I have been playing around with different configurations for a custom table and wanted to note some things I’ve landed on that I really like. A main one thing is having the map mounted so that it can slide around as needed on top of a bigger playing area. My table is 65” x 95” in total with a 5.5” arm rest around the outside and the middle is a recessed neoprene surface. I have the OOB Global map mounted on 1/2” rigid foam with a 1/2” aluminum frame around it. This allows the map to slide up close to whoever’s turn it is, but then be in the middle so both players can roll dice In front of them without disturbing the map and in easy view of the other player. (Plus we like lots of room to roll the bones). This ability to adjust the surface along with a standing height, makes it comfortable for long uses because you can move around more and don’t feel as tied down.
Things I’ve learned and changed from original design - I originally used too big of a frame for the map and mounted it on too high of a foam block (you can see these pictures at the bottom) - it made it hard to see the other player’s dice and the big frame took up too much real estate. My global map is mounted on much thinner foam (the framing is bad, you can see if you look closely) but I also used much thinner aluminum angle for the frame. This gives just enough grip when needing to move the map around (I use furniture slides on the bottom, which glide very nicely on the neoprene) but doesn’t make the whole thing too bulky. Having it an inch or so off the surface keeps the dice off, but isn’t so heigh that you can’t see the other player’s dice rolls. When playing other versions (such as Zombies) the board is much smaller, but it can easily swap in and out on the same table since it can move around where ever it is needed or be pushed aside.
I originally made it normal table height, but found long reaches while sitting were harder and it just felt cramped. Standing height with a bar stool is a great way to have the best of both worlds.
The 5.5” rim around the table itself gives you a nice arm rest that doesn’t interfere with the gaming surface. I’m playing with how to best add some cushion to this part - open to suggestions. Sometimes I just lay a piece of leftover neoprene on it.
Dice bounce nice on the neoprene and stay off the floor. It also feels nice and has enough give to allow things to slide but be picked up easily. Wouldn’t definitely go with neoprene again as a surface covering.
I made the drawers open to the inside of the table so you can stay hunched over the action while accessing and stowing stuff away. 50/50 on whether I would keep this if I were to do it again. If I were doing it again, I might try to build customer drawers form scratch using actual drawer glides, but that was beyond my ability when I first did this, so I just used clear plexiglass boxes with aluminum pulls mounted on them. It’s nice having them clear, and I was happy with how the pulls came out, but without glides they can be a little fussy sliding in and out of their slots.
I originally designed the table so that I could put a cover surface back on top when not in use, but find I don’t really ever do that, so if I were to do it again, I might not mess with that part (I never even finished staining those as you can see in the pictures).
CF362D52-269F-4480-8CBB-08139099138F.jpeg A9E12EA1-66EB-4671-86AC-68C62FD30AD5.jpeg 858DE1F2-030A-4D5A-93E4-70A7D1180ADB.jpeg 8F513EE0-DA37-4BA9-880E-4D5EF7BF431F.jpeg F0188165-757B-4CC1-BF67-5045832283C9.jpeg 2E3CD627-0D31-4121-ACF8-682F9F58A40B.jpeg
Customizers: which A&A games do you own?
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Since we don’t have polls yet, this will just be a listicle …
Somebody out there seems to think customizers and people using them don’t own A&A games. :rolling_on_the_floor_laughing: I’d be more worried if folks in this category didn’t own 5 versions and/or copies. :wink:
Anyway, if you make customizations or use other people’s customizations, which A&A games do you own and how many copies of each?
Dave Jensen, Founder of Axis & Allies .org
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Two copies each: Anniversary Edition, 2nd Ed. Classic, 1942 2nd Ed.
One copy: Revised, Pacific, Europe, Guadalcanal, D-Day, Battle of the Bulge, Spring 1942, 1941, Pacific 1940, Pacific 1940 2nd Ed., Europe 1940, Europe 1940 2nd Ed., ZombiesWhat did I miss? :wink:
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@djensen said in Customizers: which A&A games do you own?:
Somebody out there seems to think customizers and people using them don’t own A&A games. :rolling_on_the_floor_laughing:
:rolling_on_the_floor_laughing: :rolling_on_the_floor_laughing: :rolling_on_the_floor_laughing:
One copy each: Revised, Spring 1942, Spring 1942 2nd Ed., and Anniversary (2017) [UPDATE: And Europe '99. And Pacific '01. And Europe 1940.2. And Pacific 1940.2]
Two or three copies: 1941. I was just completely unable to resist a $10 Amazon deal……and I
'm actively hunting for deals on Europe & Pacific 1940.2just bought E&P40.2 along with Europe '99 and Pacific '99. As customizers go, I expect that I am on the lowish side for financial investment at something like$200$320. While I would expect that most customizers are indeed bargain-hunters that love the idea of fan-made, royalty-free expansions… that doesn’t in any way mean we aren’t simultaneously the most devoted user-base and market for the OOB games themselves. I can’t wait to see the numbers put up by some of the heavyweights here… -
7 copies: Anniversary Edition,
4 copies of 2nd Ed. Classic,
2 copies 1942 2nd Ed.
