[Global 1940] The Big Project

[Steiner]

Hi Everyone,
I hope you are all keeping well.

So, at the beginning of the lockdown in the UK I thought I would finally get around to my big Axis and Allies project but first a little bit of background.

I first came across and played this wonderful game when I was living in Edinburgh way back in 1996. I eventually bought the global edition in (I think) 2012. It’s difficult to play as much as I would like due to having three boys (one still quite young) and a busy job but I do try to squeeze in at least one game a year.
I have a core group of players including my brother, nephews, eldest son and brother in laws and we’ve all complained that the original board just feels to crammed, so I took the opportunity of lockdown to commence making the board bigger.

The idea for it has been in my head for about five years and involved an approximately 2 metre by 1.2 metre plywood (depth 10mm) being the base and then a thinner sheet of ply cut out into the relevant land masses and glued on tope. After painting etc the land my plan was and now definitely is to fill the sea zones with epoxy resin.

I’d been collecting bits and bobs for a few years in preparation for the job.

Now I know there will be some purists on here but the project also involved me adapting the board to better suite our needs and also embedding the modification to the rules that I have developed over the years.

A brief overview of the changes I will be doing:

Adding a couple of extra territories across Germany, Russia, Japan and Africa
Generals
Battlegroups
New Tech tree/process
Developing new graphics (new battle board, IPC chart etc)

I will post details around all these things in the coming months but first the board.

It is not quite finished yet but I will post pictures of the different stages.

[Steiner]

@john-payne
Planning the board out was a real tricky task as I was changing the dimensions of the original map but not in a perfect upscaled ration.
I printed out sections of the original in a grid format to help me know which areas to lengthen or territories that I wished to increase the size of.

[Steiner]

@john-payne
Here is the fully drawn out map.
I then took it to my brother who is a dab hand with an electric saw and he cut out all the relevant areas.

[Steiner]

@john-payne All the pieces were then glued down with wood glue and sealed around the edges.

[Steiner]

@john-payne South America.

I used acrylic paints and based the colour scheme on satellite images of the earth.

[Steiner]

I wanted the board the have a 3-D effect so using Polyfilla I started to add mountain ranges. I think they look great and I am really please with them.

[Steiner]

@john-payne The next images is of all the main land masses with an initial lick of paint.

[Steiner]

@john-payne Next was starting to add the depth and detail

[Steiner]

@john-payne IT was a right pain in the arse after this because I had to re-draw all the territories.

The next photos are a bit of a big jump.

Once I’d added all the territories and little islands, I then made all the territory names on cardboard and glued them down. I had to make all the roundels and thanks to my wife these have generally come out great. She’s a methodical woman and she used a whole punch (measured the distance it went into the paper) to get most of them punched out great.
The roundels are stuck onto small circles of punched out magnetic paper and I have stuck magnets onto all the game roundels. So when a territory is conquered they go on sweet.

The sea lanes are not completed yet and I’ll reveal more about them as I go along.

You will notice along the bottom of the board a large tray area. This will be used for the Battlegroup cards and few other little things but I’ll share more about that later.

[Steiner]

Close up of the African theatre

[Steiner]

Close up of the African Theatre

[Steiner]

@john-payne The Americas

[Steiner]

@john-payne The Pacific. My favourite part of the board. I made the island slightly bigger so you can actually fit a few units on them.

[Steiner]

@john-payne We managed to squeeze in a game between Christmas and New Year and to test the changes I had made.

As you can see from the images a few territories now have a points value. This took a lot of thought and calculations by me and the eldest lad but the game was really balanced.

I have increased the income of Ital (had to compensate other areas) as we sometimes play with 6/7 people and we wanted to make Italy more appealing to play as. It’s worked really well.

I will upload photos of the board during the game and also as I work on the oceans etc. I have to do a test with the epoxy resin first.

Your thoughts would be appreciated

Thanks
John

[Aaron_the_Warmonger]

@steiner the mountains do look great, and you should be pleased with them!!

[Steiner]

@aaron_the_warmonger Thanks Aaron that is appreciated.

[All Encompassing Goose]

Is there anyone that could print this board and mass produce it? It looks stunning and I love the feel of it. Great job!

[Steiner]

@All-Encompassing-Goose thank you very much. not be on for a while and had to put off finishing the project for while

[CentralCommando]

@Steiner Finish it if you want, this looks sick!

[PGsquig]

@Steiner This board is so cool! I love the colors and how 3D it is. I’d love to see photos with all the units setup!