Plastic Playing Pieces

@Imperious:

There is good community spirit here - Imperious Leader clearly has dedicated a lot of time and effort to his HHRHE and many of you have spent hours making modified figures, house rules, etc etc.

Thats AARHE and it was not me but 40 others

Well Eisenhower didn’t invade Normandy, seveal thousand Allied troops did - it just appeared that you pulled together all the contributions and make maps for people. I credit you as the ‘ring-leader’ so to speak - if it’s not you, then credit to whoever worked to co-ordinate the efforts of everyone.

Eitherway - I said it’s good community spirit - and sorry for the typo, obvious it’s not haxis and hallies!

Besides, you and 40 others is even better - you are already working together to make the game what people want. In a way this is closer to the actual wargame companies - I would imagine that the majority of people who buy Axis and Allies dont’ frequent these boards, and are quite content with their product, which means it will be hard to shift Avalon Hill very easily.

This is why I feel if we can club together and pool resources, we can get the things we want - as I just don’t see Avalon Hill rushing in to do this for us. Not becuase I think they are nasty, but because there is a credit crunch and luxery products like games always take a hit before other product lines in the market, and commercially they want a game that appeals to thousands not hundreds. Since the minatures for the game is niche at best - I don’t see it being viewed as a sensible decision on a commerical basis, so I expect it will be one or two unique units with each release. Like the block-house in D-Day, crusiers in Guadalcanal… which from a business point of view is a good idea, and has kep the Axis and Allies line going. Frankly I’m thrilled to get the AA50 version.

I only ever get to play each game 3 or 4 times by the time the next one comes out - simply because I play so many other games, so I probably get the least money’s worth out of us all here!

But if we all pool $50 or whatever - probably enough to get some good miniatures made. Better to pre-order up front, then no one person takes liability should everyone decide that they don’t want to buy units after they are made. I’ve ordered the WarGame pieces at $90… and that was just for the Tiger, Maus and Me262.

Hell, I’d do that again for B-29s, KV1s - etc.

Although I’m assuming your one line put down means you think this idea sucks!  :-D

It was just a suggestion based on what other wargames do and an attempt to compliment you on your work here with the community made rules and modifcations.

Count me in.  I’d love to have some better quality pieces, unique Italian ships and planes, and just MORE pieces.

Hey, I’m a gadget freak.

I’m in!

I too spent the big bucks on “The War Game” pieces.  They are quite nicely done, unfortunately not to the same scale – and my US player refused to play with Tigers.

Perhaps the folks over at FieldMarshalGames are willing to stick thier necks out and get some nicely sculptured pieces made.

Anyone know Jeff well enough to get him to tell us what landmines to avoid when starting down this path of creating custom scultpures?

sounds like a good idea, so i’m interested

Count me in! I want customized, high quality playing pieces!

Ok…

STAGE 1.

1. Who knows Larry Harris and can ask who did the sculpts for Axis and Allies and at what scale are they (tanks, infantry, ships, planes?)

2. Who knows Jeff Stein and can ask about his sculpts

3. Who is trustworthy enough - or has the capacity to take and hold credit card payments prior to production - i.e. the ‘legal’ side of this.

I think not. He had these prepared like 5 years ago, but sadly no funds to complete only CAD designs.

Did he give an estimate on costs per unit?

Now, perhaps someone can correct me if I’m wrong - but is the preliminary design done on computer, then transferred to a sculpt - before going into production?

I’m in, too

Craig asked me to comment so here is some dollar figures.
Production costs for injection molded plastic pieces.  The cost is set per hour at about $75. Also figure in a $400 set-up fee. You can expect 144 shots per hour.  The number of pieces does not make much difference in the production costs.  So if you shot one piece at a time it will cost you 52 cents each.  I am currently working on a 48 cavity mold and expect the cost to complete the mold at around $65,000.
Consider this cheap as I do all my own piece and mold designing and contract friends who do the work on the side.
The idea of 500 interested people putting up $50 each = $25,000
I’m confident in the sale of my new products but being out of work at this time has held up progress.  My mold I am working on will have 3 to 5 tanks and tank destroyers per country and there are 8 countries.  Also I have axis and allies infantry units.  I design my molds to be interchangeable and will be able to swap out the pieces I want to produce and in any color.
I’ll check back to see if I can answer any other questions you may have.
Best Regards, Jack www.tabletactics.com

As far as the original question I find the Plastic pieces just fine. Heck I have played enough wargames that cost way more than any Axis and Allies game that used cardboard counters.