One copy: Revised
6 copies of Pacific
24 copies ( yes 24 fool) of Europe
one copy of Guadalcanal
2 copies D-Day
4 copies of Battle of the Bulge
2 copies of 1941
4 copies of Pacific 1940 and 2 copies of Pacific 1940 2nd Ed.,
6 copies of Europe 1940
4 copies of Europe 1940 2nd Ed
one copy of Zombies
one copy of Nova games Axis and Allies -
I thought I had a lot, but then I saw Imperious Leader’s list… I have just one copy of each of the following:
Classic
Revised
Europe
Pacific
D-Day
Guadalcanal
Anniversary (first print)
Europe 1940 (first edition)
Pacific 1940 (first edition)
1914
1942 (second edition)
1941I used to have Battle of the Bulge, but it was lost in a move. I never bothered to replace it…
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Xeno’s Europe at War
Xeno’s World at War 1939
1940 Global
1941
Pacific at War 2001
Europe at War 1999
Classic 1984Combat Miniatures, custom pieces for your A&A games.
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@Johnson73 Forgot I have D-Day
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I’ve one copy of each:
2nd Ed. Classic (altough it actually belongs to my brother)
Revised
1942 2nd Ed.
Pacific 1940 2nd Ed.
Europe 1940 2nd Ed
Anniversary
Zombies2 copies of:
1914 (due to lack of units) -
The only figure I can quote off the top of my head with complete confidence about its accuracy is the number of A&A games of which I own just a single copy: two titles, specifically Guadalcanal and Zombies. For every other A&A game I own multiple copies, ranging from a low of two copies (in the case of Bulge and of the old Milton Bradley edition) to a high of “I stopped counting when I went over six copies” in the case of 1941. For the past decade or so I’ve typically bought at least three copies of every new A&A game during the week following their initial release (one copy from each of three local hobby shops, in a “support your local merchants” spirit), and I typically take advantage of annual Boxing Day specials to buy myself an extra copy of an in-print A&A game, whose choice varies from year to year; last year, it was 1942 second edition. My favourites of the bunch are the 1940 games, which I always buy in Europe + Pacific pairs: I have three (or is it four?) copies of the first edition, and I have four (or is it three?) copies of the second edition; in retrospect, I wish I had grabbed more copies of the first edition when it was in print because I like its map board better, and because its unique grey-coloured, British-design ANZAC sculpts were replaced by ANZAC-specific designs in the second edition. I’ll also sometimes, as a niche purchase, order online a second-hand copy of an out-of-print A&A game, but I don’t do this very often.
All of this is very much what the military would call “in excess of requirements” from a conventional perspective, but as an A&A sculpt collector I don’t see it quite from the angle of conventional requirements. For one thing, I like the fact that having multiple copies of multiple games, ranging across the publication history of A&A, provides a vast range of variant shapes, colours and shades for the sculpts, with the differences ranging from the trivial (e.g., the hatch shape on the turret of the American Sherman tank) to “so-flagrant-that-it-qualifies-as-a-new-unit” situations (e.g. the two versions of the German 88 AAA gun and the Stuka dive bomber, which actually served [incorrectly] as field artillery and fighter units in the older games). And I’m intrigued by the fact that accumulating so many sculpts produces wildly different frequency-distribution statistics: at one extreme I have huge quantities of US infantry sculpts (which are present in every A&A game ever made), while at the other extreme I only have small numbers of pieces which are unique to certain out-of-print games (like the green and orange generic AAA guns from Guadalcanal).
