Post pics of your table top gatherings here

As much as I love a dedicated bunker with a massive custom map of Global 1940 with tons of extra units and fine woodworking… the reality is (at this point in time) I have neither the space, the $$$, the skill to craft it, nor any opponents beyond my Risk-playing 8 and 10yo children… as I’ve stated in other posts, I will introduce them to 1941 and see where it goes from there… maybe by the time they hit their teens they’ll be all for a massive 1940 global seize the world party… but until then, my more realistic goal is graduate them from 1941 to 1942 SE and still be playing on the kitchen table with the default map! I have been talking to a coworker who’s a bit of a hermit with his chess board, but maybe I can trade a game or two of chess for a tryout of Axis and Allies… will take some coaxing! lolz.

CWO Marc, I saw your custom layout, and noticed your under-table storage… you had a lot of USA-1, USA-2, USA-3, Germany-1, Germany-2, Germany-3, etc boxes under the tables.  What do the numbers mean… are they just 1-of-3, 2-of-3, or do they mean something else (like 1 is for this game, and 2 is for that game).  I’m thinking about grabbing some Stanley removeable container organizers and using a couple for my games (one “briefcase” for Axis and one for Allies).  Pop-em open on a TV tray next to my kitchen table for play… ya, ya, laugh at my noobness, but its better than a ziplock bag in the game-box! lolz.

P.S.
I am uber-jelly of Young Grasshopper’s setup… I’ve seen his youtube channel, and man… that’s some impressive work!

@Wolfshanze:

CWO Marc, I saw your custom layout, and noticed your under-table storage… you had a lot of USA-1, USA-2, USA-3, Germany-1, Germany-2, Germany-3, etc boxes under the tables.  What do the numbers mean… are they just 1-of-3, 2-of-3, or do they mean something else (like 1 is for this game, and 2 is for that game).Â

The box numbering you see has changed somewhat since I took the pictures.  At the time, I kept all the sculpts for each country together, in a series of consecutive trays.  For the US, this required about 4 or 5 trays because of the sheer number of sculpts I own: every A&A board game ever published, with most of them owned in multiple copies.

More recently, however, I changed systems.  In my new arrangement, I distinguish between the core units of each country and everything else.  The core units are the sculpts which correspond exactly in design and size and colour/shade to the ones in G40/2.  That narrow definition lets me squeeze the core sculpts for the major powers (US, UK, USSR, Germany and Japan) into two consecutive trays each (suffixed as -1 and -2).  Those of the other powers (Italy, ANZAC, France and China) fit into one tray each.  I also have a tray for Canada, which I created using the ANZAC pieces from G40/1, supplemented with half of the ANZAC AAA units from G40/2.  ANZAC has the same colour in both games, but different designs; basically, the ones in G40/1 replicate the British designs, while the ones in G40/2 are all new ANZAC-specific designs.  G40/1 has no AAA units, which is why I had to borrow some from G40/2.

All of my other sculpts – the ones I regard as non-core ones – are now in auxiliary trays, in various groups that are based (mostly) on the nature of the sculpts rather than their nationality.  There are design variants, colour variants, design-and-colour variants, and so forth.  The Russian-coloured Soviet IS-2 tanks, for example, are in one of the trays that I use for special supplementary units that are correctly coloured for their country of origin.  The American-coloured and British-coloured Soviet IS-2 tanks, on the other hand, are in one of the trays that I use for what I call “foreign equipment.”  I also have some trays in which I keep assorted goodies like generic ICs, generic AAA units, atomic bomb sculpts (from non-A&A sources), nuclear mushroom clouds (ditto), and so on.  Plus trays for all of my non-A&A sculpts, since my most basic distinction of all is between official out-of-the-box (OOB) sculpts and non-official ones (like the ones from HBG, for example).

@CWO:

In my new arrangement, I distinguish between the core units of each country and everything else.  The core units are the sculpts which correspond exactly in design and size and colour/shade to the ones in G40/2.  That narrow definition lets me squeeze the core sculpts for the major powers (US, UK, USSR, Germany and Japan) into two consecutive trays each (suffixed as -1 and -2).

So, is each tray one big bay (like a big ziplock), or is each tray sub-compartmentalized by unit type?

@CWO:

The American-coloured and British-coloured Soviet IS-2 tanks, on the other hand, are in one of the trays that I use for what I call “foreign equipment.”

Yeah… about that… I think I’m going to have a “special Hell” for those units… which unfortunately seems to be half to two-thirds of the already paltry 1941 units.  While I certainly appreciate Tiger tanks for Germany and Joseph Stalin tanks for the Soviet Union, I’m not exactly fond of Tiger tanks for Japan and Joseph Stalin tanks for the US and UK… so forth, and so forth seems to repeat with the 1941 set as sculpts for various units that were never a part of a countries OOB appear as the only unit for that nation (at least as far as 1941 is concerned, I will be combining 1941 with 1942 SE sculpts for both 1941 and 1942 gameplay).  I know they went cheap with 1941 sculpts, but damn… at least use a Sherman or something, as Shermans were used by all three major Allied powers.

Fortunately, the 1941 units are few in numbers… 5 tanks, 4 fighters, 2 bombers will be easy to replace with HBG sculpts for the nations that got hosed… so when Japan is equipped with 5 tigers and 4 FW-190s, i’ll just have to order something like 5 Type-95 Ha-Go’s and 4 Tony’s, or something like that, because I still want a slight buffer over the default 1942 SE units… i’ll try and order replacements from HBG that aren’t already included in 1942 SE to get different sculpts.

But those really odd-ball units I can’t see my OCD mind allowing like Japanese Tigers?  Yeah… those will end up in a ziplock bag somewhere and won’t even make it to my gameplay storage bins.

@Wolfshanze:

So, is each tray one big bay (like a big ziplock), or is each tray sub-compartmentalized by unit type?

The trays are compartmentalized by unit type.  The model of tray that I use has multiple rows, and each row can be divided into multiple compartments using blue plastic divider tabs that fit into slots.  I ordered a whole bunch of extra tabs because my sculpt-organizing needs greatly exceed the tackle-organizing requirements of the average fisherman.  For the Big Five powers, the first two rows of their respective Tray 1 are left undivided and are completely devoted to infantry, because of the sheer number I have.  For some countries, carriers and battleships take up entire rows too (or half-rows) because their length combined with their number makes that necessary.  Most other units fit into quarter-rows, or less.  I’ll see if I can take a few pictures tonight and post them here tomorrow.

It is possible we have inadvertently hijacked Grasshoper’s thread… my apologies.

Here, in best to keeping with the spirit of the thread, my latest gathering of A&A from my office at work:

From the War Room in Illinois…

@Young:

@CWO:

I’ll see if I can take a few pictures tonight and post them here tomorrow.

Or perhaps in a new thread in the same forum… :wink:

Fair enough.  I’ll post the pictures in the “Piece Storage and keeping games intact” thread.