Whither Axis & Allies miniatures?

Well, based on this thread, it appears that WOTC has unofficially cancelled Axis n& Allies War at Sea and we won't be seeing a Set 7.

This doesn't come as a complete shock, as indications have been mounting that this was going to be the outcome. WOTC seems committed to coming out with a second set of the Axis & Allies Angels 20 air game, but I'd be very surprised of they keep going after that. While Angels 20 is a good game and has been generally well-received, it's hardly the sort of runaway hit that might make WOTC re-evaluate things.

The entire Axis & Allies miniatures experiment was, overall, a positive thing from my point of view as a historically minded wargamer. The fact that the original Axis & Allies land miniatures  appeared at all, given the popular hunger for dragons, orcs, zombies, space cruisers, superheroes and five-story robot battlemechs, was a fantastic development. Let alone getting multiple sets, followed by the even better naval game and an air game as well.

While naturally wargamers are going to look at this through their narrow lens, I don't think the end of the Axis & Allies miniatures lines has much to do with the lines themselves. They were always a niche line and an inherently small market. They were mostly doable at all because of a unique set of macro-economic factors that made pre-painted miniatures affordable. They took advantage of production lines and procedures pioneered by the aforementioned dragons, superheroes and 5-story battlemechs.

But things have changed. The Great Recession has hit Hasbro hard and the macro-economic dynamics have changed as well. It's not quite so cheap to make things in China as it used to be. The increased costliness of the models in recent sets is a symptom of this, although I don't think it directly caused the demise of the lines -- mostly because I see little evidence that increasing the cost of the boosters by a $1 or $2 per box depressed sales. But that increased costliness may very well have affected sales of the various fantastic lines that A&A was free-riding with and the aggregate effect was the same.

The case of lead Axis & Allies designer Rich Baker helps illustrate this reality, I think. While War at Sea was his main claim to fame in my eyes, from the POV of Hasbro, his main job was Dungeons & Dragons and he was let go because Hasbro decided to go in a different direction after the perceived failure of D&D Fourth Edition.  Now, I'm not a D&D player and I don't have an opinion on D&D 4th edition, but it seems clear that the corporate take was the D&D 4 was a failure.

This "failure" came at a bad time because D&D was already under a lot of stress. Hasbro/WOTC was already backing away from the pre-painted miniatures market -- it seems because of reduced demand and increasing costs (not sure which is the chicken and which is the egg).

But the bottom line is that the historical miniatures lines were never viable as a standalone product and when the much larger D&D portion of the business ran into a rough patch then the historical lines were doomed.

I think the eventual fate of the three historical lines will diverge from this point because of the nature of each game, the usefulness of its models and the strength of their fan bases.

The newest game. Angels 20, has the roughest road ahead. In many ways it's the best game of the bunch. It's easy to play, visually stunning because of the large models and requires a relatively small investment to get into despite the high per0unit costs. The Starter provides a viable stand-along game, for example.

But working against it is the fact that, with just 2 Sets, there really won't be enough options available to keep the game alive. There won't be  enough to satisfy collectors and the game won't be able to cover many important aspects of aerial warfare -- basically being limited to dogfighting. It's not compatible with other lines.  It's entering a market with a couple of other viable alternatives, notably the Wings of War/Wings of Glory line of planes and games. Angels 20 planes are not tremendously cheaper than WoW/WoG and being larger makes them more challenging to store. I expect interest in the Angels 20 to wane and it will, at best, be something that people pull out on occasion but won't have a real community around it.

The prognosis for the land game is a little better, mostly because the miniatures are usable with other rules and the line is big enough to be attractive to collectors. As a game, it's the weakest of the trio. While not  a bad game, it's nothing special in the universe of similarly scaled tactical wargames. Like the air game, I expect that interest in playing the game by the Hasbro/WOTC rules will wane significantly, but players will often hold onto their collections because they can use the models elsewhere. The V1 to V2 scale change hurts the game in this regard. While unimportant within the context of the Axis & Allies minis game itself, it does reduce the usefulness of many of the models for other games. I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of people sell off their collections down the road, which will be helpful for those who are using the model s for the Flames of War rules.

The naval game, I think, stands the best chance of hanging around as a significant community. The published rules fill a need unmet by any other set for an easy to play tactical naval wargame. The line got large enough over six sets to cover most of the important ships and, while it inaugurated a new scale that is not compilable with previous scales, the development of Shapeways and 3D printing has created a way around that problem. Already craftsmen and entrepreneurs are filling in the gaps. With the Team Poseidon project of new semi-official cards there's reason to think that the naval game is here to stay.

