A List of "Games" that are Axis & Allies Expansions in Disguise

[Midnight_Reaper]

I am looking to compile a complete list of all “games” that were A&A expansions in all but name. I am also looking to compile separate lists for early (MB-era) expansions and for later (AH-era) expansions.

Here is the list I have for “game” expansions, please add to this if you know of more.

East & West: Global War in 1948
Middle East Combat
The War Game: World War II
War Room
Warlords - China in Disarray
World in War: Combined Arms 1939-1945

Conquest Gaming

• Conquest of the Pacific
• Operation Barbarosssa

Engage

• American Units
• German Units
• Japanese Units
• Russian Units

Guild of Blades

• Arab Israeli Wars
• Battle of the Coral Sea
• Battle for the Falklands
• Fallen Blackhawk-Somalia
• Jutland
• Midway
• Stalingrad: An Empires of History Game
• The Spanish Civil War
• The Vietnam War
• War to End All Wars (family)
• WWII: Full Global Conflict
  and other games, I know.

HBG Historical Board Gaming

• Amerika
• Global War 1936-1945
• Global War 1939
• Operation Unthinkable
  and many others, I’m sure

Rune Blade Studios

• Axis of Evil 2007
• The Balkans 1999
• Cuban Missile Crisis: 1962
• Rune Blade’s Gulf War 1991
• Global Conflict: Vietnam 1970
• Iran: 2007
• NATO Vs. Warsaw Pact: 1989
• Operation: Downfall
• Operation: Iraqi Freedom: 2003
• Operation: Market Garden – 1944
• Operation: Sealion 1940
• Second Korean War: 2009

Suggestions from the Crowd:
Battle of France 1940
Bells of War
Blitzkrieg General
Cromwell 2026
Dust
Field Command: Singapore 1942
Fortress America (either the original or the reprint)
Superpowers
Supremacy (either the original or Supremacy 2020)
World War II in the West

Eagle Games

• Attack!
  – Attack! Expansion
  – Attack! Deluxe Expansion
  – Attack! Deluxe

Xeno Games

• Europe at War
• Russia at War
• Pacific at War
• The Sushi-Jalapeno War
• World at War Update 2005 Pack (updates The World at War to post-Avalon Hill Axis & Allies standards; was superseded by The World at War, Fourth Edition)

A couple new ideas:
Tenzi (we need dice, there’s 40 d6 in this one…)
Ultimatum (Mines, Naval Escorts, and Nuclear Subs in 6 colors)

A List of Games Outside the Scope of this List, and Why:
Risk (except to grab the tiny infantry, cannons, and men on horseback to put into A&A as alternate Infantry, Artillery, and Cavalry…)
Games set prior to 1898 - Warlords of Europe, Risk: Europe, War and Peace,
American Civil War, Shogun, Conquest of the Empire, Broadsides & Boarding Parties, Viktory and Viktory II
Games set in Outer Space - TI:3 & TI:4, Buck Rogers: Battle for the 25th Century

Does that sound about right?

-Midnight_Reaper

P.S. Just a little cosmetic nip/tuck.

Edited to add Battle of France 1940, Bells of War, Blitzkrieg General, Cromwell 2026, Dust, Field Command: Singapore 1942, Fortress America, Superpowers, Supremacy, World War II in the West, Attack! and Attack! Expansions, Europe at War, Russia at War, Pacific at War, Sushi-Jalapeno War, World at War Update 2005 Pack, Tenzi, Ultimatum , and a list of games outside the scope of the list. (13 Jan 2019)

[crsluggo]

You may also include Warlords of Europe by Conquest Gaming and War and Peace by Worthington Games. Great list by the way!

[Midnight_Reaper]

@crsluggo Thanks for the suggestions. I was more interested in games with a post 1900 world view, but I could use a good Napoleonic game or two.

Thanks for stopping by.

-Midnight_Reaper

[CWO Marc]

I’ve just had a look at your three threads about A&A expansions (Milton Bradley era, Avalon Hill era, Expanions in disguise), which are very interesting and useful lists. I’ll post something shortly in the Avalon Hill thread, since the post will be specific to that era, but first here’s a question that fits better in the Expanions in disguise thread.