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Wow… everyone’s an Axis & Allies hoarder :grin:
Atm just own the Anniversary Ed… at some point owned the Revised Ed, Guadalcanal and Battle of the Bulge…played D-Day, Europe 1940, Pacific 1940 and the Global as well; opted to just keep the Anniversary Ed, best choice of all the ones I’ve played in terms of playtime and global map.Got worried? :grimacing:
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I own the following:
Classic - 3/4 copies ( I give them to people who want something more than Risk-I buy them when I see them for $5/$10)
Revised - 2 copies (still like playing this version)
Europe - 1 copy
Pacific - 2 copies
D-Day - 2 copies
Guadalcanal - 1 copy
Battle of the Bulge - 1 copy
Anniversary (first print) – 1 copy
Spring 1942 - 3 - copies (use pieces of 2 copies to augment other titles)
Europe 1940 (first edition) - 1 copy
Pacific 1940 (first edition) - 2 copies ( I am looking for a 2nd ed. board to mate up with Europe. I prefer the 1st ed. maps but being a visual guy, I want the maps to sync. Dislike the new ANZAC sculpts so don’t want a 2nd ed. game)
Europe 1940 (second edition) - 1 copy
1914 - 2 copies
1942 (second edition) - 3 copies (one shrink from last years boxing day sale Amazon - $30)
Anniversary (second edition) - 2 copies
1941 - 1 copy
A&A&Zombies - 1 copy
Xeno 1939 version - 1 copyIf I see any title selling for $5-$10, I usually pick it up cause I have a problem. :-)
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I have a few games…
1 copy of Nova games Axis and Allies
3 copies of 2nd Ed. Classic, with at least two more copies worth of pieces
2 copies of Europe (1 as Europe, 1 as Europe: Italy, with FMG Italians)
1 copies of Pacific
2 copies of Revised
1 copy of D-Day
1 copy of Battle of the Bulge
1 copy of Guadalcanal
2 copies Anniversary Edition (1 2008 edition, 1 2017 reprint)
1 copy of 1942
1 copy of Pacific 1940
1 copy of Europe 1940
4 copies of 1941
2 copies 1942 2nd Ed.
1 copy of Pacific 1940 2nd Ed (looking to make it 2 copies, if I can do it cheap)
1 copy of Europe 1940 2nd Ed (looking to make it 2 copies, if I can do it cheap)
and
2 copies of ZombiesAftermarket pieces…
a ton of HBG
“two full sets” of FMG Italians
3 sets of Xeno Games World at War
1 set of Xeno Games Eastern Front (unofficial A&A Europe Expansion)
1 set of Xeno Games Europe at War
1 set of Xeno Games Russia at War
1 set of Xeno Games Pacific at War
4 sets (and change) each of Table Tactics: A&A Accessories, Central Powers, New World Order, and Risk 2042
1 set of Enemy on the Horizon
1 set of World War II Expansion, I, II, and III (Midway)
and yet sets of more expansion rules for ClassicSo, yeah, just a few…
-Midnight_Reaper
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Ah, yes – the Xeno and Table Tactics stuff, and the Enemy on the Horizon expansion. I have a few sets of those items too, though for a number of years they’ve been living in honourable retirement in some of my plastic storage trays of secondary units. They date back to what seems (from today’s perspective) to have been the medieval period of A&A gaming, when the destroyer was still a relatively new unit, and the cruiser didn’t yet exist, and all anti-aircraft artillery units were generic, and the British and the Russians had an awful lot of “foreign” sculpts in their inventories, and the modern unit-colour scheme hadn’t yet emerged and so forth. And, crucially, when the player nations beyond the “big five” (US, UK, RU, GE and JA) didn’t yet have their own sculpts (if they were even player nations at all, which they mostly weren’t), which meant that A&A enthusists had to settle for, let’s say, representing French units with Xeno’s low-sharpness, soft-plastic, baby-blue sculpts. Though I must say that Xeno’s U-boat pen units were a cool concept. Compared with that era, we’re living in an age of sculpt diversity (even if you only count the official A&A ones, to say nothing of HBG’s large product line of combat units) that was almost unimaginable in those days.
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Yes, forgot about all the Gamer’s Paradise expansions i have. Midway etc. Plus the Table Tactic Expansion units. These companies were on the forefront when it came to house rules and expansion. They introduced Paratroopers, Escorts, Destroyers, Artillery, SS etc. And to believe those were around in the 80’s with the original 1984 Board. Good Times
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I have one copy each of:
A&A MB
Europe '99
Pacific '01
D-Day
Battle of the Bulge
Guadalcanal
Europe 1940 2nd ed.
Pacific 1940 2nd ed.Bonus:
Fortress America (1986)
Conquest of the Empire (1984)
Battle Cry (2000) -
@Midnight_Reaper Oh, and two sets of A&A: 1914. Forgot about that one.
-Midnight_Reaper
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1 copy A&A 50th Anniversary recent edition
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I didn’t list all the AA related games:
Bells of War
Enemy of the Horizon
Middle east
Xeno War in Pacific
Europe at War
Russia at War
World at War both editions
Tons of table tactics junk too much to list
Plus alot of the rule sets like Max’s Axis and Allies et al -
Wow! I’m impressed by these lists!
So far I only come to:
Classic
Spring 1942
1942 2nd edition (map & rulebook only, using spring units)
Europe 1940 2nd edition
Pacific 1940 2nd edition -
So what is everyone’s rationale for owning multiple copies, or many multiple copies, of the same game. If it is just for collecting purposes, then I suppose that rationale isn’t necessary. But otherwise is it to get pieces, for game value if/when they go out of print, spares, lending them out to others, hosting game parties or tournaments where multiple copies are needed…?
I jointly own one of pretty much every version since the original Europe and Pacific, except for the newer 2nd Ed. Global 40, 1941 and 1942. But only one of each.
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