HBG - Axis & Allies Parts/Accessories and Custom Piece Sets Store!

CWO Marc,
I did the same thing with the British transport and Russian carrier from 1941. Those got moved into my regular gaming sets. I also kept unit sculpts from 1941 that were correctly nation specific, like the German Tigers and planes, Japanese ships and so on. All of the pieces where they used the same sculpt from another nation, like the Japanese Orange Tigers, P-40s in UK tan and Russian brown, Japanese ships in German black and so on I sold off on eBay. I’m a little picky that way.
My gaming pieces go like this:
First there is the main gaming sets, typically OOB pieces right now. These are the pieces I normally use for playing G40. They are all the OOB pieces available from Pac40 and Eur40 2nd editions. The only difference being Germany because I painted all German pieces dark grey. Otherwise they are all OOB.
Next is a secondary set of OOB units. These include the 1941 sculpts and I also have sets from older A&A games. There are the Celery Green British and Grey Germans from Revised, the Red Japanese and Dark Tan British from Pacific, the Burgundy Russians from Europe and I even have Blonde British pieces from D-Day, although they don’t have any ships.
Next would be all the HBG sets that I have collected. From time to time, depending on my mood, some of these pieces will move to my main gaming sets as replacements for the OOB pieces. For example, the T-34/76 tanks from Russia Early War will replace the OOB T-34s. Japanese ships from the Japan Expansion set replace the OOB Japanese ships, especially the battleship and carrier. I like to use the Nagato battleship and Kaga carrier. Also, since in most of our games we don’t differentiate between light, medium or heavy tanks, I will replace the OOB Panthers with HBG Tigers because the Tigers just look so dang cool.
The majority of my HBG pieces tend to remain unused because we haven’t really gotten into adding extra units into the game. (Light carriers, self-propelled artillery, tank destroyers, etc.) I have come up with new stats to fit those units, but when we get down to playing a game, we tend to go with OOB play for simplicity. We do occasionally play with techs so some more of HBG’s pieces come in handy, like Jet Fighters and Heavy Bombers.
After that would be my “outer ring” of pieces which would include A&A 1914, The War Game, Fortress America (both old and new versions) and any other pieces I’m not thinking of right now. While OOB and HBG comprise the great majority of my pieces, I do want to count those others because I am still curious as to just how many of these pieces I have. Now I am getting into pieces that while I do play with them occasionally, it is seldom. I just really like Axis & Allies.
I usually prefer G40, although a quick game of 1941 can be nice. 1942 is good for something in between those two. As for the smaller level games, I really like BOTB.
Every now and then for a change of pace, I enjoy a good game of Fortress America. That’s a reason I can’t wait to get the AMERIKA game and try it out. Like Fortress America but with a WW 2 flavor, kind of.
Plus, since it’s already been established that I am a piece junkie, I’m really looking forward to all those new cool looking sculpts. I paid extra to get reinforcement sets and the expansion sets too. Love the pictures we’ve gotten from Coach, really going to love having them right here in person.

@knp7765:

I’m really looking forward to all those new cool looking sculpts. I paid extra to get reinforcement sets and the expansion sets too. Love the pictures we’ve gotten from Coach, really going to love having them right here in person.

Yes, this sort of thing lets a sculpt enthusiast experience a bit of the excitement that some German commanders around Kusrk may have felt when they were told that they would be receiving great new weapons like the Panther and the Elefant for use in Operation Citadel.  (Their combat debut was a bit of a bust, but that’s another story.)

Talking of commanders, is there any market for commander pieces?

I was thinking along the line of busts, rather than scale figures; some inspiration:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/39445/ample-busts

@Flashman:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/39445/ample-busts

Uh, “ample busts”?  If I click on that link, which Mussolini will I get: Benito or his granddaughter Alessandra (who’s posed for Playboy a couple of times)?

Guys,

@Flashman:

Talking of commanders, is there any market for commander pieces?

I was thinking along the line of busts, rather than scale figures; some inspiration:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/39445/ample-busts

**––IMHO there are TWO good reasons for having a SINGLE Commander figure,…rather than an individual unit (or bust) of all of the commanders in WW2.
----First off, the production expense would be tremendous compared to a SINGLE Commander figure, and IMHO not required. I think that a ‘generic’ commander figure better fits our needs in our A&A games rather than a more ‘tactical’ approach of a ‘specific’ commander. Just ask HBG, who would be the producer in this case, what their opinion would be.
----Secondly, a ‘generic’ commander unit could not only be used for any surface warfare,…but could be used for Naval & Air Force purposes. I had wonderful visions of painting the FMG announced but not produced Commander unit in Air Force Blue, Naval Blue, and Army Green uniforms for any service necessary.

Tall Paul**

@CWO:

@Flashman:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/39445/ample-busts

Uh, “ample busts”?  If I click on that link, which Mussolini will I get: Benito or his granddaughter Alessandra (who’s posed for Playboy a couple of times)?

Neither, as suitable “busts” of WWII leaders in a suitable scale are unmade, hence the suggestion. Have not seen that particular edition of Playboy, though Mussolini senior did pose as the April 1936 Centrefold for Fascist Dictator Monthly.

On another note, any chance of my suggested 1946 Soviet set for a four - cornered “Global” version of Amerika?

I use officer chips (http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=30016.0) and I might try and do tokens in the future.

Just a suggestion for HBG:

You guys should really emphasize that your products will work well with Memoir '44.