I own some of the games listed here (and in the two other threads), and I’m wondering about the scope of what you mean by “expansion”. I initially thought that this referred simply to “add-ons” which could be plugged into the official A&A games – two good examples of this being Enemy on the Horizon (which added three new unit types to the Milton Bradley game, in the same colours) and the Table Tactics supplementary pieces. However, the list also includes (and in fact mostly consists of) games which aren’t “expansions” in this narrow sense. Xeno Games, for instance, did have some products which were sort of expansions, but it also had a complete game which was essentially a freestanding clone of A&A rather than an add-on. The War Game: World War II is in a similar vein, through with better sculpts that aren’t low-grade copies of the Milton Bradley A&A ones. And some games on the list are what could be called “A&A-style games” rather than expansions or clones; East and West is an example of one that resembles A&A rather closely, and World in War: Combined Arms 1939-1945 is an example of one that looks significantly different.

The reason I’m asking is that the concept of “A&A-style games” opens up a lot of territory for additions to your list. Some examples would be the Superpowers game (essentially a WWIII-type game between some fictitious future coalitions of countries), and the old Supremacy game.

[Midnight_Reaper]

@CWO-Marc said in A List of "Games" that are Axis & Allies Expansions in Disguise:

I’ve just had a look at your three threads about A&A expansions (Milton Bradley era, Avalon Hill era, Expanions in disguise), which are very interesting and useful lists.

Thanks for the kind words. I’ve been wondering what all expansions are out there, I suppose making a list and asking for what’s missing is as good as any other way of figuring it out.

I own some of the games listed here (and in the two other threads), and I’m wondering about the scope of what you mean by “expansion”.

Allow me to expand my thoughts. By “Game as expansion”, I am talking about all of the games out there that an enterprising game experimenter could raid to add to their home games of Axis & Allies. Modern tanks, World War II planes, World War I heavy artillery or torpedo boat destroyers - all of these things could be brought into someone’s home game. In the case of Engage, yes, those pieces (admittedly, more for the tanks than the mid-air machine guns). In the case of the Guild of Blades games, my interest with those would be more of the map and maybe the rules, not so much the cardboard chits.

The reason I’m asking is that the concept of “A&A-style games” opens up a lot of territory for additions to your list. Some examples would be the Superpowers game (essentially a WWIII-type game between some fictitious future coalitions of countries), and the old Supremacy game.

Yup, Rick Medved’s Superpowers and Supremacy, either the old one or the Supremacy 2020 reprint, would be welcome on this list.

The one thing I would say is that I’m looking for “modern-ish” games, set in 1898 or later, preferably the 1930s or later. War and Peace, while a great Napoleonic-era game, is a bit too far back for my purposes.

Does that explain things?

-Midnight_Reaper

[redrum]

@Midnight_Reaper Well if you are counting digital games then many of the TripleA maps are A&A style games.

[Midnight_Reaper]

@redrum said in A List of "Games" that are Axis & Allies Expansions in Disguise:

@Midnight_Reaper Well if you are counting digital games then many of the TripleA maps are A&A style games.

While there is that, I am looking for physical products, with the exception of the “unofficial official” changes, like the Larry Harris Tournament Rules for A&A Revised. You can buy a copy of Conquest of the Pacific, but not for most of what’s in TripleA.

-Midnight_Reaper

[crsluggo]

How about Attack! by Eagle Games? World conquest circa 1935… Or perhaps Dust by Fantasy Flight Games? It is 1947 and the war continues…

[Midnight_Reaper]

@crsluggo said in A List of "Games" that are Axis & Allies Expansions in Disguise:

How about Attack! by Eagle Games? World conquest circa 1935… Or perhaps Dust by Fantasy Flight Games? It is 1947 and the war continues…

Attack is certainly a good match for this list. I’ll have to look into Dust.

Thanks for your time.

-Midnight_Reaper

[CWO Marc]

@Midnight_Reaper said in A List of "Games" that are Axis & Allies Expansions in Disguise:

Yup, Rick Medved’s Superpowers and Supremacy, either the old one or the Supremacy 2020 reprint, would be welcome on this list.

-Midnight_Reaper

You might want to include Fortress America, and its Xeno Games clone (the Sushi-Jalapeno War).

