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

@Tall:

Guys,

––All hail,…HBG’s leadership in detail and amounts of production!
Hip, Hip, Hooraaaah!
––Thank you, HBG, for making our gaming experience so much better!  :-D

Tall Paul

Yes, indeed! Thank you! :-D

@wittmann:

As regards the Super Battleship, if you want a 5 to hit, I think it would have to be 24 to buy and no rerolls.
The Light Cruiser makes sense, but I think you should not allow it ASW capability.
Research if they had the capability by all means.
Perhaps Marc might know.

As far as I know, cruisers (light or otherwise) had no special ASW capabilities.  To chase highly maneuverable submerged subs and drop depth charges on them, you need something that’s fast (linear speed) and agile (small tactical radius, i.e. can turn sharply).  Destroyers were very fast and quite agile.  Cruisers were fast, but less agile than destroyers owing to their lager size and greater weight of armour (destroyers had none, hence their nickname “tin cans”).  Corvettes were relatively slow, but surprisingly maneuverable.

Regarding the Yamato and Montana classes, note that the projected Montanas only had 16" guns, whereas the Yamatos has 18.1-inchers.  The Montanas fitted well into the traditional U.S. concept of battleship design, which favoured strong armour protection and great hitting power at the expense of speed, whereas the Iowas class battleships were, because of their emphasis on high speed, real oddballs among US dreadnoughts.  The concept of the Yamatos as national advantages for Japan in an interesting idea that can be argued both ways.  The “battleship school” within the IJN regarded them as Japan’s super-secret ultimate weapons, and this is one reason why they were kept out of action for most of the war, the idea being that they should be saved for the mythical “all-out decisive battle” for which they’d been conceived.  The IJN’s “aviation school”, on the other hand, considered them to be white elephants on which too much steel, manpower and oil had been wasted.  If we compare how much value Japan got out of Yamato and Musashi versus how much it got out of its six first-line fleet carriers (the ones which attacked Pearl Harbor), I’d say that Japan would indeed have been better off leaving the Yamato class on the drawing board and building two or three additional fleet carriers instead.

@John:

I think I’m excited more for the British and French sets, since they have not gotten any sets yet, but the American and Facility Set look really good too.

Since HBG made the Yamato so big, I’m more excited about the German set now, and hope the Bismarck is as big as well.

That ship is so awesome on any map, because it dwarfs the other ships. :-D

Yeah, I’m looking forward to the British and French sets, but I also really want the Axis Minor 2 and US Expansion sets. They all have such cool stuff in them.

As for the Bismarck, I don’t think it will be as big as the Yamato piece. Probably about the same size as the Nagato and OOB battleships because these are meant as your basic battleship. The Yamato is considered a heavy or super battleship, so they made that piece a little bigger.

Thank you for that last piece Marc.

@knp7765:

@John:

I think I’m excited more for the British and French sets, since they have not gotten any sets yet, but the American and Facility Set look really good too.

Since HBG made the Yamato so big, I’m more excited about the German set now, and hope the Bismarck is as big as well.

That ship is so awesome on any map, because it dwarfs the other ships. :-D

Yeah, I’m looking forward to the British and French sets, but I also really want the Axis Minor 2 and US Expansion sets. They all have such cool stuff in them.

As for the Bismarck, I don’t think it will be as big as the Yamato piece. Probably about the same size as the Nagato and OOB battleships because these are meant as your basic battleship. The Yamato is considered a heavy or super battleship, so they made that piece a little bigger.

That is true, I didn’t think about that. Thanks for reminding me. My memory is not as good as it used to be, LOL! :-D

Well let’s see some detailed pictures!!

My pieces arrived today.  Clearly this is HBG’s best set yet with regards to detail.  Every sculpt is on par with the Tiger that was included in the German set.  Since nobody has detailed photos to share, I thought I’d provide some myself.  There is a slide bar at the bottom of this post so that you can see the entire picture.  Alternately, you can click on a picture to see it full size.

Aircraft Carrier:

Heavy Battleship:

Battleship:

Heavy Cruiser:

Light Cruiser:

Destroyer:

Submarine:

Jet:

Fighter:

Dive Bomber:

Artillery:

Medium Tank:

Light Tank:

Infantry:

Overall, just an amazing job.  Doug, please don’t leave the base Japanese set on the backburner too long.

I agree whole heartedly, it is the best set to date. I think this British set is going to be an awesome set and could surpass it. I can’t wait for all these new sets, the American, French, German and Facilities set, as well as the Global Sets.

It is good time to be a fan of axis and allies! :-)

@John:

I agree whole heartedly, it is the best set to date. I think this British set is going to be an awesome set and could surpass it. I can’t wait for all these new sets, the American, French, German and Facilities set, as well as the Global Sets.