Unlike a proprietary line like Star Wars, Hreoclix or even D&D, there's really no reason at all why other manufacturers can;t make 1:1800 scale warships. Dozens of manufacturers have coexisted for years in the existing model naval wargame market with 1:900, 1:1200, 1:1250, 1:2400, 1:3000, 1:4800 and 1:6000 models. Most lines cover the basics -- just about everybody has a Bismarck or Fletcher class DD -- but each also specializes. Naval wargaming has always been a niche within the niche market of wargaming anyway, but this hasn't been a problem. Partly, I think, this is because of the nature of naval wargames. You really only need  a small handful of ships to have a game-worthy collection, especially if you specialize. And once you pick a scale there's no reason why you can't expand on it indefinitely. 

So I expect the War at Sea line to retain its fan base and even continue to grow, although probably seeing more use as models for other rules as time goes on. Still, I won't be surprised to see games of War at Sea going om 10 years from now, while I'll be very surprised indeed to see any Angels 20 or AAM.

Flopping "Battleship" to torpedo Hasbro?

Rihanna? Really?

 Probably not, although this Forces article suggests that the venerable toymaker can;t help but be disappointed by the failure of the high-budget Aliens vs. Navy flick to wow critics or audiences.

Hasbro has had high hopes that movie based on classics like Battleship, Clue and Monopoly might boost interest in their sagging board games, much like how the transformers movies have juiced that toy line.

I've wondered since I heard about the projects how this could possibly work, knowing the way Hollywood treats outside intellectual properties like books, plays and short stories. I think, for the most part, Hollywood adaptations of non-original screenplays do violence to the creative vision that's responsible for their success. This is why people were so pleasantly surprised by how well Peter Jackson handled The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I think I can speak for most fans when I say we were very relieved when the first movie came out because he didn't screw it up. Yes, yes, yes, the fans can quibble about decisions here and there, but everybody realized that there was no way to make a literal translation of Tolkien's dense books into movies. But Jackson understood and respected the books, and so was able to make changes that kept true to the good professor's vision, even when he had to depart from the story.

Battleship, however, is much more typical of Hollywood's treatment. They basically just kept the title and created a regular special-effects dominated aliens movie. Now, "battleship" the game, is hardly some high concept product, so there was a lot of room to work with. But it's not an alien themed game.

The key thing, I think, is to recognize that the heart of "Battleship" is the guess and outguess interplay and a movie that captured that dynamic might succeed. I think it would be possible to make a Monopoly movie -- but not  as a  remake of Wall Street.  No, the movie would need to highlight the wheeling and dealing of the game in the context of a cinematic treatment. I think of the way the musical Chess successfully captured the drama surrounding international chess matches during the Cold War to make an entertaining story.

Essentially, however, the classic Hasbro board games don't feature a strong in-game narrative that would translate well into a Hollywood style movie. Among the Hasbro game properties that DO have strong narrative potential would be Dungeons and Dragons, Diplomacy and even Axis & Allies, but none have the kind of wide public name recognition of Battleship or Monopoly and probably can't attract Hollywood interest.Some of the old AH titles like Monster Menace America might work.

I think Hasbro fundamentally misunderstood why the Transformers movies worked. The transformers are cool visual toys and the movies were able to  parlay that into a cool visual movie. Board games are more like books in that the action tends to be in the mind, not the eye.

I think Hasbro is barking up the wrong tree.

Very bad news for Axis & Allies and D&D fans

Lead D&D and A&A miniatures designer Rich Baker just posted that he's been let go from Wizards of the Coast!

This is, of course, awful personal news for him. Being laid off a week before Christmas sucks. Actually, speaking from experience, being laid off at any time sucks pretty bad, but the holidays is even worse.

It also throws the entire future of D&D and Axis & Allies miniatures products into doubt. WOTC has already indicated it was backing out of the painted miniature category. It appears that Pathfinder may have eaten in to D&D's market share a bit, but I'm inclined to think it's bigger than just one line's market share issues. I've suspected that the "Golden Era" of boxes full of plastic and painted collectible miniatures we have enjoyed over the last decade or so was an artifact of some temporary economic conditions (specifically the price differential between China and USA) and was coming to a close.

I'm not sure what WOTC's plans are for the D&D stuff. They were working on a new set of skirmish rules, but I don't know if that's going to see daylight now.

As far as the Axis & Allies miniatures line go, Baker said that his layoff did not mean any miniatures lines were being canceled and he seemed to offer some hope that he'd be able to work on some projects on a freelance basis. Realistically, I've thjought that the land miniatures line was all but certainly dead already and that the hoped-for Late War set was never happening. There was just too long a break since the last set and it would basically mean restarting the line. I also think Angels 20 (the new air game) is a dead duck. Whatever is already paid for in the pipeline will come out, but I doubt very much there's bee anything new started. I suppose there's a small bit of hope for a Set VII for War at Sea, but it's a slender one.

I think we can also lay to rest any thoughts of a reborn Heroscape. Among the other layoffs was the brand manager for the Avalon Hill and Axis & Allies lines, so even the future of the board games may now be in doubt. I know there was some talk about an exapnsion for Battle Cry and Larry Harris was working on a final set of rules for 1940 Global Axis & Allies. Without someone to guide these along I have my doubts. The sort of intensive attention wargames/RPGs need was never a good fit for Hasbro/WOTC anyway -- they're certainly no GMT!

