Axis and allies original board game rules

Players have at their disposal infantry, armor, fighters, bombers, battleships, aircraft carriers, submarines, troop transports, anti-air guns, and factories all with different functions and purposes. Players have to work together if playing in teams to coordinate offensive and defensive war tactics.

If you like war games, Axis and Allies is a must play. Try playing the board game Axis and Allies today. Axis and Allies can be played by up to five players. Each of you will control one or more world powers. On your turn, you build, deploy, maneuver, and command army divisions, air wings, and naval fleets to loosen your foes' hold on their territories.

On your opponents' turns, they will bring their forces against you. An additional four games are theater games depicting combat in Europe or the Pacific, three games are local games of specific battles, one game takes place at the beginning of World War One and one features a global theater with the addition of a zombie apocalypse.

For instance, the economic model is simplistic, with each territory producing a number of Industrial Production Certificates IPCs for the purchase of new units. For example, in the original Classic version, the game is supposed to start in the spring of , but Japan is immediately in position to attack Hawaii again, while Germany is pressed well into the Soviet Union with an initially superior force.

If the game were truer to history, the Axis empires would be at their climax in , about to be pushed back by the Allies. Revisions would follow shortly after the game release as the rules didn't always produce results which made sense in the context of the historical setting. For example, the abstraction of submarines fighting airplanes, initially had a restriction that the bomber was the only kind that could attack a sub.

This was later revised so that all aircraft could attack submarines. Although not the very first edition, the Milton Bradley release was the first to establish the well known game mechanics.

There were three versions of the rules for the Milton Bradley games, though only the first two were included with the game itself. The three editions differed by minor details. The first major revision to the rules was designed by Larry Harris and Mike Selinker who would later develop the board game Attack! With victory cities, the Axis and Allies start with an equal number of victory cities specially labeled territories , and strive to capture enough victory cities to gain a majority of them the size of the majority being agreed upon by the players prior to the game.

This allows players to play shorter or longer games, depending upon the number of victory cities a power must control in order to claim victory. With each revision, there were also balance changes in order to make gameplay more dynamic: in the Milton Bradley edition, infantry were cheap units that tended to be most useful as defensive cannon fodder , due to their token attack and slightly better defense. This had led to many areas of the game board being heavily fortified, bogging game play down to a matter of who could build more infantry faster.

To counteract this, the tank, whose defense ability was equal to infantry in the Milton Bradley release, had its defensive capabilities improved in the revised edition, so as to encourage players to use combined arms. Artillery increased the effectiveness of infantry in attacks, while destroyers limited the usefulness of submarines and acted as a lower-cost substitute for the expensive battleship.

While destroyers continue to limit the usefulness of submarines, the stronger cruisers now act as lower cost battleships. The game board itself was also reworked in each revision. The Milton Bradley classic release featured largely vibrant colors, while the revised version featured mainly darker tones.

The 50th anniversary edition and edition has a more realistic terrain with only subtle hints of color to denote which power has initial control over a particular territory. The composition of territories was also slightly altered, for example, the number of territories between Berlin and Moscow had been increased for the revised edition, including adding many Soviet territories of strategic importance. Strategic bombing was altered over the years. Until the revised edition, strategic bombing caused opposing players to lose the IPCs they had on hand.

The 50th anniversary edition changed this so that industrial complexes were damaged instead. Damaged industrial complexes had less capacity to produce units and can be repaired at the cost of IPCs.

Later revisions have also included changes in research which was generally not a worthwhile investment in the Milton Bradley edition due to its high cost and low probability of success to have more of an effect, with mixed results, edition eliminates research altogether. Another feature that was implemented but was later dropped was the revised edition's "National Advantages", which represented tactics and technologies used by a specific power during the war.

For example, a British ability allowed the British player to delay their combat movement until the American player's turn once per game, in order to have a coordinated attack. Later editions had minor cosmetic changes in the playing pieces.

In the Milton Bradley version, only the infantry pieces were unique to each power in appearance. Unique units was later expanded to include nearly every unit in later editions.

Compared to the generic fighters of the Milton Bradley release, the Supermarine Spitfire was used in later editions to represent British fighters, the Mitsubishi A6M Zero was used to represent Japanese fighters, while two different fighters the Grumman F4F Wildcat and the Lockheed P Lightning represented American fighters. Special rules apply for fighters and tactical bombers if a CV is damaged. All 9 major powers of World War II are represented with unique unit pieces and their own unique color.

This, in turn, served as the catalyst for the revised edition. Although there were preliminary plans for a variant that allowed players to combine Europe and Pacific together, it had never been published. Though these games retained many of the traditional mechanics, some were specific to the particular game. It's simple to learn, easy to play, requires lots of thought, and has immense replay value since each country has unique goals, resources, and geography. Two video games based on the official board game were released in and The game became TimeGate's best-selling game.

When Gleemax was cancelled the game found its way to the GameTable Online game site, who programmed the game for Wizards of the Coast.

The initial version was based on the Revised edition. Axis and Allies and many different variants can currently be played via the TripleA website. It allows multiplayer on an online lobby, and also over email PBEM and network connections. Originally released in , TripleA is now on stable version 2. Version 2. Copyright The image is from Wikipedia Commons. Wikipedia Page. Mechanized infantry can blitz when paired with tanks.

Was known as "armor" in the original release, but was renamed "tank" for subsequent releases. Revised 3 50th Anniv. Revised 50th Anniv. Named Strategic Bombers in Submarine Classic 8 2 2 2 Submarines shoot before other units, which can be eliminated without returning fire.

Can withdraw instead of firing after first round of combat. Revised Same as above, plus can submerge instead of withdraw, and can also move past hostile ships. Can submerge at any time including before a battle begins , can move past hostile ships but does not block hostile ships. Revised Can carry any one land unit, plus one infantry.