Renegade Con Virtual: Axis and Allies

[Imperious Leader]

map ordered.

[thrasher1]

The winner of ‘Pick your Battle’ is:

North Africa

https://renegadegamestudios.com/blog/axis-allies-pick-the-battle-vote-results-are-in-/

[General 6 Stars]

Black Elk wins !

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@thrasher1 said in Renegade Con Virtual: Axis and Allies:

The winner of ‘Pick your Battle’ is:

North Africa

https://renegadegamestudios.com/blog/axis-allies-pick-the-battle-vote-results-are-in-/

I love this choice. Great theater of operations, tons of active participants, hopefully some new sculpts…

[Black_Elk]

Sounds cool!

Also, keeping with the theme of watching the first half of the film Patton hehe… a cool way to handle the endgame would be Sicily, Southern Italy or even the liberation of Rome. So instead of just Torch and North Africa, which would start with a lot of Vichy touch and go, and end with Axis being ejected from Tunisia/Libya I guess, the game could keep going to Husky into 1943 for the finale? A proper Sand and Sea campaign for the larger med theater, with some naval action and the big amphib landings as the capper.

Basically the later Stalingrad/Eastern front board could dovetail on this one as the follow up, since the two campaigns would have a bit of overlap in the timeline. Instead of Axis winning by taking Cairo, Axis ‘victory’ could be achieved more by just pushing out the Allied liberation of Rome. Allies win by bringing the hammer down and taking the bottom of the boot. I think that’d be fun!

Guess it just depends on the overall scale of the game, but to me that would make sense for a theater map. Basically left side of the board at Gibraltar/Morocco, right side Greece/Crete/Egypt clipping at Sardinia/Naples/Rome for the top of the Board, desert at the bottom. Then we got some decent room for the back and forth and a thrilling conclusion that scratches the itch with a dramatic finish. Before breaking out the next one in the series hehehe.

Ps. Another suggestion, which is more for the art direction. Try to include within the graphics or manual illustrations a Vera May Atkins type for a French Resistance espionage angle. Rosie the Riviter for a home front munitions liberty ship production type thing. Rita Hayworth and Vera Lynn for the USO inspiring the troops. A badass nurse like Juliette Binoche in the English patient. Just something in the collage montage artwork to bring that element into it. Not like a Lady Luck, or Victoria type tutorial advisor, but more in-theme like the real deal. Code breakers, patch me in ops. Obviously those suggestion tilt towards Allies Hollywood nostlagia, but I think that’s to the good. Hire Becca Scott back on too, and keep that tutorial video series going. Shades of Casablanca noir in the embellishments on the margins. Like just a full 1942 sweep for that. I think that would be nice to see in a theater campaign board with this setting and timeline.

For a board crop, maybe something like this?

I compressed the one from the encyclopedia for a narrower width, but that sort of spread, like on the Med highlight I mean. Could come in a bit tighter on the sides and clipping the bottom fifth off at the desert for the tighter focus along the coast.

Then abstracted and bulked out a bit for housing the sculpts, with Sicily more in the middle for the endgame (center board), but still maintaining some room for a naval game, with peripherals for the stage in. Compress it back down to 1:2 aspect for the table once the TTs are beefed up, so you get a similar view, but a bit wider again after it’s dialed for the unit housing.

Plenty of space at the bottom left and top left/right for a couple inset graphics. One for each side maybe? Or blown out a bit further to carve stuff up a bit more. Just for the decorative embellishments, you could put that stuff in neutral Turkey or Spain, or the Algerian stretch of the Sahara. I think something like that would be pretty rad. Anyhow just a quick riff haha

I can imagine it where the narrows in Libya, that’s your main choke point, where the line is only 1 tile deep, and the stuff on either side is like your sliding deadzone that changes hands back and forth early on. For Algeria, Tunisa, Egypt have some coastal tiles worth a bit more, but then some interior 'desert; tiles worth less, but which can allow for maneuvering and breakthroughs. The larger islands split up a bit, and same with southern Italy. USA concentrated more on the left out of Algeria/Oran in that corner, UK on the right out of Egypt, like for seats at the table. And they’re trying to meet at the middle and converge in Libya for a springboard. Axis in the middle (seats at the top of the table), trying to hold the wedge at the center.