By the way, on the subject of both the Sushi-Jalapeno War and the above-mentioned Superpowers game, they provided me with two-thirds of what I call the most expensive unit in my A&A collection (the remaining third being provided by Risk Metal Gear Solid). The Superpowers game includes eight small white plastic missiles (the only component of the game that I really like), which look approximately modeled on the V2. As missiles I don’t care for them (they’re too short, too thick, and have oversized fins), but if you position them horizontally rather than vertically they make a great-looking atomic bomb. The one defect, of course, is that the fins put the sculpt into an awkward nose-down position when you set it down on the table. The solution unexpectedly came from Risk Metal Gear Solid, which I had bought because I wanted its various sculpts: it includes little black plastic card-holders (exactly eight of them, in fact) with a slot running across the top. A Superpower missile fits neatly across the slot, with one fin projecting down into the slot, which keeps it horizontal rather than tipped over. Getting just eight atomic bombs (8 missile and 8 holders) out of two whole games makes those eight bombs a bit pricey, but that actually fits with the expense and rarity of WWII atomic weapons. The third component I added to create a complete weapon system came from the Sushi-Jalapeno War, which includes some nice-looking little black atomic mushroom clouds (here again, a case of that being the only component I liked). So basically I needed to cannibalize three separate games to create this small nuclear arsenal – but that sort of thing is part of the fun of being a game collector, i.e. it can create opportunities to make unorthodox use of what you have.

[Midnight_Reaper]

@CWO-Marc

Yup, Fortress America and Xeno Games’ Sushi-Jalapeno War will need to be added.

Your nuclear crown jewels sound really interesting. I don’t think I’ll go that far, but to each their own.

-Midnight_Reaper

[CWO Marc]

This game doesn’t fit your main parameters for time-frame (modern) or for location (Earth), but it’s the closest thing I’ve ever seen to a space-warfare version of Axis & Allies: Twilight Imperium (currently in its 4th edition for the main game; the 3rd edition consists of the main game and 2 expansion sets) by Fantasy Flight games. Lots of neat sculpts.

[Midnight_Reaper]

@CWO-Marc

I’ve heard a lot about Twilight Imperium, but a line has to be drawn somewhere and I think I’ll draw it short of TI. Not that it’s a bad game, but like you said it’s not modern Earth warfare. Thanks for the suggestions all the same.

-Midnight_Reaper

[thrasher1]

Personally I would call games like East & West and The War to End All Wars ‘expansions’.

OLD SITE:

https://web.archive.org/web/20030626131004/http://www.wargamer.com:80/axisandallies/ce/commercial_expansions_main.html

[Midnight_Reaper]

@thrasher1 said in A List of "Games" that are Axis & Allies Expansions in Disguise:

Personally I would call games like East & West and The War to End All Wars ‘expansions’.

OLD SITE:

https://web.archive.org/web/20030626131004/http://www.wargamer.com:80/axisandallies/ce/commercial_expansions_main.html

While they do seem to add a certain je ne sais quoi to your standard games of Axis & Allies, as they are stand-alone games that can be played on their own without any help from your A&A collection, I think they fit in just fine on this list. You might say they help define the criteria: “games that seem to exist in order to expand your Axis & Allies play at home”.

-Midnight_Reaper

[thrasher1]

@Midnight_Reaper Then also please add (the great game) Buck Rogers: Battle for the 25th Century.

See some nice pictures of the game here:
http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2018/07/retro-buck-rogers-board-game-was-twilight-imperium-before-twilight-imperium.html

[CWO Marc]

@Midnight_Reaper said in A List of "Games" that are Axis & Allies Expansions in Disguise:

Engage

• American Units
• German Units
• Japanese Units
• Russian Units

-Midnight_Reaper

This is to expand on your entry for Engage, which lists four unit groups: American Units, German Units, Japanese Units, and Russian Units. There are actually six groups, the two others being the British and Italian ones. I bought one of each of these sets when they were published in 2010 by Table Tactics. They were originally intended to serve as supplementary pieces for A&A, but more sophisticated and realistic than TT’s earlier A&A-based products; later, they were repackaged as the Engage game you mention.

Regarding those earlier TT products, which are listed in one of your other threads on this topic (Axis and Allies Accessories, Axis and Allies Central Powers, Axis and Allies New Edition Color, and Axis and Allies New World Order), TT also produced a couple of related games (Cromwell 2026 and Risk 2042) which used some of those A&A units (the ones from New World Order, if I remember correctly).

[Midnight_Reaper]

@CWO-Marc said in A List of "Games" that are Axis & Allies Expansions in Disguise:

@Midnight_Reaper said in A List of "Games" that are Axis & Allies Expansions in Disguise:

Engage

• American Units
• German Units
• Japanese Units
• Russian Units

-Midnight_Reaper

This is to expand on your entry for Engage, which lists four unit groups: American Units, German Units, Japanese Units, and Russian Units. There are actually six groups, the two others being the British and Italian ones. I bought one of each of these sets when they were published in 2010 by Table Tactics. They were originally intended to serve as supplementary pieces for A&A, but more sophisticated and realistic than TT’s earlier A&A-based products; later, they were repackaged as the Engage game you mention.

