Wolf's unskilled, on a budget, modest home, custom A&A mods!

There are some amazingly AWESOME members on this site who do some fantastic work across the board on all kinds of things with Axis and Allies that I can only dream of… but speaking of dreams, i’m the mayor of realville, and in my world, I have realized the following things.
I’m not a carpenter
I’m not a painter
I operate on a tight budget
I don’t have a basement, large study, or spare room I can dedicate strictly to A&A

Seeing as i’m none of the above, that pretty much rules out building a custom A&A table, painting a few hundred units with awesome work, paying someone else to do all that for me, or actually having the space to put such an awesome table in my house. To all you on the forum able to do such awesome work, I salute you… much kudos to you… if I ever visit your home, please have bread and peanut butter on stand by, cuz i’m bringing plenty of jelly! Now on to what I can do!

The below info and pics is what a completely untalented in all the needed fields guy can do… and, if you’re like me… this is still within your grasp! (Good News!). I don’t foresee myself ever having the space, time or friends willing for Global 1940 (though I think that game is awesome), so I’m limiting myself (for now, unless I can con some friends to step up to Global 40) to Axis and Allies 1941 (to teach the noobs in my hometown) and Axis and Allies 1942 SE (once I get them on board).

I’ve done the following to trick-out my Axis and Allies Setup:

1. Purchased both A&A 1941 plus A&A 1942 SE, combining all units into common unit trays
2. Obtained six storage bins (using hardware store screw organizers) for storing the five nations and one neutrals bin, marking each with custom made national stickers for easy identification
3. Purchased additional A&A OOB units from HBG and E-Bay eventually doubling or tripling available units for each unit type over what I would have had by combining 1941 and 1942 units alone.
4. Beefed up a “neutrals” tray with 24 factory sculpts, custom damage chips and some neutral infantry, tanks and fighters for (pending sometime) neutral country house rules for 1942 SE
5. Made a custom Battle Board from a PDF file available on this forum, printed on banner vinyl and hard-mounted at a frame shop (fits in game box!)
6. Printed custom enlarged maps for both 1941 and 1942 on banner vinyl (stored in map tubes)
7. Purchased “Battle Bucks” from HBG and IPC chips from IWNGU gaming (pictured with maps below) for in-game cash (plus extra IPC chips, as I have extra 10s and 25s for big spenders)
8. Purchased 30 Combat Dice from FMG (six dice for each nation), for some national swag on rolls, and a nice ammo pouch to hold them in
9. obtained a nice wood & felt dice tray… every gamer needs one of these (and to be honest, I’ve had this tray for awhile for other games… but if you need one, try Amazon.com if you don’t know where to look).

I think that’s it guys… i’m including some pics of my customization’s… if you have any questions or comments, feel free to do so.

And a closer look at my Battle Board and dice/tray.

I’ve posted these elsewhere before, but for keeping stuff together and organized, these are definitely relevant to this thread… a closer look at the storage bins (stored side view) and over the top of all six bins with units inside and national stickers on top.

If you like the storage bins I use, they are “Stack-On SBR-13: 13 Compartment Storage Organizer Box with Removable Dividers”. I bought mine at my local hardware store (Lowes, in my case), but they are also available on Amazon if you’d prefer to order them. They are about $3.25 a piece, so don’t cost much.
Current Amazon link:
http://www.amazon.com/Stack--SBR-13-Compartment-Organizer-Removable/dp/B000AM8BBI/ref=sr_1_1?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1461292343&sr=1-1&keywords=Stack-On+SBR-13+13+Compartment+Storage+Organizer+Box+with+Removable+Dividers%2C+Red

Here are my printed (on banner vinyl) maps for play… they are both roughly the same size, as I used the biggest playing surface I had in my house as the size limitation for both maps.  Included is both 1941 and 1942SE.  Forgive any blurriness, its not the maps, its my shaky camera hand.

@MagnuZealot:

You could always make a portable top to put on your regular table. If you have storage space.

Ya, I’ve located my largest useable playing surface (my kitchen island is far bigger than my kitchen table, it has space around it, and I scored four nice barstools for it)… so that’s my playing surface for when/if I find some opponents… now as for the map(s) themselves, since the kitchen island is definitely only a temporary surface for gaming, I’m debating between a roll-out vinyl map, or hard mounting the map to something perhaps hangable on a wall when not in use, and laying it flat on the kitchen island for gaming.  Still not sure which direction to go, but I’m probably leaning just a rollout… unless the corners not sitting flat starts to bug me a lot.

@LHoffman:

I like the round felt dice tray. Most people use the rectangular ones but for some reason I really like the round one.

Ya, I really like the round one too… if you like it that much, the one I have is currently being sold on Amazon.com brand new.  I’ve only had mine for a few months.

@LHoffman:

Battle boards… eh, never cared for those and never used them. I know some people do though. Nice that you printed a custom one though.

I can skip them personally, but you have to remember, I’m in an Axis and Allies void where I live… I’m going to have to teach everyone how to play the game. Having said that, I think Battle Boards help newbies to the genre a better grasp of the unit values and how the attack rounds work.  After you become a vet and know the values by heart, they’re skippable… but like I said, I had one made to help with training new people to the game… and I think the battle strips that come with the new games are terrible.  Hence, I went with a custom board.

Updated my 1941 map pics with new vinyl map in-play. Here’s some initial setup pics of the 1941 map… ETO:

1941 PTO:

Well I realized they were cheaper than I first thought once I realized the current exchange rate.  :evil:

Besides, you told me on your Youtube Channel to support Canada, so I did.  Also, I ordered some extra 10s and 25s, which are already in-route from Toronto.

I’m very happy with the map results for both 1941 and 1942… I lack the skills and room for a proper bunker, but I was able to get much larger maps that can fit on my largest flat surface, and they roll up nicely into a couple of solid storage tubes I got for safe keeping.

I picked up a couple of 37" Alvin Ice transparent PVC storage tubes (pic below) to store my 1941 and 1942 maps in to keep them safe.

Since they are totally contained and protected, I roll them map-side-facing-out, so that when I unroll them, if there’s any kind of curve, its a downward one, which quickly flattens in a few seconds.  It might also be the materiel… I know you used Pyrene while I used Vinyl… I don’t know if one is a better choice or not, but I just stuck with Outdoor Banner Vinyl since it seemed to work so well with my earlier battle board project.  When I unroll the map, it has a slight downward curve to the table for a few seconds, then flattens out on its own… I don’t do anything special to get it to lie flat (other than perhaps rolling it map-side-out).

Updated my 1942 map pics with new vinyl map in-play. Here’s some initial setup pics of the 1942 map… ETO:

1942 PTO:

Ty, I love my vinly maps… got em stored in map tubes when not in use… I love using these maps over the game boards, it adds so much more to the gaming experience (plus extra room for units, since I do my best never to “chit” units).