Overall, a very sad day for fans of a number of popular games.

There's no coroner to pronounce it, but it seems to me Up Front is well and truly "dead>"

This update from MMP seems to make it certain that there will never be a reprint of Up Front.

I don't know what the legal issues are about the ownership of the game that are causing the problem and it doesn't seem that we'll ever find out because those that know will not or cannot talk about it. But it seems clear that whatever they are, they are intractable, and therefore I see little prospect that they'll ever be solved. It seems unlikely that it involves someone saying "no" and most instead I suspect that they just can't figure out who can say "yes."

Given that MMP apparently sunk considerable resources into the project the fact that they're calling it off now is a major blow. It truly is a pity, because Up Front is a fine game and ground-breaking one. Being a card game means that it's especially subject to wear and tear. I'm glad I bought an extra set of cards back when Avalon Hill was still around because I was concerned about that.

Avalon Hill was a small company and there were a number of instances over the years when they got into some legal disputes over game rights and they never seemed to come out on the winning end even when they seemed to be in the right. I can't help but wonder if they simply couldn't afford the kind of legal help they needed. Intellectual property law is notoriously complicated and I think that Hasbro probably inherited a mess when they bough AH. They've seemed more than willing to license wargames to MMP and let the rights to other games revert to designers in other cases as is demonstrated by the fairly long list of former AH games that have reappeared elsewhere. I don't think Up Front is some especially valuable property from the standpoint of Hasbro. so it's probable that the rights in question are simply too scrambled to untangle.

Oh Oh. End of the line for A&A minis?

This announcement that WOTC will "depart pre-painted plastic miniatures, " while not directly addressing the Axis & Allies miniatures lines, is quite worrisome for the future of those offerings.

I had strongly suspected that Counter-Offensive was likely the last set we'd see for the Land Miniatures. It would be unfortunate if the Late War set never came out as there are a few gaps in the line that could use filling, but it wouldn't be a disaster.

On the other hand, it seemed like we had a firm commitment for at least a couple of more sets of the naval game and the gaps left in that lkine are more serious as Rich Baker seemed to be deliberatley holding onto some units for later sets. An abrupt cessation of the line would be very bad in that case.

It may be too early to "panic" but Hasbro has been strongly trending away from pre-painted plastic minis over the past year or so (Heroscape, DDM, etc.) so this is not entirely a surprise.

Ellis Con Axis & Allies Global 1940 session report

Well, I spent all of Ellis Con playing one game, but what a game!

I think the Global 1940 Axis & Allies is a terrific game experience. The scale of the game mitigates some of the things about A&A I didn''t care for in the past -- especially some strange geography and an unfortunate luck factor. These seem much less of a problem with Global.

This was the first game I took part in where everybody had some level of experience with at least the Axis & Allies system and several players had played Global before.

On the Axis side the German player was a fellow who had definitely played A&A before and I think he said he'd played the Global game once. He was joined by a gentleman who played Italy and Japan and had played Global before. While I hadn't met him before, he was well-known to some other participants, who liked to tease him for his "deliberate" (slow) playing style. I worried a bit about this given how big a game Global is, but in the end everyone else seemed to make u for it with speedy play and time-saving steps like figuring out their build ahead of time and some powers moving at the same time as others when they were not affecting each other. We were able to play seven turns, which was enough to reach a decision.

The Italo-Japanese player had brought his teen nephew to the game and he wanted to have fun beating up on uncle so he took the US. While young, he handled his nation very well, as we'll see.
I took the British because I wanted to have a hand in both ends of the board. Our Russian player had played A&A before, but never Global, but he had an excellent appreciation of the fundamentals of Soviet strategy in A&A. Our final player was also experienced in Global and he took the trio of "minor" powers, France, China and the ANZACs, Having an experienced good player for those minor countries ended up playing a big role int the outcome as well.

The game started with in a familiar way, as the German player made the same mistake I made as the German player in my last game -- failing to ensure that France fell on Turn 1. In my case I misjudged the forces I needed, but in this game the German was intent on taking out the British navy and he launched a huge air and sea campaign over the next few turns that saw a lot of drama, including an invasion of Scotland! He did succeed in gutting British naval power, but at the cost of his own and a huge chunk of his air force as well. Scotland was recaptured so no permanent damage was done to the British.

Naturally the Germans had to let someplace else suffer and that place was France. While Normandy fell easily enough, the German attack on France proper -- already a marginal affair -- suffered a huge setback when he failed to roll a single hit in his attack. The French were much luckier and nearly wiped out the German infantry in the attacking force. Unwilling to start taking hits on tanks and Stukas the German called off the attack.