In WWII board gaming, I never realized that there was this “other” game, and it is a great game! While I love Axis & Allies I’m really starting to love M44 and I think HBG could expand it’s “Empire” by showing how well it’s line up of sculpts work for this game as well.

@toblerone77:

Just a suggestion for HBG:
You guys should really emphasize that your products will work well with Memoir '44.
In WWII board gaming, I never realized that there was this “other” game, and it is a great game! While I love Axis & Allies I’m really starting to love M44 and I think HBG could expand it’s “Empire” by showing how well it’s line up of sculpts work for this game as well.

HBG produces a lot of things (like marker tokens) that would indeed work well with Memoir 44, but I’m having trouble understanding the notion that its sculpts would fall into that category.  I bought some of the early Memoir 44 games in the hope that their combat units could supplement the somewhat limited range of A&A OOB pieces that were available at the time.  I eventually stopped buying the Memoir 44 games, however, because I found their sculpts to be quite incompatible with the A&A ones: the Memoir 44 sculpts are much bigger, their colours generally look nothing like the ones in A&A, and in my opinion their level of detailing isn’t satisfactory for pieces of that size.  Since the Memoir 44 pieces don’t match the A&A OOB ones, they wouldn’t match the HBG ones either, given that the HBG sculpts closely match the size, colours and level of detailing of the OOB pieces.

What I’m suggesting Marc is that HBG sculpts could replace many of the M44 units such as vehicles. I agree that using M44 pieces to replace A&A would not work. There is one scenario in the base set where there are two squads of US Airborne and French Military Academy students vs. the Germans. All the Allied forces use the generic US troops to represent all the allied forces in this scenario. You could run this scenario with all custom HBG sculpts with the exception of the French infantry but I suppose you could use HBG’s neutrals or A&A OOB French infantry.

Ah, I see.  Thanks for the extra information.  This actually means that the concept you proposed could be broadened even further, beyond its original Memoir 44 formulation, to a statement that HBG’s sculpts are usable as supplemental or even as outright replacement pieces for A&A, Memoir 44 and a variety of other WWII wargames.  And in fact, HBG does already say something to that effect on its battle piece pages, for example here:

http://www.historicalboardgaming.com/HBG-Battle-Pieces–WW2-Japan-Supplement-Set_p_729.html
“HBG is producing its seventh series of plastic gaming pieces that may be used in miniature games such as Axis & Allies, Memoir44, and many other miniature war games.”

@CWO:

Ah, I see.  Thanks for the extra information.  This actually means that the concept you proposed could be broadened even further, beyond its original Memoir 44 formulation, to a statement that HBG’s sculpts are usable as supplemental or even as outright replacement pieces for A&A, Memoir 44 and a variety of other WWII wargames.  And in fact, HBG does already say something to that effect on its battle piece pages, for example here:

http://www.historicalboardgaming.com/HBG-Battle-Pieces–WW2-Japan-Supplement-Set_p_729.html
“HBG is producing its seventh series of plastic gaming pieces that may be used in miniature games such as Axis & Allies, Memoir44, and many other miniature war games.”

That’s what I mean. Though It may cause some trouble for HBG, It would be cool to see a M44 set-up using HBG sculpts advertised on the site. A member of the forum was selling their collection of A&A games because they are more into playing M44. I suggested that they may want to keep their collection because some of the larger M44 battles such as Market Garden require multiple sets of M44 sculpts. This could easily be remedied by using A&A and HBG sculpts to replace the M44 sculpts.

“Tigers in the Snow” is another scenario that is out of print, but you can download the setup and even print the map I believe. The problem is again, you need more M44 Tigers which means you need an additional M44 “Equipment Pack” just to get some extra Tigers or… voila! buy/use some HBG Tigers.

I guess my posts were just to show how many cool applications there are for HBG products outside of HBG and A&A games.

I guess another potential idea would be to fight wargames in which the players on one side are armed with HBG sculpts and the players on the other side are armed with the OOB pieces from whatever game is being used.  Given the number and range of HBG unit types, this could put the OOB player at a severe disadvantage in terms of specialized units.  :-D

I once read about a tabletop miniatures gaming session held at a convention in which one player controlled a force of modern US M1 Abrams tanks while his opponent controlled a force of Victorian-era Martian fighting machines form the original War of the Worlds novel.  That would have been a fun one to watch.  I wonder who won.  And that was actually long before the Spielberg version of WotW came out.

Is there an invasion of Italy clarification thread?

Do you have any idea when the FMG Italy pieces will be back in stock?

@sophiedog2:

Do you have any idea when the FMG Italy pieces will be back in stock?

FMG has them in stock, you can order directly from them.

with doing the 3d printed sets is HBG still doing the Global War expansion sets. I haven’t heard anything in a long time about Island Warfare.

Yavid, I can’t speak for HBG but my understanding is the new US set is next then Germany along with Amerika to be available to purchase. Then I believe France and Island Campaign sets.

I’m just wondering because it’s like 6 months since we’ve had an Island Warfare update.

I’m looking forward to that one as well Yavid. Lately I’ve been “investing” heavily in other games like M44 and war/fantasy/sci-fi games for my budding games group or club if you will.

Some of the local Axis & Allies clubs locally are playing Tide of Iron, Memoir’44, Ikusa and Risk variants. There’s even a few members getting together for airsoft!

I personally need to beef up my UK forces with the new sets but it will need to wait. I missed those pre orders and bought a few sets after the first restock. I didn’t make that same mistake with the new US pieces and can’t wait until those come.