WAR ROOM II - The Sequel

You may have seen the post of my first War Room in this forum last year. Well, this room was nice but it was pretty small - it could only accomodate four people. Others began to show interest in our game night, so I got the idea to move everything down the hall to a larger room and adapt the game to accomodate up to six players. This ended up absorbing about eight weeks of my time but I think it was worth it.

The first problem to solve was how to get 6 guys around a table. I decided on a plan like this:

The green squares are dice trays. The grey squares are reference cards. The purple squares are the battleboards. The tan squares are the piece trays on auxillary TV tray tables. This is the only arrangement possible where everyone could have a seat, reach the map, roll dice, etc. This required me building a custom table to these dimensions. It was also necessary to make a custom map - I got IL’s permission to use his AA 1942 w/neutrals map to start from. I resized the map so it was 25% bigger than my old map, and added several other changes.

The overall view of the room as entering from the East door:

A shot of the ceiling - this room has 105 more square feet than the last one, so I was able to add the flags of Nationalist China and France. There is also a new ceiling fan as six people need more air circulating. Notice there is an outside exit in this room so people can come and go without walking through the whole house.

Here is a shot of the closet which I converted into a nook for a snack buffet. The computer monitor you see is for streaming internet music.

I noticed in the last game room people were wanting to talk strategy out in the hall away from enemy ears, so I added this consultation map in the hallway - it is an exact copy of the map in use in the room.

All my extra game pieces are kept in this chest. The telephone on the chest actually works in case someone needs to call the wife and say they’ll be late. :) A picture of dear old “Mom” sits by the lamp - who every soldier missed. The chess set is WWII themed and seemed to fit in the room, so I put it there. Â

I had enough extra space to put in this bookshelf that holds all of my WWII books. There are some WWII hats on the shelves that people can wear while playing if they want to.

More details to come!       Â

Here are some more details:

I got tired of changing CDs in the old room. I had an outdated computer I wasn’t using so I installed it like this in the furnace room. On the other side of the wall is the new war room. This way you don’t hear any computer noise at all while playing.

The wires run through the wall to the keyboard, mouse, and monitor which is in the closet. I subscribe to internet radio365 which has several streaming WWII stations, classical, epic - whatever you want. I can also play entire soundtracks of Band of Brothers, The Pacific, Saving Private Ryan, etc, on windows media player.

The sound comes out of a nice speaker set which is concealed behind the curtain under the old radio here. It sounds kind of like its coming out of the radio, but theater quality.

On the North wall I’ve framed the original Axis and Allies map from 1984 - so people can see how it all started.

To save table space I decided to make a large freestanding IPC chart from a restaurant menu - it is magnetic and the roundels are full size so all can see them easily. The clock by the number one is magnetic and is for keeping track of how many rounds you’ve played.

Several map changes were made - here I’ve shrunk Mongolia down which I always thought was grotesquely large for a neutral. China was added, which makes this map kind of a hybrid of AA 1942 and AA Anniversary Edition.

I felt it was necessary to beef Italy’s income up some to make it worthwhile for a player to drive all the way over to play it. Therefore I added some territories which raised Italy’s income from 10 to 16 IPCs. In order to keep things even I then Raised Russia’s income by 4 IPC’s and the UK income by 2 IPCs. I also changed the color of Italy to celery so it would not look so close the Russia’s color. �

Dice trays: I made four custom dice trays so that ever player can reach one. these trays each have a layer of styrofoam under the green felt to add a little “bounce” to the rolls. Our house rule is if it doesn’t land on the green, it doesn’t count!

Oak TV tables: these side tables work well to hold the custom made wooden trays and the stacking chips. The orange and yellow chips you see are for factory damage - orange is five and yellow is one. These help you see the damage and it looks more like the factory is on fire. TV tables are not the most stable so each one is “L” bracketed to the main table - it is not possible to knock them over.

It is confusing for new players to identify ships so I have color coded them - battleships with red tips, cruisers silver, DDs black, transports white. I figure everyone is smart enough to recognize an AC carrier and a sub without paint.

Reference cards: the custom made reference cards each have a picture of the country’s world leader on the card. Also notice there are colored dots for ship identification.

Battleboards: there are four custom made battleboards. Each battleboard is “personal” - it is not necessary to put your enemy’s pieces on your board - they have their own for that. The sword means “attack” and the shield means “defend” so you put your pieces out on the proper symbol, depending on what you are doing. Notice the battleships have their own “damaged” area to move them to as I think turning a ship on its side is dumb.

A picture of the grave of my only known relative who died in WWII hangs over the lamp - Oren Goldsby died in 1944 in Europe.

Stay tuned for pics of the room tested out!

A self portrait - I’m finishing up the room before the players arrive:

Here is our first night in the new war room - everyone is watching Emporer Max do Japan’s move.

My daughter Molly looks at her options as the UK, wearing a British paratrooper beret. Her husband Corum is her ally in Russia.

My son Commander Luke looks over his US pacific fleet:

Thomas tries his hand at Russia - his first AAA game. Beware playing AAA with younger people - they come alive at midnight - we ended up playing till 4:00 AM! � :-o

Now for the older guys - Keith tries his hand with Japan. We can’t get Keith to wear a hat. Probably because he still has hair.

Tim AKA “Der Fuhrer” enjoys filling Europe with Tiger tanks:

Tom studies his US options. (Tom and Tim are twins)

Well I hope you enjoyed all the pics - the room is finally done and the only bad thing is there won’t be another game night until next month.  :|

My Mom’s side of the family tree is English - lol

Thanks for your comments - I posted these pics because I knew that with your great affection for this game only you hardcore players would fully appreciate it.