Tuesday 14 January 2014

Xmas Present gets opened: Axis & Allies 1914

For Christmas I was a very lucky boy as my wife bought m,e the latest Axis & Allies game - 1914 the Great War. I'd read some mixed reviews on this game but suffice to say I thought the premise of such a game was at least worthy of consideration.

To sweeten the deal Amazon were running a 20% off deal so the retail came in at about £55. It is a lot of money for a boardgame but when you consider the number of components (over 400) , the hours of play and compared to the latest video game titles it is justifiable.

I will in time write up my own review of the game but for those of you familiar with the WW2 variants this should be a straight forward play but the differences have created a game that really does depict the grind and attrition of the great war.




The biggest change is that combat is only fought for one round. There are no breakthroughs, blitzes etc. Aircraft support artillery only if you have air supremacy . in as territory and tanks only feature later in the game.

From a political point of view Russia could exit the game buy turn 4 (revolution) as America rescinds its neutrality and joins in.

The Conflict spreads from Washington to the Urals, From Norway to South Africa.

My good friend Mark and I have only played once so far and managed a couple of turns in an evening - albeit our first game and we are looking forward to planning a more longer period of play in the near future.

cheers

Eric


3 comments:

  1. I'll see what you make of it. I'd like to get a copy as I own four versions of Axis and Allies

    ReplyDelete
  2. I got this for Christmas as well. I like the rules changes as they do seem to capture the grind of the war really well. I was not at all impressed by their cheapness in terms of components. You still need IPCs, but they don't include any, telling you to use pen and paper. I pulled some from one of my other Axis and Allies games.

    They also don't give you enough components. Especially German and Austro Hungarian infantry are in short supply and they barely have enough of the "5" tokens.

    I did find this site http://www.historicalboardgaming.com/ that sells components for the game so you can plus up your numbers.

    Other than the lack of pieces (oddly 400 is not enough) and the badly designed board (two piece and warped) this is a nice addition to the stable.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Nice, I don't have this one, I have Europe and pacific 1940, its a huge game, still can't find any one who want's to plat lol

    ReplyDelete