

Absolutely, that's the way we have to design it. It has to be a good miniatures game first, and a WW II tactical simulation second. The game play needs to engage the audience, draw people in, interest them in the possibilities of trying different combinations of units in their skirmishes, invest them in the argument of which faction (nation) is best. If we accomplish that without flying in the face of audience expectations, we've done a good job.

Now, that said, I think that it's not a good game play experience if we make things that "never would have happened" the best way to play the game. Observing the basic expectations of the "game setting" is important. Machine guns shouldn't destroy Tigers. Infantry shouldn't be faster than jeeps. Stuff like that. So no flying tanks or teleporting infantry or brain-eating Nazi zombies, no matter how good that would be for game play.



I kinda see this as more a minature game using WWII units as to a recreation of WWII events at least from a tournament play standpoint? Is that right?

[RichardBaker]

I'd like to do something like that, if it were entirely up to me. But I'm not an organized play expert; I'm a game designer. We've got folks here at Wizards who do OP every day all day, and they know what they're doing. I defer to their judgment, since they're the folks who have to run the tournaments.


RB - I would advise that you require each gamer attending an organized play tournament to bring an Axis and an Allied army...I figure an army will be 20 pcs. more or less...I do not think that is a logisitics nightmare...

Adler...out...............

[StyxParadox]

Now, that said, I think that it's not a good game play experience if we make things that "never would have happened" the best way to play the game. Observing the basic expectations of the "game setting" is important. Machine guns shouldn't destroy Tigers. Infantry shouldn't be faster than jeeps. Stuff like that. So no flying tanks or teleporting infantry or brain-eating Nazi zombies, no matter how good that would be for game play.

This kind of problem happend with Wizkids and Pirates. People did not like when they added fantacy stuff to the game. They wanted it to be ship v. ship tacktics that wins. So, I am glad you are commited to this principle. But I will say that within weeks people will try to find loop holes in the rules and there will mostlikely be something like Tigers loosing all the time to Armored Cars or something like that. For thoes of us who understand miniture games we will be fine with that but I can see some out there who are complaining about the # of inf on a piece to be back talking about unrealistic armies winning consistantly.