It is good time to be a fan of axis and allies! :-)

+1

wow these are awesome! thanks for posting the pics of the pieces close up! we just get too see the design pics on the website.  I am itching to get my set…living up in Canada we always get the cool stuff dead last  :cry:
Agreed, the british are a much needed addition that every A&A game needs! finally a hurricane mould! I been using OOB p40 warhawks and painting them in british colors as they are the closest too looking like a hurricane

One thing that I noticed in particular with this set is how well the battleship turrets are molded. They actually look like individual turrets as opposed to raised boxes from the deck. Very, very good improvement.

Thanks for the great pictures – the new sculpts look very impressive.  Mine should be arriving any day now, so this really gives me something to look forward to.

@LHoffman:

One thing that I noticed in particular with this set is how well the battleship turrets are molded. They actually look like individual turrets as opposed to raised boxes from the deck. Very, very good improvement.

I noticed the turrets as well. This set has great detail.

I noticed the OOB medium tanks are bigger than the HBG ones.

Was this on purpose to bring everything back to scale?

@John:

It is good time to be a fan of axis and allies!

Yes, this is a good time to be an A&A piece junkie.  When I compare all the goodies we have now (both OOB and from HBG) with the limited range that we had in the early days (both OOB and from folks like Table Tactics and Xeno Games), the difference is worlds apart.  Back then, when I wanted to give an existing nation a unit type that didn’t exist OOB, or when I wanted to create an equipment set for a country that wasn’t yet officially part of the OOB game (France, for example), I had to make do with sculpts cobbled together from other sources – usually with very unsatisfactory results.  Over the years, as more and better pieces (representing more unit types and issued in more colours) have become available, I’ve been able to correct a lot of those deficiencies.  The inventories of the primary nations have been upgraded, while the “make do” sculpts have gradually been withdrawn from those inventories: they’ve either been reallocated to minor powers or retired altogether.  It’s a bit like what happens to military equipment in real life, come to think of it.  When (as an example) America’s military equipment starts showing its age, it’s replaced with new and better material and the old stuff gets given to the Marine and the National Guard, or it’s given or sold to allied countries.  Those countries in turn sometimes re-sell the stuff as it ages even further, and so on, sometimes to the point where the weapons leave state control entirely and end up in the hands of revolutionary groups or similar organizations.  I guess you could say that a very rough index of a military force’s status in the world is how many times its hand-me-down hardware has changed owners before they acquired it.  Hmm…that’s a potential idea for what to do with all my retired-from-service sculpts: give them to the little revolutionary/nationalist groups that originated during WWII and that started campaigning against the colonial powers once the war ended.    :wink:

I already finished painting some of mine,

they came out pretty good

more

then some more, havent started the navy pieces yet

@CWO:

@John:

It is good time to be a fan of axis and allies!Â

Yes, this is a good time to be an A&A piece junkie.  When I compare all the goodies we have now (both OOB and from HBG) with the limited range that we had in the early days (both OOB and from folks like Table Tactics and Xeno Games), the difference is worlds apart.  Back then, when I wanted to give an existing nation a unit type that didn’t exist OOB, or when I wanted to create an equipment set for a country that wasn’t yet officially part of the OOB game (France, for example), I had to make do with sculpts cobbled together from other sources – usually with very unsatisfactory results.  Over the years, as more and better pieces (representing more unit types and issued in more colours) have become available, I’ve been able to correct a lot of those deficiencies.  The inventories of the primary nations have been upgraded, while the “make do” sculpts have gradually been withdrawn from those inventories: they’ve either been reallocated to minor powers or retired altogether.  It’s a bit like what happens to military equipment in real life, come to think of it.  When (as an example) America’s military equipment starts showing its age, it’s replaced with new and better material and the old stuff gets given to the Marine and the National Guard, or it’s given or sold to allied countries.  Those countries in turn sometimes re-sell the stuff as it ages even further, and so on, sometimes to the point where the weapons leave state control entirely and end up in the hands of revolutionary groups or similar organizations.  I guess you could say that a very rough index of a military force’s status in the world is how many times its hand-me-down hardware has changed owners before they acquired it.  Hmm…that’s a potential idea for what to do with all my retired-from-service sculpts: give them to the little revolutionary/nationalist groups that originated during WWII and that started campaigning against the colonial powers once the war ended.    :wink:

Yes, several people have showed me pictures of the old pieces, and you can tell a world of difference between the pieces then and now. I guess you could use your older pieces for nations like Portugal, Siam, Iraq and Brazil, until the Global sets fill those needs. Romania and Hungary will be getting a Global set in the near future as well as Brazil, so it is not far off. :-)

Wow George, you’ve painted a bunch of units there. When did you get yours? :-D