There was some discussion over whether or not to simply reset the game at that point, given the poor German opening, but the Axis players declined. The German player was satisfied with the damage he did to the British fleet and the Italo-Japanese had yet to move so the Axis pressed on. The Italians, when their turn came, joined in the attack on France, taking southern France amphibiously while using their navy to crush the French Navy. The Japanese launched a ground offensive against China, beginning a multi-turn campaign that was well handled by the China player. At this point I should mention that we were using the "Alpha" variant setup for the Pacific board which reduces the air power of all the Pacific countries (which were disproportionate) and makes some other changes, including a beefier Chinese army.

When the French turn came around we started to see some of the effects of a surviving France. The French had money and a chance to build, so they bought a chunk more infantry to make the second German attempt as costly as possible. And the French sent their one fighter to attack the Italy's unguarded merchant fleet of two transports! The Italy player had forgotten that France had a fighter (naturally, since normally France doesn't have one by the time its move comes around). After sinking Italy's merchant fleet the fighter landed in Malta. From there it was destined to be a thorn in Italy's side for the rest of the game when it joined the British forces iN Egypt. The hero French fighter survived the game, as matter of fact!

The failure to capture France put the Germans a turn behind schedule, and the destruction of Italy's merchant fleet likewise put Italy a turn behind schedule in the Med.

To make a long story short, the Italian effort in North Africa was stalemated. By the time they rebuilt their transports and tried to take Egypt it was strongly held. The Italian Turn 3 invasion was crushed (with notable help from the sharpshooting French fighter which killed 2 of the four invaders) and after that the British won the buildup race, shipping aircraft via Gibraltar and from South Africa and eventually joined by troops from Iran and east Africa after Italian East Africa and Iraq were dispatched. When the Americans joined the war they sent some troops into unconquered French Algeria.

Stymied in the Med, the Italians sent substantial ground forces to aid their German ally, who had run into a solid wall of Soviets. As seen in the last game, the 1-turn delay in the German timetable meant that the Russians actually declared war on the Germans first. The delayed German Barbarossa was also critically short on air support, most of the Luftwaffe having been expended against the Royal Navy. The Soviets were able to blunt the German attack and were slowly gaining an edge, thanks in no small part to the large Soviet air force!

Meanwhile in the Pacific, after a few turns of expensive fighting against China the Japanese decided they had better grab the resource-rich Dutch territories while there was still time, so on Turn 3 they moved.

The lack of Japanese pressure, however, meant that the US, Pacific British and ANZACs were able to build up their naval forces and before long the Japanese found themselves in a five-front war! Besides the undefeated Chinese they faced newly aggressive Russians and three navies. When a Japanese naval task force ventured within range the British gladly expended their Pacific navy to take it out. Both fleets were destroyed, leaving a lonely Japanese merchant to be dispatched by a French destroyer! Meanwhile the US eventually brought an overwhelming force to bear against Japan itself -- despite a game attempt by uncle to sucker nephew into a premature attack. Vast navies and air forces (At least five loaded US carriers, three US battleships and other surface ships and a heavy bomber against two Japanese carriers, tow BBs and air units and other ships) clashed over Japan. When it was over there were still three damaged US battleships and two cruisers holding the sea zone and Japan was down to one task force off the coast of China -- and that task force was being stalked by an equal-sized ANZAC task force of a loaded CV, a BB, a CA, a DD and a Heavy bomber within range! The ANZAC player was quite willing to follow the example of his allies and lose his fleet to destroy the last Japanese fleet.

At this point the Axis players admitted defeat. Germany was stalemated on the Russian border, the Italians were about to lose their navy on the next British turn to a strike by 5 heavy bombers, 3 Tacs and four fighters (the British had meanwhile been conducting a strategic bombing campaign against Germany, which has 19 damage on its main industry site. Japan was being pushed back in China and southeast Asia and had lost 3/4 of its fleet. With no good news anywhere it was time to call it.

We started at about 10:30 a.m. and finished at 8:30 p.m. with a half hour lunch break and another half hour or so pause during the auction so total playing time was between 8 and 9 hours.

150th anniversary of the Civil War

Well, it's not exactly the 150th anniversary of the war itself, we're a few months away from the start of the bloodshed, but 150 years ago this week the election of Abraham Lincoln marked the events that proximately led to the outbreak of the war.

There are already a number of interesting sites marking the various 150s coming up, although this one is already establishing itself as one of the best.

Of all the wars associated with the hobby of board wargaming, none, perhaps, is more closely linked to the hobby than the American Civil War. It was the approaching centennial of that war that inspired the father of wargaming, Charles Roberts, to take the ground-breaking system he had used in his hypothetical first effort, Tactics, and apply it to a historical situation -- in this case the Battle of Gettysburg.

The sales success of that title (deeply flawed as the game was) that really launched Avalon Hill and the wargame hobby. It's always been true that history-based wargames have been much more popular than fictional ones. Gettysburg was followed by a whole series of historical wargames by AH, including several on the Civil War.

So it's deeply fitting that Hasbro is re-releasing a 150th Anniversary edition of Battle Cry this month, which could, maybe, introduce some new players to the joys of history-based board wargaming.

