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

[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.

[Midnight_Reaper]

@CWO-Marc
So I see. That does explain why Fair Play Games would have these Engage expansion sets seemingly listed twice and why the rules for all of the expansion sets were included in the Engage game box.

Thanks for enlightening me. My question to you is: if I list Engage the game, and its four expansions, should I list the A&A 2010 expansion pieces on top of that? What do you think?

-Midnight_Reaper

[CWO Marc]

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

Thanks for enlightening me. My question to you is: if I list Engage the game, and its four expansions, should I list the A&A 2010 expansion pieces on top of that? What do you think?

It’s essentially the same question that applies to some of TT’s earlier sculpts which (as you indicated in an earlier post) served double-duty: TT used them as A&A expansion pieces and as the components of games with non A&A-titles. There’s no inherently correct way to enter / describe this situation in a list; it depends entirely on the conceptual framework for your list, and the framework is whatever you decide it to be. If your list is title-based, the pieces should probably be entered twice: once as six separately-purchasable sets (AM, BR, RU, GE, JA, IT) of A&A 2010 expansions, and once as the “Engage” game. As a sculpt collector, my own view of TT’s products takes the different approach of focusing on the sculpts themselves (design and colour); from that perspective, a Sculpt X that was issued as part of an A&A expansion set (all of which I own) and an identical Sculpt X that was issued in a non-AA-titled game like Cromwell 2026 or Risk 2042 or Engage (none of which I own) work out to be the same thing, and I’d throw them all into the same compartment of my TT storage tray without differentiating between their point of origin.

[Midnight_Reaper]

@CWO-Marc
Thanks for your thoughts. I intend to revise the top posts for this and the other two “expansion posts” sometime this weekend, I now have some food for thought.

Thanks again!

-Midnight_Reaper