I first started playing Axis and Allies when I was 10 years old. As I’ve posted elsewhere, we played with seriously misinterpreted rules, including:
- Subs could attack aircraft
- Combat movement and combat itself were combined; after deciding one combat you could choose another
- The defender in a contested territory could use units stationed in adjacent territories to help defend
In my first game, I played Allies and the first unit I bought as Russia was a Battleship (hey, I had 24 IPCs, so I figured why not?). I lost horribly.
Anyway, I’ve been playing for 11 and a half years now; although I haven’t found too many opponents in my area, I discovered play-by-email just this past summer, and have been enjoying that quite a bit (I still prefer 2nd edition to AAR though).