New Battle Cry shows up on Hasbro site

Well, not exactly a lot of hype, but the new edition of Battle Cry is on Hasbro's site now.

Heroscape discontinued!

Rather surprising news buzzing around the Scapesphere.

Yes, it's true, Heroscape will be discontinued after the next expansion (due out on Nov. 16) comes out. Apparently the redirection of Herosoape into the D&D universe didn't do the trick for WOTC. Unable to find a marketing/pricing strategy that supported sales targets they ahve pulled the plug, although this is still a popular game by most standards.

Ominously for fans of some other WOTC products (I'm thinking of Axis & Allies miniatures, especially), one of the stated reasons for this decision is for WOTC to concentrate on its core products, namely Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering. I wouldn;t be surprised if AAM either stops now or is ended after the 1944-5 set. Likewise I think we can see the end of the tunnel for the War at Sea line, although designer Rich Baker seems to have a commitment for a couple more sets of that one.

Hasbro loses Stratego license

Looks like Hasbro has lost the license to produce and market Stratego in North America, something it's had for more than 50 years!

Games and Puzzles boost Hasbro to 11% rise in profits

According to the Wall Street Journal, Hasbro's profits showed an unexpected 11% gain in profits, in large part because of how well it's Games & Puzzles division did. The G&P is listed as Hasbro's largest division, but there's no breakdown between how much is games and how much is puzzles, although I suspect that the puzzles are the smaller part of it.

The Wall Street Journal article specifically mentions "Magic" cards as one factor responsible for the company's positive performance.

Based on what I see down at the local shops, Magic does seem to be going strong these days.

Intriguing ships in the upcoming Condition Zebra expansion

One of the things I've enjoyed about the whole Axis & Allies miniatures approach is the potential educational aspects of the game. I'm still thrilled that real history gets to share some shelf space with orcs and space marines.

On various A&A forums you see occasional complaints by competition-oriented gamers about pieces that don't have any real use in the competitive game, such as the Higgins Boat back in the land game's D-Day expansion. In a purely competitive, fantasy game these complaints would have merit, but the complainers seem oblivious to the fact that the Axis & Allies land and naval miniatures games appeal to at least three not-mutally exclusive types of gamers. That Hasbro recognizes the constituencies is explicitly recognized in the rulebook copy for the Naval game.

The first group are the players who use the miniatures to play the game using the rules included in the Starter kit. While doing a rather good job of reflecting the theme, the game adheres to the usual conventions of collectible games as far as competition goes. This subgroup tends to be vocal on the A&A boards, but I suspect they make up a minority of the game buyers. These players get annoyed at "useless" ships, "reprints" of existing units and incorrectly "costed" units.

The second group are those players who use the miniatures to play more traditional naval miniatures games. Small at first, now that there will soon be more than 200 different models to choose from in the naval game, I expect this usage to grow. The A&A naval line already compares to traditional pewter-based lines such as GHQ in numbers and diversity. This use is already pretty common for the land game as well. This group will be pleased with a diverse choice of ships and often asks for more models of types that are unlikely to ever be useful in competitive games such as fleet auxiliaries.

The third group are pure collectors, who may not even use the models for gaming at all. This group also values diversity and especially odd and unusual units.

The key point is that no one of these groups is probably large enough to keep the line going and Hasbro has to balance their interests with each set. I think they've done a good job at that and the upcoming Condition Zebra expansion has a few models that look like they will be of minimal interest for competitive players but of considerable interest for traditional naval wargamers and history-obsessed collectors.

Scanning the list, the Finnish coastal defense ship Vainamoninen seems highly unlikely to be an important ship for competition and it didn't take part in any naval battles of note. But it's an interesting example of a ship type that was popular in the mid-war period and practically unknown even among naval buffs.

Another unusual ship is the Greek armored cruiser Giorgios Averof. It was an elderly example of an obsolete type and spent its wartime service performing convoy escort duty in the backwater zone of a backwater theater of war. It will take a creative scenario designer to get it into a wargame and I doubt it will be a very useful piece for the competitive game, but it's a great piece for the collector.

In contrast, the Japanese carrier Junyo isn't a particularly interesting ship for collectors and probably wont bring much to the competitive game, but it's a very useful ship for designers of traditional wargame scenarios given how many 194 battles it played a role in.

Overall, I think the lineup for CZ looks good and my only complaint is that we will have to wait so long for the next expansion.

By popular request -- Family Game Night

My church actually anticipated this Hasbro ad campaign -- we had a Family Game Night months ago, but I'm glad to see Hasbro pushing this:

As a matter of fact. we're having another one on Nov. 15. I don't know if anyone will be playing Monopoly, but we did have a Scrabble game going on.

Some out-of-the-box observations about the new A&A edition

One interesting thing is that the Anniversary Edition is really just a scaled up version of the 1942 game -- or the 1942 edition as scaled down version of the Anniversary Edition.