For Germany, maybe it kicks off with a Tunisian stronghold or a way to paratroop in early on, but always with that tension in the background, ‘like should we really keep feeding units into Tunisia/Libya?’ with the added challenge of guarding Greece and Crete in the backfield, which could be a swing zone. Or same with Sardinia and Sicily vs the main defense of Italy tension. A more abstract tile near the top could serve as a German mobilization point in Italy itself, like troops coming in from N. Italy and France, or over the Alps or being diverted over from Greece. Then you could get something going where Axis try to race to Cairo initially, but if that fails (likely), then it’s a question of when exactly to pull back from Tunisia/Libya in order to prepare the final defense of Southern Italy. Having that as the big mid-game timing decision.

A North Africa board I think has the potential to be a bit more naval amphib oriented, which would be fun to see in a campaign scale game. Could probably still fit quite a few tiles in the Med and really break up the North African coastline and Sicily so there’s a few ways in for both sides. Couple fulcrums for the balance to hinge on.

For a new unit/sculpt, the paratrooper or air transport would be thematic (especially for Axis in this period), which could be introduced here and then really come into play for the follow up Market Garden. Similarly an Army Base unit that either side can use to try and establish toeholds, as a ground base parallel to the Naval Base or Air Base of G40. Some different way to mobilize units that gets around the concept of an IC with something a bit more flexible for this theater, like a logistics hub. A bunker/pillbox fortification unit could work as well, similar to the old ones, just reintroduced. Or a Command unit, where instead of a Strategic Bomber, we get something with similar stats/movement, but which functions more like a general commanding the forces. That could be fun for this one, since it kinda fits the mold with the big personalities.

The tactical bombers of G40 would seem like a better fit than the Strat Bs of 1942 sec edition for the big guns in the air and bombing. An air transport role for the Strat Bs here, instead of a heavy combat role, could work well. Also the Mech would be nice to have for this one. Not sure what they’d choose for a full unit spread, but it’d be cool if they staged in some concepts here too, so the jump from 1942 to Global 1940 in terms of roster/rules complexity can be tutorialized and introduced in stages via the more focused campaign scale boards.

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@black_elk

I think there’s room for two new pieces in this condensed, zoomed in map: self-propelled artillery and tank destroyers.

For the Germans, it would be the SiG 33 and StuG III, respectively, and for the US it would be the M7 Priest / M10 Wolverine. The UK could use the Bishop, and either recycle the M10 sculpt (they used it as the Achilles) or perhaps the slightly later war Archer. Italy I’m unsure of, but I’m sure they have a couple models that would work.

Edit: did my research, for a self propelled artillery piece I’d select the Semovente da 90/53, and for the anti-tank I’d pick the Semovente da 75/18. The Italians called both kinds “self-propelled guns”, hence the similarity of naming.

Also; Vichy France will be in this game, please please give us a French tank!

[vodot]

@black_elk solid post. I like the wider view of the first map much more, which would allow for ocean at the extreme left - Casablanca has to be on the map, I think, along with Cyprus and Salermo.

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@vodot said in Renegade Con Virtual: Axis and Allies:

@black_elk solid post. I like the wider view of the first map much more, which would allow for ocean at the extreme left - Casablanca has to be on the map, I think, along with Cyprus and Salermo.

Agreed 100% - besides, they can also stretch/skew the map a bit and make it conform to a slightly taller board, rather than one that is wide but narrow. Here’s what I would have as the board:

[barnee]

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:+1:

[vodot]

@Black_Elk what about supply? Surely trucks or at the very least something more abstracted are making a comeback here.

I am definitely hoping this will be a whole Mediterranean theater game, almost full stop; beginning with the early Italian and British incursions, and ending with the potential capture of Cairo or the invasion and/or collapse of Italy.

[Black_Elk]

Yeah I really like the idea of the whole med too, honestly. I noticed when trying to find a closer crop, that anytime I tried to zoom in further, it felt pretty claustrophobic and I wanted to scroll beyond the edge, like ‘wait - why stop here?’ Lol

I think I’m too used to seeing maps of the full Med to really get past that. Also it’d be a nice touch for new Roman empire ambitions, even if that ship had already sailed by the likely start date. This would be the board where Italy really makes sense as a player nation to me, like the reason to justify the existence of all those sculpts. Whereas in AA50 and Global, it’s more of a stretch to get them in the mix in a satisfying way. I think a somewhat larger board than the previous tactical games, so they could do the full stretch from Casablanca to Beirut would be pretty cool!