So, I listed the Americans, Germans, Japanese, and Russians as expansions to Engage, which comes with the British and Italians in the box. I was unaware of those units being sold separately from the main Engage game. I can certainly add those as options, thanks for letting me know. (Of course, now I want to know more about the timeline from the making of those units to the making of the game of Engage.)

Regarding those earlier TT products, which are listed in one of your other threads on this topic (Axis and Allies Accessories, Axis and Allies Central Powers, Axis and Allies New Edition Color, and Axis and Allies New World Order), TT also produced a couple of related games (Cromwell 2026 and Risk 2042) which used some of those A&A units (the ones from New World Order, if I remember correctly).

I thought that I had listed Cromwell 2026, I guess I missed it. It certainly does belong on the list.

As for Risk 2042, it falls in an odd category. It’s an expansion for Risk, but it also can be used as an expansion for Axis & Allies. But not out of the box. It has some units in common with New World Order, but some units in Risk 2042 aren’t in New World Order and some units that are in New World Order aren’t in Risk 2042. I mentioned it in passing under the Milton Bradley-era expansions as “New World Order (and sort-of A&A Expansion: Risk 2042)”

What units are in which? Check out pictures below to better understand:

New World Order:

source
From top to bottom: two tanks (M1 Abrams-style), three APCs (M113-style), one helicopter (Mi-24 Hind-style), one jet fighter (F-16-style), and one hovertank.

Risk 2042:

source
From top to bottom: two tanks (M1 Abrams-style), one helicopter (Mi-24 Hind-style), four gun trucks (Humber-style, referred to as such by the expansion rules), one MRL (M-270 MLRS-style), and two hovercraft.

So, we have tanks and helicopters in both, APCs and jet fighters only in New World Order, Humbers (a type of gun truck) and MRLs only in Risk 2042, and hovercraft as the both and neither category. New World Order has hovertanks and not hovercraft and Risk 2042 has hovercraft and not hovertanks (you can tell them apart, but it can be difficult to do so), but some people just throw them together and call them all hovercraft (as that is easier).

So, is Risk 2042 a separate expansion for Risk, a separate expansion for Axis & Allies, both, or just an extension of the ideas in New World Order? I say that it’s an expansion for Risk that can be used to modern-style pieces into a game of Axis & Allies, but that’s just my opinion. It seems I will need to flesh out the differences in the future.

-Midnight_Reaper

[CWO Marc]

@Midnight_Reaper said in A List of "Games" that are Axis & Allies Expansions in Disguise:

So, I listed the Americans, Germans, Japanese, and Russians as expansions to Engage, which comes with the British and Italians in the box. I was unaware of those units being sold separately from the main Engage game. I can certainly add those as options, thanks for letting me know. (Of course, now I want to know more about the timeline from the making of those units to the making of the game of Engage.)

-Midnight_Reaper

As a bit of extra background information, I’ve copied below part of a message I received from a forum member back in October 2014, when this topic was being discussed. I had previously sent him an email about the older TT sculpts, and then I commented as follows about the new ones: “I bought one sprue of each type as an experiment and never ordered any more because I was so disappointed in the product. Major variations in sculpt sizes, extra-thick sprues that were very hard to cut, large discoloured patches left on each piece once it had been cut away – so many problems, in fact, that I never bothered detaching most of the pieces. Very disappointing, so I’m doubly glad that we have HBG producing much better units than these later TT ones.” He responded:

Sent to: CWO Marc
Unfortunately they're only in MB Classic colors but there are tons of them. As for those pieces for Engage! I could care less I thought those were too big and I never really cared for them. 
I honestly have a small place in my heart for those old TT units it just seems to have been bad timing for the TT team. I sadly heard that the owner made a mistake when sizing the sculpts for the game Engage! His intent, so I've heard, was that they were to be compatible with A&A, and the game Engage! was pretty much just trying to make the best of a bad situation.
The other story I heard is that the last of the TT stock was dumped onto the market as TT was done with the sculpt business. I know Coach has TT pieces in stock on the German HBG site but many of them are now no longer available.

[CWO Marc]

More info: if you search “table tactics axis allies 2010” on Google you’ll find (see the attached picture) four of the six sets identified as Axis and Allies 2010. And if you google “table tactics new products release axisandallies.org”, you’ll get links to several useful forum threads, including this one…

https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/11512/table-tactics-new-product-release/202?page=9&lang=en-US

…which includes pictures.