This is apparent from the maps, which use the identical underlying art.

First, the Anniversary Edition map, as shown on the back of the box:

And then the 1942 edition map, as also shown on the box back:

The main difference between the two maps is that a number of regions in Eurasia, especially in Europe, Russia and China, have been subdivided into smaller regions. Another difference is that the start time for the areas controlled is different. The Anniversary Edition map shows control as of 1941 before the invasion of Russia and Pearl Harbor whereas the 1942 edition starts with the Germans well into Russia and the initial Japanese conquests completed.

Italy is once again included as an integral part of the German empire in the 1942 game, and China likewise loses it's independent identity again and the "Chinese" units are represented with US forces.

On the other hand, vast areas are exactly the same (Africa, neutrals) or only have minor differences (USA, some Pacific areas). The economic values are largely the same and the actual combat rules are the same aside from some clarifications in wording. From a game play perspective one of the biggest differences between the two versions is that the 1942 edition does not include either National Objectives or Research & Development rules.

Overall, the 1942 edition is a stripped down version of the Anniversary Edition and should play a little faster.

The victory conditions in 1942 are also derived from the Anniversary Edition and are based on conquering Victory Cities, although the number of Victory cities has been cut down from 18 to 12. Bitter-ender players can play until all 12 victory cities are captured by one side or the other, but the "Standard" victory condition is to play until 9 are held by one side or the other. In this game the fall of the Soviet Union does not necessarily mean the game is over, as Russia has just 2 victory cities so the Axis will also have to capture at least one of London, Washington, San Francisco or Calcutta. naturally Calcutta is probably the most vulnerable on that list.

This seems to leave open the possibility of playing on even if Russia falls, especially if the USA can capture Tokyo, which may make it risky for the Axis to use a gang-up strategy against Russia.

The models are definitely a step up from any seen before in an A&A game, better than the Anniversary Edition. There are very few cross-nation models now, with every country having its own battleships, infantry, tanks, fighters, bombers and cruisers. In some cases there's little choice. The Russians never actually built their own carrier, so it makes sense to let them use the British model and a few models are shared between a couple of nations (destroyers, artillery, transports and subs) but no more than that. The models themselves are crisply made, although a couple of the sculpts have a few questionable or inaccurate details. (The British battleship turrets appear to have just one gun each and the Yamato's stern looks funky)

This is meant to be the standard A&A version for "years to come" according to designer Larry harris so I wouldn't expect to see any more changes.

Collectibles done right ... or at least better

All-in-all, I think Hasbro has done a decent job with the Axis & Axis collectible miniatures, especially considering that it doesn't include any spellcasters or spaceships.

As a primarily history-oriented wargamer, I was excited when Hasbro introduced AAM. I figured it probably wouldn't last long, but it would be a chance to introduce more players to historical wargaming, as it would be on the shelves right there with the D&D and Magic: The Gathering stuff.

Much to my surprise, the land miniatures game turned out to have enough staying power for eight sets, and the third set for naval miniatures line is imminent, with a commitment from Hasbro for a fourth set.

That's not to say that there haven't been some rough spots, particularly for the land game. There have been some quality control issues and a controversial scale change. The naval game's path as been smoother and of the two, I think it's really the better game. The naval theme seems to be a better match for the collectible format and the rules seem a bit tighter for competitive play.

Collectible games, other than Magic: TG have a very high failure rate, so I think it's interesting that AAM and WAS have hung in there.

I think there are three reasons for its longevity.

1) New releases have been well-paced, perhaps even a little slow. This gives people time to accumulate models on a budget and builds anticipation for the next release. Leave them wanting more.

2) Collectors are a higher proportion of the market than usual, so there's a good balance between competitive players and collectors. The inherent collectibility of the models provides a bigger customer base than purely competitive play would, making sales steadier and less faddish.

3) Suitability for other uses. The models in both WAS and AAM are easily used for other game systems. Indeed, the controversial scale change in AAM was made to better align the models with hobby standards. While the WAS models are a unique scale, it's a good scale (small enough for player convenience and lower cost while big enough to show good detail even on small ships such as PT boats, sub chasers and submarines). And there are now enough models to make the line pretty self-contained. There are already enough ships that the line compares well to lines offered by other manufacturers and if a few more sets appear the problem will soon be finding enough suitable ships. (Already cropping up with the German navy).

The collectible format has its irritating aspects, which are well-known and don't need repeating, but if you're going to do a collectible game, I think Hasbro hit the mark with Axis & Allies.

Ask Ouija: can Battleship win an Oscar?

At NPR they took note of the upcoming movies based on various Hasbro toys and games:

"The new blockbusters, meanwhile, feature bombastic special effects and involve partnerships with some of the biggest names in movies — including Michael Bay, Steven Spielberg, DreamWorks, Paramount and Universal. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, which opens in August, will try to duplicate the success of the Transformers franchise by offering its own explosions and action.

