Axis and Allies North Africa announced!

[Imperious Leader]

@thrasher1 If you turn the board sideways, you get a Barbarossa game which is what the thing should have been!

[Chris_Henry]

I’m pretty excited about this too! (and I got on a the pre-order list for the 1914 reprint).

North Africa was my first choice, but I guess it depends on the kind of game they’re going for. If it’s like the conventional A&A games (classic, 1941, 1942, Global, etc.) then I think North Africa is a fun way to go. Taking Tunis serving as the Axis “capital”, and Cairo as the Allies “capital”, or something like that.

If it’s going to be more like Guadalcanal, Bulge, and D-Day though, I think a Stalingrad or Market Garden would have been the better approach. But curious to see what it’s like.

North Africa is so interesting too. Do you do a pre-US entry into the war game, or post? I assume post, but it’s almost two distinctly different games whichever way you go!

[SuperbattleshipYamato]

@chris_henry

Good point. Tunisia is an underappreciated campaign but the 1940-1941 period is legendary and awesome. Alam El Hafa is a novel battle to me.

[reloader-1]

I’m 99% certain they would do a pre-US involvement start, there’s too much that you miss by starting so late.

[SuperbattleshipYamato]

@reloader-1

Definitely.

[Chris_Henry]

@reloader-1 I probably should have clarified my post. 100% agree there would be too much missed. I guess the real crux to my question would be if there would be a mechanic to then have the U.S. join the game later. Like, would it be like the 1940 games, where the US will enter the war on a certain turn? If so, awesome! Part of me had just wondered if with a focused theater like this they might not want to introduce the complexities there, but I hope they do, to be clear!

All speculation at this point obviously, just excited to see how it pans out!

[SuperbattleshipYamato]

@chris_henry

I hope so. It’s a better idea to have this game have Operation Torch and the Tunisia Campaign than to have a separate game for those.

[Chris_Henry]

@superbattleshipyamato Oh absolutely. I’ll be curious if in a game like this the French are somehow worked in, or if they’ll just make the French African territories Axis for the sake of game play. Definitely a lot in this campaign that’ll need to be looked at!

[Imperious Leader]

I hope they do a Kursk scenario in this new game…

[SuperbattleshipYamato]

@imperious-leader

Me too.

[All Encompassing Goose]

@imperious-leader I don’t think it would work very well with base A&A mechanics because it would majorly be decided on dice rolls, right?

[SuperbattleshipYamato]

@all-encompassing-goose

Maybe, although it probably wouldn’t be more random than D-Day, Battle of the Bulge, or Guandacanal.

[thrasher1]

@chris_henry said in Axis and Allies North Africa announced!:

@superbattleshipyamato Oh absolutely. I’ll be curious if in a game like this the French are somehow worked in, or if they’ll just make the French African territories Axis for the sake of game play.

I always like at least some randomness in a game. I hope the French areas will be assigned to Vichy / Free French randomly.
Maybe a die roll for each area: Morrocco / Algeria / Tunesia.

I even like a small chance (say 1/6) in which an area will join the Axis proper.

What I also would like to see is at least some ‘off board’ area which represents French West Africa and French Equatorial Africa.
If such an area becomes Vichy then basically nothing will happen - it is off-board!
If such an area becomes Free French it will supply the Allied player with some IPCs and maybe some free infantry.

[SuperbattleshipYamato]

@thrasher1

Good idea to include those Vichy French territories. But now I want East Africa… such an under appreciated part of the war.

[Chris_Henry]

@thrasher1 I totally agree with you here. Would be awesome to have some of that done and incorporated. I think the potentially tricky thing that I’ll be curious to see is how to implement things like this while still keeping the rules/feel of the game A&A at its core. I say that from the lenses of the developers, as I have to imagine that’s going to be on the forefront of their minds as they design. You can’t stray too far from what A&A is and still call it A&A, so it just makes me wonder how “convoluted” they may go to showcase some of this. Again, I certainly hope they do, but will just be interesting to see how it’s all implemented!

We had long ago made some Vichy rules for our 1940 games that were pretty simple so that we didn’t stray too far from the parameters of the A&A rules!

[SuperbattleshipYamato]

@chris_henry

Yeah, it can’t be too far from the original games.

But then again, the miniatures exist.

[Imperious Leader]

@all-encompassing-goose Well everyone know A&A is a gambling game. Thats why Low Luck attempts at all the various games break the game because the setup was based on gambling dice, not bean counter types who wear white shirts and thin black ties and have their hair slicked back like Pat Riley circa 1983.

The only possible game that LL might work is Global, but that’s not fun either.