This one shows a fair bit of distortion. Europe was already warped/enlarged, so you can see Spain is a bit beefy from trying to make France/Normandy larger lol, which wouldn’t really be needed for a board with the Med focus. The other side of the Med is more compressed than it’d need to be here. But basically taking the rough G40 divisions for the TTs and SZs, and then subdividing some of those again, like 2, 3, maybe 4 times? Just to get a sufficient number of tiles and a dynamic playpattern going. Stretch-rotate or crop in tighter at the top, like right at Marseille/Milan/Istria, with an transalpine cut at the Po, but aiming to get the whole med in there somehow, with a lot more Sea Zones than shown below, clearly… hehe.

Sneakily foreshadowing a Stalingrad follow up by showing a bit of the Balkans? The theme could still be Torch, but something with a theater wide view on the Med would offer a lot of options if it crept on the margins a bit.

I dig the anti tank and sp artillery idea too! I played a D10 game that had them in the roster and they were fun. This scenario would be a cool one to see a jeep, and an infantry gun, and self propelled artillery. Perhaps an Armor advance towards the end where some even more boss tank types first come online. An apt scenario to do a heavy armor unlock or something.

This one has a lot of promise! More than the reprints/re-issues, with the ‘North Africa’ game we’ll really get to see what Renegade’s bringing to the table. I’m excited to check it out!

Ps. Random aside, but there were something like what, 10 million horses deployed in WW2 just by Germany and the USSR alone? I don’t know that we ever get that in our WW2 set piece sweeps. Except for the opening of the film Fury I guess lol. Might be cool to see one for some kind of general/logistics type bonus sculpt, where we can imagine him headed up the mountains towing a big gun in the endgame hehe.

pps.

Basically just blowing out the regional theaters of the Europe 1940 board, and doing each with a bunch more TT/SZ tiles. Maybe you put them all together like Voltron for the ultimate A&AE advanced board.

If they did the stretch on Europe a little different so you could make one larger board from the smaller theater scale maps.

Here’s an example using Turner’s, but imagining the stretch/warp so that center dividing line is more like the Rome Berlin Axis, doing the squish and pull for a nice spread.

Also, I’m curious, if they’re targeting a 2024 release date, if they already have the game basically roughed out in concept form? Like if they’re already alpha testing and play balancing something? I wish they’d use tripleA for that, like at least for an informal in-house testing type thing for their design team peeps. It could be done with a fairly quick turn around I’d imagine. Digital playtesting is pretty fast. They could probably clock triple the number of test games during the same period, even if it was closed playtesting for just their employees or whatever. It’s a cool tool, and something the A&A community sorta organically willed into existence with just the heart and love of the game, but it hasn’t really been used before for a real alpha test of a new game I don’t think. Although that would be kinda rad. Like it’s basically the role the thing was designed to play, as a map/game creator’s resource to trial the rough drafts. They could use the map creator tools to create a quickie templet, then use that to iterate in alpha. They don’t need to publish it that way, but they could test it like that. Since they can alter board states via edit and save stuff out locally.

Have Beamdog do the polished version with the UI that peeps are used to from A&AO with all the branding for the competitive digital play, after the honeymoon launch/CON FtF period, but by holding a digital AP run before the physical product goes to the actual printers, they could see if there are any big issues and shore em up way early. Like long before it hits the presses, after which point revisions have to be issued via errata. Just do the FtF and digital testing concurrently in-house to catch the breakers and shore it up. They could do that basically soon as they got their map ideas and unit roster ideas dialed. Like just pick someone on the team and have em learn the quickie creator tools to do the xml stuff hehe. Wouldn’t look as pretty, but it would work for the alpha drafting at least, presumably with rules similar to what we’ve seen up to the G40 level. Probably a pipe dream, like normal trend seems to be the opposite direction, but still, maybe Renegade will go renegade, and actually lean into it for a change? That would be so cool! Worth mentioning at least :)

[Black_Elk]

Axis & Allies & Aliens

I’m sure it was a top contender on the big brain storm board that lead to the creation of A&A Zombies, but I think Aliens would be cool if looking for a new angle on that. Like just do an X-files riff for the reprint of A&AZ? Have the game start at Trinity and just go off the rails with Rockets and UFOs and little green men from there.

A&A&A

Not news I guess, but the name’s got a ring right ;)

Happy May Days

[crockett36]

@vodot said in Renegade Con Virtual: Axis and Allies:

This post got moved over from a different thread.