The big-screen strategy is one that seems to be working: "It's pretty much as close to printing money as you're going to get in the toy business," said Cliff Annicelli, who runs the toy industry journal Playthings.

Annicelli says that by letting the movie companies take the financial risk of producing the films, Hasbro is playing it smart with the Transformers and G.I. Joe movies. Though the company misses out on the box office take, it gets to sell all those toys to a new generation of fans.

Up next: a string of movies based on some of the most famous names in Hasbro's toy chest, including the board games Monopoly, Ouija, Candy Land and Battleship."

Actually, Transformers and G.I. Joe are not hard to see as a source for movie ideas. As a toy series, each does have a notional back story and a continuing narrative. They are also self-evidently action oriented toys and seem an easy fit for action-oriented movies. Action movies have always served as an excellent source for action toys tie-in as well. On the other hand, how many toys came out of Shakespeare in Love, The English Patient or No Country For Old Men?

But Monopoly, Ouija, Candy Land and Battleship? While they have themes, none of these have a story, so it's hard to see how the screenwriters can do more than just borrow the name from the game. Even the movie version of Clue suffered somewhat from this problem, although even that game has a little more narrative to it and some identifiable characters. Still, while a valiant effort, the Clue movie was hardly a success.

Of the four listed, I think the Ouija board may be the easiest to write a screenplay for. For one thing, Ouija isn't really a game. It would be pretty easy to take a Jumanji sort of approach where the Ouija board is used as a springboard for some other sort of story.

Candyland also seems to have a low entry bar. It's not much of a game, so the screenwriters could use it to tell any sort of kid-friendly story they wanted without having to worry too much about being constrained by the game in any way.

On the other hand, Monopoly seems tough. Everybody knows the game, so the audience will have more expectations about what they're going to see and therefore more opportunities to be disappointed. The success of some recent adaptations such as the Lord of the Rings and some of the recent superhero movies such as Spider-Man and the Dark Knight may obscure the poor track record of such efforts. For every Batman Returns there's a dozen Daredevils.

And turning Battleship into a movie? That's going to be an interesting assignment for a screenwriter. At least Monopoly has Mr. Monopoly and some recognizable locations like Boardwalk and the Reading Railroad to anchor it.

It would actually make more sense to me to use the Axis & Allies brand as a movie tie-in, or Heroscape or maybe Godstorm Risk. While not quite as well-known as Battleship, there's a narrative to mine for story ideas.

Most of these movies are set to come out in the next few years so I guess we won't have too long to wait to see how they turn out.

Catan threatens Hasbro cash cow?

Well, that seems to be the opinion of this industry analyst at TD Monthly, anyway:

http://www.toydirectory.com/monthly/article.asp?id=3680

Hasbro has reigned as the absolute market leader of the board game category for many years. Last year, the company sold $815 million in the United States. This is the equivalent of about $1,220 million at retail, or a market share of 53 percent. Games and puzzles are also Hasbro’s largest product category, accounting for nearly one-third of its sales last year. While Hasbro does not break out gross profit by category, I understand that games and puzzles represent about 40 percent of Hasbro’s gross profitability. Its single largest board game brand, Monopoly, has sold, over its lifetime, about 300 million pieces and moves about 3 million units every year in the United States alone. This fat tidbit has long attracted the attention of competitors, but none has succeeded in capturing it. However, it looks as if things are about to change.

The writer then summarizes some action in the category, namely Mattel and Blokus, Lego and some unspecified games and Mayfair with Settlers of Catan.

He also claims Hasbro's game business was down.

Hasbro’s board game business declined last year despite strong demand for the category. I predict this will happen again in 2009 and 2010.

Turns out that's not entirely accurate. According to Hasbro's Q4 transcript: Board games were up 2% while the total games and puzzle category was flat compared to a year ago.

So apparently puzzles were down, not games. A significant point, I think.

Frankly, I don't buy it. Hasbro has such a dominant share of the board game world that it's going to take a lot more than a couple of hot games to change that. Blokus and Settlers of Catan have been out for a while already, and I see little evidence they're about to displace Monopoly.

Indeed, his very premise may be mistaken. He seems to assume that it's a zero-sum situation and that any growth in board game sales by other manufacturers will necessarily come at Hasbro's expense. On the other hand, it may be that renewed interest in the category will boost sales for all concerned. More games may mean more game players which may lead to even more game sales. Games are not necessarily competing against other games for sales but are competing against other forms of entertainment.

Which Borg not to resist

Star Trek's Borg famous claim "resistance is futile," and I think the same is probably true for wargame designer Richard Borg's creations. I know I haven't been able to resist buying anything related to his Commands & Colors system. I'm not alone in the collective, either, as Borg's designs are among the most popular wargames ever published.

Still, sometimes you have to choose and prospective purchasers may wonder which is the best choice for them. Each game has its vehement fans, but here is what I believe is a fairly objective rundown of their strengths and weaknesses.

