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Hey guys!

I am fortunate enough to have a copy of the old Milton Bradley game -- Fortress America. My friends and I have been using it to do an "Invasion : Amerika" game.
We have been using another modern wargame to do the battles, but they are getting too big to manage in the 3 hr time frame we have to game in.
Sooo...

We are going to switch gears and start using the FoW rules and just make stats for the modern units we have.

Which leads me to thinking....If we are doing the Amerika campaign, why coudnt we use the Axis and Allies board game as the battle map for the action on a world scale and use the FoW rules to re-enact the battles on the table top?

I do not have the old copy of Axis and Allies and have looked at my FLGS for a copy and noticed that there are a bunch of new versions of the game.

We want the one that has the big board with the whole world on it. Is that version even still available?

Any feedback wouold be appreciated!

Thanks guys!
Andyman

Moderator -- If I posted on the wrong board, sorry.

That version of Axis and Allies is from like the 80s. Hunt ebay, its got either Rommel or McArthur on the cover of box. Its been so long I can't remember...

Axis and Allies now is divided into a bunch of games in a bunch of regions. I dunno about Fortress America for the map. It gives you ideas about regions and natural resources, but the terrain has way too many mountains. The maps laid out that way to help the defender in the game Fortress America.

The version with the largest world map is Global 1940, which is what you get when you put the Europe 1940 and Pacific 1940 sets together (there are seperate boards in each which are then placed side by side to create a world map). The global 1940 board is excessively large, nearly as big as a standard 6x4 game board for FOW. Both versions are still available and just recently were re-printed for a 2nd edition.

I would highly recommend actually playing the board game as well if you decide to get a hold of it, Axis & Allies is an absolute blast to play with friends.

That's a great idea for using an old board game. I like it. My game group will have to try it out.

As far as the map goes the original axis and allies world map is quite nice. It will work good for your global war.

Thanks for the feedback guys!!

I have played the original game, and your right , it is a blast!!

I think maybe we could start just as the Americans enter the war, and go from there.

Anyone have any suggestions on what each A&A piece should represent?
A tank piece equals a unit of up to 5 tanks maybe?
Or should each A&A piece represent a choice from a certain campaign book listing?
Feedback is welcomed!

You could do the pieces as platoons, which would be a lot easier to keep track of. So one Axis & Allies infantry would be an infantry platoon, a tank would be an armoured platoon, artillery pieces would be your gun platoons, and perhaps use the half track pieces (if you're using global 1940) to represent miscellaneous vehicle platoons like your armoured cars, motorcycle platoons, carriers and jeeps.

creeeping-deth87 --
thanks for the suggestions!
that would keep making forces pretty easy.
Next question...
Should I try to use a point value for the games to keep it "even" ?
Or could the matches be lopsided like what sometimes happend on the boardgame?

I'm not sure how you'd go about integrating your tabletop games with the board game at that point. If you use the existing setup, you'd have some pretty amazingly schewed games in favour of the Axis forces at the beginning. Since the board game is supposed to take place during spring of 1940, the positioning of the pieces would also be all wrong if you plan on doing late war battles.

My advice would be to sit down with your friends to a blank Axis & Allies board, pick a very specific point in time in the war, and decide together where you want to start your 'detachments' using the Axis & Allies pieces to represent different platoons like I mentioned earlier. For example, if you were to set your campaign in the spring of 1944, you'd have German pieces much further to the East than what you get in the starting set up for that game, with relatively large and powerful Soviet forces set to attack to represent the impending Soviet summer offensive Operation Bagration.

Hope this helps, as someone who plays both games I've often thought of doing this.

You guys may be interested in this too, it's a Java implementation of Axis&Allies called TripleA:

http://triplea.sourceforge.net/mywiki

Thanks for the feedback Creeping-deth, that makes sense.
Admittedly, im not very much of a history buff, but I am interested in the era and the events so I appreciate the feedback!!
Do you have a suggestion on perhaps which campaign book from FoW would be useful?

Honestly I'm not sure I can help you much more than that, I'm relatively new to the game (only been playing for a few months) and I'm not as familiar with the books as I'd like to be. I might bring this idea up with my friends though as they also play both games, and if they want to do it I'd be more than happy to tell you how we go about doing it.

Good luck with your campaign bud.

Here is a link to the 2nd edition of the base game set in 1942 to fully include Russia, Germany, the UK, Japan and the US. This is the boxed set that includes the basic world map from the "original" game and doesn't require you to buy the Europe and the Pacific versions to get the full world map if you don't want to.

http://www.amazon.com/Axis-allies-1942-Second-Edition/dp/B0080NQ878/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1368107196&sr=8-3&keywords=axis+and+allies+board+game

Your idea sounds like a fun one. Adapting the game board for use as a campaign map is a cool idea and I hope it works for you.

Skriker

Thanks Skriker!!

Were gonna give it a go.. our group is expanding into an old retail store and we will be able to host games on 5 tables every evening!!

Ill take some photos when we get it up and going!