What is this? A board wargame played using plastic miniatures over a gigantic map of the world.Time Frame? World War II scenarios from 1939 through a post-war east-west confrontation.
Scale? Global, strategic land armies, airforces and naval fleets are representated abstractly using plastic miniatures. The board divides the world into areas which can be the size of whole countries e.g. the eastern USA (east of Mississippi) is divided into two regions northeast USA and southeast USA.
How difficult are the rules? The mechanics are straightforward and one would expect most adults and kids (>10) could pick this up within 15-30 minutes of play. But easy mechanics doesn't make it a simple game like chess, the game can be quite involved.
How long does it take to play? depending on the experience of the players, a game could take 2-5 hours to complete.
Wait a moment isn't there a game like this already called Axis and Allies? YES this game is quite similar to Axis and Allies which has gone into various editions and publishers (Milton Bradley, Avalon Hill, Hasbro, Wizards of the Coast, etc.) It has a strong similarity to Axis and Allies the key differences seem to be (a) bigger map with more areas and sea zones the board is about 3x the area of the A&A board, (b) most of the rules are similar with tweaks sort of super sized A&A played with a few more home brewed rules.
Is it worth getting? Yes but it helps if you really like board wargames, really like A&A, and appreciate high quality production the board is terrific mounted, coated and solid. The miniatures are OK oddly they are all based on German figures so the dark brown Russians have German style soldiers and tanks, as do the green USA troops. But this is a small quibble if this bugs you, just substitute A&A figures from A&A Europe and A&A Pacific.
Would other (non-wargamers) like this? Well it can be an intro wargame no huge rule book with numerous references (e.g. "Movement Rule 2.3.1.1 moving while under fire in a full moon"), but is it worth spending $80-100? probably you could have as good a time with the A&A versions, but this is clearly a work of love by a designer and developer who loved the original A&A and wanted to do something more a dream many A&A players have thought of at some point. The map is amazing the image on the amazon website doesn't give it credit. The box pictured is about 60% BIGGER than the early edition big A&A box.
Here's what I found wrong with the game.The board size is way too big.At first I thought this was going to be a positive feature of the game, since I had often complained that the later versions of Axis and Allies had a board map that was too cramped and small.But The War Game goes too far in the opposite direction.The board is so big it entirely covers my dining room table with a few inches of overhang on all sides.My table seats 6.I had to set up my card table to place the pieces not being used, rule book, and to have a place to roll dice.I suspect most players, especially the 20-somethings, won't have a readily available playing surface for this game.
The game pieces are all German units, only the colors are different.Sure, you can play the game and ignore that.It doesn't effect game play, but anybody willing to pay 100 dollars for a WWII game probably wants historical detail in the pieces.A better option for the pieces in my opinion would have been to just use generic infantry and other unit pieces, molded in different colors for each country.
However these first two objections to the game could be overlooked, but the real reason we stopped playing the game and broke out good-old Axis and Allies is that, given resources and initial unit placement, there appeared no way that the Axis had a chance of winning.The game appears to heavily favor the Allies.The Allies have way too many resources, while the Axis have far too few.Plus the number and types of units each side starts the game with and where they begin on the board puts the Axis at a distinct disadvantage.Also, the territories the Axis begin with, where you could build factories in strategic places, have less value than the ones the Allies begin with, thus limiting the Axis ability to project force and build more units closer to the front.This is yet another Axis handicap.Then there's the US players lend-lease options.In this game as it was historically, the US is in no danger of being invaded for many turns, but is allowed to give its wealth away to the other allied powers, who certainly don't need it to be in the game.This feature further hinders any realistic hope that the Axis are going to be able to make a real game of it.
On our second game, we tinkered with the rules and the resources, giving more production resources to the Axis and did away with most of the lend-lease capability. After a few hours, we realized this still wasn't enough to balance the game. We assessed what it would really take to make this a viable game for the Axis is to re-jigger the resources, change the values of the territories on the map and do away with some of the pieces the allies start out with or give more to the Axis.Since this was more trouble than we wanted to go to at the time (we just wanted to play), we put the game up.This was several weeks ago and we've played Axis and Allies about 4 times since.The option in The War Game to retreat rather than fight and be annihilated seemed like a good one, but in playing, it is rarely used, since the attacker gets a free attack, defender casualties are removed and don't have a chance to hit back, and then any survivors can retreat.Most of the time with anything more than a small attacking force, the defender would rather go down swinging, rather than lose a bunch of pieces without the ability to inflict any damage to the attacker.
What is disappointing about this game for me (and the folks I play with) was that I really, really was excited about getting it and really wanted to play it.I'm also disappointed for the creators of the game.I wanted to be able to write a good review.
Buy WWII, The War Boardgame Now
This game is a wonderful picture into World War II. It has been very well researched and play tested by the way it plays. My hat is off to everyone involved in this game. They have made it very realistic to the actual combat situation. There are so many choses to make that you would never play the same game twice. This game actually gives you the opportunity to change the course of history by what decisions you make to declare war or not and on who. The political rules are neat and simple. Nothing about this game is hard to learn. Most of it is based on common sense (Fighters can choose to fight Fighters or ground units on each combat turn). I'm sorry, but I can't say anything bad about this game. It is a must have for any Wargamer in the World War II Era. This is the only game I have bought that I felt was worth the money. Oh, and the board is absolutely beautiful. Every country at that time is represented. You will not be sorry for your purchase!My son and I were so excited to get this game but The excitement quickly turned to disappointment when we first started to break the individual pieces off the plastic they were attached.Every infantry unit is attached by the bottom, so unless you use a razor blade, they will not stand correctly.The same goes for the tanks, artillery, and many of the ships.The only explanation this is that the game creator and company that produces this product has absolutely no respect for its customers.I warn you that unless you want to spend literally hours with a razor blade removing over 500 pieces then stay away from this overpriced game.I found myself basically paying for the big board and using the pieces from Axis and Allies, which is produced by a company that is obviously concerned about the quality of it its product and the expectation of its gamers.I was angry enough to contact the game creator, which he encourages and received a response that basically told me to use other game pieces if I was unhappy with those included.Well what did I just spend 130 dollars for if I was going to just use game pieces that I already owned?Under no circumstances is this game with the cost.
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