I got 2 questions for TT.

When can I buy this new product ? 5 years from now ? Longer ?

I got your pieces, and they are not the same size, colour and quality as the real A&A pieces. Will the new pieces look more like the A&A pieces ? And in AA50 colours ?

@Adlertag:

I got 2 questions for TT.

When can I buy this new product ? 5 years from now ? Longer ?

I got your pieces, and they are not the same size, colour and quality as the real A&A pieces. Will the new pieces look more like the A&A pieces ? And in AA50 colours ?

I would say 6 months after I have the funds to move forward. 
All the designs are completed and the cavities have been started.  Things are on hold while I am out of work.  Unless I find a rich gamer who wants to go in partners. :O)
As for quality of the pieces they will exceed the quality of the A&A pieces.  They will even exceed the quality and detail of my current line as I have gotten better at designing and have found some top notch mold makers who enjoy working on my products.

For the infantry I really advise not using a “gun” to indicate the type of infantry, but rather a distinct infantry soldier holding a rifle or what not.

I think using these forums to get the people needed to kitty up $50 bucks would be fine as its serving our needs.

I would think making:

Mechanized Infantry in 6 unique molds

Fighter-bombers in 6 molds

Heavy Tanks

Self propelled artillery/Tank Destroyers

Halftracks/trucks for 6 nations

Italian fleet units

Heavy bombers for 6 nations

Rocket unit ( v-1 design on track)

an airborne unit ( generic)

Coastal fortification unit ( something like Atlantic wall pill box)

Super subs

Jet fighters in 6 nations

Sub pen

Heavy artillery in 6 nations

Soviets in winter clothing ( shock army)

Light tanks in 6 colors ( except the uk tank would be a churchill because they already have Matilida which is a light tank)
germans would be Panzer III

Oki, I’ll kitty up 50 bucks if thats the way to go  :wink:

I’ll also suggest you make expansion-packs to sell separately:

1. expansion pack: Italian fleet units and planes.

2. expansion pack: French units

3. expansion pack : units for tech, like rockets, jets, heavy bombers, super subs etc

4. expansion pack: Blockhouses, halftracks, trucks, heavy artillery etc

5. expansion pack: Elite units for all nation, US get Marines and Paratrooper, Germany get Fallschirmjaeger and Gebirgsjaeger, UK get Commandos, Japan get Marines, Sovjet get Siberian ski-troops, Italy get Alpinies and Marines etc

6. expansion pack: Neutral infantry to Sweden , Spain, Turkey etc

and noooo, we dont need sub pens or light tankettes or jeeps

You guys forgot the Polish Cavalry. :roll:

I agree with Craig completely.
These units should be done for AA50 first in AA50 colors.
Make nation specific units first then move on to other molds.
I like the idea of making seperate expansion packs too. Start with AA50 nation specific units, then move on to France and China molds, then move on to common varient units like halftracks, Air transports, blockhouses. Also a seperate expansion for buildable tech AA50 tech units like Heavy artillery, rockets, halftracks (mech infantry), paratroopers (air transport unit) ect. Elite units and such should be done last.

I also have designed Generals for bonuses for units under the great generals of the day.
It all comes down to $$$ :O(

I favor something in between. Id like the first batch to include the missing pieces that got jipped from revised, but packaged with at least the 2 strongest candidates for new pieces: Some mechanized unit and a fighter bomber. The Germans or americans dont need a fighter bomber because they already have stuka and p-38, so its basically 4 plane molds and 6 mech molds.

I guess i could agree with craig on his list, but id rather just use the same approach TT used when it made unique pieces that were not “makeups” for AH failures.