@imperious-leader I’m not sure to what extent the team will feel empowered - or have the appetite - to revise things like rules etc. for the flagship games. They seem, at least right now, content to simply own and reprint the flagship IP while releasing only new entries into the (quite dated) family of “standalone satellite games”. This is after all the age of the timid ‘remake’, for better or for worse.

I would personally hope that we will see an even more revolutionary version of what @Black_Elk has recommended:

@black_elk said in Advice to Renegade! What is on your top 10 for adjustments to G40 3rd edition?:

So the Q was for Global 3rd Ed, but while we’re at it… I just got 3 to add

1. A legacy version of the base game (midscale board), that is simply called “Axis and Allies” ie don’t include a start date year or an edition number in the name for that one. It should present as the basic starter set. Provide unit set ups for a couple dates like AA50 did, but do that in the manual instead. The idea being that it’s easier to re-print or revise or download material for unit set ups in a manual than on cards/boxes. So you could do 1942 as the default, but also 1941 or 1943 say, just by referencing a page in the rulebook.

2. Axis and Allies Global - Sell it as a single complete game, rather than 2 separate theater games. For packaging maybe have 1 box be for the maps the cards and all the paper stuff, and then have units sold separately? I think the players that are most interested in the more advanced game just want G40, rather than Europe and Pacific 1940. By selling the sculpts separately there is less need to divide the boards by theater, and then it can build on the starter unit set included with the base “Axis and Allies” game mentioned above.

3. Include a small Art book/History of the Axis and Allies game and it’s creator, including the images from all the cover boxes and such. Legacy style! I just think that would be a nice touch and cool to see.

I would take this idea even further - a complete restructuring of the product line into a modern “base game + expansions” system with a basic tier (“Axis and Allies”) and then more complex and theater games layered on top of that. How many olive drab colored US bits does one A&A player need?? I have thousands of plastic bits across dozens of different color variations and decades of different injection molders, and tooling changes both major and minor… and I am by no means a “major collector” by the standards of some of the regulars here.

Instead, in 2024 maybe we could begin a new three-tier system, something like:

• “Axis and Allies” (essentially, this would be AA41 or, even better, AAZ without zombies)
  • basic units (inf/art/tnk/ftr/bmr/sub/trn/dd/cv/bb)
  • simplified board with drawn-on infrastructure
• Expansion 1: “Advanced” Axis and Allies
  • this expansion would, when combined with “Axis and Allies” above, create AA50 or AA50+. Contents:
    • bigger/more granular map; maybe add a minor power or two (Axis minors/Italy, etc.)
    • Set of new ‘basic’ units for the added power(s) only
    • New unit rules + sculpts: Cruisers, AAA units, ICs, etc. for all powers
    • This would not come with the basic pieces for the other powers
• Expansion 2: Axis and Allies: “Global War”
  • this expansion would, when combined with the Base game and Expansion 1 above, create G40 or G40+. Contents:
    • even bigger/more granular map and add more minor powers
    • Sets of ‘basic’ and ‘advanced’ units for the added minor powers only
    • New unit rules and sculpts: Mech Inf, Tac bombers, Minor ICs, Bases, etc. for all powers

These three would be the “mainline” series, which would then be further extensible by at least three additional series:

1. A “Great Battles” product line that zooms in on battles of particular interest like Guadalcanal or the Bulge; or perhaps even whole theaters and regions like North Africa, the Eastern Front, or Operation Overlord and aftermath.
   - These would use but not contain the “Basic” units, rather expanding upon them by adding only the missing needed bits for those battles, scenarios, or theaters. The trucks from Bulge or the Blockhouses from D-Day are examples of these; and these theater games could include rules for incorporating these additional units into the “Global” game as well.

2. A product line that adds rules, units, and complexity for the “Global” game. These would be “packs” of additional sculpts and units, with each including enough units to add a particular unit for every power or new rules for the Global game; adding things like Transport Planes, Heavy Tanks, Mobile Artillery, Oil/resource bits and rules, new maps and overlays, etc. This could even introduce goofy/fun shenanigans like a “Zombies” deck with zombie figures, or other bizarre and alternative scenarios.

3. A product line for aesthetic game/sculpt changes - blister-packs releases of special/interesting replacement sculpts for the given powers.

Very good comment. As I said before, RENEGADE, look here! BE and I talked about this in another location. I would add, alternative set ups, even mid game set ups from top tier players actual games. And of course, official house rules like rails, marines, additional or reduced national objectives and national advantages.