Really, they are close enough in quality and game play (with the possible exception of Battle Cry) that I think the main consideration should be which theme a player finds the most interesting. pick that first.

From purely a game play perspective they each have strengths and weaknesses.

Battle Cry (American Civil War) is the weakest of the lot, simply because it was the first, and the subsequent designs have all refined the concept. If Battle Cry had expansions like the others I'm sure it would have kept up, but it's a one-off design.

Command & Colors: Ancients (Ancient battles of the Classical Era) matches its era well and is probably the most tactically intricate because of all the different troop types, which often have fairly subtle differences between them. Terrain plays a smaller role in this game than the others as ancient armies tended to fight on the flattest and clearest terrain available.

BattleLore (fantasy but also historical medieval) is similar to C&C:A, especially when played with the Medieval Rules. Adding Lore adds some interesting new twists to the game system. The fantasy aspects of the game are not overpowering and it is still an army-level game and not a sort of role-playing experience.

Memoir '44 (World War II) is a lot more about terrain and combined arms effects. The interaction between the units is more subtle than it is in C&C:A because of the long ranges involved. Just because units are not near each other doesn't mean they don't affect each other. And the air pack adds a new dimension of course. There's more variety in the scenarios compared to the other games, which are almost all line-them-up-and-fight battles, with a few notable exceptions.

You may also want to consider how they are marketed.

Battle Cry (Hasbro/Avalon Hill) is a single, self-contained game, but it's out of print.

BattleLore (originally Days of Wonder, now Fantasy Flight Games) and Memoir '44 (Days of Wonder) each start with a self-contained base game that you can add to as finances and interests allow, although that may change for BattleLore as it is moving to a new publisher. While some of the expansions require parts from other expansions there are always scenarios that require nothing more than the base game and that particular expansion to play.

C&A:A (GMT Games) has a self-contained starter and then each of the expansions is a major purchase as well. These expansion tend to build on each other, so I would say this series is something you'd want to commit to in a serious way to get the most out of it.

Axis and Allies Miniatures: Commissar

I'll be posting, on an occasional basis, musings about particular pieces in the Axis & Allies series of miniatures.

The Commissar is a core unit of Axis & Allies Miniatures, showing up as collector No. 3/48 from the Base Set and again unchanged as No. 17/60 of the 1939-45 set.

Stats:

Rarity: Uncommon

Speed: 1

Defense: 4/4

Cost: 5

Attacks vs troops at short-medium-long ranges: 5 - 0 - 0

Attacks vs vehicles at short-medium-long ranges: 2 - 0 - 0

Special abilities: Close Assault 6

Commander Abilities: Initiative +1, Bravery Enforcement — Friendly disrupted Soldiers adjacent to this unit don’t suffer the –1 penalty to their attack dice. (revised card wording)

Historical text: Commissars accompanied Soviet units into battle to ensure that every officer and man fought with proper patriotic zeal. failure was not an option.

The unit in history: The Soviet military had an unusual dual command structure, where the military chain of command was mirrored by a party chain of command at every level. These party officials were called commissars. The influence of commissars waxed and waned throughout the period of Soviet rule as the Communist Party wavered between fear of the army's political threat and the fear of defeat on the battlefield. The German invasion of 1941 caught the Soviets at the end of one of their swings and commissars played a big role in the battlefield events of 1941 and 1942. On the one hand they did stiffen resistance but often at the expense of tactical sense. Eventually the power of the commissars was curtailed as the Soviet military's battlefield performance increased. While the popular image is that of the political officer summarily executing the faint-hearted, their primary purpose was to monitor the loyalty of the officer corps and see to the welfare and morale of the troops -- roles that they retained after their enforcement role was reduced.

Photo caption: Political officer I. Sobchenko is briefing the 107th Separate Tank Battalion personnel on the overall situation. Volkhov Front. July 6, 1942.

Base set

The unit in the game: Because several Soviet units, including the basic rifleman, suffer from the restrictions of the Command Dependent special (in)ability the Soviets need large numbers of low-cost leader units in order to move and the Commissar fulfills this role quite nicely. For a while the only other Soviet leader was the Cossack Captain who costs almost twice as much without being twice as good. The Eastern Front set finally added a better Soviet leader in the form the the Veteran NCO, but he is not available in 1941 scenarios.

1939-45 set

The Commissar has enough inherent combat ability to defend itself against troops and light armor and the +1 initiative bonus will help reduce the likely German edge in that category. The Bravery Enhancement special ability is considerably toned down from the original wording. The old ability, which sacrificed a unit to boost other units' attacks by +1 die, was costly to use, but it could provide a critical boost to Soviet soldier attacks when facing tough German foes such as Panzergrenadiers or Tiger tanks. Now it's just a little goose for disrupted units. Still useful for for a cheap leader.

Hasbro doing something right

Although often mocked as "Hasborg" on BGG, the game and toy giant does seem to be weathering the economic storm OK. Moody's just upgraded Hasbro to investment quality. http://www.cnbc.com/id/30685708